Social Media for Busy Business Owners Spencer X. Smith spencerXsmith.com facebook.com/spencerXconsulting

The Social Media Primer in 3 parts 1. A brief history of social media 2. Why embrace this concept and these tools? 3. The How To - application to your business

A brief history  How is traffic driven to websites or platforms?  People asking questions and looking for answers  COMPLETELY different than traditional marketing (e.g., radio, TV, billboards)  The music is not on the radio  What is social media (in the context of business)?  Simply an inbound marketing vehicle  What is inbound marketing? Content creation and proliferation  Traffic, leads, sales

A brief history  Understanding social media company motivations  Competition for your attention  Want to be a trusted purveyor of RELEVANT content  Gather intelligence  Sell targeted ads

A brief history  You're telling me all information everywhere is essentially free?  How a noun became a verb  Everyone is much, much more informed  You can't even finish your question before Google proposes answers

A brief history  Facebook - The 800 pound gorilla  Founded 2004  2013 Pew Research study  71% of adults use Facebok (up from 67% in 2012)  63% of users check daily, 22% weekly  % of Facebook users who  Use Twitter - 22%  Use Instagram - 23%  Use Pinterest - 25%  Use LinkedIn - 25%

A brief history  The implicit question with Facebook - what's going on with the people & organizations I care about?  Double opt-in or bilateral acknowledgement of validity of the data (when you become Friends)  The Facebook News Feed assures everyone has a unique experience  When a person Likes you on your business page  He or she is granting you permission to talk to him or her

A brief history  Everyone else  2013 Pew Research study  22% of adults use LinkedIn  21% use Pinterest  18% use Twitter  17% use Instagram  Simply not as relevant as Facebook unless you're targeting a very specific niche (e.g., business professionals on LinkedIn)

Why embrace this concept and these tools?  MARKETING IS FREE!!!  Bootstrapping, moonlighting, your "side gig" has almost no downside  Before social media platforms, how did we advertise? 1. Spend money 2. Hope we catch the right people at the right time

Why embrace this concept and these tools?  Your prospects and customers are giving you their permission to talk to them  Don't worry about trying stuff that might not work  How many hours of video are uploaded to Youtube every minute?  In case we forgot to mention...  MARKETING IS FREE!!!

The How To - application in your business  Content creation is unequivocally THE most important tool we all have  What is content?  Anything we can digitize 1. s 2. Blog articles 3. Magazine, newspaper, articles 4. eBooks 5. Audio recordings 6. Video recordings 7. Audio and video transcripts

The How To - application in your business  But what should I write or talk about?  Here's the good news - you already know this stuff!  Remember, your customers want answers to their questions  The simplest way to your first year's worth of content 1. What questions do I get asked every day/week? 2. Start answering those questions  Using this method, you will have a minimum of articles  For a best-practices article, go to -  spencerXsmith.com/how-write-effective-blog-post-title/

The How To - application in your business  Content creation -  Just start  How many hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute again?  No one will see your stuff that's not perfect  This is real-time dynamic information you can always update  Don't break the chain

The How To - application in your business  But I don't have time!  Why you should distill your thoughts - any format is okay  Keep a journal or a diary? Blog articles  Like to talk to yourself? Record your thoughts and transcribe them  Like to do video? Record yourself and transcribe the audio  Remember, digital stuff lives forever (in a good way)

Q&A