Finding relevance and leads in social media – and making yourself relevant

Presented to the Northwest Booking Conference in Boise, Idaho, Oct. 16, 2012All materials in this PowerPoint are copyrighted work product of Alexander and

Associates and may not be used or reproduced without permission.

Can I avoid using social media and remain relevant?

“We’re doing just fine and we don’t need social media. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

The world is full of perfectly good typewriters. Do you still use one? Does anybody? Becoming outdated and irrelevant is as much as concern as ever, and it takes less time to become outdated.

Three things about social media:

Users create the content. A traditional Web site is a business brochure. Social media are a public scrapbook, consisting of comments, photos, videos and stories from you and your customers. Businesses can and should facilitate the conversations and participate.

Many lines of communication. In traditional media, you send a message and customers receive it. In traditional word-of-mouth, customers talk among themselves. In social media, you talk to customers, customers talk to you, customers talk to each other about and with you, groups of customers talk to other groups or individuals about and with you.

People are their own gatekeepers. Traditional media no longer control what’s available for the public to consider “newsworthy.” Each person does that for themself.

So what is relevance?

A friend one told me, “I went onto Twitter once and there was just a guy talking about the burrito he had for lunch. Who needs to know that?”

Believe it or not, that is very important information to someone.

These businesses would be very interested in learning about that fellow’s burrito, including how much he paid, where he ate it, if he liked it and how they could get him to eat a burrito at their establishment instead.

Someone’s livelihood depends on knowing about burritos.

Everything is relevant to someone! Social media are great tools for finding relevance.

The main social media networks artists should consider:

Facebook: Basic and essential, mainly for showcasing what your fans think of you and how you relate to them.

Twitter: Great for searching for relevance and fishing for leads and reaching out to those interested in you.

YouTube: Crucial for any performing artist; it is the second most-used search engine, after Google.

LinkedIn: Great for business networking and reaching out to corporate clients.

Pinterest: A great place for visually interesting products and its users are more likely to act on what they see.

Instagram: More fleeting than Pinterest, geared toward individual experience.

Reverbnation: Good for musicians and other performers. MySpace: Virtually vacant these days, but a reboot looks

promising

Seek out the “cocktail party” words on Twitter

The human brain has an amazing ability to find relevance. At a cocktail party, there could be dozens of conversations going on around you, butif you hear some words that are relevant to you, they will stand out and get your attention. You might gravitate closer to the conversation that generated those words.

Imagine you’re at a cocktail party, looking for business leads. What words would someone have to utter to get you to turn your head?

How to find what’s relevant Use a program like Tweetdeck to pop the lid off Twitter. The search function opens a gold mine, allowing you to hear what people are saying about your industry, product, or your own business. You can reach out to those people, send them promotions, thank them, invite them over - even Shanghai them away from competitors.

Search for these same terms on Facebook

Look for people and venues that you’d like to hit up, or learn from. What can you glean from their pages that could help you? What kinds of fans do they have, what are these fans saying?

By searching on Facebook, you can also see what your friends are saying about these businesses and subjects.

From now on, get as many friends as you are comfortable with on Facebook. This personal network is useful when you want to invite them to become fans of a page, attend an event or collect opinion on a local product or business.

But don’t get lost in the technology

While the new tools of social media are revolutionizing communication, it’s important to keep in touch with the basics. Some principles hold true in all communication, whether you’re writing on papyrus or tagging Facebook photos on your iPhone. Always keep them in mind.

Social media are just the “container.” The real value is the stuff inside – human interaction. But social media are amazing and wondrous containers and like any container, they shape what’s inside.

Keep in mind for successful personal social media use:

Be relevant to your audience. Seek out relevance. Don’t overpromote yourself. People who are interesting are interested. Take an

interest in others. Make yourself learn new things. Avoid saying or posting things that will make you look

terrible, freak other people out and are really hard to get rid of.

