shortcourses Univ3rsitY2 AUB_GUEST LESSON 1 RECAP Login to Computers Last week we looked at: Course Overview The potential of Social Media Know, Like and Trust Your Social Media Landscape Storing Your Data How did you get on with your Social Brand Guidelines? Login to Computers shortcourses Univ3rsitY2 Login to WIFI AUB_GUEST 50382280

LESSON TWO Building Reach

UNDERSTANDING YOUR AUDIENCE WHAT IS YOUR SOCIAL USP UNDERSTANDING YOUR AUDIENCE DEFINING YOUR SOCIAL STRATEGY BUILDING REACH

WHAT’S YOUR USP?

UNIQUE SELLING POINT (USP) “Differentiation is one of the most important strategic and tactical activities in which companies must constantly engage.” - Theodore Levitt As customers get wiser to digital and social marketing methods, it’s important to know what your Unique Selling Point (USP) is.

fast food, low prices, consistency and cleanliness  everyone is an athlete and Nike has the footwear and apparel to help people realize their ambitions British Airways is a premium airline based out of UK catering the world

WHAT’S YOUR USP In pairs, use your SWOT analysis from last week to help drill down what your Social Media USP is and remember, it may be different to your product/service USP!

UNDERSTANDING YOUR AUDIENCE

FACEBOOK Cleared over 2 billion monthly active users in June this year. With stats like that, you can’t afford to sit it out. The key to Facebook is targeting your efforts and standing out from the crowd. Facebook is a fairly slow moving content depending on individual users settings. 2.01 billion monthly active Facebook users // 65 million businesses on Facebook // 79% of internet users log into Facebook

WHO IS USING FACEBOOK?

INSTAGRAM Has over 700 million monthly active users, less competition and a more engaged audience than other social media giants. Instagram is a very visual platform with high quality images performing best. It recently launched Instagram stories as a rival to Snapchat. The new feature allows you to give customers an insight into your brand. This presents businesses with an opportunity to market their products to a more targeted and interested audience without spending an enormous amount of money on paid advertising.

WHO IS USING INSTAGRAM?

TWITTER Has over 500 million users, and 135,000 new users signing up every day. Its fast pace and viral capabilities make Twitter a great place to connect with your target audience. Twitter serves very fast moving content and has recently increased its word count to 280 characters. The hose pipe nature of Twitter means your can post regularly without putting off followers.

WHO IS USING TWITTER?

LINKEDIN Can be a powerful tool for companies looking to make new connections, generate leads, and build their brand. While it’s an important platform for all businesses, LinkedIn can be a true game changer for B2B. LinkedIn delivers slow moving that is highly curated. Generally considered a formal network, brands with some pizzazz tend to stand out from the crowd.

WHO IS USING LINKEDIN?

WHAT PLATFORMS SHOULD I USE? Before setting up any platform you need to ask yourself the following questions: What industry am I in? Where do my target audience live? What interests do my audience have? What kind of content will I create? Do all these platforms support your answers? Is one platform more beneficial to your business than the others? Set up the platform that you think will most benefit your business!

DEFINING YOUR SOCIAL STRATEGY

SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVITIES BUSINESS GOALS SOCIAL MEDIA GOALS SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVITIES ACTIVITY DETAILS CAMPAIGNS & CONTENT WHO WHEN HOW AWARENESS INCREASE FOLLOWING ENGAGE & MONITOR WHO WHEN HOW PROMOTE PRODUCT BENEFITS WHO WHEN HOW So now we know what our USP is, and where our customers are… so what do we want out of them. DECISION CONVERT LEADS OFFER INCENTIVES WHO WHEN HOW MONITOR SUPPORT REQUESTS WHO WHEN HOW RETENTION BRAND ADVOCATES ENGAGE WITH KEY CUSTOMERS WHO WHEN HOW

S.M.A.R.T SOCIAL It’s important when creating your social strategy that you set S.M.A.R.T goals. SPECIFIC: What do you want to achieve, precisely. What does success look like for you? MEASURABLE: Whether it’s an 8% increase in facebook likes or 20 purchases of a product. ATTAINABLE: It’s great to have big dreams but start small and work your way up! REALISTIC Does this fit with your business goals or is it a bit of a red herring? TIME-BOUND: Set yourself a timescale and stick to it!

