Social Media Marketing 201

Social Media 201

Advanced Social Media Marketing
by: Mike Brcic, president/owner,
Sacred Rides Mountain Bike Holidays
www.sacredrides.com

Please note: this is a follow-up to the Social Media Marketing 101
workbook. A basic understanding of the techniques of social media marketing is
helpful (but not mandatory) for understanding the material within.

©Mike Brcic/Sacred Rides Mountain Bike Holidays
647-999-7955 ride@sacredrides.com

Social Media 201

Advanced uses of Social Media.

An introduction

In Social Media Marketing 101 we covered some of the basics of social media
marketing, such as using blogs to connect with your customers. In Social Media
Marketing 201 we’ll delve a little deeper into using the world of social media.

Which Social Media Tools to Use

A common question I get asked is “I’m extremely interested in using social media
to promote my business, but my time is limited. If I want to just focus on using one
or two tools, which should I focus on?”

My answer to that question varies, depending on the business or organization I’m
interested in promoting. Each business will lend itself more easily to certain
technologies and tools more than others. It also depends on what your goals
are: if your goal is to generate more customer leads, I would focus on Facebook
or a well-researched and frequently updated blog. If your goal is to generate
professional partnerships with other companies or organizations that can help
you grow your business, then I would recommend using LinkedIn. YouTube and
photosharing sites like Flickr can be extremely effective promotional tools, but if
your business doesn’t lend itself to visuals easily, then I would recommend not
spending too much time with them.

So, again, which tools you use depends greatly on the nature of your
business/organization and what your business goals are. Spend some time
reading through this workbook (and Social Media Marketing 101 if you have
downloaded that as well) and spend a bit of time getting to know the various
social media tools out there. Over time you’ll get a sense of which are the best
for your business.

Using Social Media Efficiently

I use a number of different social media tools for connecting with my customers.
These include:

• YouTube + Google Video
• Flickr
• Facebook
• A blog
• A client photo upload gallery
• LinkedIn
• Google Alerts + Blog Search
• bookmarking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us
• A monthly newsletter


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It’s a lot to keep track of, and if I didn’t use the tools efficiently they would lose
effectiveness quickly. Any social media tool has to be kept relevant with
frequent updating and maintenance, otherwise customers lose interest.

To keep track of all of these social media sites and tools, I make myself a weekly
schedule: on Mondays I update my blog, on the 1st Monday of every month I
send out a newsletter, on the 2nd Monday I send out a blog broadcast, on
Wednesdays and Fridays I visit my Facebook Groups, etc…

Keeping a regular schedule ensures that I keep the content of my various social
media sites interesting, current and relevant. Even if it’s just a paragraph, or a
couple of new photos, it’s enough to keep things interesting and, depending on
to tool you’re using, enough to send out an update or notification to members of
the group.

Even if you’re just using one social media tool such as Facebook, make yourself a
regular reminder (e.g. twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays) to visit the site
and update content and respond to people who have made requests.


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Social Media Techniques, part II
1. Customer Database Management + Relationship Management

Technically this isn’t really
social media marketing, but
it’s so important I want to talk
about it before I delve into
social media techniques.

Proper customer relationship
management is key to
developing prosperous
longterm relationships with
your clients. Maintaining a
good customer database and knowing how to use it will reap major dividends
for you.

There are literally hundreds of Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
software solutions out there. Rather than use one of the expensive, feature-rich
systems available, I use the inexpensive e-mail/calendar system Microsoft
Entourage. Entourage allows me to keep track of my clients and potential
clients, the correspondence I’ve had with them, and any actions I’ve taken with
them or products they’ve purchased through me.

How do I use Entourage for good client relationship management?

