1. How to Leverage Social Media for Public Relations Success

2. IT Leaders

3. Presenter Dr. Tom Seymour Business Information Technology Department
College of Business
Minot State University
Minot, North Dakota

4. ND Telephone Company Model
DCN was formed by “fifteen” independent telephone companies in North Dakota who serve 148,000 customers in 244 communities. DCN operates a 100-percent fiber optic communications network linking all regions of the state, including all of the major population centers. The network allows North Dakota customers access to the “telecommunications highway” not only on a state level but also on a national level. DCN utilizes fiber optic networks in adjacent states and Canada to connect North Dakota customers to the world.

5. What is Social Media? It’s all media that includes a social component
When you share a news story or post a press release with share functionality
When you post on facebook, twitter, etc.
When you write an article that allows for comments or comment on an article
When you use a live chat function on a website or leave a review on Yelp

6. The Social Web Nearly every website now has a social aspect
Take advantage and make your content shareable

7. The Viral Impact of Social Media
200 million Twitter users
900 million+ Facebook users.
50% of users log on to Facebook in any given day
Average FB user has 130 friends.
Social media is critical in your marketing plan!
Twitter: September 2010; Facebook: March 2011

8. Why engage in Social Media?
Reach New & Younger Audience
Generate Direct Customer Relationships
New Sales and Service Opportunities
78% of consumers trust peer recommendations vs. 14% trust advertisements!
Increase Customer Satisfaction
Mobile is an extension of Social Media!
10.5% of all Social Media usage is on a mobile device! use social media on their mobile devices!

9. Where your customers are!
Where Should I Be?
Where your customers are!

10. What are my customers using?
Facebook
More than 135 million users in US
Avg. users spends 6 hours each month
Fastest growing demographic is 55+
Avg. user is a fan of 8.7 brands
#1 reason to fan a brand is to receive promotions*
# 2 reason to fan a brand is show brand support*
Information taken from 2010 Exact Target Facebook Report

11. What you need to know about Facebook
EdgeRank – refers to how likely your content is to appear in a user’s “top news”
Insights – The analytics collected about your fan page – very important to crafting message
North Social – A cost-effective suite of apps that enhance your page across multiple media

12. What are my customers using?
Twitter
200 million worldwide users
Will show up in searches
Easy way to syndicate content
Main users are early adopters and opinion leaders
Information spreads beyond twitter
Can instantly view conversation about your company

13. What You Need to Know About Twitter
Search Engine Optimization – Use your keywords in your tweets
Timing – Average half-life of a tweet is 4 minutes. It’s OK to share the same link several times. (just vary content and wait several hours)
Clients – Programs like HootSuite, Seesmic and Tweetdeck make managing twitter easy

14. What are my customers using?
YouTube
More than 2 billion views each day
Syndicated to facebook, linked through twitter and embedded in websites and blogs
Easy to create and upload
Very easy to share

15. What You Need to Know About YouTube
YouTube is owned by Google – Videos are great for Search Engine Optimization
Users expect videos to be authentic – Don’t worry about content being “perfect”
Easily embedded – Place into your facebook page, blog, etc.

16. What are my customers using?
Blogs
Blogs are a great way to enhance your brand
Tell your story
Provide added value for your customers – answers to frequently-asked-questions
Push this content to all of your other social sites

17. What you need to know about blogs
Host Sites – Many companies use outside sites such as wordpress, blogger, posterous or tumblr
Add share buttons – Everywhere
Links – Make sure that links to and from your website are easy to find
Integrate – Place links to your other sites into your blog

18. What are my customers using?
LinkedIn
Great for B2B outreach
Can add products and services with full social media support
Let company’s find your services
Position company as a thought leader

19. What You Need to Know About LinkedIn
Promote – You can add all of your Products and Services to your company profile
Take Control – Any employee with a @yourdomain address can edit the page until you lock it down.
Find content – Telecommunications section of LinkedIn Today

20. What are customers using?
Google and Bing
Search Engine Optimization – how do you rank?
Google and Bing account for 95% of all search traffic*
Google Analytics (free) can report your company’s search engine use percentages
Social Search – Friends social actions affect search rankings
Information taken from Mashable April, 2011 report

21. What You Need to Know About Google and Bing
Search is Social -
Social Media and Search Engine Optimization go hand-in-hand
The more content you develop across the web, the more chances you have to be ranked
The more your content is shared, the more valuable it looks to search engines

22. How Do I Use Social Media?
Know Your Roles!

23. The Many Roles of Social Media
Customer Communications
Engagement Tool
Listening Tool
Media Relations
Brand Management

24. Listening Tool
Google Alerts – Allows you to capture any conversation about your company or other keywords online
Provide places for customers to give feedback
Twitter – create a unique hashtag for product launches or other promotions
Offer review or discussions tab on Facebook
Review Sites – see what customers think about your business (yelp, Google places)