BUILDING REACH

BUILDING YOUR BRAND REACH PRIORITISE THE CHANNELS YOUR AUDIENCE USE OPTIMISE YOUR PROFILES TO HIGHLIGHT USP PROMOTE YOUR SOCIAL PRESENCE To make social media an effective lead generation machine, you need to generate a following. This means fans and followers on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and your other social media accounts. Be Seen Create Content Engage Online Use Tags SHARE USEFUL RELEVANT CONTENT MAINTAIN OWNERSHIP OF YOUR CONTENT ALLOW FOLLOWERS TO SHARE The more fans and followers you have for your social media presence, the better reach you'll have. And better reach means the potential to generate more leads. So at the very core of social media for lead generation, you must take steps to increase your reach INTERACT WITH YOUR FOLLOWERS BUILD INDUSTRY RELATIONSHIPS ONLINE HOLD CONVERSATIONS NOT PITCHES JOIN IN ON TRENDING TOPICS FIND YOUR HASHTAG HOME TAG YOUR CUSTOMERS AND SUPPLIERS

PROFILES We looked at the importance of a consistency across Social Media Profiles last week. Use a tool like Sum All to keep track of all your accounts and how they are performing. Cross sharing your profiles can help make followers aware they can reach you elsewhere online. Make sure it’s easy for your customers to find you by publishing your Social handles on your website (if you have one)!

CONTENT Sharing content is key to building reach online. Even more so, is keeping ownership of your content! Next week, we’ll be taking a deep dive into how to curate, create and keep ownership of content.

FOLLOWERS Apps like Reports+ help you to measure engagement on your posts, how well you're performing and who is following you. Keep track of the people you follow and be sure to check in to see if they have followed you back. Often, all it takes is some light engagement to get them to take notice of your profile. Monitor unfollows and reach out to users to gain valuable insight into why they are no longer interested in your content.

ENGAGEMENT Tagging your customers, suppliers, affiliates and even competitors in posts is a great way to boost engagement online. Using Twitter lists helps you to narrow down the audience you want to engage with. Tools like Hootsuite can help you monitor mentions of your brand online so you can respond to followers quickly.

TRENDING Twitter's inbuilt trending tool is invaluable to see what is popular online in real time. You can allow Twitter to tailor the trends you see or customise based on location. Go one step further and use a Social Listening tool to measure the sentiment and reach of subject. Twitter also recently introduced Moments to deliver all the latest tweets around a particular story. And you can create your own Moments too!

TAGS Hashtags are a great way to link your content to a topic or conversation. Use tools like hashtagify to find hashtags that relate to your industry. And tools like trends24.in to see relevant and trending topics. On instagram, post hashtags as comments on your own pictures to boost them up a hashtag list. You can then delete & repost the comment to keep your post at the top of the feed. Tagging people in posts on Facebook is a great way to get them to engage with you online and establish yourself as an active member in your industry.

LESSON TWO ROUND UP

UNDERSTANDING YOUR AUDIENCE WHAT IS YOUR SOCIAL USP UNDERSTANDING YOUR AUDIENCE DEFINING YOUR SOCIAL STRATEGY BUILDING REACH

NEXT WEEK Curating Content Creating Content Building a Content Calendar

OPTIONAL ADDITIONAL TASK Come up with a 3 customer personas for your Social Media outreach. What age are they? What gender are they? How much do they earn? What is their social status? What is their level of education? What do they do for work? What are their goals? What are their challenges? Why do they love/need your product? Why not try the Hubspot Customer Persona Builder!

SEE YOU NEXT WEEK