DEMS - Delivering Effective Marketing through Social Media

Delivering Effective Marketing through Social Media

Guide and proposal

for an effective implementation of your

Social Media Strategy

Delivering Effective Marketing through Social Media (DEMS)

DEMS Plan v1.3 © YBG International 2014 Page 1 of 29

FOREWORD FROM OUR CHAIRMAN – MAKE IT HAPPEN

Everything we do, we believe, should help organisations meet their goals and targets. We believe that most businesses do not have all the knowledge, skills, resources or time to deliver everything they need but they should have access to products and services to help them achieve those targets.

We strive to continue to develop a unique range of business services, designed to help those organisations deliver the strategies that will help them meet their goals.

In the 21st Century we believe that every business should use Social Media activity as a vital part of their Marketing Strategy, some have a strategy but very few implement and monitor that strategy on a daily basis, week on week, month by month, again and again. Although over 80% of businesses say they are using Social Media, less than 15% feel they use it effectively.

Research has shown that that highly qualified “sales-ready” leads have a much higher conversion rate into sales. However, developing leads to this level is no easy task. It can take 7 to 13+ touches to generate sales-ready, qualified leads.



This is where your “Effective Marketing through Social Media” Strategy will come into play. By developing your Social Media ‘Reach’ and engaging regular ‘Followers’ this increases the ‘touch’ rate and increases the probability of converting visitors into clients.

This document should help you identify what you should be doing, why you should be doing it and how you measure its effectiveness.

There are many companies who offer “Social Media Management” packages and solutions - Very few if any offer a holistic approach covering all the major Social Media Channels, combined with:

• Your own Digital Media Broadcast Channel (Online TV)

• Gives a high level of 24/7 proactive posts and activity

• A strategy with you that integrates and links all the Channels with your website(s)

• Comprehensive Daily, Weekly & Monthly reporting and analysis

• Ownership of the solution

• A realistic and affordable price

• Consultancy Level guidance on understanding what is happening as part of the Core Plan.

By working in partnership with our clients we are able deliver all of the above through implementing our unique solution.

Anthony Jackson Chairman



Table of Contents FOREWORD FROM OUR CHAIRMAN – MAKE IT HAPPEN ................................................................................... 1!INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................................... 4!OVERVIEW ............................................................................................................................................................... 5!WHY - to deliver effective marketing using Social Media ................................................................................. 7!WHAT - to deliver effective marketing using Social Media ............................................................................... 7!WHEN - to deliver effective marketing using Social Media .............................................................................. 9!HOW - to deliver effective marketing using Social Media .............................................................................. 10!UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FACEBOOK, TWITTER, GOOGLE+ & LINKEDIN ................. 13!ADDITIONAL SERVICES ........................................................................................................................................ 15!REPORTING ........................................................................................................................................................... 16!NEXT STEPS – How we would roll out a programme for you ......................................................................... 18!ACTIVITY PLAN ..................................................................................................................................................... 19!APPENDIX 1: EXAMPLE PLAN FOR A TWITTER CAMPAIGN .............................................................................. 25!APPENDIX 2: SAMPLE TWITTER REPORT ............................................................................................................ 27!APPENDIX 3: SAMPLE TWITTER SCHEDULE ....................................................................................................... 28!APPENDIX 3: CREDITS & SOURCES ..................................................................................................................... 29!



INTRODUCTION

If you still aren’t convinced and your business hasn’t started using Social Media yet, this document aims to give you several compelling reasons why you should start … yesterday !!!

As a business, understanding who is your target audience and why they would want to follow or link to you is key in determining how to best connect with, and grow your audience.

We are all being told that Social Media is a MUST these days and that a huge and growing number of businesses are utilising Social Media as part of their marketing, but for those that aren’t yet on board; why should you be investing in Social Media?

There are 3 Phases to the classic sales pipeline or funnel

Phase 1 - Attract

Social Media helps you to build and develop your audience. Your Social Media Activity should deliver content that’s aligned with the services or products you ultimately want to sell. It should drive visitors to your website or to telephone you.