To improve your personal & business search returns, get on YouTubeAll performers should be on YouTube. Invest in a decent quality video camera and record as much of yourself as you can. You can easily refer prospects to your channel. Pay attention to tagging – this will allow others to find you more easily.

Every performer needs a Facebook pageThe Fan Page is the heart of the business Facebook effort. Mention your upcoming performances, updates, new media and items of interest. Always thank fans for commenting. Thank sponsors on your page and link to their pages, giving them added exposure.

Set up Event Pages for your events. Have everyone involved in the event invite their friends and plug the event page in your publicity efforts. Post on the pages of businesses you want to solicit – as well as existing advertisers – and invite them with a link to your event. Invite friends to events judiciously – you don’t want to bug people too much.

Use Facebook events

Get recognition for doing good deedsUse Facebook to find charities, non-profits and local clubs that need help. Do you give performances and workshops in schools, etc.? Require recipients to thank you on your page. They will benefit from the exposure and you will get them to promote you, raising everyone’s stock.

Consider Facebook

advertisingFacebook allows you target ads according to city, age and words people type and you get detailed reports. Ads are also placed based on your stated political views, your gender, marital status, age, pages you visit and favorite books, movies, foods, etc. When I turned 45, I started seeing many ads for Viagra and golf.

I once wrote on a friend’s wall about a welding repair job I did for her. The next day, I started seeing ads for welding supply companies.

1. You can choose to use Facebook as your business page if you’re an admin. When you are cruising Facebook as your business, visit other businesses and venues and “Like” them. This is a way that businesses can be “friends.” In social media, everyone is a brand and everyone is a consumer.

2. You can’t see personal profiles in this mode, but you can write on the walls of other venues, thank them and get yourself in front of their fans – a good move if the other business has thousands of fans. Only do this if you have a relationship, tie-in or offer with the other business.

3. Think of other businesses that could use your services. 4. “Tag” another business on an updates and the post will appear

on that business’s wall also. You must be a fan of that business and only do it for legitimate things.

5. Want to practice this? Go to facebook.com/alexandermarketing and give your opinion of this presentation.

Get outside your page

Go for PinterestPinterest is the third-biggest social medium and is great to showcase your work. Have boards showcaing your performances, places you have performed, fellow performers, etc.

1. Offer a good product or service – do the core of your business well. That’s Job #1.

2. Use social media to publicize cross-promotions with your business and others. Tag each other in Facebook posts and write on each others’ walls to promote it.

3. Thank and respond to everyone who writes on your wall4. Handle complaints professionally and promptly. 5. Put up interesting news on your wall that’s relevant to your

business or industry.6. Take photos of people having a good time at your events and at

your business and tag them (you must personally be their friends first). This will get people to visit your business page. Their friends will tag photos of their friends on your business page.

Give people reasons to talk about you

Mistakes to avoid1. DO NOT incorporate as a personal Facebook page, like “Awesome

Bellydancing” Facebook requires all personal pages carry the real name of the person behind them. Many businesses set up as “people” so they can send “friend requests,” which is a form of spam. Facebook will shut down such pages without warning. (Also, don’t personally accept friend requests from businesses, because you have no idea who will have access to the page and all your personal information).

2. Don’t be “all mouth and no ears.” Show an interest in your community, put up links to relevant news stories, put up photos and profiles of your employees and customers, give a photo/video tour of your facilities and explain how you do things. Don’t spam others’ pages.

3. Don’t take down critical comments, unless they are rude, in poor taste or planted by your competitors. Use complaints as an opportunity to display to everyone how you care for your customers and address their needs. People are willing to forgive quite a bit if a business makes an honest effort to do the right thing.

VERY IMPORTANT POINTS!

Social media cannot change anything about your business.

They can only amplify what is already there and what people think about you already.

If you offer a good product or service, do good deeds and treat your customers well, social media will reflect that.

If you offer a product or service no one wants and people dislike you, then you should work for the IRS.

Using social media is a reflection of the faith you have in your brand.