1. When an e-mail comes in with a new client lead, I immediately add that
contact to my address book and link the contact to the e-mail. I list that
contact in one or more categories according to how they heard about us
(this helps me track my marketing efforts) and what trip they were
interested in (I can then later send out a group e-mail to everyone who
was ever interested in a Peru trip for instance, if I have a last-minute
cancellation or a new trip I want to promote).
2. I then immediately create a ‘task’ to follow up with that client in 1 week (if
I haven’t heard a response to my first e-mail by then).
3. I use one of the draft e-mail templates to respond to the client so that I
am not always typing in the same information each time a client asks
about a particular trip.
4. A week later I will look at my task menu and see a task to e-mail or call the
client again to follow up on my first contact with them. If I need more
information I can click on the link button to see all the correspondence
I’ve had with them, including their initial e-mail.
5. After I follow up with them a 2nd time, I set another task to follow up with
them in 3 months. If after the 3rd attempt I still haven’t heard back from
them I’ll stop setting tasks to follow up with them (but will still have them in
my address book and sorted by category if I ever want to contact them


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again).
6. If a lead ends up booking a trip, then I link them to the calendar ‘event’
I’ve created for that trip. I can also check the category I placed them in
according to how they found out about Sacred Rides. This allows me to
accurately track my marketing spending and return on investment.
7. At any time I can click on their links and see all the trips they’ve taken with
my company over the years, and all the correspondence I’ve had with
them.

Although I use Entourage for my adventure tourism business, it can be a very
useful tool for any business for keeping track of all of your
customers/suppliers/partners, etc… and for all the correspondence you have
with them.

I also use it to set other non-customer-related tasks, and at the beginning of
each day I check my task list and cross them off one by one (by clicking the
‘completed’ button – a nice little psychological boost!)

2. Advanced Facebook techniques

The Facebook Toolbar and the Share button

If you use the Firefox browser, there is a great little Facebook tool you can use to
simplify and enhance your Facebook experience – the Facebook Toolbar. This is
a toolbar that is added to your browser and allows you to easily check
messages, view friend updates, update your status and share web pages with
your friends.

To install the toolbar, enter Facebook Toolbar into the Facebook search field,
and follow the prompts to install it in your Firefox browser. Once you restart you’ll
be able to start using the toolbar. The toolbar includes icons for messages,
events, your friend list, a search field, and the share button.

The Share button

Because so many of my Facebook friends are past or potential future clients, an
easy way for me to keep them informed about new trips and deals I am offering
is via the ‘share’ button. If there’s a webpage I want to promote (e.g. a page
we’ve just uploaded for a new trip we’re offering, or a video one of our clients
has uploaded), then I just navigate to that page and click on the share button in
the Facebook Toolbar - the page gets posted to my profile and on the news
feed of every one of my Facebook friends. I can also add comments to the post
for that personal touch.

n.b.: you can share Facebook Groups and Events without the toolbar. There’s
two ways to do it:


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1) If it’s a page on Facebook, such as group or event pages, just look for the
Share+ button to the right of groups and events pages. This is an easy way to
promote your groups and events to your friends.
2) If it’s a non-Facebook page, go to your Facebook home page, click on
‘Profile’, and then click on the ‘Share Link’ tab. Enter the URL of the web page
you want to share and click ‘post.’

Photo and video sharing

Let’s say a client has purchased your product/service and loves it. Let’s also say
they’ve taken pictures or videos of themselves using your product/service (for
instance, one of my clients has taken photos from their trip to Peru). Remember
that Facebook Group we created in Social Media Marketing 101? That would
be a great place for those photos, wouldn’t it?

When my clients are finished their trip, I send them a thank you e-mail along with
instructions on how to upload their photos to Facebook and share them on our
group page. I also ask them to reference my company when they’re uploading
the pictures, either in the album title or description (i.e. “photos from my trip to
Peru with Sacred Rides Mountain Bike Holidays).

After they’ve uploaded an album of photos, they can go to my Facebook online
group and click ‘upload photos’ and select photos from that album. Now their
photos are available online for all visitors to my Facebook group.

Ditto with videos. If a client is working on a video of an experience they’ve had
with your product/service, ask them if they’ll either a) put a mention to your
company directly in the video or b) add a mention of your company to the
video description.


