– Promoting Your Business Using Social Media Building a Strategy

Promoting Your Business Using Social Media –
Building a Strategy
Name: ________________________________________________________________
Promoting Your Business using Social Media Workshop
Contents:
Power point slides
Task 1: What are the benefits of promoting your business online? Notes page
Task 2: Put together a list of the different ways businesses can promote online? Notes page
Task 3: Social media: What am I talking about handout?
Help Guides:
 A guide to e-business terms and acronyms
 Helping your customers to find you
 Building a social media strategy
 E-Business tips
Learning Objectives
The learning objectives for this workshop are:
Learning objective 1 To understand the free web tools available to promote
your business
Learning objective 2 Identify different types of social media tools
Learning objective 3 To consider appropriate e-marketing strategy for business
Learning objective 4 Plan their own social media strategy
Learning objective 5 To look closely at specific social media tools and evaluate
how they will fit your strategy
A guide to e-business terms and acronyms
Blog: A web journal used for posting thoughts and articles.
Browser: A software application used to search information posted on the internet. Two of the
most common are Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.
Content Management System/ CMS: An administrative software system that enables a user to
add or change content on a website.
DSL: (Digital Subscriber Line): A technology designed to bring high-bandwidth information to
homes and small businesses over ordinary copper telephone lines. Telus high-speed Internet
service is an example of DSL.
E-business: The use of internet technology to conduct or facilitate business.
E-Commerce: The trading of goods and services over the internet.
E-Marketing: Business promotion activity via the internet
Firewall: A system designed to prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network.
Firewalls are commonly used to prevent unauthorized Internet users from accessing private
networks connected to the internet, especially intranets.
Hashtag: This refers to this symbol # most commonly associated with Twitter. Adding a hash
tag in front of keywords indexes them as key topics on the site
Home Page: The main page of a website that a user first sees when they connect to a website.
HTML: (Hypertext Markup Language) A “code” used to build web pages. A common language
used to share data over the web.
Hyperlinks: Embedded “connections” in web pages that allow users to ‘jump’ from page to
page anywhere on the internet.
Internet: The Internet is a global network of computers with millions of users all over the world.
Anyone can join this network and from your computer you can send and receive information
anywhere in the world - all at the cost of a local phone call, 24 hours of the day. The Internet
offers many business benefits.
Intranet: An intranet is a private internet which is not necessarily linked to the Internet itself.
ISP (Internet service provider): Also called an Internet Access Provider. An organisation that
provides access to the internet either digitally or via analog for a monthly fee.
KPI: Key Performance Indicators help an organisation define and reach its goals.
Multimedia: Applications combining the use of more than one media, i.e. data, voice and video.
ROI: Return on Investment A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an
investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. To calculate ROI,
the benefit (return) of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment; the result is
expressed as a percentage or a ratio.
Search Engines: Search Engine software packages (such as Google, Yahoo, Alta Vista,
WebCrawler, Dogpile or Lycos) helps you find what you are looking for on the Web. You can
type in a word or phrase to describe what you are looking for and the search engine matches
this against its index, recording all likely matches. Most search engines are free.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): the process of improving the volume and quality of
traffic to a web site from search engines. This can be done via targeted key words.
Server: A network device that provides services to client PCs, for example file access, print
spooling or remote execution.
Social Media: includes web-based and mobile technologies used to turn communication into
interactive dialogue
Status Update: a form of micro-blogging, mostly associated with facebook. Refers to sending
out a short message to ‘friends’ or followers
Tweet: This refers to the 140 character message sent out through Twitter updates, a form of
micro-blogging. – Re-tweet or RT refers to someone seeing your message and sending it on to
their own followers, quoting you as the source.
URL: (Uniform Resource Locator): The alpha-numeric address used to locate a website.
Web hosting: An organisation that provides users who do not have their own web servers with
serve space to ‘park’ their website and allow others to view it over the internet. ISPs also host
websites and those such as AOL, will allow subscribers a small amount of server space to host.
Social Media is it a Passing Trend?
To put social media in context check out this youtube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng&vq=medium
Building a Social Media Strategy
It is widely publicised how social media should now play a prominent role in a company’s
marketing strategy, but before wildly signing up on a site that may just prove a waste of time
and resources, it is important to take time to build a strategy.