Phase 2 - Retain

It is then up to you how you capture them and retain them. Capture their details as subscribers into your Customer Database so you can engage them in conversation through more traditional telephone and email.

Phase 3 - Monetize

Convert your Customer Database subscribers into paying clients or customers.

Your Social Media Activity is the starting point to drive traffic into your Sales and Marketing funnel.



This document will guide you through the Phase 1 of the process and illustrate the options available to you.

OVERVIEW

Social Media has become a staple in marketing strategies for industries and markets both big and small. Although almost all the Social Networks are designed to be simple and foolproof in terms of accessibility, but there is more to Effective Marketing through Social Media than just click, type, and send.

As you move forward with your business strategy, you must create a Social Media Platform that moves forward with you!

Utilising Social Media from start to finish will give you the opportunity to build visibility, engage your audience, receive feedback, and track your progress in driving traffic and visitors to your website. The ultimate measure is to track sales performance. Creating an active audience is the first phase in this process.

We regularly hear people say they don’t have time for Social Media, this is like a business leader saying "I don’t have time for marketing". Most of the time they are wrong.

This is not about Social Media per se …. This is about Marketing through Social Media.



We believe the only way that a business leader can get the word out, about his product or service, without a large budget behind him is through Social Media and the only way to do that is to build a Social Media platform.

This arguably is a lesson on how to do Effective Marketing on a low budget, especially when you don’t have all of the knowledge, skills, resources or time to deliver it effectively yourself.

The success gap is widening between businesses that are using Social Media in an informal, ad hoc manner and those taking a more planned, strategic approach.

This has significant implications:

• Businesses that use Social Media strategically are more satisfied with the results than ad hoc users, who are more skeptical about the value of Social Media.

• Businesses that use Social Media as part of a planned corporate approach are 3 times more likely to anticipate revenue growth than ad hoc users

What follows is the Why, What, When and How to deliver Effective Marketing through Social Media.



WHY - to deliver effective marketing using Social Media

A large Social Media presence is important because it is one of the last ways to conduct cost-effective marketing. Everything else involves buying marketing space – visual, audible or both.

Social Media enables an organisation to earn and develop its audience.

Currently only 12% of companies feel they are using Social Media effectively although nearly 80% say they are either using or planning to use Social Media in their marketing plan.

• Drive traffic to your Website

• Reach and inform your audience

• Build visibility, engage audience and track progress

• Broadcast ideas, perceptions and reactions

WHAT - to deliver effective marketing using Social Media

• Create Social Media Profile across multiple Social Media Channels especially Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, NewzFuzion (our Digital Broadcast technology ) and YouTube

• We know what it takes to ensure your Social profiles are fully optimised to successfully promote your business.

• Create a consistent visual identity for each of your Social Media Channels, so all your online activity will boost your brand profile.

• Use tags, #hashtags (a word or phrase preceded by a hash sign (#), used on Social Media sites such as Twitter to identify messages on a specific topic),



photos, videos... whatever it takes to ensure your profiles and messages are optimised for maximum effect.

• Develop a strategy that will link these profiles and drive traffic to your website

• Understand and collate what you’re doing already (if anything), who your target audience is and how you aim to reach them.

• Post interesting posts mixed with promotional content that links to your website that people re-post

• Research your industry, market, competitors, and target audience. By the time the first post hits Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn you need to know just what your audience is looking for. That is the key to effectively using Social Media.

• Social Media is 24/7 so conversations about your brand are going on constantly and all across the world.

• Monitor your profiles across all Channels to ensure conversation about your brand is positive, and if it's not, respond appropriately. Also, gauge which content excites your audience, and create more of it – so to continue to interest and engage

• Maximise the number of links to your website from all your Social Media Channels and through other quality Channels to help enhance your online reach.

• Optimise the content on the Landing Pages on your website.

Don’t self-promote more than you should

As you are using Social Media for a Business Purpose and want to self-promote new products and services, we recommend self-promoting one (1) out of every ten (10) messages. The other nine (9) messages should be content that is curated for your audience or customers. You can play around with this split, especially when launching a new product or service when a short burst of direct promotional posts can stimulate a growth in activity.



