Presented at Castro Valley Adult and Career Education on 10 March 2012.

1. MARKETING USING
SOCIAL MEDIA
Instructor Heather Mellon

2. Big Questions
Will social media make my business
money?
What platforms should I be using?
How do I know when it’s working?

3. Marketing Using Social Media
 Directories & Reviews
 Content Marketing
 Pinterest
 Twitter
 Facebook

4. Big Questions
Will social media make my business
money?
What platforms should I be using?
How do I know when it’s working?

5. Will social media make me
money?
 Yes and no.
 Intangiblevs. direct $ return
 Platforms and tools are free, but cost is TIME
 You might need to spend $ on ads
 Depends on platform and your goals

6. What platforms should I use?
 Research
 What are your customers & competition using
 Branding
 What makes sense for your brand
 Comfort
 What platforms are you comfortable using
 Time
 Some platforms require more time for a bigger return
 Ask
 When in doubt, ask an expert!

7. How do I know it’s working?
 Growth in audience
 Will be slow, but should be steady
 If you plateau, try something new
 Growth in customers
 Shouldhelp build regulars
 Eventually lead to increase in sales
 Note: Loyal customers become brand
ambassadors

8. Directories & Reviews
Time commitment: low
Engagement: low
Best for: customer service feedback

9. Directories
 Google Places
 URL: google.com/places
 Usually near top of search results
 Requires Gmail account
 Patch Places
 URL:castrovalley.patch.com
 Good local resource
 Covers Castro Valley & San Lorenzo
 Other locations in CA

10. Reviews – Yelp!
[biz.yelp.com/claiming]
PROS CONS
 Update basic info  Not all reviews are
(hours, cost, phone) accurate
 Keep track of &  Pressure to spend $
respond to reviews  Hidden/missing
 Post offers/deals reviews?
 Visitor statistics

11. Yelp! best practices
DOs DON’Ts
 Track reviews  Sabotage your
 Even without an competition
account  Falsify or pay for
 Respond good reviews
constructively to  Scare off customers
negative reviews who give bad
reviews

12. Content Marketing
Time commitment: moderate to high
Engagement: varies
Best for: provide value to your audience

13. Content Marketing
 Providing information related to your brand
 Tools& tips, behind the scenes, explanations, etc.
 Should be included in all social media & on
website
 Gives VALUE – a reason to follow/interact/share
 Blogging
 Blogger – best for text-based blogs
 Requires Google account
 Tumblr– best for photo-heavy blogs
 Wordpress – good for all types of blogs

14. Pinterest
Time commitment: moderate
Engagement: high
Best for: visual brands, connecting to
website

15. Pinterest
 Virtual pin board
 Very trendy
 Focus on images, not text
 Ideal for driving traffic to your website
 Word of warning: concerns about copyright
 Case studies:
 Whole Foods
 Real Simple
 The Beauty Department

16. Twitter
Time commitment: high
Engagement: moderate to high
Best for: instant & direct communication

17. Twitter
 Real time, microblogging, 140 characters at a
time
 Optimized for mobile phones
 Help drive traffic to your website
 Least formal platform
 Use of slang, interaction, voice
 Word of warning: fickle audience
 Case studies:
 NBA (@NBA)
 JetBlue Airways (@JetBlue)

18. BONUS: Scheduling Tools
Scheduling tools help you with time
management

19. Scheduling Tools
 Why schedule?
 Optimize for time & day
 Increases efficiency & time management
 Tools provide analytics (data)
 How do I know what to post?
 Editorial calendar will help you stay focused
 Scheduling Tools (free! Facebook & Twitter!)
 Hootsuite
 Tweetdeck

20. Facebook
Time commitment: moderate to high
Engagement: varies
Best for: biggest audience of all platforms
(845 million users)

21. Facebook
 Just launched “Timeline” for brands
 You can include company milestones
 Most universally used & diverse of all
platforms
 Great for photos, video, links, text
 Word of warning: slow to grow at first
 Case studies:
 Coca-Cola & Starbucks
 Dove
 Target

22. Facebook Insights
 Page posts
 Shows you past posts
 Sort by different categories to optimize day, time,
content
 People Talking About
 The number of unique users who have interacted
with your page (comments, likes, shares)
 Reach
 The number of unique users who have seen any
of your page’s content (News Feed, ads, friend
posts)

23. Thank you!
Instructor Heather Mellon
heather.mellon@gmail.com
@heathermayumi