Varnex attendees are invited to review the instructor notes for Quick Start to Social Media: What to Consider Before You Begin

1. QuickStart to Social Media- instructor's notes
CompTIA Channel Training
About CompTIA
CompTIA is the voice of the world's information technology industry. As a non-
profit trade association advancing the global interests of IT professionals and
companies, we focus our programs on four main areas: education, certification,
advocacy and philanthropy.
About CompTIA:
Today’s presentation was developed as part of CompTIA’s Channel Training program, which offers a
broad range of education to the IT channel on topics such as cloud computing, healthcare IT, security,
and managed services, unified communications.
CompTIA is the trade association advancing the global IT industry, with more than 2,000 member
companies that include solution providers, vendors, and distributors.
TODAY
1. Role of Social Media in Your Business
2. Before You Begin
3. Strategy
4. Power of Community
5. Which Tools Matter and Why
6. Measuring Results
In Today's Presentation you will walk away with a better understanding of...
1. Role of Social Media in Your Business
2. What you need to know Before You Begin
3. How to consider and create a SM Strategy
4. How to Harness the Power of Community
5. Which Tools Matter and Why
6. Final, how to Measure Results ...because with sales and marketing, "RESULTS MATTER!"

2. WHO USES SOCIAL MEDIA ANYWAYS?
•53% of SMB use social media
•88% believe exposure is the greatest
advantage of using SM
•19% use FaceBook
•15% use LinkedIn
•4% use Twitter
•12% think SM is a “must”
•24% say they do not have the time
•14% say they don’t know enough
•33% say they have metrics in place to rack
social media ROI
•On average a marketer will spend 1-5
hours/week
•68% outsource SM
•23% have a public-facing blog
•47% of customers are somewhat likely to
purchase from a brand that they follow
• 53% of SMB use social media
• 19% use FaceBook
• 15% use LinkedIn
• 4% use Twitter
• 68% outsource SM
• 23% have a public-facing blog
• 33% say they have metrics in place to rank social media ROI
• 88% believe exposure is the greatest advantage of using SM
Those who don’t use social media…
• 24% say they do not have the time
• 14% say they don’t know enough
Source: “99 New Social Media Stats for 2012”, The Social Skinny, by Cara Pring, May 10, 2012.
WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA?
1. Ideal way to build dialog along multiple touch points
2. Cultivates prospect relationships
3. Additional component of Lead gen
4. Enables advocates to act on your behalf!
Long & Short....SM is a venue for pulling and attracting people to you/your message through an online,
social communities.

3. STARTING WITH THE END IN MIND
Where do you begin?
 You begin with the end-result in mind.
 Guy Kawasaki of Apple said "A set of tweets, a facebook page and a couple of blogs can do more
good or harm to your business. "
 At the end of the day, social media has to be about something...
o results
o building connections
o networking
o listening and learning about what's going on the industry
o building your brand and visibility
o establishing credibility through critical mass
6 MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
TO ASK!
1. Where do most of my customers engage in social media?
2. Do they spend their time making buying decisions from
information they acquire on social media?
3. How do you typically communicate new news to clients socially?
Could a social media tool be added to the mix?
4. How do your clients currently learn of new products, updates
and "insider" news about you?
5. How would I use social media to cultivate current client
relationships to create a degree of "stickiness" to our services?
6. How can I use social media as a tool for boosting my search
engine rankings to drive clients to my website?
Here's a simple set of questions I always begin with to help me DEVELOP my end-goal results.
REVIEW LIST.
1. Which social media sites do most of my customer use?
2. What do my clients talk about and post on social media?
3. How do you typically communicate to clients about news, issues and updates? Could a social media tool be added to the mix?
4. Which communication could reach a larger audience via social media?
5. How would I use social media to cultivate current client relationships to create a degree of "stickiness" to our services?
6. How can I use social media as a tool for boosting my search engine rankings to drive clients to my website?

4. Everything you do in social media will revolve around content. WHY?
CONTENT really comes down to what your customers are interested in.
1. What problems are you helping them solve?
2. What do your prospect/clients talk about in emails? Phone calls? FAQs? Demos?
Now that you've asked yourself 6-important questions; you have an end-goal in mind, it's time to build a
PLAN and the easiest way is to begin with an EDITORIAL calendar!
THEN, decide what TYPE of content you will use to engage with your audience.

5. WHAT IS IT AND WHY?
BLOG: Cornerstone of SM.
 A blog provides a personal/professional way of telling a story while delivering useful results.
 It's your thought leadership and opinions!
 It's a gateway to your website that does not feel like "marketing"
BENEFITS?
1. THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Blogs are the best way to provide relevant content to fuel SEO
2. POSITIONING: your brand in the market (as a leader-innovator)
3. Encourage COLLABORATIVE conversation to others who think like you
4. Get people to CONNECT with your message and advocate on your behalf
5. Increase SEO rankings
EXAMPLE: 5 things I do with every blog post.
1. Post the blog on Blogspot (linked to Google+)
2. Post blog Title with link on Twitter and ask for ReTweet
3. Create a video that explains what the blog is about tied to keywords that ranks blog in SEO
4. Post the Video link to web page
5. Create Webinars around blog postings.