For example, if you run an airline, instead of constantly promoting new fares or routes, talk about events that are happening around the world. People don’t go on airlines for the experience. There is a destination in mind.

This holds true for posting on Forums, Google Groups, LinkedIn Groups, and when commenting on blogs. Out of ten (10) times, always seek to add value nine (9) of the times and self-promote once.

Always try to include a video or image in your Social Media post. Not only does it direct people’s attention to your post, but it also quickly informs them what your post is about (before they even read the headline).

Scanability is paramount in an information-cluttered world.

In addition, you MUST consistently respond to comments on your postings, otherwise you look like you are just pushing or promoting and don’t care what people actually think. This applies to blogs, Forum postings, and Social Media postings.

WHEN - to deliver effective marketing using Social Media

• Regarding the question “when ?”. The quick answer is 24/7. Your potential audience is global, spanning all time zones. You need to reach your audience when they are accessing their Social Media accounts.

• When launching a new product, service or promotion or when you have something to say.

• Ideally you need to start the Social Media activity before the start of a project, and it will take 3 – 6 months to build up followers.

• As soon as you start you will see an immediate effect, with more traffic to your website and an initial impact as your programme rolls out, it will settle down to steady growth across all the performance indicators you set.

• Analyse and adapt to keep your followers growing.



HOW - to deliver effective marketing using Social Media

Almost every business is not posting as much as they should.

Many believe the “experts" who advise that the optimal number of posts on each platform is one per day.

In reality that is an illogical approach, imagine if the BBC only did one (1) report per day — and never repeated it !! They create the content and broadcast it multiple times in multiple formats to reach the broadest audience possible. They will then ‘sell’ it to other broadcasters who will do the same.

Businesses have been ill advised by the vocal minority complaining about too many and repeated ‘Spam’ posts and the ‘damage’ it will do to their reputation.

So, you need a plan



1. Define Strategy

• Review the goals of your Marketing Plan

• Determine the objectives of the planned Social Media activity (e.g. leads, revenue, publicity, web traffic etc ...)

• Target the scope of your Plan based on geography, demographics, languages, product type, promotions, categories, brand ...

• Coordinate with the other Marketing Activity planned for your business to give you a global view of your Business Marketing Plan

• Review how you are going measure the effectiveness of your Social Media Activity, and adjust the Plan, if necessary.

2. Develop Content

• Build a publishing calendar for message frequency and Social Network destination

• Strike a balance between scheduled content and live interaction

• Develop #hashtags and content specifically curated for each Social Network and which are appropriate for your business. This allows tracking of the content.

• Determine the Landing pages for your website (where do the links in the Social Media send the visitor) and ensure that the appropriate actions

• Coordinate with Marketing, PR, Corporate, etc. to approve content strategy



3. Execute

• Build schedule automation

• Route incoming traffic to the best resource, automatic addition to your Customer Database, use email auto responders for online enquiries.

• Ensure that the tone is human and on-brand by approving outgoing messages, mixing in promotional content

• Archive messages for later analysis

4. Measure, Review and Enhance

• Use custom URL shortening to link traffic from a Social Media campaign to conversion of on-site web goals

• View live engagement through #hashtags to optimize content on the fly or gather lessons for the future campaigns

• Build Analytic reports to quickly share the impact of Social campaigns with stakeholders

• Ensure everything linked together including your Website.

Through our DEMS Activity Plan we will work with you through each phase to develop and execute your strategy.



UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FACEBOOK, TWITTER, GOOGLE+ & LINKEDIN

Facebook is a Social Networking site started in 2004. You can make your own page as an individual, make a business page, create events, upload photos, start Social groups.

It is about the people you already know. It is about staying in touch with pre-existing relationships and developing new relationships. These are the people you know or have met in business or in a work context – they may be colleagues, clients, customers or prospective customers or friends you have made from working.

• Facebook is still the leading Social Media Network and continues to grow. It now has 1.26 billion users

• Facebook averages 1.23 billion monthly active users, 128 million are active on a daily basis

• Facebook averages 945 million monthly active mobile users

• Facebook usage is highest in North America: Facebook has 59% of all Internet users in North America as active users. Google+ only achieves 15% and Twitter 25%.

