SUCCESS STORIES

Supercharge your Small Business with

Social Media

Supercharge your Small Business with

Social MediaAmy Larrimore

Vice Chair Technology, SCOREEmpire Builder, AmyLarrimore.com

Amy LarrimoreVice Chair Technology, SCORE

Empire Builder, AmyLarrimore.com

So you want to get social with your media?

WHY?

Creating a Tactical Plan

•Adding Value with Good Content

•Being Targeted with Keywords/Tagging

•Good Infrastructure (URL and Naming)

•Manners and Web Reputation

•Converting Visitors to $$$$$$

•Cross Promotion and Time Management

•Measuring and Calculating Return

•Which Sites for You?

Add Value: Good Content

Don’t be a Commercial

Targeted = Traffic

• Being FOUND depends on KEYWORDS and TAGGING

• What would I enter into Google to arrive at your site?

Get on Top!“NATURAL”

Google figures out how relevant you are and ranks you

accordingly

“PAID”You pay Google to

appear closer to the top

“AFFILIATED”

Use Social Media with consistent

keywords, appear on page one.

Sam’s Pizza pays $300/mo to appear in rotating ad on page 2

Sam’s Pizza appears 15th down on page 153 of search results

@SamsPizza, an active Twitter acct appears #3 on the first page.

Google Search: Sam’s Pizza

What’s in a name?

CATCHY and MEMORABLE

Give Good URL

Web Reputation• Your facebook account is personal... but

what if we can still see your profile picture?

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Audience!

Don’t forget your manners!

Now that you’ve cleaned up your web reputation, let’s keep it positive!

How many clicks does it take?

Your WebSite

Social Media Site

World Wide Web

$$$$$$$$$$

How Convertible are You?

What is your

product or service?

How many steps for

me to purchase?

Is it clear how I begin doing

business with you?

Can I fan, follow or receive updates

from you?

Create Incentive• A great way to measure the –conversion-

is with an incentive

Success has to be MEASURABLE• SALES:

– Online Orders BEFORE vs. AFTER new campaign

– Number Incentives Returned or Coupons Redeemed

– Integrate some feedback into the order process (How did you hear about us?)

• LOYALTY:

– Number people subscribing to your feed, your mailing list

– Communication Frequency: often, good, regular content and special deals to make a purchase

Success has to be MEASURABLE• TRAFFIC:

– How many people visited your website daily/weekly/monthly BEFORE and AFTER?

– How many from facebook vs. twitter

– You can use www.google.com/analytics

• POPULARITY/RELEVANCE:

– How many friends/fans/followers do you have? Are they relevant to your business? Would they buy from you, are they in your industry?

– Which pieces of content were the most popular (# comments) etc

– Have a goal to increase # comments, # of “likes”

Ready to dive in?

• I’ve got good content

• I have my keywords/tag list

• I have a great url and name

• My web reputation is sound

• My website is convertible

• I have a worthwhile incentive

• I know where to spend my time and how to track if it’s turning into dollars.

Where to begin?General Social Media

General

Forums

Reference

Location

RSS

RSS and Widgets

• Good way to “listen” and “watch” • Allows you to pull small summaries

from places on the web and look at everything in one window

• Increases your productivity because you aren’t searching around for things or visiting multiple sites

• Design your social media to be widget compatible because many people read your content this way

1. Login at www.igoogle.com • (with an existing google account or make a new one)

2. Click –Add stuff- (top right corner)3. Search and add all the social media sites

4. Surf the web, add blogs and good stuff to your homepage by clicking the RSS button:

5. Click -Add to Google Homepage-

How To: Use a Feed

How it Looks:

Many pages for many

many widgets

Choose a header

Delicious bookmarks

Quick email looksee

fun

What to wear?Last three entries

on my favorite blog

New blogs go at top so I can decide

if they are worth staying

Blog I am helping develop, I’m

watching to see…

Each box is called a widget and they

work through

RSS feeds

FEED Them!

