Social Media Tools: Cutting through the Clutter

Serena Ehrlich, Startup Army

Twitter.com/serena – add me!

Social Media is here to stay… have you Twittered or checked LinkedIn

today?

Where do you start?

Know your company’s comfort level! Check out how many tools you usually are

now considered ‘social media’ tools The Online Newsroom = Key Website The Press Release = Online Web Page Your Company’s Website = Traffic & ROI Media Relations = Content and Links Public Relations = Direct Customer & Social Media Marketing Campaigns = Keywords Crisis Management = Ranking and Reach

If they care they will share.

Define Your Audience

How? Use existing & web-based research: Ask web team for web-based analytics Ask IR team for their IR web page analytics Ask New Biz Dev group for future areas of interest Ask advertising team for the data they use Use web-based tools to find out how savvy your online

customers are: Web traffic measurement sites: Quantcast.com,

Alexa.com Website measurement: Websitegrader.com

Objectives & Strategies A social media campaign takes time to build,

so focus on long term objectives Good: Comcast on Twitter Bad: Starbucks Podcast

Choose your strategy to match your customer and objectives

Don’t forget the easiest objective, increase search engine results!

Measuring Social Media Success Attention.  The amount of traffic to your content for a given

period of time.  Similar to the standard web metrics of site visits and page/video views.

Participation.  The extent to which users engage with your content in a channel.  Think blog comments, Facebook wall posts, YouTube ratings, or widget interactions.

Authority.  Ala Technorati, the inbound links to your content - like trackbacks and inbound links to a blog post or sites linking to a YouTube video.

Influence.  The size of the user base subscribed to your content.  For blogs, feed or email subscribers; followers on Twitter or Friendfeed; or fans of your Facebook page.

There's an "x-factor" that comes into play well:  sentiment.  The spirit driving user participation matters.  The net result of these adds up to a score for social media engagement.

Source: Peter Kim: www.peterkim.com

Technologies: Pick Your Poison Do your research: Where is your customer

A company with a local Oklahoma* audience Locally focused blog Outreach and participation on Sooner related sites

Pick your tool(s) Increasing search results Blogs Tagging Technorati YouTube Flickr Photobucket Twitter Myspace Facebook LinkedIn Digg Delicious and we haven’t even gotten started yet…

Where You Appear in Search Ranking is Important

*Source: Eyetools, Inc.

Google HOT ZoneOrganic Ranking Visibility(shown in a percentage of participants looking at a listing in this location)

Rank 1 – 100%Rank 2 – 100%Rank 3 – 100%Rank 4 – 85%Rank 5 – 60%Rank 6 – 50%Rank 7 – 50%Rank 8 – 30%Rank 9 – 30%

Rank 10 – 20%

Increase SERPS: Determine and ImplementKeywords

SERPs = Search engine results page (ranking) Analyze keywords

Brainstorming Keyword analysis

Refine keyword list A popularity count Keyword research

Identify 3 target keywords Assigning keywords Keyword selection

Source: ZDNet, May 18, 2006

More than half (55.53%) of searchers use two – three words in the search engine

A variety of tools can tell you which search terms are being used

Sources: Google Trends and Keyword Discovery

Free tools like Google Keywordhttps://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal?defaultView=2

Type in the URLThey provide the

keywords!

EASY!

Bold, Italics, Symbols *@ #

Sub heads and Bullet points are optimized

Anchor Text key phrases and company name

Foreign language characters

Add in Social Networking Tags

Multimedia: Photos, video

= FREE Improved Search Engine Visibility

Increase SERPS: Optimize Your Press Release

The Social Media Release

How do your releases rate?

Try PressReleaseGrader.com to see how your releases rank

Increase SERPS: Tag Everything

Add tags to press releases

Add tags to your website

Add tags to the multimedia on your site

Tagging works!

Other tools: Blogging

According to BlogPulse, a Nielsen BuzzMetrics service: Total identified blogs: 78,703,197 New blogs in last 24 hours: 93,041

Blog posts indexed in last 24 hours: 14,310(as of August 4, 2008)

How do you compete with that? Create a long term plan with an objective

Example: Starbucks podcast: Create an editorial calendar.

Blog your press releases then tweet your blog to give it additional life Link to other interesting blogs and ask them to link back to your blog

Watch your target marketplace/industry Practice writing and getting comfortable with blogging Be transparent & hype free. No spin! Remember, the web is

forever Example: Whole Foods chat room participation

Show an interest in dialogue ~ both good and bad Dell being forced to reply on blogs = Dell being lauded for web

participation Add unique value so people come back!!!

•Announcements•Press Releases•Images•Video•Blog/RSS•Supporting Documents•Media Coverage•Social News/Bookmark

Lee Odden, TopRank Blog 2008

Tools To Try Now

Did I mention…

Sites like YouTube, Photobucket, Docstoc, Digg, Delicious, Twitter are Mini search engines, so why not have your

company or product registered Extremely optimized, increasing your visibility in

your own search results Links from these websites to your website

increase your natural SERPS.

Google news alerts, keyword search, website analytics

This is your new research department to understanding your peers & your “rep”

Allows you to find out where your audience is hiding Forums Review sites

And discover appropriate social media platforms and get involved

Free. All day. Every day.

YouTube, Photobucket, Flickr, Docstoc Create company accounts on each of these sites Use your logo as your avatar Include links back to your website Name and tag each item you upload

Photos, headshots, logos and computer screen shots User generated video, photos Company created videos: Training videos,

commercials Documents such as:

Marketing materials Print advertising examples Supporting research

Include links to each of these within EVERY press release

Does great in universal search! Aim to be helpful Don’t aim to for global redistribution of your video

but enjoy it if you get it! Ideas…

3M Post it Challenge, Tide-To-Go Talking Stain Contest, Will it Blend, etc.

Instructional videos Products or services in action Webinar recordings Interviews ANYTHING!

Embedded links & tags in a press release let you share your online content with your readers to improve your online

presence.

You can then add these people (or anyone that you find, for that

matter) to your network

To tweet or not to tweet…

Great for passing on short pieces of information or links (links = SEO)

Users are “early adapters” and primarily coastal, growing internationally

A good Twitterer shares helpful info Connect with possible customers. Build a following & brand awareness Save time and use the Twitter search button Twitter.com/serena

Comcast Zappos Dell

How to use Twitter Create an account. Think about what your

account name should be – shorter is better Go to search.twitter.com and search on every

possible keyword you can think of Follow those folks you find to be interesting Follow folks talking about your

brand/industry/competitors Share interesting, relevant information

through “tweets” Use tools like Futuretweets.com to set up

tweets meant so drive traffic

Getting Started Today…. Define your product/company’s keywords Identify and locate your online influencers and

audience Add formatting and links to your press

releases to increase visibility and web traffic Figure out the best page to link to on your site Set up accounts on social media sites to

provide resources and check keywords and tags

Watch your ranking, measurement reports and website analytics to see how people are finding you and how traffic is moving thru your site.

Watch and adjust

If I can ever be of assistance, just tweet!

Serena EhrlichTwitter.com/serena

www.startuparmy.comSerena.ehrlich@gmail.com