Reflect – Don’t forget all that hard work you put in establishing you mission, aims and
objectives, looking at who your customers are, what you want you message to be. Bring
those things back to the forefront before making any marketing decision online or offline

Research – Who are your competitors? How are they using online marketing? What
tricks are they using on social media that are working well? Could you adopt those? Look
at the websites you are considering using. Look at their information and guidance on who
their core user group is and their users habits to know whether your customers can be
found there, and what time they are most responsive. You can use ‘Google Trends’ to
check your keywords, to find out which ones are most used by those searching on
Google, giving you a good idea of which ones are most key to throw in to make sure you
are found

Strategise
o Traffic Light – Touched on in our Planning for Success Course – this is a key part
of strategic planning not to forget. Rather than going all guns blazing and joining
every social media site out there, prioritise as GREEN the one or two which will be
of most use to your business. Those that you would like to add to your strategy
when you have a little more time place as AMBER and those that in truth you are
working hard to justify how you would use it to reach one or two possible
enquiries, leave as RED and look at further down the link as growth strategy
o Prepare content ideas – Set up Google Alerts for keywords in your industry to
keep up to date with latest news and trends that you can comment on, and make
a list for yourself of key dates, events, milestones that might warrant a mention.
o Time budget – Decide how much time each week you are going to allocate for
marketing, and stick to it! Think of it as a budget, and only renegotiate that time
with yourself in the same strict way you would if physical cash were involved. Set
up time saving tools like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite where you can pre-upload
content and time it to go out through your social media channels. This keeps them
fresh even when you haven’t got time to log in directly.