feedburner.com Partner Website

Customer Reader

Customer iGoogle

Customer Email

Iphone App

Your Content

Goal: 5-7 Touches

Goal: Bring customer back to

catching ground

Goal: Play

nicely w/other

s

Where to begin? - Tagging

Tagging

Stumble Upon

Delicious

Reddit

Digg

Tags and Bookmark Sites• Bookmark Sites: web based –favorites- lists

publically viewable

– instead of saving a good article or link inside your browser, you save it to an online site

– Some can beprivate too which makes this a good productivity tool if you work on multiple computers.

• Tags: Keywords associated with a piece of content

• You then “tag” bookmarks so you and others can easily find them. www.scorephila.org would be tagged under “startup” and “smallbusiness” and “entrepreneur”

• Good place to start to practice your tagging and a great search engine.

How To: Delicious

1. Go to www.delicious.com and click “join” in the top right

2. Enter your username (this will make your delicious site www.delicious.com/username)

3. Import bookmarks/favorites from your browser

4. Go through and review them one by one

– Add summaries and tags

– Decide public or private

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BREAK for AFTERNOON

Where to begin? Social Networks

Social Networks

Social Networks

• Facebook fan pages are the home for your –tribe-. This should be the interactive centralized meeting place for your –following-.

• Twitter is about lots of little pieces of content, often

• YouTube is great if you already are producing videos or if it is easy for your business to generate them

• LinkedIn is the quintessential business networking site. Organize your rolodex. Find vendors, suppliers, contractors.

•Twitter is like passing notes in class - quick snippets of good information that get passed around

•You only get 140 characters to say what you have to say so it makes you succinct

•The majority of twitter users are entrepreneurs, consultants, freelancers, artists. It’s the –maverick- community.

•If you stay with it, you can generate considerable buzz by contributing to the community

Twitter

Twitter all about the “conversation” – people converse in the following ways•D (Direct message, one user to another, like an email)

•RT (retweeting of a message another wrote)

•@username (talking about to mentioning another user by proper name)

•#hashtag (everyone discussing this topic - groups it together into a conversation)

But it’s blank, I don’t get it…

• Orlando Fashion Square on Twitter

• $0 marketing budget, falling housing market, a quirky and motivated marketing director

Twitter: Creating Buzz

Day 113 Followers

Day 8Local Media Coverage

Day 21000 Followers

Day 60National media coverage

How To: Get Tweeting

1. Go to twitter.com and click sign up now!

2. Go to settings and complete your profile (username, keywords, tags etc)

3. Build out the background and color scheme, upload an iconic picture – PLEASE don’t use defaults, this is all about differentiating

4. Decide your content angle

5. Enter 10 good tweets in the box

Get Tweeting

6. Follow people

– Use search at the top of the application and enter keywords

– Go to wefollow.com, get yourself listed under three of your keywords and find more people to follow

– Be discriminating but go for quantity

– Import your email accounts to follow your friends.

– Follow favorite business/websites – the bank, your hairdresser, AmyAllStar

– Follow other people’s followers.

Talk to your Tweeps!

• Respond to your followers to thank them for following or to comment on their tweets.

• EVERYTHING you do on twitter is visible to all. Don’t forget that!

• To ‘talk’ to someone:

– go to the “what are you doing box”

– type @ symbol then their username then your message

– Looks like this:

• @amyallstar Thanks for the follow! Your page looks great.

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Applications with Twitter•Twibes by Adam Loving

Twibes lets you vote for your favorite tweeters, create groups, and manage your followers.

1sqoot by sqoot

sqoot is a fun way to get your friends together to do the things you want to do

2Klout.com by Klout

Klout finds the most influential people on every topic

3Twitbit for iPhone by High Order Bit

Twitbit - A Twitter client for iPhone and iPod Touch

4COLOURlovers by COLOURlovers

COLOURlovers monitors/influences color trends and free twitter wallpaper

5Gist by Gist.com

Aggregates social media, your contacts, your email into a profile for contacts.