Benefits: Easy way to inform your customers, to upload events, offers and create excitement around a launch. A great way to attract people to events and offers.

Twitter is an online Social Networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as "tweets". Twitter was created in March 2006.

It is for perceptions, news, or daily observations. It’s a great way to read micro-bursts of news or posting what’s going on in business and business related activity – Don’t be afraid to post and re-post anything of interest, if it’s of interest to you and/or you business it will be of interest to others. Add Hashtags #’s, links and graphics.

Benefits: Raise the online profile of your business, quick communication of your news/events/offers to your customer base



Google+ is a Social Networking and identity service owned and operated by Google Inc.It is the second-largest Social Networking site in the world, having surpassed Twitter in January 2013.

It is for passions. Unlike Facebook, many Google+ users will use the service to form new friendships, connections, or relationships instead of keeping in touch with their pre-existing relationships. This is usually done through Google+ communities, which are interest-centered.

Google+ is now the second largest Social Network at just over 50%, with Facebook still dominating at 70%. Keep in mind that a Google+ account is mandatory whenever a person creates a new Gmail account. This is pushing up the account ownership stats. But no other Social Network has Google’s web assets leverage. Read more on how important Google+ is for Your Business and how it has a major impact on search engine results for your business.

LinkedIn is a Social Networking website for people in professional occupations. Founded in December 2002 and launched on May 5 2003, it is mainly used for professional Networking.

It is about promoting yourself, your skills and your business. It is for finding and forming professional connections, doing business development or sales, staying up to date on what people on your industry are doing, and staying up to date on industry-relevant news via the newsfeed and LinkedIn Groups.

We think that LinkedIn groups are one of the most underrated and most overlooked features of LinkedIn. We’ve formed a lot of great connections from engaging in LinkedIn Groups (engaging- not link spamming), and it’s neat to see people that are invested in the community and want to have conversations about trends.

Benefits: Increase your company profile, recruit new employees and create an online community around your business.



ADDITIONAL SERVICES

In order to enhance your Social Media and Digital Marketing service

• We can include our NewzFuzion Digital Media Broadcast Platform as standard. This technology will allow you to have your own multimedia TV Channel hosted directly on your website.

• NewzFuzion seamlessly integrates text, images, audio, video and live streaming into a single platform, enabling you to broadcast or publish events, news and information simultaneously to desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones.

• We combine and integrate this with YouTube. By creating your YouTube Channel you have another vehicle for extending your reach and create engaging videos about you, your business and your industry.

• In addition to the content of your Blogs, we will recommend you send out Press Releases on a regular basis. We can integrate these on a worldwide Network (http://www.world-markets.biz/) through highly Search Engine Optimised Micro page uploaded using supplied Images, Video, Text, Contact Details and links to your website and Social Media.



REPORTING

Measuring the activity and tracking the results is a vital part of any Marketing project, and Social Media Management is no exception.

At the outset we will record the current levels of activity on your Website through Google Analytics and through your site’s Visibility Index through its Alexa Ranking.

Example Here is a snapshot of the progress with a client we are currently working with - Capital Investment Canaries

Dramatic improvements from the Get Go

It shows The Global rank (Visibility) has dropped to 771,176 down over 3.5million places in the space of 3 weeks.

It also shows that, on average, visitors to their website now view over 4 pages and spend over 11 minutes on the site. We expect that through regular content revisions and updates this should improve even more,

We track the ranking on a Daily Basis In addition we track the number of ‘Hits’ on the Website and analyse this combined with the Social Media Activity reports to see what is working and what’s not.



We will also track the Social Media Metrics e.g. The number of people ‘Following’ you as well as the people you follow on Twitter and the number of Likes on Facebook as well as analyzing the activity on the links that are clicked to determine a profile of your real audience.

The graph above is taken from the first 14 days activity on behalf of a current client with a snapshot on their Website activity showing the number of Pageviews each day. You can clearly see when we started to roll out their program, when we accelerated their Twitter activity, when they asked us to rein back the activity (because of clients and friends concerns on the company credibility of increased posting activity) and when we applied ‘bursts’ in the Twitter program, still their daily activity is still averaging over 450 hits a day, when it was in single figures previously.



