1. Social Media Fundamentals & Best Practices
By Tom Taylor, Social Media Manager
Connelly Partners, www.connellypartners.com

2. Overview
• Who’s Tom?
• Why is social important
• How to get started with social
• How to maximize your efforts
• MOTT Social

3. Who’s Tom?
• Connelly Partners, Social Engagement Supervisor
– Social strategy development
– Community management & monitoring
– Content development, production & curation
– Reporting, analytics, & optimization
• Working hand-in-hand with MOTT on all things social
• Where can you find me?
– LinkedIn
– Twitter: @thom_taelour

4. What do we currently know & why is it important?

5. What do we currently know?
• Social media has become part of our everyday lives
– There are nearly 850 millions users on Facebook
– 23% of Facebook users check their account 5+ times a day
– 80% of social users prefer to connect with brands through Facebook
– In 2012, there were 175 million tweets sent every day
– 32% of all Internet users are using Twitter
– 11 new accounts are created every second on Twitter
• Social is (and will continue to be) visual-dependent:
– 250 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day
– 5 million photos are uploaded to Instagram every day
– 5 Vines are shared every second

6. Why is it important?
• The influence of social recommendations (specifically amongst
Millennials: who fall between the ages of 16 – 29)

7. Why is it important?
• The ability to inspire travel through social content

8. Why is it important?
• The ability to inspire travel through social content

9. Why is it important?
The Big Question: Social ROI to the $$ with destination marketing?
• We can influence & inspire travel through visual & resourceful content
• We can stimulate exchange and interaction between brand & community

10. How do you get started?

11. 1. Goals & Objectives
• What is it that you’re trying to accomplish?
• Foster relationships?
• Generate awareness?
• Drive traffic to your website?
• Inspire travel to your destination?
• Create a social presence as a customer service outlet?
2. Content Strategy
• What is it that you’re going to say?
• How do you plan to say it?
3. Resources & Process
• What’s available content & resource-wise?
• Do you have the bandwidth? Full-time commitment
How do you get started?

12. How to maximize your efforts?
• What to publish
• When to publish
• How to publish

13. How to maximize your efforts?
• What to publish
• When to publish
• How to publish
Content Buckets:
• 3-4 content subjects/topics that are relevant to your brand/destination
– What content is already available?
– What types of content can you develop?
– What content can you regularly curate?

14. How to maximize your efforts?
• What to publish
• When to publish
• How to publish
Determine when your audience wants to hear from you:
• AM/PM, daily vs. weekly, frequency & volume
• “When would you like to see this post?”
• Trial, error & optimization
Starting point:
• Post: Monday, Wednesday, Friday
• Pre-10AM, 2-3PM, Post-8PM

15. How to maximize your efforts?
• What to publish
• When to publish
• How to publish
The weight of content:
• Facebook’s EdgeRank
• Affinity
• Weight
• Time
• Photos = More Engagement.
• Plain Text = Greater Reach.

16. Story Bumping:
Allows engaging posts that you
haven’t seen to be bumped up to the
top of your News Feed later in the
day.
Takeaway:
An increase in engagement per post
leads to an increased lifespan within
the News Feed.
Understanding Facebook’s latest News Feed updates.
How to maximize your efforts?

17. Last Actor:
Takes into account the last 50
engagements a user has performed,
and populates similar content within
their News Feed based on those
engagements.
Takeaway:
An increase in engagement among a
user creates a much greater
likelihood of that user seeing your
content again.
Understanding Facebook’s latest News Feed updates.
How to maximize your efforts?

18. How to maximize your efforts?
• What to publish
• When to publish
• How to publish
The power of a question:
• Driving a response
• Starting a conversation

19. How to maximize your efforts?
• What to publish
• When to publish
• How to publish
Details & Mechanics
• Attaching links correctly

20. How to maximize your efforts?
• What to publish
• When to publish
• How to publish
Details & Mechanics
• Properly tagging on Facebook
– “@name of Facebook page”
– Links to the page mentioned
– Notifies the page mentioned

21. How to maximize your efforts?
• What to publish
• When to publish
• How to publish
Details & Mechanics
• Twitter:
– Simplicity & curiosity

22. How to maximize your efforts?
• What to publish
• When to publish
• How to publish
Details & Mechanics
• Twitter:
• #Hashtags
• Organizing conversations
• Reaching conversations

23. How to maximize your efforts?
• Process & Organization
– Content calendar
– Develop a rhythm

24. How to maximize your efforts?
• Process & Organization

25. How to maximize your efforts?
Formula to success: each week, do this:
1. Drive to your website/informational
2. Visually featured your product/destination
3. Curated content relevant to your brand
4. Ask a question, start a conversation
5. Utilize a text-only post
6. Feature content worth sharing
• Did you know/fun facts
• Holidays/timely news

26. How to maximize your efforts?
• Process & Organization: Monitoring & engaging

27. Is it working? Facebook’s Insights will tell you.
Growth: Likes, followers, and advocates.
• Are you fostering a relevant and meaningful community that you can market to on an ongoing
basis?
Engagement: Likes, comments, shares, retweets, mentions, replies, or clicks.
• Each social interaction is considered an endorsement, and leads to a greater affinity among
fans
Reach: The number of users who see your content within a social media channel.
• The value in social media beyond gaining likes, is the ability to communicate specific
messaging to large groups of relevant consumers

28. Is it working?
• What are the KPI’s?
– Social referral traffic

29. Is it working?
• Sift through the noise, and focus on the metrics that align with your goals
& objectives:
• Growth
• Engagement
• Traffic

30. MOTT Social

31. MOTT Social
What we publish:
• Content Buckets
– Useful & resourceful: Massavacation.com
– Engagement-driven: questions & conversation starters
– Entertaining & compelling: sunsets, landscapes, unique
When we publish
• 1-2x/day: Facebook: 2x/Saturday & Sunday
• 3-5x/day: Twitter
• 3-5x/week: blog
How we publish:
• Photo & Link heavy
• How can we incorporate a question?
• Ensuring that those mentioned are benefiting

32. MOTT Social
What we publish:
• Content Buckets
– Useful & resourceful

33. MOTT Social
What we publish:
• Content Buckets
– Engagement-driven

34. MOTT Social
What we publish:
• Content Buckets
– Entertaining &
Compelling

35. MOTT Blog, MassFinds
Leveraging in-depth blog content
• The power of fresh, frequent content
• Utilizing SMEs (guest bloggers)
• Platform for storytelling

36. Two Takeaways
1.Be visual, use photos.
2.The more engagement, the greater the reach.

37. How can we work together?

38. Contact:
Tom Taylor, ttaylor@connellypartners.com
Questions?