6Tumblr by Tumblr, Inc.

The easiest way to blog.

7HootSuite by HootSuite

The professional Twitter client. Monitor keywords, manage multiple Twitter profiles, schedule tweets, and measure your success

8Plancast by Worldly Developments

An app for sharing plans

9VerticalResponse by VerticalResponse Inc.

Twitter posting with VerticalResponse

10LinkedIn by LinkedIn

LinkedIn Status update with Twitter

11WordPress.com by Automattic

Tweet your WordPress.com posts.

12WeFollow by WeFollow

A user powered Twitter directory. Revoke Access · approved on 9:34 AM Jun 23rd, 2009 · read and write access

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Get Listed• Twitter allows you to organize your contacts into

lists and then those lists are public so other people can follow them.

• The list is people grouped into a category and the view is what those people are currently tweeting

• @SCOREPhila has these lists:

1 counselors

2 clients

3 Sbdc/cdc

4 partners

5 philly

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RT makes you popular

• The posts of the people you follow appear in your home screen. RT (retweet them) if you think it is relevant to your audience.

• To retweet:

– copy their tweet by highlighting, right clicking and hitting copy.

– Go to the “what are you doing box”

– type RT then the @ symbol then their username and paste their message.

– Looks like this:

– RT @scorephila 2night is #SocialMedia Class - details at http://ow.ly/jP3N - email attendees and come at 6pm!

Once you’re experienced…

7. Free www.hootsuite.com or www.twitbit.com to schedule tweets in advance, see what others are saying about you, all in one interface

8. Add links, photos or documents with the tool icons.

9. Keep looking for relevant followers/ RTing and adding content (get your friends onboard to tweet about your business)

10. Twitter is best used with external applications – the actual twitter interface is very basic

11. STAY consistent – it all refreshes in NANOseconds so you have to put a lot out to be seen

The Facebook Club

• Think of Facebook like a clubhouse for your fans. • Different

content than your website – edgy, colloquial

• Fans generate content too

• REALTIME content: offers, discounts, events, appearances, etc.

• Facebook is about relationship building – people feel like they are your –friend

• Dialogue, Inside Info and Incentives work well to build up fan base

• Keep fans by making a place to visit often, hang out and talk about common interests

• Challenge: being fan worthy – have a forum, a roundtable, a place where fans want to interact

Why Join YOUR Clubhouse?

How To: Facebook Fan Page

1. You must create or have a personal profile first - they will not bleed into each other2. Go to www.facebook.com and click “create a page for your business” underneath the green sign up button3. Choose “Local” and the best category for your business. Follow the prompts to set up4. Add a profile picture and a biography5. Add content on the wall - words, video, pictures6. Recruit fans by -suggesting- your page to people

Facebook Best Practices

• Now facebook = business, so keep interactions VERY PROFESSIONAL

• Change settings so you get an email when someone interacts so you can be super responsive

• Fan others and join groups relevant to your business, they may return the favor!

• Use the site and your content will seem more natural and human

• What are you bringing that is buzzworthy to your fan community?

• No one signs up for a commercial. Be a forum, a community, a resource.

Great Incentive: Plymouth Meeting Mall

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Industry Leader to Watch• Uncommon Goods has almost 16,500 FB Fans

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•One of the top 10 Search Engines•What is visual about your business?- Think out of the box!- A series? - An instruction video or workshop?•Keep it SHORT, keep it INTERESTING

Edgy helps. A lot.