Go for it! – The best way to learn is to just have a go! Sign up and see. Plan your
strategy, and set KPI’s (Key performance Indicators) that you can measure success
against. What are your goals? More interaction? To gather feedback? To increase
website traffic? To increase sales?
Once you have been through this full cycle, don’t forget to return to the beginning
regularly to REFLECT on how things are going in relation to your KPI’s, to RESEARCH
where competitors are up to and what new tools are out there, STRATEGISE based on
this new information and GO FOR IT!
For more information check out this article by E-BEL’s Jo Austin:
http://socialmediatoday.com/marketingjo/502275/social-media-time-saving-tips-smes
Task 1: What are the benefits of promoting your business online?
Notes page…………………………….
Task 2: Put together a list of the different ways businesses can promote
online?
Notes page……………………………
Helping Customers to Find You
There are a whole host of websites and social media tools to help you to promote your
business. This diagram shows some of these and the different categories that social media
tools fall into:
Let’s look closely at some key elements of these
 Publish – Blogs are a great way to increase your SEO (Search Engine optimisation) and keep
your online content fresh. Ideally a blog would be updated at least once per week with an
interesting article related to your industry. Blogger.com is an example of a free one to use
 Network – Facebook is the most familiar example of online networking. Another useful site is
linkedin. This is a more professional version of facebook and is used almost as an online CV to
show your experience and background. Networking online works similarly to offline. It’s about
building rapport and keeping in touch rather than the hard sell.
 Discuss
 Micro-blogging
 Share – (Photo or Video) a great tool for retail businesses or businesses who hold events is to
use a photo sharing site such as flickr. Set up albums for ‘New Stock’ or so people can spot
themselves at your most recent event
 Book Marking – Sites like Pinterest or Delicious allow you to collect together useful weblinks.
Pinterest does this by helping you to bookmark pictures from off different websites, Delicious
and other bookmark the weblink themselves. You could again use these tools to show yourself
as an expert in your field. Grouping together useful content to share with others, helping people
to buy into you more.
 Commerce – If you haven’t got a selling function on your own website, there are websites
through which you can sell products such as eBay or Amazon. See the next section of this
booklet for tips on how to sell through these sites
Task 3: Social Media –
What am I Talking About?
Under each of these headings,
think of 3 key points you could
share/discuss online.
Current News
(what is happening in the world that could be relevant for you to comment on?)
1.
2.
3.
Happening in my business today
(what products and services are you currently offering, where are you going/who are you
meeting that might be of interest?)
1.
2.
3.
Coming soon to my business…
(what does the future hold? Any big announcements on the horizon? Any events you will
be attending?)
1.
2.
3.
E-Business Tips
Tips to help you establish and keep up a successful E-business.
 Keep an eye on your competitors
Often news of new products or services offered by a competitor will be released on their
website allowing you to understand what advantages they may have and enable you to
respond in a timelier manner to their changes.
 Stay Consistent
Your website is part of your corporate brand and fits seamless with the other elements that
make up your corporate identity. Consistency with visual elements such as logos, fonts and
colours are as important as consistency in tone, language and overall message.
 Test your website
The owner of a website seldom visits the website after the first few months of its launch.
The explanation for this behaviour is the mistaken assumption that once the site is tested
and launched any further testing is unnecessary. Constant review and testing is crucial
when determining the success or failure of the objectives of the website.
 Know Your Visitors
Knowing who is going to use your site is the key factor in determining how the site is
designed and what technology will be used. The abilities and expectations of your visitors
must be reflected in the navigation, content and user interface of the site.
 Don’t Hide Your Domain Name
A surprising number of companies spend thousands of pounds on a website their customers
don’t know they have. Don’t hide your domain name; it should be on your letter head,
business cards, uniforms, vehicles, exterior building signage and on the signature of all
business related email correspondence.
 Answer All Your Emails
Unlike a ringing telephone, email is easy to ignore; the fastest way to loose customers is to
ignore their emails. Unfortunately many business owners still consider email
communications unimportant and stubbornly refuse to accept the reality that email is quickly
becoming the medium of choice by both consumers and businesses.
 Don’t Believe the Hype
If you are starting up an internet business just because your friends told you to or as the
result of an unsolicited email that claims you can make a lot of money, it’s time to step back
and re-examine your motives. The internet is a great – if not necessary – tool for business,
but your web strategy needs to be well thought out and planned, just like any other aspect of
your business.
 Review Your Server Logs
Your server logs and other tools – such as Google Analytics – can tell you who is visiting
your website, what pages they are viewing, how long they are staying, where they are
coming from and a whole host of other useful information. Use these statistics to update
pages that perform poorly and to help formulate your e-Marketing strategies.
 Don’t Forget SEO – Search Engine Optimisation
Even if your website has a great design and user friendly interactivity, it is of no use if no one
can find it. Write your content for your users, but make sure those keywords are in there and
are in the right places. You don’t have to pay an arm and a leg for good SEO, just write your
content well and submit it to search engines. If you have the time and energy you can delve
deeper into the ever-changing world of SEO but remember, SEO tricks are no substitute for
good content.
 Update Your Content
Your users want current information and so do the search engines. If your content is out of
date, your potential clients will move on to the competition. Stale content also does poorly in
search engines. A great way to keep feeding your clients with good info and generate new
leads is to set up a blog on your site. The internet is now the primary source of information
for consumer research. Up to date information keeps people (and spiders) coming back to
your website.
Further useful websites:
Small Business Help sheets and guides:
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk
Promoting your Business using Social Media Additional Information
For additional information regarding using Social Media to promote your business please see
the following websites.
How to use social media to promote your small business
 http://www.forbes.com/sites/kymmcnicholas/2011/09/19/how-to-use-social-media-topromote-your-small-business/
Social Media tips

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kaMmKAYHs0&feature=related
Facebook
 https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php
Twitter
 http://www.business2community.com/twitter/guide-to-twitter-tips-for-small-businesses0110870
Linkedin
 http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5641/Free-eBook-How-to-Use-LinkedIn-forBusiness.aspx
Google +
 http://www.hubspot.com/how-to-use-google-plus-for-business-
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