COVERSTORYby ANITA WINDISMAN

* for the win

Social mediaFTW*

17 free and easy tacticsto make social media

work for you

With over 120 million members,Linkedin is the largest social networkingsite for business professionals. In Canadawe have close to 4 million members,making it one of the fastest growingnational networks. The reason you’ll

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HOW SAVVY PRINTERS DO ITPacBlue Printing, VancouverSERVICES: Printing and digital imaging EMPLOYEES: About 80Nicolas Slobinsky, marketing communica-tions manager at PacBlue Printingbelieves social media “is critical to ourbusiness.” While bottom line benefit fromusing social media was minimal at first,reaching out “has made some money forus and we have generated good businessopportunities from leads.” Slobinskystarted using social media in May 2009 aspart of his marketing strategy, to buildbrand awareness and recognition, adver-

tise, engage the community, gather business intelligence, and build businessrelationships. PacBlue also uses social media to link to photos showing off itsrecent projects, as well as using Twitter to release its PacBlue Printing Daily, aroundup of stories around the web regarding the printing industry.

Josip Tuka, production manager forEssential Image, can’t tell you the exact rev-enue generated through social media, buthe does say that it’s “thousands and thou-sands of dollars—it isn’t minor by anymeans.” Besides using Twitter, Tuka hascreated several demo videos for YouTube,“not just outlining our products but alsothe machinery we use, and it has gottenquite a bit of traffic,” he said. He Tweets about specific projects the teams feelsparticularly proud of such as his first print project using an 8' printer. But it’s notjust specific projects he communicates about; Tuka said he relays a variety ofmessages through online channels, including information about machine speedand quality, turnaround time, and ease of ordering. “Those are pretty high-impactnotifications,” he said.

Flash Reproductions, TorontoSERVICES: Offset printing, screen printing, package construction and bindery company EMPLOYEES: 30 to 40 After Rich Pauptit, president of Flash Reproductions, joined aprint-specific forum on LinkedIn, he was contacted by a U.K. resi-dent looking for a printer in the Toronto area; that person thenreferred Flash to a conference organizer who also needed print-ing. The two jobs together were worth several thousands of dol-lars. “That was enough for me to say there’s something here,”Pauptit says of the value of social media. Twitter has been asuccessful marketing tool as well, although it tends to be smaller jobs such as businesscards and wedding invitations that come through that channel. His time is stretched but“to pretend you don’t have two minutes to go online and say something” is not realistic.Pauptit tries to reach out at least once a week, and his Twitter feed includes “weird thingswe’re doing, like printing on a sheet of bee’s wax.” Twitter is also used to link to videosfrom Youtube. “I find when you put links up, people can’t resist,” he said. On the subjectof social media compared to advertising he says: “Social media feels more direct and youget response; it’s so hard to gauge that with traditional advertising.

Josip Tuka, production manager,Essential Image

Essential Image, Waterloo, ON SERVICES: Fine arts photography,wide-format printing EMPLOYEES: 6

Rich Pauptit, president,Flash Reproductions

Nicolas Slobinsky, marketing communicationsmanager, PacBlue Printing

Consider the tactics you employ to gen-erate sales: sales reps who go out on salesvisits, going to networking events tomeet new prospects, or asking your cus-tomers to recommend you. What all ofthese activities have in common is thepersonal touch. Imagine if you couldamplify that human touch, extend it toreach more people and interact withthem one-on-one.If you’re wondering how to do that, it’s

called social networking—reaching andengaging customers online using varioussocial media tools, such as LinkedIn,Twitter or Facebook. If you’re the type ofperson or company who values relation-ships, authenticity, and transparency,then you need to add social media toyour marketing mix. Social media canhelp you develop relationships that willput you ahead in the long run. It won’treplace your marketing and sales activi-ties, but it can complement them, somake sure your online efforts are inte-grated with what you’re doing offline. Just rember that online media has

evolved and social media is differentfrom online marketing in a number ofways. While Web 1.0 meant broadcastingto your target audience, Web 2.0 is allabout interacting with your customersand prospects. The main differencebetween traditional and social media isthat you can monitor your results in realtime. Mailing something takes days toreach the end user. Now you can post,tweet or ask a question and get instantfeedback online. The lag between actionand reaction has narrowed.Before, only the big printers with deep

pickets could afford extensive ad cam-paigns. Social media has levelled theplaying field so anyone can use thesetools because they’re free. Your primaryinvestment, though, will be time.Here are 17 actionable things you can

do now to create an online presence foryour print shop. But keep in mind thatjust as it takes time to develop relation-ships offline, you’ll have to be patient anddevote time to these activities online.

want to be on Linkedin is that whensomeone searches for either you or yourcompany, your LinkedIn profile rankshigh on Google, giving you greater visi-bility. There are a number of ways thistool can optimize both your personal andprofessional profile.