YouTube

How To: Broadcast Yourself

• Go to www.youtube.com and click sign up

• Follow the prompts to setup your channel

• You can only have ONE CHANNEL ever, so choose carefully

• Refer to their handbook for best practices (at the bottom of the homepage)

• All uploaded videos are tagged TO DEATH

• Please don’t favorite personal or non-relevant videos, only business

• Make your descriptions very clear

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Linked In

• This is business networking (as you know it) online

• Think of it as an online rolodex - create a map of suppliers, customers, friends, associates, previous contacts

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How To: Linked In

1. Go to www.linkedin.com and click Join

2. Enter First, Last and Email, Password, follow the prompts to build out a profile (keywords)

3. Connect your other social networks for status updates and to aggregate your contacts

4. Join groups associated with your industry, your volunteer organizations and industries you can offer valuable content

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Why Make Links?

• Organize your contacts and let THEM keep info up to date - accessible anywhere

• Recommend great people and ask for recommendations from your clients

• Get listed and noticed as an industry leader

• Generate leads, find partners, help out, find suppliers

Where to begin? - Blogs

Blogs

Typepad

Blogger

Wordpress

Tumblr

• Paragraph type prose content with media,

photos, etc.

• Good content can be monetized and

provide an alternate revenue stream to

your core business

• You need to have A LOT to say - book or

monthly magazine worth. Alternatively,

partner with a blogger (www.konector.com

)

• Readers then comment about or discuss

your writing on the same page (tough

skin)

Why Blog?

Be a Blogger

• www.blogger.com and go to create an account

• Click on “Create a Blog” and follow the prompts, and you’re on your way.

• Work the settings and customize the layout

• Build lots of posts in the back (my current blog has 37 entries in the back ready to go)

• Then on launch date, schedule them to release one or two a week so you never get too far behind.

Blogs make Money

• My all time favorite blogger, Ramit Sethi, graduated college and started a business.

• To advertise his core product, he began a blog www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com

• He maximized all the tricks of the trade and made MILLIONS (yes, seriously) on monetizing his content

• Then he got a book deal – so he just repackaged his content into a book

• Which turned into a television deal with MSNBC Money

Blogs motivate CALLS

• HR consultant who was having a hard time driving his resume building service.

• He put his encyclopedia of job information knowledge into a blog

• Phila Magazine picked it up and featured him (BUZZ)

• His followers increased tremendously and it converted into many phone calls/appointments.

Where to begin? - Retail

Retail

Etsy

Ebay

Amazon

craigslist

Market Share

Co-tenancy

Dear Big Mac Buyer: Do you know how

much buying a quarter pounder across the street

saves you?

Thought not….

Share the Wealth

DSW Customer

Payless Customer

SHARED

I shop here for selection, loyalty, rewards, brands. I found this store online first, shopped in store second.

I shop here for price and convenience. I found this store by walking by. I’ve never been to the website.

Happily Co-Existing

How To: Etsy Store

• Go to www.etsy.com and click –Register-

• Enter your username - this will be part of your etsy web address http://www.etsy.com/shop/username

• Follow the prompts to customize the store

• There will be a charge for each item you post

• Good pictures and descriptions - merchandising still counts!

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Efficiency

• Sign in with Google!

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• Plan to convert to electronic slowly

– contacts

– bookmarks

– google docs

• Use a smart device!

Cross Promotion

Tweets automatically become your status

Posts automatically

appear on your profile

Posts are automatically tweeted, tweets post to the blog

pageThese sites

create their own

tab on your

profile page

Embed content onto

your blog

Wait, Wait, I didn’t get it all down!• HANDOUT: Every link I mentioned• On the WEB: Presentation in pdf

format at www.amylarrimore.com• EMAILED: We’ll send you a survey,

the presentation and the live links.• DELICIOUS: Every link on my

delicious account www.delicious.com/amyloogurl

• NEED MORE?: Contact SCORE Philadelphia schedule a business counseling session to help you integrate this into your own business

Amy H. LarrimoreSCORE PhiladelphiaAmy H. Larrimore

SCORE Philadelphia

Reach us atAll Ways: www.scorephila.org

Email: amylarrimore@scorephila.org

Twitter: @SCOREPhilaDelicious: scorephila