Marketing Director

Social Media Workshop Part II

Blogging is a word that has had it's day. The word originated from it's initial meaning of "web log" which was shortened to "Blog". A blog is a publishing medium for ideas, opinions and thoughts. Some people blog about their personal life or interests while others use blogging to discuss ideas in their work and bring together insights gathered from others. The name of the game is value, provide it. Don't know what it is? Ask your audience. The largest blogging platform is Wordpress.com and it is the recommended option. I use Blogger because it's what I am used to and it works for my purposes. Advanced users or those with access to capable technology professionals should use Wordpress.org. The major differences between Wordpress.com and .org are listed here by Wordpress.




Today's Link Pack:



A blog is what you make it. For businesses as we talked about last week a blog can be used to provide value, build loyalty or answer questions your audiences may have to name a few uses. The most important thing is to get started with your blog and write some content before you start to promote it to the world. The best thing about a blog is that you can edit and update your post when necessary or when you see an error.


Whatever you are doing online to drive business having a focus on conversion is vital. Whether your conversions are very soft (Facebook Like or a Follow on Twitter, etc.) or very hard (transactional) moving your audience from one end to other should be a focus of your efforts. Mostly these things can be fulfilled best through LANDING PAGES.  Again landing pages will require you to have access to capable technology professionals or be proficient at using Wordpress, Blogger or HTML yourself.

A blog is a very important part of an online profile for business or personal use. A blog is so vital because Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook don't allow for the kind of publishing necessary to convey ideas to your publics. A blog compliments your other efforts on social networks and can lead to writing work for other publishing mediums whether online or print. This is an important way to leverage the content you write on your blog to publish in other places whether you blog for a business or yourself. Your blog also feeds other online efforts by backing up your insights and ideas with more concrete examples with links and references to supporting documentation.



Blogging: Beyond the Post - Tips and Tactics
View more presentations from Kemp Edmonds.





Facebook is different than other social network because it is more about staying connected to those who we already know in our lives. This isn't true for everyone and lots of people use it to connect with new people. For businesses and organizations the Facebook Page has become the place to communicate with Facebook users. If you are looking for a thorough walkthrough for using Facebook Pages and Facebook in general I recommend this web-based one from Mashable.


How you choose to use it is up to you, but those who know you are definitely those most willing to read what you write, offer advice and encourage you on your journey whether for business or personal purposes. It is important whether using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Blogging that you seek out friends, mentors, peers and allies who will honestly critique your work and help guide you to where you want to be with Social Media and Networking.



It's important that we don't overwhelm people on Facebook or Twitter with posts all of the sudden or all at once. Just like when we change our behaviour with our phones. I stopped answering my phone every time it rang. At first people were annoyed as they'd come to expect that I would answer immediately. In time they became used to expect me to not answer and they were fine. This change took time and some people may have stopped calling. This is possible with changing the way you use social networks.

Facebook insights are an important part of analyzing your use of Facebook for business purposes but when combined with URL shortening that analysis will help you judge the effectiveness of your efforts. If not many people are clicking your posts on Facebook there are two things to look at:


How many people 'like' your fan page or are your friend on Facebook? If this number is low then your efforts should be spent growing the number of people who like your fan page. Advertisements are the best way to bring new fans on and is recommended to grow your page initially. People won't know about it unless they are searching for it (unlikely), a friend invites them to it (more likely) or they see an ad for it (most likely).


Before we move on I'd like us all to take a look at Facebook Ads and walk through creating an ad together. We will then look at the data and statistics that Facebook gives us access to through some ad campaigns I've run in the past. I've written a post called Beyond the Click which discusses the benefits of Facebook advertising beyond the click.


About 20% of Facebook users or 100 million people don't have privacy settings on their Facebook accounts and when they post things Facebook logs that and makes it searchable. I often use this when media ask about a story and want to see people's reactions, but it can also be used to see what's being said about a restaurant, business or organization.


Go to Facebook, Log-in and search for a term or string of terms. Remember your AND, OR, "" and -. Once you've searched, click the "Posts by Everyone" button on the bottom left of the screen as below. Let's all try it together and see what we find. Try out a Facebook search of your own.




View more documents from Jeremiah Owyang.

Facebook for Business
Facebook Groups Versus Facebook Pages


Facebook is a powerful tool for gathering and enabling your personal or business connections. Sometimes a page is best (are you a business or organization?), sometimes groups are best (are you a group or club? Do you need to send messages directly to your group members?), sometimes a personal profile is best (politicians aren't always 'liked' but people want to know what they are up to).

Twitter for Business
Twitter can be used for business important that when using Twitter or Facebook for business that oyu understand how people want to interact with businesses and brands in these spaces is much different than their normal interactions (buy & inquire). Those things should happen on your website, a custom FB tab or in store. The focus of Facebook and Twitter is to build relationships with prospective customers. The job of your website, email, phone and shop is to facilitate the transaction.

Gathering Intelligence
The power of combining online and offline networking tools whether through learning more about someone before you meet them or trying to figure out how your competitors are connecting so well with their publics can yield powerful results for your organization. (see:TweetCloud or TwitterSheep).

If you don't have a LinkedIn profile yet be sure to set one up and and get started on completing it. On LinkedIn the system will guide you to completing your profile with a progress bar. Once your account is 85% complete you will need to reach out to 3 people to give you recommendations. Be sure to send a custom message to these people when requesting a recommendation of your work. If you are attending a conference that is on LinkedIn look at the other attendees and try to connect before the event with plans to meet. You don't have to do this through LinkedIn as many users also use Twitter, a blog or Facebook and can be contacted through those mediums.

As we move from meeting to phone to email to social networking it is important to maintain that you are human and so are the people you are interacting with. The same rules apply with both online and offline social networking: Be yourself, be generous, provide value, contribute and share.



Monitoring and measuring
View more presentations from Kemp Edmonds.
Social Media Implementation: Plans, Goals and Strategy

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