NEXT STEPS – How we would roll out a programme for you

• Once you have agreed your Core Plan and your first payment has “cleared” then that will kick off the process.

• First of all we will create an Account for you.

• We will allocate your own Account Manager with details about your Organisation, products and services, and other information that will help us get to know you.

• Provide your Account Manager with access to your Social Media accounts you already have so we can start posting, we will also need access to your Google Analytics account to help us track the performance on your website. Your website provider should be tracking your website performance by including this free of cost Google Analytical Tool.

• Within 2 business days of gaining manager-level access to your Social Media accounts, we will begin posting and implementing your Activity Plan

• Our goal will be to demonstrate expertise, add value, nurture your communities and drive traffic to your website.

• Your Activity Plan will be active for a minimum of 3 months.

• After the initial 3 month term, the agreement can be cancelled at any time giving one month’s notice.

• See our Fees Schedule or our website http://www.ybguk.com/Social for more information.

Below are details of the Activity Plan.



ACTIVITY PLAN

The table below outlines the monthly activity as part of your recommended activity plan which indicates:

• We have One Activity Plan which we will tailor to maximize the results for your organisation.

• A minimum level of activity for each Social Platform, multiple accounts on the core Channels, and activity on other Channels can also be included (by Quotation)

• Research and Identify #hashtags and links to be added to your profile and posts and link to your optimisation

• The posting of content to each platform. We will work in collaboration with you on content creation.

• NB: – it is your responsibility to create the content. (You have full control of the content – our process involves your sign off before it is posted). We will guide you as to creation.

• We offer an enhancement to the process (By Quotation) where we curate the content (you will still need to sign off)

• As an enhancement (By Quotation) we are able to replicate the setup of Social Media Channels in different languages and deliver the Activity Plan (either replicate or new content) in those languages as part of the Strategy.

• We DO NOT guarantee new Likes/followers/friends/contacts per month (Unlike others, we do not make fancy promises and do not create false Likes, Links and Follows) – it’s all about quality not quantity that will determine your Social Reach.

• We will create and set up separate Social Media Tools for your Account.



Facebook Activity – 30 – 90 posts per month

• Profile, Welcome Page and Business Page creation

• Creation of your Timeline Graphic and your Profile Graphic

• Write your Bio Content

• Write Content for your About page

• Groups (Join & Network – Service Enhancement by Quotation)

• Facebook Advertising (Service Enhancement by Quotation)

Twitter Activity - 24 to 96 posts per day (4 per hour)

• Profile created and complete your Bio

• Create your Header Image, your Logo Image, your Background Image

• Brand you Twitter page

• Create #Industry follow list and follow up to 25 Industry Leaders

• Create Customer Follow List (if appropriate)

• Twitter Advertisement (Service Enhancement by Quotation)



LinkedIn Activity - 30 posts per month

• Account setup and write your Bio / Profile content

• Create your Welcome Page

• Create your Company Page and listing

• LinkedIn Groups (Join & Network)

• We recommend you take up the service enhancement (by Quotation) as this is the most fundamental part of LinkedIn – connecting and working in groups with business contacts with the same likes, wants and needs in business

• LinkedIn Advertisement (Service Enhancement by Quotation)

Google Activity - 30 posts per month

• Google+ Account Setup

• Create your Header image and your Logo Image

• Create your Google Profile

• Create and Claim Your Google Places Page

• Link Everything to Your Website and ensure Google Analytics are in place (Your website provider permitting)

• Subscribe Up To 10 Industry Leaders

• Follow Up To 10 Industry Leaders on Google+

• Join Community and Group. We recommend you take up the service enhancement (by Quotation) as this is the most fundamental part of Google+ – connecting and working in groups with business contacts with the same likes, wants and needs in business



Blog Submission – up to 12 post per month

A Blog (Web log) is a discussion or informational site published on the World Wide Web and consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in reverse chronological order (the most recent post appears first).