25. Find Out Where You Are Now
You must understand your current efforts!
What are you currently doing in Social Media?
Create a baseline for your social media efforts and benchmarks!
What accounts does your business have?
Are they the appropriate type?
Facebook Fan Pages NOT PERSONAL PROFILES
Twitter Accounts
LinkedIn Profiles
Foursquare / Locations Pages

26. Customer Engagement Join conversations Ask questions
#hashtags allow users to have a conversation over twitter
Review blogs that relate to your industry – Alltop.com
Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Seesmic all allow for easy
monitoring of social sites
Ask questions
Customers love feeling valued

27. Media Relations Make your press releases easy to find and share
Syndicate press releases through your own channels
Take advantage of wire services with share features
Businesswire, PR Wire, PR Log

28. Media Relations The Social Media Press Room
Have share buttons for all press releases
Add your press releases as individual web pages rather than PDF’s for greater searchability
Include links to any images, videos or other collateral
Have shareable versions of all company fact sheets, logos, and bios.

29. Brand Management Social Media has no gatekeeper
Produce content that shows your brand’s personality
Ex: New Ford Focus Campaign

30. Know Your Social Reputation
What are people saying about you online?
Do you know?
Develop a strategy to overcome bad reviews on social media and engage those with positive feedback!
A few bad reviews can turn people away from your business!
Customers can broadcast their sales and service experiences quickly and easily.
Who is monitoring what is being said publicly about your brand everyday?

31. Focus Your Message & Strategy
What Do I Have to Say?
Focus Your Message & Strategy

32. How to determine your strategy
How much time can you devote?
Who will “own” the social media channels?
What are your goals?
Where are your customers?

33. Create Compelling Content
Content is key to your social strategy
Give customers a reason to return to your social channels
Review what type of content is popular
What’s the difference?
Type: photo, link, video
Content: community focused, product driven
Timing: early morning vs. afternoon

34. How do you develop content?
Content Calendars
Easy as an excel spreadsheet or calendar
Determine how often you want to update each channel
Facebook: 1-2 times a day
Twitter: 3-4 times a day
Blog: 2-3 times a week
YouTube: 1 time every two weeks

35. How do you develop content?
Determine what you want to talk about
Divide content into topics
Promotions
Community focused
Value added – additional info customers are seeking
Will you need images, video, links?
Posts with these items are shareable on facebook

36. How do you develop content?
Ideas for content
Photos from events
Video of employees talking about company
Especially C-suite
New campaigns
Interesting links relating to your products and services
Questions
Get every department involved in the brainstorming process!

37. Your Social Media Policy
Develop a social media policy for your sites:

38. Does This Help Us Make Money?
The ROI of Social Media
Does This Help Us Make Money?

39. Set Goals and Measure Results
Social Media Goals
Facebook Fans, Twitter Followers, etc
Engagement
Twitter Retweets
Facebook Comments and Likes
Referral Traffic to websites
Revenue = Results
New customers
Sales tied to Social Media

40. Driving Sales With Social Media
Medium
How to use it for sales
Facebook
Create awareness
Scoutmob, Groupon (costs money)
Drive foot traffic or couponing in local areas
Twitter
Lead generation through following, direct messages on promotions, create awareness
LinkedIn
Drive inquiries through discussion posts, event posts, and article posts
YouTube
Drive awareness and higher search rankings

41. Find Competitive Advantages
Maintain Monthly Counts of Facebook Fans and Twitter Followers of your competition.
What are they doing well?
How can you do it better?
Identify competitor growth on a monthly basis!
What are they doing to grow their audiences?
Set a goal to become the local market leader!

42. What’s An App?
An “App” (short for application) is a program on a phone or other device that does a certain job.
Many types such as games, productivity apps, organization apps etc.
Range in price from free-to high dollar prices.

43. Android Applications

44. IPAD APPS
Ipad apps are available from Apple's online app store, which can be downloaded directly from the Ipad. There's virtually an app for every category. And more are added every day
Business
Entertainment
Educational
Social Networking
Travel
& More!

45. Case Studies
Let’s look at real world examples

47. How was Social Media Used?
Case Study: Great Plains Communications
Awareness Campaign
Brand Management
Search Engine Optimization
Listening Tool

48. Case Study – Great Plains Communications
Situation
No social media presence until September 2010
Goals
Wanted to increase search engine rankings – differentiate from similarly named company
Provide customers with additional tools to engage with company
Increase channels customers have for finding information

49. Case Study – Great Plains Communications
Solution
Integrated set of branded channels including
Facebook
GPC-Blog
Twitter
YouTube
LinkedIn

50. Case Study: Great Plains Communications
Facebook
200 fans with an average of 10,000 post views/month
Helps drive traffic back to blog and website
Top referring site to GPC-Blog
Provides area for customer engagement
Ads drove 27% of traffic for recent HD launch with a price tag of $65