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2. A Picture is Worth 1,000 words, A Video is Worth 1,000 Pictures: using
multimedia to engage your clients: Flickr, YouTube, GoogleVideo, etc...

Because I am in the adventure tourism
industry, my company is very well set up
to take advantage of multimedia: most
of my client bring a camera with them
on their tour, some of them bring video
cameras, and some even bring helmet
cameras.

The pictures and videos that my clients
take on their trips are an incredible
opportunity for other people to
experience what my clients experience
on their trips and to get a sense of what
a Sacred Rides adventure is like. They
are also an incredible opportunity to
take advantage of social media.

YouTube, Google video

Two of the biggest video-sharing sites on the Internet are YouTube and Google
Video. YouTube is now the #1 site, period, on the Internet. More and more
people are now getting their news and entertainment fix via online video
sources, vs. the traditional television.

Creating an account

Although Google Video and YouTube are partners, it’s easiest if you create an
account via YouTube directly rather than via Google Video.

Click on ‘Sign Up’ (top right).
Add your information.
Click on the confirmation e-mail in your inbox.
You’re now ready to start uploading video.

Uploading Video

Click on the Yellow ‘Upload Video’ button on your home page.
Add a title and description.
Once the upload is finished, you will have to wait a minute or two before the
video is done processing. Once it is done processing you can visit the page for
that video and watch it online.

Adding YouTube/Google video to your website


Social Media 201

To the right of your video you will see a box with the word ‘Embed’ next to it.
Copy the code within the box and paste it in the HTML code on the page on
your website where you want the video to appear. If you have some knowledge
of web design, you can change the width and height parameters to make the
size work with your website.

Embedding video on your website is an excellent way to let your potential clients
get a sense of your company/organization and the products/services you offer.

Using video to engage your clients

Posting your own videos is just a start for using video as a marketing tool.
Allowing your customers to create content for your website offers a level of
engagement that makes people excited about your brand and your
products/services.

If you offer a service (for instance, an adventure tour) that lends itself well to
video, then you should be taking advantage of the technology and allowing
your clients to ‘evangelize’ for you! Offer a page on your website where you
post your clients’ videos, and ask them to make reference to your
company/organization in their video so that when others see it elsewhere (e.g.
on the YouTube site) they know how to find you.

Taking it to the next level

In late 2008 I will be launching an online video contest, with the winner receiving
a free trip to Peru, all expenses paid (worth about $4000). I’ll ask people to
create a video, and tell me in 1 minute or less why they love mountain biking.
The contest will be promoted on the top mountain biking websites and blogs.

Once they’ve created their video and uploaded it to YouTube, I’ll ask them to
send me the link and will post the video on our website. Once it’s on the
website, people will have the option to vote on the videos.

The winner will be selected according to two criteria: 1) number of votes
received and 2) top rated by our panel of judges.

Because each of the people who creates a video will be so eager to win the trip
to Peru, they’ll e-mail every one of their friends and ask them to visit the website
and vote on their video. With a $4000 prize at stake, it’s not out of the realm of
probability that they’ll each e-mail 50 friends. If 100 people upload videos and
e-mail 50 of their friends, that’s 5,000 new visitors to my website. Each one of
those visitors will likely return to the website several times to see the progress of
their friend’s video, and over time there will be additional traffic driven to the
website by other curious mountain bike fans. From a promotional contest like this
I can reasonably expect at least 10,000 new visitors to my website. My cost of a
trip to Peru is about $1000 (sponsors are supplying other stuff like flights and bike
rental), so I’ve just received 10,000 new visitors – most of them repeat visitors – to


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my website for under 10 cents per visitor.

Flickr

There are many photosharing
sites on the Internet – Flickr is
one of the most popular and I
find it very easy to use and a
great tool for connecting with
others interested in the same
topics.

If you have a Yahoo! account,
you can create a Flickr account using your Yahoo ID. Otherwise, you’ll have to
create a Yahoo! ID.