• Account Setup – choice of platform or on your own website (Website CMS access required)

• Creation on Blog Header Image and Logo Image

• Up to 12 Blog submissions per month

• Re-Publishing and through Twitter and Facebook

• Blog Content Creation available by quotation

NewzFuzion (Digital Media Broadcast Platform – YOUR TV Channel) & YouTube - up to 5 posts per month

• Account Setup NewzFuzion & YouTube

• Digital TV Channel - setup

• Create Header Image & Logo Image

• Complete Content Areas on YouTube

• Create and link your Google Profile and link to your Google Place Page

• Link and embed NewzFuzion on you Website (Requires collaboration with your Web Developer)

• Upload your supplied videos

• Video Submission – up to 5 posts per month

• Video Creation by Quotation



World-Markets.biz - Optional & by Quotation (6 or 12 month basis only, paid in advance)

• Account Setup with Image creation

• Write your Profile

• Monthly updates

Pinterest, Flickr, Instagram & others - Setup & Activity by Quotation

For Example (Pinterest)

• Create Your Header Image

• Create Your Logo Image & Your Background Image

• Complete Your Bio

• Brand and link to your Twitter Page

• Create Your Prospect Follow List

• Create Customer Follow List

• Create #Industry Follow List

• Follow Up to 25 Industry Leaders



Reports & Analytics

• Daily Report and Weekly Summary Report available through link

• Monthly Account Activity Reports

• Google Analytics Social Reports

• Monthly Summary

Consultancy

Initial Consultancy session on setup and then (Skype or local face to face)

1. Monthly Enhancement at the end of Month 1

2. Enhanced Reporting and Analysis at the end of Month 2

3. Review consultancy meeting at the end of Month 3 including Optimisation, activity, #hashtag and performance review (Skype or local face to face)

Repeat on a quarterly schedule



APPENDIX 1: EXAMPLE PLAN FOR A TWITTER CAMPAIGN

We use several online tools to deliver the program

• Hootsuite with our own Twitter Schedule tool AutoTweet (©YBGInternational) – allows us to continually update the content that is being sent out on your Twitter account – it is updated and posted daily.

• In addition to any priority tweets, it randomizes from a bank of tweets with added #hashtags, images and referring URLs, posting them according to an agreed schedule.

• Posts can go out every 5 minutes, however we usually recommend 2 to 4 posts an hour – over a 24 hour period, depending on the content and the client.

• Buffer – We monitor blog sites and business information websites for interesting and appropriate content for

each client, we then use Buffer to post that content according to an agreed schedule.



• Tweepi - Twitter Follow Management Utility is a set of Twitter tools to add, follow and unfollow tweeps in bulk

• Tweetreach - Twitter analytics to measure the reach of your brand, campaigns and events on Twitter.

• It’s a dead simple way to learn how far your message has travelled, which Tweets get the most traction and who’s influencing conversations around your brand.

• Whether you need to track all of the ongoing Twitter activity about your brand in real time or measure a past event.

• Google Analytics - lets us and you measure your advertising ROI as well as track your Flash, video, and Social Networking sites and applications.

• Alexa - The Alexa Ranking is a benchmark of your site against key industry metrics, at a basic level it will gauge where your website appears on a ranking both globally and regionally providing a clear picture of your site's performance and audience makeup. The Lower the ranking the MORE visible your site (www.alexa.com).



APPENDIX 2: SAMPLE TWITTER REPORT

Sample Twitter report showing the Clicks from the Twitter posts over time – identifying the top 10 most popular tweets and geographic distribution.



APPENDIX 3: SAMPLE TWITTER SCHEDULE

The slide below shows a snapshot for scheduled Twitter postings for one account – Posts scheduled every 20 minutes over a 24 hour period, showing a mixture of general Interest and promotional content.



APPENDIX 3: CREDITS & SOURCES

• Harvard Business Review 2013

• Guy Kawasaki – Various webinars and articled on Social Media

• Mequoda - Organic Audience Development Strategy

• Hubspot – Driving Content Marketing Success

• Hootsuite University

Ends …

DEMS - Delivering Effective Marketing through Social Media

Social Media

Transcript of DEMS - Delivering Effective Marketing through Social Media