1 Establish a personal profile It’sone thing for your business to befound online, but be sure to create

a personal profile on Linkedin. Betterstill, make sure all of your staff have aprofile too. The more profiles on Linkedinfrom the same print shop, the better, as itwill increase your online presence amongbusiness professionals.

2 Create a descriptive headlineYour headline is the sentence thatappears just below your name and

gives you a way to sum up your profes-sional “identity” in a short phrase. Yourpresent position will be your defaultheadline if you don’t customize it, somake sure it’s descriptive of you and yourcompany. For example: “Account man-ager of ABC Printing Co., specializing inend-to-end direct mail solutions for thefinancial sector.”

3 Get recommendations In theoffline word, they’re called testimo-nials, but on Linkedin they’re called

recommendations. As we all know, a word-of-mouth recommendation goes a longway in establishing your personal and pro-fessional credibility. Recommendationsare short snippets your happy customerscan post to your personal profile todescribe how satisfied they are with yourservice. Be proactive and ask past and pre-sent clients to recommend you.

4 Ensure you have a 100% com-plete profile When you edit yourprofile you will see a blue bar with

a numeric value that shows you how faralong you are to completing your profile.Your goal is to have a 100% complete pro-file. In order to reach that status, you willhave to: complete your current position,add three previous positions, upload aphoto, complete your education, and getthree recommendations.

5 Start adding connections Nowthat you have completed your pro-file, you’re ready to add connec-

tions. Start with something easy likeadding your current colleagues. Otherappropriate connections are past col-

leagues, and bosses, former classmates,vendors, and even family or friends, espe-cially if they are business professionals.The rule of thumb is to add connectionsyou know. Because your connections arevisible to your entire network, you’ll wantto ensure they are seen only by people youknow and trust.

6 Share a status update Remem -ber that it’s called social media fora reason. So once or twice a week,

share a personal update, a link to an articlethat you found interesting, or post anindustry event that you will be attending.That way your network can see what activ-ities you’re engaged in. Remember thatyour status updates are a reflection of you,so give some thought to how you want tobe perceived by your connections. Make itprofessional. Save your personal updatesabout your social life for Facebook. OnLinkedin it’s all about business.

7 Join a group Groups are areas onLinkedin where individuals withsimilar business interests can start

discussions, exchange links, post jobs orshare information. There are literallythousands of groups on Linkedin thatcater to every industry imaginable. Hereare a few that are print related: PrintIndustry Networking Group, PrintProduction Professionals or DigitalPrinting. You also may want to joingroups where your target audience is, sothat you understand their industry andbusiness—and then interact with them.

8 Demonstrate your expertiseby answering a questionNothing builds more credibility

than demonstrating your expertise on aparticular topic. You can answer a ques-tion that another Linkedin member hasposted under “More>Answers”. Whetheryou are an expert in direct mail, variableprinting, book printing, or binding,there’s bound to be a question askedabout your particular topic. The addi-tional benefit of answering a question isthat the person who asked can rate youranswer as the “best” one, which thenappears on your profile.

9 Establish a company page Besure to set up a Company Pagewhere you can add a description

of your company, upload a logo, add alocation, a map and even a video. There’sa place where you’re able to add productsand services, and upload an associated

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COVERSTORY

WHAT’S YOURSTRATEGY?Develop a plan before youjump into social media.Consider the following:

Before you skip right to the tacticalpart of social media, take onestep back and develop a plan.Social media should never stand

on its own, but should be a segment ofyour overall marketing strategy and be inte-grated with your communication efforts so thatyou put out a consistent message on eachonline channel. Here are some important ques-tions you must answer before you start onyour social media journey.

