Social Media for Business

Kevin Gibbons Director of Search, SEOptimise

What is social media?

 Online marketing strategy  Web 2.0 - User generated content   Integration with offline marketing   Compliments SEO as link building tactic   Can be combined with online promotion activities

What types of social media are there?

  Social networking   Social news/bookmarking   Photo sharing  Video & podcasting   Blogs and forums  Micro-blogging  Wikis

Social Networking - Facebook

How to promote using Facebook

  Connect with a relevant audience   Post a link   Create a fan page or group   Invite people to an event   Create an application

Social Networking - LinkedIn

How to promote using LinkedIn

  Connect with friends, colleagues & clients  Network with industry contacts   Complete your profile fully  Answer questions   Create a company profile  Advertise for jobs

Social Bookmarking - StumbleUpon

How to promote using StumbleUpon

 Make friends with like-minded people  Vote (thumbs up) for stories you like   Review your favourite stories   Submit content  Ask for votes  Help similar users with votes

Photo Sharing - Flickr

How to promote using Flickr

 Upload good photography & interesting pictures   Connect with similar users   Join relevant groups   Submit photos to groups  Allow your content to be used online   Interact by leaving comments   Link to website from popular images

Video - YouTube

How to promote using YouTube

  Create interesting content!   Select relevant category  Optimise with relevant text to improve YouTube search

rankings  Use tags for local keywords  Allow embedding of videos   Target niche video sites, not just YouTube

Blogging - SEOptimise

How to promote using blogs

 Write frequently updated content of a specific theme  News hook – interesting, comical or bizarre stories   Encourage RSS/email subscription   Link to and connect with relevant bloggers  Use a recognised blog CMS such as WordPress  Optimise for search engines   Submit for Google News inclusion

Microblogging - Twitter

How to promote using Twitter

  Find users with similar interests   Find local users   Promote your profile online   Communicate with followers   Frequency of updates  Manage customer support & feedback

Wikis - Wikipedia

How to promote using Wikipedia

 Add a link to an existing relevant Wikipedia page   Create your own Wikipedia page

How are brands using social media?

Examples of successful SMM Campaigns:  Where the Hell is Matt?   Compare the Meerkat

Where the hell is Matt?

Results – wherethehellismatt.com

  Sponsored by Stride Gum as viral marketing campaign to travel the world and record two more videos

 Over 30 million video views on YouTube  Hit Digg homepage 4 times, 1 story with 8,234 votes   StumbleUpon – 417 favs & 122 reviews   84,735 inbound links reported in Yahoo!  Media coverage from BBC, Guardian, Times Online etc…  Now ranks #1 in Google UK & Global for “Matt”

Results – wherethehellismatt.com

 Huge online traffic buzz:

Compare The Meerkat

Results – comparethemeerkat.com

 YouTube – 150,000 video views

Results – comparethemeerkat.com

  234,206 fans on Facebook

Results – comparethemeerkat.com

  6,318 Twitter followers:

Results – comparethemeerkat.com

  Traffic: comparethemarket.com vs comparethemeerkat.com

Results – comparethemeerkat.com

  Inbound links: 5,713 (Yahoo! Site Explorer)   3,012 blog mentions (Google Blog Search)  Visits to Comparethemarket.com increased by 86%

How can you measure social media?

  Traffic   Conversions   Brand awareness & online reputation   Customer support & communication   Feedback & reviews  Media attention   Link bait

How can you use social media?

1)  Define main objectives 2)  Highlight your online audience 3)  Brainstorm ideas, be creative 4)  Connect with social media influencers 5)  Push to multiple social media channels 6)  Use online PR to promote to journalists & bloggers

Questions?

  Find out more about social media marketing by subscribing to our blog: www.seoptimise.com/blog