Once you’ve created a Flickr/Yahoo account, you can start uploading pictures
to your ‘photostream’ (Your photostream is just the collection of photos you’ve
uploaded to Flickr).

Your photos can be easily organized into sets (groups of photos organized
around a common theme). When you upload photos, make sure you add ‘tags.’
Tags are keywords that help people find your photos.

Photo Galleries for your Customers

Because the nature of my business is so photo-friendly (most of my clients bring
cameras on their trips), I have a gallery on my website where clients can upload
their photos from their trip. Once they’re uploaded they can share them with
their friends and family – this brings additional traffic to my website, including
potential new clients.

There are a few uploadable photo gallery services out there. I use a free service
simply called Gallery: http://gallery.menalto.com. It requires a bit of web design
savvy, but once it’s installed it’s quite easy to use.

3. LinkedIn: the
Facebook for
professionals

LinkedIn is a social
networking site for
professionals: career-
minded people who
want to network with
other people to
develop their own skills,


Social Media 201

career or business. It is an excellent source for networking and getting advice on
a myriad of topics related to your business.

Getting Started

1. Go to www.linkedin.com.
2. Fill in your name and e-mail. Click ‘Continue.’
3. Fill in additional information about yourself on the next screen. Click ‘Join
LinkedIn.’
4. Check off the boxes that describe how you want to use LinkedIn.
5. On your home page, click on ‘Profile’ and fill in a bit more about yourself.
Make sure you include the URL for your business or organization so that
people can click to it.
6. In your e-mail inbox you’ll find an e-mail with a confirmation link to confirm
your e-mail address for LinkedIn. Go to your inbox and click on that
confirmation link.
7. Now it’s time to build your network. You can import contacts from online
e-mail servers such as Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail, import contacts from
your address book, or search for contacts via your past places of
employment or college/university.
8. Once you’re done importing contacts, you can start searching LinkedIn
for useful information and contacts.

Adding Contacts

The beauty of LinkedIn is that you can connect to virtually anyone, and can view
a brief profile of people whom you might wish to connect to before sending him
or her an invitation.

Connecting to connections: On your home page you’ll see a list of activity within
your network - the people that your contacts are connecting to. By clicking on a
contact that one of your contacts has connected to, you can view a brief
profile, including the company that person works for/owns. If that person sounds
like someone you’d like to add as a contact, then mouse over that person’s
name, wait for the box to open with their profile, and if you’d like to connect with
them, click on ‘invite to connect.’ Once the invitation page comes up, click on
the box that states how you know that person, and include a brief write-up on
why you want to connect with them on LinkedIn. Building your network this way
means that over time you’ll have a large network of people whom you can
update on your news or ask for advice, etc…

Learning Centre

LinkedIn has an excellent resource for learning how to use the LinkedIn network:
it’s called The Learning Centre. Scroll down to the bottom of your LinkedIn home
page and click on the Learning Centre link (to the right of the Company tab).

The Learning Centre has excellent user guides for all types of people using


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LinkedIn: Entrepreneurs, non-profits, consultants, etc.. Click on the appropriate
link under the ‘User Guides’ heading and learn more about how to use linked in
for your specific needs.

Groups

LinkedIn groups can be very useful for connecting with other people in your
industry, potential customers, or people with relevant knowledge to share.

1. Click on ‘Groups’ in the left column on your home page.
2. Click on the ‘Groups Directory’ tab and then enter a search term in the
‘Search Groups’ field on the right. Think of relevant groups for your
business or organization. For my business, I searched ‘mountain biking’,
‘adventure travel’, ‘tourism,’ ‘travel’ and ‘social media marketing.’
3. Browse the groups and make note of how many members each group
has. The more members a group has the more likely it will be that you can
connect with people who are interested in your services/goods or have
information and advice to share.
4. When you see a group that interests you, click on ‘Join This Group.’ Most
groups require approval by an administrator, so you’ll have to wait a day
or two usually before you’re accepted into the group.
5. Once you’re in the group, you can browse the discussion boards, reply to
posts, and make posts of your own. Use these discussion boards to make
yourself known, answer questions, and post relevant information for the
group.
Note: most groups and their administrators frown upon direct marketing/selling,
so be discreet about your posts. You’re far more likely to connect with potential
clients if you take a longterm approach and make relevant comments, and add
real value to the discussions. Over time you and your company/organization will
become more known to the group and if people are interested they will contact
you for more information.

