GATEHOUSE NEWS & INTERACTIVE DIVISION DAILY DEALS ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER

The agenda Why social media? Promoting your Facebook and Twitter pages Getting started on Facebook Facebook best practices Getting started on Twitter Twitter best practices

Why social media? DailyDeals is social. Users will earn deal credits by referring friends. The more they share your deal over social networks, the more credits they will earn.

Why social media? Social buying is growing. Even though is still the most effective channel for online deal sharing, a recent poll found that 3/4 of female social network users found social networks to be useful in finding out about offers from brands.poll

Promoting Facebook and Twitter Your Daily Deals s will contain links to your Facebook and Twitter pages, encouraging people to become fans, follow you, and share your deals over the social networks. How do I get started?

Promoting Facebook and Twitter You can add a link to your DailyDeals Facebook and Twitter pages in your homepage navigation. * To do this, submit a ticket through GateHouse support: Ask for links in your secondary homepage navigation to your DailyDeals Facebook and Twitter accounts. The links should say something like “DailyDeals on Facebook” and “DailyDeals on Twitter”

Promoting Facebook and Twitter Promote your DailyDeals Facebook and Twitter pages with a DailyDeals logo in the promo scroll.

Promoting Facebook and Twitter All sales employees should promote DailyDeals in their signature. Say: “Find Canton DailyDeals on Facebook! facebook.com/CantonDailyDeals” “Follow Canton DailyDeals on Twitter! Twitter.com/CantonDailyDeals” Promote DailyDeals Facebook and Twitter pages in print and through ads on your homepage.

Getting started on Facebook Send invites to all your Facebook friends. After a few months, see who hasn ’ t responded, and send again.

Best practices on Facebook Post twice a day. Your first post should be in the morning (around 8 a.m.), announcing the deal. Your second post should be in the evening (any time after 3 p.m.) and can announce a special event or promotion, or remind people that a really great deal is about to expire.

Best practices on Facebook Make it interesting. Don ’ t only write the details of the deal (50% off movie tickets at the Village Cinema!), ask questions. Facebook is about engagement with the community, so find out what movie your fans are going to see with the daily deal tickets they just bought.

Best practices on Facebook Be brief. People ingest what they see on Facebook quickly. If you can ’ t get your point across in a few lines, you ’ re writing too much.

Best practices on Facebook Have good customer service. If someone posts a complaint on your wall, be responsive. Listen to their complaint, and see what you can do about it. Assign a champion to manage these difficult requests.

Best practices on Facebook Engage. Fans want to know that there is a real person behind a Facebook feed. Listen to what people are saying, put the feedback you get to good use, and be social.

Getting started on Twitter Find other Twitter accounts to follow. Find your newspaper and staff, friends and family and follow them. Use the Twitter “ search ” function at to look up local businesses. Follow them, too.

Getting started on Twitter Use the “ Who to follow ” button to find friends and local people. Invite friends who aren ’ t on Twitter by adding their addresses in the “ Invite Friends ” box.

Best practices on Twitter Post once a day. Your post should announce the deal, link to the deal on your DailyDeals site, and mention the business that is featured that day. Ideally, post between the hours of 7-9 a.m. the day the deal goes up to give people plenty of time to buy.

Best practices on Twitter Be brief. You have a limit of 140 characters per post; keep to it. This number tells how many characters you have left.

Best practices on Twitter When you in front of a twitter user ’ s name, it sends that person a message telling them they have been mentioned by you. Make sure the business that sponsored the deal, and maybe they ’ ll give you a retweet.* *a retweet is when someone reposts your tweet into their own Twitter feed, sharing your deal with more people!

Best practices on Twitter Use #hashtags. Hashtags make Twitter searchable. Choose one or two of the most appropriate words in each post to add a hashtag to. Then, when other users on twitter are searching for #movie #tickets, they ’ ll find you. Use search.twitter.com to search keywords from that day’s deal and find out what’s trending. Convert that search into a hashtag. Create your own #hashtag, e.g. #RFDailyDeals, so people can find your posts.

Best practices on Twitter Shorten your links. Use bitly or tinyURL to turn long links into shorter ones. This leaves more room in your tweet for #hashtags tinyURL

Best practices on Twitter Have fun, but be careful. What you do and say on Twitter and Facebook is hard to delete. Double check your tweets before you post, and keep it professional.

Best practices on Twitter Have a question about Facebook or Twitter? Contact Anne Raih, GateHouse Media News & Interactive Division, at or

DAILY DEALS ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER GATEHOUSE NEWS & INTERACTIVE DIVISION