Integrating Social Media Into Your Company Culture

Scott Allender

8/27/2009

Scott Allender Web Software Developer for TricorBraun

(www.tricorbraun.com) Involved in the St. Louis Social Media

Community for two years Have been involved with IT for nearly 10

years

Outline of Topics

• What is Social Marketing?• Why is it important to my company?• How can I take advantage of it?• Some advice you may want to consider.

What is Social Marketing?

• “... the act of using social influencers, social media platforms, online communities for marketing, publication relations and customer service.” Wikipedia

Why is This Important?

• It's a new (also rapidly changing) medium to connect with your potential customers

• You can find all sorts of information about your potential market that isn't readily available through other means

Those reasons lead to…

• Connect with Fans + Reason to Buy = $$$– Michael Masnick (www.techdirt.com)

• Basically, connect with your audience, and at the same time give them a reason to buy, and you will see a return on the investment.

How can I Start Doing This?

• Get Excited!• What are your goals?– More profits?

– Publicizing your intelligence?

– Entering new markets?

• Keep in mind that achieving your goals will be greatly influenced by how you are connecting with people

More stuff to do...

• Decide what your message will be when you connect with people– Do you want them to buy your

product/service?– Recognize you are a thought leader?– Give you assistance in establishing new

ideas?• Figure out how committed you (or others)

will be to communicating with your customers

Decisions, Decisions

• Choose your social marketing platform, or how you will start connecting with people– Twitter– Facebook– Meetup– Blogging– Flickr– YouTube

Social Platforms Explained• Twitter (www.twitter.com)

– Have a conversation with the rest of the world– Great for promoting new promotions, marketing

promos and other things to the world at large– Power is in the potential audience you may converse

with

More Social Platforms

• Facebook (www.facebook.com)– Communicate with people who have explicitly

sought you out.– Gather some massive personal data on people who

become your fans – Excellent for connecting, and refining your reasons

to buy

More Social Platforms

• Meetup (www.meetup.com)– Start or Find a topic that pertains to your

product/service/industry and see an online community turn into a physical contacts.

– Use the opportunities to pick the brains of interested people

More Social Platforms

• Blogging– Write and elaborate on complex ideas that

are not suitable for most micromessaging/status updates.

– Good topics for blogs include conversations started in micromessaging services.

More Social Platforms

• Flickr (www.flickr.com)– Share and mark uploaded photos– Great for displaying products, or calling out specific

details of a product.– An easy way to provide a reason for customers to

buy

Final Social Platforms

• YouTube (www.youtube.com)– Service to upload/promote custom videos– Great for showing manufacturing processes or

educating users on specific topics– A good method to explain difficult concepts

Track Your Progress

• Once you start using social marketing as a tool, track your progress.– Some marketing tools limit your message,

use bit.ly to shorten urls.– Use analytic tools on your web site to track

which platforms/messages are making the most impact.

Things to Keep in Mind

• Unless you're comfortable letting personal thoughts intrude, keep your social marketing content business related.

• Use existing tools to display your social marketing content on your own web site.

• Social Marketing, by its very nature, is always changing. Do not hesitate, nor be afraid to seek help.

Things to Keep in Mind (cont...)• If you're not connecting or interacting with

new and different people, then you may very well not using this new platform to its fullest capability.

• Be creative.• HAVE FUN!

Questions/Comments

• www.scottallender.com• scott@n3bu1a.com• twitter.com/n3bu1a