Media and publicity

LinkedIn groups are an excellent way to meet journalists who can bring exposure
to your company/organization. There are several travel media groups that I use
to post information about upcoming new trips that we would like to invite media
on.

For instance, we have a new trip in New Zealand that we’d like to invite media
on in a few months. I visited a few of the travel and tourism and travel media
groups on LinkedIn, joined the groups, and then posted a post: “Sacred Rides
Mountain Bike Holidays is looking for experienced writers and photographers to
join an incredible 12-day mountain bike adventure in New Zealand in February
2009.” I posted a few more details and invited interested parties to contact me
via LinkedIn message. Within 2 days I had over 15 journalists contact me, many
of whom write for some of the biggest publications in the business. Within a week
I had secured a writer and photographer for the trip and assignment letters from


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4 large publications, as well as a film crew.

4. Blogging 2.0: how to get more people reading your blog, how to get
subscribers, guest blogging, etc...

Integrating your blog and newsletter

In the Social Media marketing 101 workbook, I discussed the components of a
great newsletter: engaging content, ease of use, interesting multimedia, etc.. I
also mentioned a newsletter service called AWeber (www.aweber.com). One
of the beauties of AWeber is that it has a lot of tools to allow you to tweak your
newsletter so that you can use it in the way that it is most relevant to you. One of
the best new features they have is called a Blog Broadcast. A blog broadcast
essentially means that you can broadcast your blog to the subscribers on your
newsletter list. (please note that AWeber does not pay me to promote their
service – I just believe in promoting great products and it is a great product).

This is a great tool for getting more readers on your blog. Make sure that the
content on your newsletter and your blog aren’t overlapping. I try to use my
newsletter to keep my clients up to date on new developments with my
company, spiced up with some interesting tidbits from the mountain
biking/adventure world. I use my blog to tell stories and invite stories and
comments from my readers, and rarely have overlapping items.

1. If you are using AWeber, then log in to your account. If you are not using
AWeber and are using a different newsletter service, ask them if they
have a blog broadcast option. If not, and you want to be able to
broadcast your blog to your newsletter subscribers, you should ask them if
they plan on adding this feature. If not, it’s time you switch to another
service. Look for one that offers this feature.
2. Mouse over ‘Messages’ and click on ‘Blog Broadcast.’
3. Enter the RSS feed for your blog (see the Social Media 101 workbook for
information on how to do this)
4. Enter any additional information you want to go with your blog in the
HTML or plain text fields
5. Select send time (I recommend 3 pm Eastern to catch people at work
when they’re most likely to want to read your blog)
6. Under ‘how often’, I recommend setting a specific date (i.e. 1st day of the
month) rather than using the number of new items as a criterion. This way
your subscribers won’t get overwhelmed with too many blog broadcasts
per month. Try to keep it to no more than 1 or 2 a month. This is
conjunction with your regular newsletter is more than enough for most
people. Also.. try to schedule the blog on a different day than when your
newsletter goes out.
7. Select click tracking.

5. Sharing: using sites like StumpleUpon, Reddit, Del.icio.us and other


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bookmarking/sharing sites to allow your customers to easily share your
site with others

Sites like StumbleUpon, Reddit and Del.icio.us are what are known as ‘social
bookmarking’ sites. These are ways for storing links to your favourite sites online,
and sharing them with others (this allows you to have a bookmarks folder that
can be accessed anywhere, with any computer).

These bookmarking sites allow you to share your pages with other users of the
service. Popular pages get flagged, and the more popular they become, well…
the more popular they become (kind of like a self-replicating loop). So if enough
people vote on your site (usually by clicking on a ‘thumbs-up’ link or a ‘Digg This’
link or similar), then you will make it to the most popular lists, and then you will
really start to see massive increases in traffic.

Below are some of the most popular sites. Have a browse through them and see
how they work. Most of the sites require that you create an account before you
can post sites to the list. Most also allow paid advertising – essentially paying to
have your site show up higher in the lists. Depending on the service, this can be
a good low-cost way to drive targeted traffic to your site – cheaper than Google
AdWords.

www.digg.com
www.stumbleupon.com
www.delicious.com
www.reddit.com
www.propeller.com

www.socialmarker.com (overview of all social bookmarking sites)

6. I’m the Expert: setting up a HubPage

HubPages are just like web pages.
Each one contains an article you
write that's filled with insight,
advice, information - whatever
you'd like to say on your favorite
topic. They are like a blog, but they
differ from blogs in that they
receive rankings: the higher your
Hub’s ranking, the greater the
chance that people will read your
Hub.

HubPages are not for everyone, but they are a great opportunity to get the
word out about a topic that is near and dear to you or that you have some
expertise on. Having an audience allows you to drive traffic to your company’s


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website if visitors to your Hub feel that your product or service might be of value
to them.

Note: HubPages require a significant time commitment. You will need to post to
your Hub frequently, at least once or twice a week, in order to start generating
traffic to it. The payoff is that not only can you drive traffic to your company’s
website, but you can also earn revenue from your Hub.

http://hubpages.com

7. Bringing it all Together: integrating your social media platform into one
seamless whole

As we’ve seen, there are many social media tools out there on the fast-paced
world of the information superhighway. The best approach to using these tools is
to integrate them all into a cohesive marketing strategy that brings together all
the various parts and aspects of your social media marketing. Your website
should have links to all the various sites that you use. If you use YouTube videos,
you should embed them directly into your site and give people the option to
subscribe to your YouTube videos so that they can be notified when new videos
get posted. Your blog should have links to your website and your other sites such
as your Facebook group, Flickr page, etc…

A strategy that ties all these tools together is key: when you have something new
to promote, you should have a step-by-step strategy for promoting it. For
instance, when I have a new trip to promote, these are the steps I follow:

1. Post photos to my Flickr photostream.
2. Post videos to my YouTube page.
3. Post the trip on my website, with a link to the Flickr page and the YouTube
video embedded onto the page.
4. Share it with my Facebook friends using the share button in my toolbar.
5. Post a link to the page and add photos+videos to my Facebook Group.
6. Create a Facebook event and invite members of the group and my
Facebook friends.
7. Write a blog entry about it, with links to the page on my site.
8. Share the web page on social bookmarking sites
9. Invite media on the trip via my LinkedIn profile and groups.
10. Send an e-mail to everyone who has expressed interest in the trip
beforehand (either by survey or by an email they have sent me).

You can create your own strategy for promotion – it helps to put all these steps
down in a list so that you can follow it step by step and not miss anything.


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An Overview
Combined with the techniques we covered in Social Media Marketing 101, you
now have a vast array of social media marketing tools at your disposal: effective,
low-cost or free ways of connecting with your customers.

Please note that social media marketing is not an easy, quick fix to your
marketing woes. Putting up a blog or Facebook group will on its own not bring
you thousands of customers beating down your door, clamoring to purchase
from you. These tools take continued effort and a commitment to keeping them
relevant and updated and interesting to your customers and potential
customers. Don’t expect instant results; however, if you have a good strategy,
patience, and “stick-with-it-ness”, you will see results.

Please note: if you are interested in having me prepare a detailed social media strategy
tailored to your business/organization, please call me at 647-999-7955 or e-mail me:
mike@bikeswithoutborders.org. I especially enjoy working with non-profit organizations,
adventure travel companies and social entrepreneurs. I will work with any budget, and
am open to bartering/trades.


Social Media Marketing 201

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