How to Leverage Social Media for Public Relations Success

IT Leaders

Presenter Dr. Tom Seymour Business Information Technology Department College of Business Minot State University Minot, North Dakota www.minot.com/tom www.minotstateu.edu Tom.Seymour@minotstateu.edu

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.

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

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

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

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! http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/08/05/latest-research-reveals-social-media-usage-up-43/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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 email address can edit the page until you lock it down. Find content – Telecommunications section of LinkedIn Today

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

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

How Do I Use Social Media? Know Your Roles!

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

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)

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

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

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

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.

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

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?

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

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?

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

How do you develop content? Content Calendars Easy as an excel spreadsheet or email 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

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

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!

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

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

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

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 http://mashable.com/

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!

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.

Android Applications

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!

Case Studies Let’s look at real world examples

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

SRT Web site in Minot, ND

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

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

Keys To Success What do I do now?

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!

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.

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.

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 / Email / POS /Etc. should all work together. Online contests are successful audience drivers! Play by Facebook’s rules or risk being banned!

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!

Social Protection Tools www.cotweet.com – view employee tweets and manage multiple corporate Twitter accounts www.faceinfected.com – 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

Combine + Conquer or Risk Losing to Those Who Do News/Media/PR SEO Email 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

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