6. 3 BLOGGING TO DO’s
1. Build a schedule you
can follow
2. Choose topics of
current conversations
to blog—not just topics
about your
product/offering
3. Be bold. Put your
opinions or thought
leadership out there for
others to view
Finally, 3 Blogging TO DO's before you get started:
1. Build a schedule you can follow
2. Choose topics of current conversations to blog—not just topics about your product/offering
3. Be bold. Put your opinions or thought leadership out there for others to view
TOOLS, TOOLS & MORE TOOLS
Now we are going to shift gears and talk about the various types of SM tools in the industry, their use
and how you can use them to make a purposeful impact in your business.
AUDIENCE ? [Show of hands]
 How many of you use LinkedIn?
 Twitter?
 FaceBook for B2B marketing?
 YouTube?
Because we are seriously short on time, I don't have the ability to share with you some of my favorite
tools, but if you find me after the presentation, I will gladly share them with you.
SOCIAL MEDIA EXPLAINED

7. Why LinkedIn:
1. #1 Social Network for Bus and the biggest driver of leads
2. Over 100 mil members
3. High income levels
4. Great way to establish yourself as an industry thought leader
HOW CAN I USE LinkedIN?
• List your own credentials and prior work experience for powerful networking
• Build your companies service and brand visibility by creating company page with a rich
description of your value proposition and postings.
Other great uses for LinkedIn include your ability to...
• Add connections to build your professional & social network
• Increase your reach by engaging in LinkedIn Professional User Groups and
• Debut the individuals within your own organization for attracting and recruiting good
talent on your company page.
Finally, there is one more use for LinkedIn that I believe is worth mention:

8.  We all want to generate interest for our product, and find qualified leads. One of the best
ways to draw-entice and bring prospects to you is through the use of LinkedIn's Question
& Answer page.
 Note here that you can post a question (seed questions for prospects)
 The question is posted for anyone to answer
 You can search by a question by key word or category and by found by anyone
 Result: You can ask questions to gather industry information OR you can mine questions
for others who have asked OR you can position yourself as an expert by answering!
• BEST PRACTICE TIPS: LinkedIn is a "must have" for all businesses. Prospects will likely review your
LinkedIn listing before engaging with you or during the sales process. Allocate 30 minutes a week for
updates and postings.
Why use Twitter
1. INFLUENCE: Build a following of people who want to hear from you!
2. REAL-TIME COMMUNICATION: Create immediate awareness for your services,
specials and contest to engage your "community"
3. FOLLOW TRENDS: As a marketing professional this is the golden egg. Follow your top
partners and watch what they tweet-view-say- ask
4. RECIPROSITY: You mention others- they mention you. Why? you may ask. Because
you appear more credible AND you get mentioned on OTHERS sites and their
follower lists.
There are 4 things you must know about Twitter before you begin. Logstics-- so we run through these
fast.

9. READ DECK
So, let's put it into action. REMEMBER: You don't have to write anything down. I will send you the slide
deck- so just sit back and enjoy the show. Here we go...
Let's take a look at these steps in action. Ready?
 First I am going to tweet about this class
 I am going to use @ callouts and #tags
RESULT: We're influencing 176 people in real-time. Because I used @ callouts, my message now
displays on the 4-Profit site, Synnex site and Varnex site and thanks to the #tag, my message
can be found if anyone searches under "social" or "social media".
Here you can see my message is showing on the 4-profit tweets.

10. Thanks to the #tag before the word social, I now appear on any categorical search for topics
on "social".
GREAT CASE FOR SOCIAL MEDIA & TWITTER USAGE:
 Use the twitter to stream live feeds from your customer service department. Give your clients
the answers to the SAME problems other customers encounter.
Finally, I like to use my "interactions" button to display a dashboard view of all activity
about me.
So, there you have it! You have the power to
 Influence others
 Push out info in real-time
 follow the trends of your best-paying customers
 Practice reciprocity as you gain visibility on other people's sites.
BEST PRACTICE: Allocate 10-15 minutes daily
• Post product videos and video-based value prop’s
• Place YouTube links on your web, providing new content and increasing
your SEO rankings.
• Assign YouTube search terms (similar to key words) to your video posting
for easy key word search.
• Debut your happiest and most satisfied client video
• Introduce new employees or products and attach to other social media
sites (FB, Twitter)
• Add YouTube links to your company email signatures for a quick call-to-
action
WHY VIDEO?
 SEO
 Branding/outposts
 Conversions
 Inexpensive

11. Why YOUTUBE?
Your clients love to see that they have made the "right" choice for their technology needs.
They want to be reassured others feel as they do. Video is a great way to drive home this
point.
• Use YouTube to post your VALUE PROP
• Assign YouTube search terms (similar to key words) to your video posting for easy key
word search.
• Place YouTube links on your web, providing new content and increasing your SEO
rankings.
• Debut your happiest and most satisfied client video
• Post YouTube links to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for maximum exposure.
• Add YouTube links to your company email signatures for a quick call-to-action
BEST PRACTICE TIP: Allocate about 1 hour per month to uploading new and fresh video
content (as needed).
• Drives interest for events, social conversations, contests and events
• Customizable banner allows you to brand and drive demand for your
offerings
• Debut sneak-peaks and broadcast announcements
• Share pictures from a partner event
• Post special coupon and seasonal discount offers with redeemable codes
BEST PRACTICE TIP: Allocate 30 minutes a week to updating and posting.
Cover photo (851 x 315), profile (180 x 180), icons (111 x 74)
No longer can redirect people to a landing tab to like you
MEASURING SUCCESS

12. Google Analytics:
 Allow you to view how many visitors came to your site in a time period
 Drill down to see where visitors are coming from (country- geographical location, etc.)
 How they found your site-- search engine, keyword, or from another site
 If a visitor bounced in and out of a site, how long they stayed and other useful pieces of
info
 Most important-- it's free!
A Good Read
1. The Zen of Social Media Marketing by: Shama Hyder Kabani
2. Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage
Customers and Ignite Your Business By: Ann Handley (Author) & C.C. Chapman
SETTING EXPECTATIONS
• What should you expect?
– Once won‘t do it
– Schedule time
– Find internal champions
Let me leave you with a couple of departing thoughts: