This presentation provides a quick overview of what social media is and how to use to promote your business.

1. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses
Understanding Social
Media and leveraging
as a marketing tool to
promote your business
By Natalie Griffiths Associates
Created using WordleCreated using Wordle
Updated: 22.11..10

2. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses
• Content
– Social Media: an introduction
– Social Media: networking sites examples
– Social Media: utilising LinkedIn as a social
media platform
– Developing your social media strategy
2

3. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses
Social Media: an introduction
3

4. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses 4
What is Social Media?
“ …. designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created
using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques”
_________
“…. media that is created to be shared freely”
_________
“ … based on user participation and user-generated content. They
include social networking sites like LinkedIn or Facebook”
Social media has grown phenomenally since the emergence of Web 2.0
(second generation of the World Wide Web.) This has provided users with tools
to build social & business connections as well as being able to share
information or collaborating with projects online.
Social Media can be described as being user generated; shared freely; highly
accessible; and disseminated through social interaction

5. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses 5
How can this help my business?
From a business perspective, Social Media can be a relatively inexpensive promotional
tool when integrated as part of your marketing communication strategy. It can work as
an additional advertising mechanism, or it can offer interactive means by which to talk
directly to your customers and prospects – some of which is still free.
The key however is not to simply launch into this space because everyone else is – but
to think through what you want to achieve, plan your communication strategy and finally
make sure you have something relevant on offer to your prospects. Otherwise, much
time and energy can be invested for limited or no results.
Note: Traditional principles in marketing still apply to Social Media marketing.
Examples of how Social Media is used by businesses
Facebook may be used for customer service and broadcasting updates; Twitter may be
used for promotions; LinkedIn helps to establish credibility; YouTube could give a behind
the scenes look at your business
Social media takes many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, social
blogs, microblogging, wikis, podcasts, pictures, video, rating, social bookmarking

6. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
• Social Media Marketing can be used to compliment
your communication strategy and enables
businesses to:
– Test new ideas (with limited investment)
– Launch campaigns / viral networking
– Gain credibility through endorsements and by providing
expertise on specific subjects
– Conduct polls to determine opinion
– Collaborate / exchange ideas
– Gather a following
– Provide a sense of “community”
– Encourage direct feed back
Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses 6

7. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
Social Media: networking site
examples
7Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses

8. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
8
Blogging - various
• Used to share resources,
experiences or views; report on
new services/ideas; or as a
reflective tool.
• Utilised by businesses to
promote expertise and to
generate a following / fan base
(top ten tips etc)
• UK government and the USA
presidential election candidates
used blogs to support their
campaigns
Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses

9. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
9
Microblogging - Twitter
• Similar to blogging, but only
facilitates short updates “Get short,
timely messages …”
• Contains some personal information
and encourages a following / fan
base
• Most business sites now feature the
Twitter symbol
• Notable celebrities that tweet include
Stephen Fry, Ashton Kutcher
(millions of followers!)
Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses

10. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
10Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses
Social networking - Facebook
• Facebook came into existence as an
internal friendship network for students of
Harvard College (Feb 4 2004.) Since then
it has grown phenomenally with over 40
million active users.
• Features:
– Connection with friends
– Real time newsfeed updates
– Profile incl: pictures, video, web links etc
– Event calendar (and invitation function)
– Ability to set up groups or join other groups
– Give virtual gifts; gaming; market place etc
Business usage has increased significantly with Facebook now becoming a part of company’s social media marketing. This is not for
however for all businesses as they may find their marketing budget is better spent elsewhere. everyone. Many “savvy” facebook members
prefer simply use the site for finding or maintaining friendships rather than anything else.

11. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
11Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses
Social (professional) networking – Linkedin
• This social network can be used to find jobs,
people or business opportunities
– You can input information to a “Profile” (company or
individual) and include a photo plus details of your (or
company) website and link to Twitter
– The “Profile” itself either reflects details about the
company or a personal c.v.
– “Connections” are built by sending invitations, or through
LinkedIn invites
• Features include:
– Company / Employee Research
– LinkedIn Answers
– LinkedIn Groups
– Recommendations (from your connections)
– Real time updates “Share an update …”
– Network updates and daily / weekly digest by email
Resources: http://learn.linkedin.com/new-users/ http://learn.linkedin.com/consultants/ http://learn.linkedin.com/job-seekers/
As of 8 April 2010 LinkedIn
had more than 65 million
registered users

12. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
Social Media: utilising
LinkedIn as a social media
platform
7Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses

13. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
• Ensuring that you are “connected” and posting regular
updates through your social network can be time
consuming
• For those of you that don’t have a dedicated social
media team it can feel as though there is a huge effort
for little return
• The truth however is that your customer / prospect are
likely to be using a number of social media channels.
Focusing on just one channel could mean you
potentially miss out on communicating with many
• The trick is to try and use a single source to update as
many channels as possible. For businesses on a budget
LinkedIn provides just this … and it is free.
Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses

14. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
• LinkedIn has a number of applications /
social media channels that you can
associate with your profile
• Once you “plug” these into your profile,
you only need to do a single update for it
to appear in both
• With Twitter for example you are able to
post Tweets through your Twitter
account that appear in your LinkedIn
profile, or vice versa.
Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses
LinkedIn and Twitter
To add your Twitter account, visit “Edit My Profile” and click “Add Twitter account” next to
the Twitter field. Twitter will ask you to verify your account name and password. Once
the account is verified, you’ll be asked how you’d like to share your tweets on LinkedIn.

15. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
• SlideShare is the world's largest community for
sharing presentations. You can embed
presentations into your own blog, website or
associate with your LinkedIn account
Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses
LinkedIn and SlideShare
• Set up a SlideShare
account
• Upload presentations either
through LinkedIn or
Slideshare for it to appear in
both channels
• When in LinkedIn, your
presentations will appear in
your profile
SlideShare is present on both Linkedin and Facebook. Sync both these accounts with
SlideShare and you have a holy triad. Upload to any one — SlideShare, Facebook or LinkedIn
and it will shows up instantly on all three

16. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
• This application enables you to showcase your
creative work in your LinkedIn Profile and vice versa
Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses
LinkedIn and Creative Portfolio Display
• After installing the application, upload your portfolio
in the Behance Network (a free online platform for
creative professionals.)
• You can create an unlimited number of multimedia
projects and can select which projects are displayed
on your LinkedIn profile.

17. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses
• LinkedIn Applications
– There are numerous
applications available through
LinkedIn to associate and sync
with your profile
– Access these from the menu
bar. Select More and then Get
More Applications
– Take time to review which are
most appropriate and
concentrate your efforts on
setting them up with a view to
updating as frequently as you
can

18. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
Developing your Social Media
strategy (extract only)
12Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses

19. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses 13
Developing your Social Media Strategy
• Determine objectives
• What do you want to achieve?
• Generate awareness; stimulate a “following”; launch a product; lead generation;
enhance reputation / expertise
• Note you may have different objectives if using multiple platforms
• Agree goals
• Define up to 5 key “goals” which can be measured (SMART)
• Define strategy
• Outline your communication and brand strategy
• Ensure you have determined who your target audience; the image you want to
project; and relevant timely messages
• Draw up a plan
• Keep on track by outlining specific actions on a time based plan

20. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses 14
Developing your Social Media Strategy
• Other considerations:
• Find people to follow / encourage people to join, follow you (establish
fans) or recommend
• Use the tools regularly, even if only for short updates (keep it fresh)
• Link to other Social Media platforms (blogs, twitter, newswires etc)
• But be aware of the time this can take!
• Integrate with other forms of communication / marketing collateral
• Include to your email sign off etc
• Integrate directly on your website
• Stick to the PLAN … and make sure you are doing only what you set
out to achieve.

21. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
Natalie Griffiths Associates
• Overview
– Natalie Griffiths Associates is a London based marketing consultancy resource
offering flexible executive level support for small to large sized organisations.
– During a time of economic uncertainty, increasing your permanent work force can
be hard to justify. The aim with Natalie Griffiths Associates is to ensure you get
the right help on an interim basis.
– Whether it’s developing strategic marketing plans for 2011, determining brand
direction or integrating social media into the communication mix, Natalie Griffiths
Associates brings both a track record and corporate level experience to help drive
your business forward.
• Common Issues & Challenges
– Rapid change to your organisation has led to a senior level skills shortage
– Your product launch will miss its deadline without leadership support
– Fresh impetus is required to get things moving on a complex project
– It's time consuming to find executive level resources with a track record
Providing expert marketing support to help drive your business forward

22. © Natalie Griffiths Associates 2010
• For more information contact Natalie on:
• Website: www.nataliegriffithsassociates.co.uk
• Mobile: 07904972864
• Landline: 02070891439
– Or Skype for free
• Email: info@nataliegriffithsassociates.co.uk
Natalie Griffiths Associates