HOW TO DEVELOP A COMMUNITY ONLINE AND FOSTER SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS Inside Influencer Marketing, Google+ and LinkedIn

WHAT ARE WE COVERING TODAY?

What is influencer marketing? How can we use it grow a business?

Creating content that is valuable to our audience

LinkedIn for our clients Google+

Growing loyal communities How to search for and identify influencers How to build a following in JUST 30 Days

WHAT IS GOOGLE?

WE’RE ON INFORMATION OVERLOAD!

HOW DO WE STAND OUT?

Between WordPress and Tumblr, there are more than 2 million blogs

Shift from mechanical content creation to meaningful content creation Work on building relationships and trust Less “pre-packaged” content…more original

ideas 85% of consumers seek out trusted expert

content when considering a purchase Led to:

88% lift in brand familiarity 50% lift in brand affinity 38% lift in purchase intent of expert vs. brand content

WHO WINS THE POPULARITY CONTEST?

SO WHAT IS AN INFLUENCER?

It’s NOT a popularity contest Content and Influence must inspire ACTION

What value can we create for ourselves and our audience?

Influencers eat, sleep and breath the topics they write about They are super connected and always on They make the boring and dry topics fascinating The create a TON of awesome content They know who YOU are and what YOU want They’re hip, happening and current They’re trustworthy

ARE WE LISTENING?

“They stand out in a sea of noise because time and again, they've proven their voice is worth listening to and their advice worth taking.”

KEY INFLUENCER TAKEAWAYS

Create networks based on topics you want to grow; you’re content is creating an experience

It’s about being the BEST answer for your audience: what is your brand/company the BEST answer for?

Influencer content always tells a story, helps answer a question and evokes a reaction

How do you find them? “Find people who say something and people respond

and do something as a reaction to it” –Lee Oden Listen on social media Follow, follow, follow!

It takes time: work on these relationships long before you need to use them

LINKEDIN: THE DEFINITIVE PROFESSIONAL PUBLISHING PLATFORM

1 of every 3 professionals on the PLANET is on LinkedIn

Content/Group pages get 6x more page views than job pages

Use LinkedIn to: Generate Awareness Generate

Traffic/Leads Build Community

TIPS FOR LINKEDIN MARKETING

Use Company Pages to Engage Your Audience Establish your presence Attract followers Engage followers Amplify content through your networks Analyze and refine

Stand out with an eye-catching image or other rich media Using images can lead to 98% higher comment rate

Links to YouTube videos that play directly in the LinkedIn feed can get up to a 75% higher share rate

BUT…you get a very small SEO boost from your company page

CREATING MAGICAL CONTENT

WHAT ABOUT GROUPS?

AND NOW…

GOOGLE+: DEVELOPING COMMUNITY

Most of us want the result right away without doing much preparation work BUT…you have to do a lot of things before getting

the one thing you really want Meaning:

Create FIRST, then think about distribution Communities are a great place to start sharing

your unique content Don’t directly ask people to share your content;

create a relationship with them and they will share it on their own

It takes TIME to build communities and a good following but if you put the time in, you’ll come out with quality followers and audience members

30 DAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR PROFILE

SO, HOW DO I GET STARTED?

Start by claiming authorship and publisher status

Verify your page!!! Start following people and

brands that are meaningful to you and your niche

Identify a few strong visuals (stock photos, your own images) that you want to use in your posts

Make sure your posts are PUBLIC

Work on your content calendar (both evergreen and timely content)

Search for and join communities that fit your interest areas

Only post your BEST content…don’t content dump!

Publish unique content in unique ways

Week 1 Week 2

GETTING STARTED CONTD.

Shoppers are 174% more likely to make a purchase after seeing a video of your product

What can you offer that’s outside the box? VIDEO!!!

Don’t be afraid to put a face and voice behind your brand

Brainstorm some Google Hangout topics

Check your schema and meta data

Think about cross-platform promotion strategies

Create interactive and shareable content

Make sure you have a +1 button on your site

Don’t dump your leftover content

Week 3 Week 4

HOW DO I MEASURE SUCCESSFUL POSTS?

Most Important Metrics: +1’s and comments Shares and follower count not as important to Google Use bit.ly to track click through rates

Key Mistakes Not organizing your circles “What’s the best xxx?”

Instead: Tell me the best xxx Can’t share content out of a public community Use content AND #hashtags together…not alone Content dumping

Think about your audience when content planning Updates G+ bios when people leave or are added to

a practice/firm

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TOP EXPERT TAKEAWAYS

What makes Google+ better than Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn? Content is King and it lives on…and on…and on You can get engagement on posts months after

your original post Adding a community into a circle automatically

makes their content more relevant in your search results

Google authorship allows your image to show up next to your posted content; easy to identify

Eyes go to images first; Google+ is heavily influenced by visual content

TOP EXPERT TAKEAWAYS

How do you get engagement on your content? Think outside the box; create entertaining posts Take risks Humanize your audience; talk to them as if they

were right in front of you Use interesting, non-branded images Link back to your site at the bottom of a post Create and join communities you’re interested in Are you looking for increased traffic or more

engagement?

COMMUNITIES 101

Communities: “They aren’t interested in you, they are interested in a common topic” – panel

The first question is usually “what is this going to do for us?” when we SHOULD be asking “what can it do for our client?” Ex. Join us when we talk to so-and-so who is a

thought leader in xyz Can be great for SEO but…

Talk to your SEO team to craft keywords around the clients goals

Highlight the highest converting pages