zero to empire in 89 days - building a social media empire in 90 days or less

All opinions expressed are my own vs. those of my employer.

• Key guiding principles

• Key lessons learned

• Most important tactics and strategies

• At least “one way of getting from here to there”

• Enough knowledge so that you can figure out the rest

• Some general rambling (creating

context)

• Top “words of wisdom”, “must dos”

and “how tos”

• “Tools of the Trade”

• Putting it all together: real-life case

study

Why Bother?

• Reaches a lot of people

• Affordable price point

• Offers something of value to people

• Is delivered to a targeted audience

• “Next Steps” are usually very apparent

• If at first you don’t succeed, hit them with more junk mail

• Get funding for your startup

• Raise money for your charity

• Increase inbound leads by 10%

• Get a new/better job

• Get consulting gigs

• Convert people to your religion

• Become semi-famous in some niche area

• Meet interesting people

• Sell a lot of Girl Scout cookies

• Feed your ego

• World domination

• Build a following

• As a group

• As “individuals” via Personae

• Know your audience

• Find SuperHeros

• Find “Masters”

• Create your own Persona

that “speaks to” your target

audience

Example: Two Week Campaign: • Desired behavior: Drive Traffic to a Webinar

Registration Page• Purpose: create leads for Sales Reps

Impressions Conversion Rates

• You want LOTS of impressions. It all starts with impressions.

• You want highest possible conversion rates:– From Timeline to “read”

– From “read “ to “actioned”

• And “Plan B” isn’t a bad idea. “In the absence of Quality, try substituting Quantity”

– Do plenty of tweets

– Have lots of opportunities for conversions.

Impressions are primarily a

function of two things:

– How many followers you have

– “Message Amplification”

Also… things like “timing” have an

impact.

• If you have deep pockets, you

can “buy” impressions.

Starts with knowing who your target audience is

It continues indefinitely

• You’ve defined your Audience

• You’ve internalized the “Target Persona”

• You’ve created your “Social Media Persona”

• Now: Start expressing yourself (i.e. time to start tweeting)

• Timely

• Relevant

• Interesting

• Engaging & personal

• Valuable / useful

• Entertaining

• Original

• And….one more thing

“Why would someone want to

follow me??”

You need to reach far beyond your

existing base of followers:

• Attach your messages to popular

topics with well-researched #Hashtags

“flea on the dog” approach

• Get other people to spread the word

for you - Re-tweets

P.S. Tweets should never be 140 characters

(Unless you are famous already)

YOU NEED MORE

“Nudge, Flatter & Cajole” tactics not

only work, they are an absolute

necessity

Net New Followers =

# New Followers – # unfollowers

• Expect to lose followers

• Track/baseline it

• WHO you lose is more important

than how many you lose

• “Broken Record”

– Know your audience

– Create compelling content

– Create enough compelling content

– Become a “real & likeable person” to them

• Engage

• Reach out

• Stay “fresh”

• “Broken Record”

• Good writing is important

• Be interesting, catchy, have a hook

• Easy to read / easy on the eyes

• Every “actionable” tweet: WIIFT? Clearly expressed value/benefit

• Clearly described “next step” action

• Don’t confuse your audience. Simplicity.

• If there is no conversion option, your “conversion rate” is zero. Most tweets should have a conversion event.

I have just laid out a set of principles and a course of action which

theoretically works.

Probably none of you could actually make it work.

You need an “unfair advantage”

Most people are transcribing books by hand, you need a printing press.

Three things needed to scale and

maintain your empire:

– Tools

– Automation

– People

• Current Events/News

• Content Discovery & Curation

• Tweet Construction

• Audience Engagement

• Twitter Clients

• Audience and Influence Measurement

• Account Dashboard

• Deadwood Pruning

• URL & Effectiveness Tracking

• Google News

• VentureBeat

• Mashable

• TechCrunch

TextMechanic.com

HashTagify.me

Commun.it KloutChrome Plug-in

• Twitter.com

• iPhone/Android

Bit.ly

Twitonomy

• Tweet Scheduling & Automation

• Following and “other custom”

Automation

• Propagation Automation

• Keyboard Automation

Dirty Secret of Social Media

TweetAdder

Python

Scripts

using

Twitter

Libraries

Zapier IFTT

StrokesPlus

• Other people in your company

• Fiver

• Freelancer.com

• Empire Avenue

• Craigslist

Two week campaign for Webinar Registrants

Two kinds of activities:

• The stuff you do all the time forever

• Things specific to the campaign

“Most Days”:

• Acquiring new followers

• Keeping existing followers “happy”

• Pruning following list

• Ongoing creation of interesting tweets

• Ongoing engagement with influential

followers/friends

• Determine goal: 500 prospects visit webinar registration page

• Estimate number of Tweets required: 15-25

• Create custom bit.ly URL for tracking

• Create 4 template tweets with 5 variations on each = 20 tweets

• Load into TweetAdder, run 2 a day for 10 business days

• Monitor/measure the results, tweak as necessary