51. Case Study: Great Plains Communications
YouTube
2,500 views
FAQ’s received strong feedback
Used for Video Contest
No video formatting issues
Videos received 3,000 views independent of channel views (within 6 weeks period)

52. Case Study: Great Plains Communications
Blog
GPC-FLASH – with frog icon
Provides mix of product news,
community spotlights, helpful tips and tricks
Includes FAQ tutorial videos
Used as informational site for customers and employees

53. Case Study: Great Plains Communications
LinkedIn
Products and Services added
Encouraged employees to be active on related LinkedIn groups
Had “photo day” to increase employees with full profiles

54. Case Study: Great Plains Communications
Results
Top place page rankings for brand on Google and Bing
Facebook has 200 fans and counting
CRC now uses blog as consistent learning tool and refer customers to social sites
Blog has been syndicated internationally

55. SRT Web site in Minot, ND

56. Facebook Page Tom ------------------- Speaker Notes:
“SRT's Facebook Page is administered by Teal Myre, PR Coordinator and Hope Suckut, Graphic Designer. Teal and Hope created awareness of the Page by posting links on the SRT website, including announcements in the monthly newsletter, and by sending personal invitations from time to time. SRT also uses refer-a-friend contests to gain fans and customers.
To keep customers and prospective customers returning to the SRT Facebook Page, Teal and Hope gather and post information, pictures and events on the Page quite frequently. They also post helpful tips about using SRT's services, updates on any outages, and ask for input from the fans on what they'd like to see in upcoming newsletters.
In addition to getting ideas from other SRT employees, Teal notes that inspiration and ideas to content, contests and programs the will engage SRT's fans can come from anywhere. She keeps an eye on other telecommunications companies for ideas, but also looks outside the industry to other social media leaders like Coke and Starbucks.”
Source: Seymour/Yuzzi, Show Your “Face” in Social Media

57. YouTube Channel Tom ------------------- Speaker Notes:
“Back in 2008, before Facebook became all the rage in mainstream social media, SRT was the first telco in North Dakota (and among the first telcos in the nation) to launch a YouTube channel. The channel was formed to support a campaign called “SRT for Life”, in which the company selected six local winners to serve as spokespeople for SRT products by sharing their real-life experiences.
In February 2010, SRT re-launched it's YouTube presence and now uses the SRT Guys channel to host how-to-videos, product demonstrations and promotional videos. Some of the video content is professionally produced by SRT's ad agency or local media, while the remainder is produced in-house.”
Source: Seymour/Yuzzi, Show Your “Face” in Social Media

58. Keys To Success
What do I do now?

59. Live it!
If you don’t have a personal Twitter, Facebook or FourSquare account – create one now!
Unless you are a social media user it will be difficult to see the opportunities.
Follow other sources on Facebook and Twitter.
Study how they are interacting with their readers.
Blogs – either related to your business or not
National Manufacturer Websites
Manufacturers like Ford are getting very involved in Social Media!

60. Get help when needed Sound like a lot of work?
Getting started is the hardest step.
It will quickly become part of your core strategy.
Look for a Social Media partner that can grow audience and manage content.
Two primary options for moving forward:
Hire an expert internally.
Source social media from a firm specializing in engagement.

61. Commitment and Consistency is Key
Social Media requires daily involvement!
Empower appropriate staff members to manage accounts.
Teamwork makes it easier.
Establish Content Guidelines.
We have a sample set of Social Media guidelines to provide you with a starting point.
Do what you feel is right for your market and audience.
Customers want a conversation that adds value.
Conversation
Responsiveness
Answer questions and be a resource to your social media audience.

62. Promote your efforts! Facebook Fan Box on Website
Allows for readers to “Like” your inventory!
Allow sharing of content on Social Networks from inventory pages.
Promote using integrated assets: Advertising / In-Store / Web / / POS /Etc. should all work together.
Online contests are successful audience drivers!
Play by Facebook’s rules or risk being banned!

63. Key Takeaways It’s all the social web
Determine your goals before you start your social campaign
Create content calendars for all channels
Use the content you create across as many channels as possible
MEASURE RESULTS!

64. Social Protection Tools
– view employee tweets and manage multiple corporate Twitter accounts
– Extract dubious links, messages, and Wall posts from Facebook
Tweetwax.com – Clear and Organize messages
uPotect.it – Use this beta plug-in to post protected status updates and comments on Facebook

65. Combine + Conquer or Risk Losing to Those Who Do
News/Media/PR
SEO
Research/White Papers
Blogs + Blogging
Infographics
Comment Marketing
Social Networks
Online Video
INBOUND MARKETING! (Find Your Audience Organically on the Web)
Webinars
Forums
Document Sharing
Social Bookmarking
Word of Mouth
Direct/Referring Links
Podcasting
Type-In Traffic
Q+A Sites

66. Google + 7 Years to Develop

67. MOBILE Devices and Social Media
THE ADVENT OF
MOBILE Devices and Social Media