Who is your target audience? Aswith your traditional marketing campaign youhave to know who you want to reach. Is it vicepresidents or marketing or procurement man-agers? What industry are they in? Once youknow, that will determine where to direct yourefforts. It will likely be Linkedin because that’swhere you will find business professionalswho are also decision makers.

What do you want to tell them?After you know who you want to talk to you,you’ll have to determine what you want to sayto them, so you’ll need a content strategy. Toshowcase your expertise you’ll have to developuseful and relevant content that can includecase studies, white papers, articles, how-tolists, tip/tricks, insights, and ideas that youwill then disseminate to your target audiencethrough your various online channels. Don’tforget that an eNewsletter and a blog shouldalso be part of your online marketing mix.

What is the desired outcome?Another way to state this question is how doyou want your target audience to respond? Doyou want them to pick up the phone to call youfor a quote, download a coupon, or fill out anonline survey? Make sure that you have a call-to-action message that compels your targetaudience to do something.

What tools will you use? Socialmedia can be overwhelming especially whenyou take a look at the long list of 17 tips. Youneed to start somewhere, so begin with onetool and move on from there. Your best bet isto start with Linkedin because that’s whereyou’ll find decision-makers who control mar-keting and printing budgets.

Who will manage your socialmedia efforts? It’s one thing to set up allof your social media channels, but it’s quiteanother thing to use them. Once you start witha tool you’ll have to commit to using it andnurture your network regularly. Make sure thatyou assign someone not only to post updatesto the various media channels, but to engageyour visitors too.

image for each. Best of all is that yourcustomers can “recommend” your prod-ucts/ services for everyone else to see.There’s no need to come up with newcontent, just cut and paste what’s alreadyon your website. This is probably one ofthe most underused options onLinkedin—but one of the most impor-tant for your business.

10 Add an event Go under“More>Events” to add anevent, whether it be an open

house, a link to a webinar, or a charityevent you’re hosting/organizing. Afteryou fill out the event details, you can thenbroadcast the link to your network andask your connections to RSVP so you cankeep track of who is attending. Similarly,look for an industry event you may beinterested in attending for networkingpurposes.

Twitter is a microblogging platform thatlets users broadcast bursts of informa-tion 140 characters at a time. With aboutone billion tweets posted each week,almost half of users tweet more thanonce a day.

11 Create an account Despiteall the buzz about Twitter,keep in mind that only 14%

of the U.S. adult population actually usesit. Still, it’s a great platform to bothbroadcast your message and engage withothers. The most likely tweets to be“retweeted” (i.e. shared) are those thatcontain links.

12 Create a background Inorder to have a strong brandpresence, you should create a

“background”—a visual representation ofyour company. You don’t have to hire agraphic designer to create one, though.Try www.Twitbacks.com and get onefree.

13Measure your online influ-ence Your online reputationis important. Klout.com is a

free tool that measures your online influ-ence. The Klout score uses data from yoursocial networks and in particular Twitterto measure how many people you influ-ence, how much you influence them, andhow influential they are.

With more than 750 million members,Facebook is the largest social network. Youmay be surprised that the over-50 crowd isthe fastest growing group on the site.

14 Start a personal accountYes, this the place where yourkids hang out but with recent

changes to Facebook, you can separateyour business contacts from your person-al contacts using lists, and stream differ-ent messages to each group. Rememberthat your friends and family can be greatsources of business referrals, but don’tover-post messages about your businesson this site.

15 Establish a fan page If youwant a business presence onFacebook, then set up a Fan

page to post content, videos, images andpolls that both inform and engage yourcustomers and prospects. You’ll even beable to embed your blog feed if you haveone. Before you set up a page of yourown, make sure you “Like” a number ofcompanies or brands to see how the bigcompanies do it.

16 Put yourself on the mapWhen someone searches foryour print shop using Google

Maps you want to ensure you are listedon it with Google Places. Visitgoogle.com/places to “claim your space.”You can list your company, upload aphoto, include a description of your ser-vices, your hours—all for free.

17 Manage and measure youraccounts If you have severalsocial media accounts, you can

monitor and post to multiple networksusing the free HootSuite.com tool. You’llalso be able to measure your social mediasuccess by tracking activity and followergrowth using this online dashboard.

Anita Windisman is the president of Oneof a Kind Marketing, provider of market-ing and social media consulting services,with a speciality in LinkedIn training.Reach her at oneofakindpublishing.com.

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COVERSTORY