Social Media in the Business Environment
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This document provides an overview of social media for business students. It defines social media and explains why companies need a presence in social media spaces. The main purposes of social media for businesses are identified as customer service, marketing, branding, public relations, sales, and recruiting. The presentation outlines best practices for establishing a social media presence and dividing social media roles within a company. Specific guidelines are provided for common social media platforms like blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
Social Media in the Business Environment
- 1. SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT: A PRESENTATION TO BAKER UNIVERSITY BUSINESS STUDENTS Dec. 2, 2011 Maria Fogliasso @KCGrammarGirl
- 2. WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA?
- 3. SOCIAL MEDIA DEFINED Online communications in which we shift instantly and easily between the role of audience and creator – without needing to know how to code. We do this by using social software that incorporates functions like publishing, sharing, friending, commenting, linking and tagging.
- 4. WHY DO COMPANIES NEED TO BE ACTIVE IN THE SOCIAL MEDIA SPACE?
- 5. WHAT PURPOSE DOES SOCIAL MEDIA SERVE WITHIN COMPANIES? 1. Customer service 2. Marketing 3. Brand 4. Public relations 5. Sales 6. Recruiting
- 6. ESTABLISHING A PRESENCE • Who is your target audience? • Where are they active online? • What resources to you have available internally? PREPARING TO LAUNCH • Educate internal stakeholders & set expectations • Establish a social media policy for employees & potentially develop training • Establish a comment policy for social media sites • Identify success metrics • Identify subject matter experts and contributors • Promote your presence!
- 7. HOW IS THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA DIVIDED WITHIN COMPANIES? There are five primary models: 1. Organic 2. Centralized 3. Coordinated 4. Hub & spoke 5. Honeycomb
- 8. ORGANIC CENTRALIZED Source: Jeremiah Owyang
- 9. COORDINATED HUB & SPOKE Source: Jeremiah Owyang
- 11. SUCCESS METRICS • Reach – numbers (how many followers, etc.) • Buzz – numbers (how many mentions, etc.) • Influence – Klout • Sentiment – positive, negative or neutral • Engagement – # of interactions, speed of response, # of issues resolved
- 12. THE “BIG 5”
- 13. WHY BLOG? • Search engine optimization • To fill a need between press releases and Facebook posts • To respond in times of crisis • To give a personality and voice to your brand • To establish yourself as a thought leader TIPS • It’s a conversation, so allow comments • Remember to write from a WIIFM perspective • Publish a comment policy
- 14. WHY USE TWITTER? • It’s viral • To provide customer service – the conversation is happening • To monitor sentiment about your brand • To track the competition TIPS • Use the “reply” feature liberally to engage • DM when customer data is involved, or direct the conversation offline • Leave room for retweets • When including hyperlinks, use URL shorteners with tracking (like Bit.ly)
- 15. WHY USE FACEBOOK? • More than 800 million active users are on Facebook • Facebook allows for a variety of content formsts (text, video, photos, hyperlinks) • Having a Facebook presence is becoming an expectation TIPS • Ask questions • Publish a comment policy • Keep it relevant with geo-targeting • Personalize tabs and create applications as appropriate • Using Facebook Ads, you can target your ideal market by demographic data • Be prepared for feedback – positive and negative
- 16. WHY USE YOUTUBE? • Usage – more than 2 billion videos are viewed daily • It’s the second largest search engine behind Google • It’s engaging – more than 50 percent of videos have been rated or include comments • It’s easy to share YouTube videos across other popular social media sites
- 17. WHY USE LINKEDIN? • Showcase your expertise by letting you join LinkedIn Answers • Build professional relationships within a specific industry using “groups” • Great for recruiting and job posting
- 18. SMALL BUSINESSES & SOCIAL MEDIA Source: Mashable infographics, February 2011
- 19. CONTENT IDEAS • Third-party articles or blog posts you think your followers would find valuable • Tips • Inspirational quotes • News from your industry • Offers, discounts and promotions • Customer service responses • Pose questions to your followers • Upcoming events • New product and service announcements • Local news and events • Pop culture
- 20. FINAL TIPS • Remember – not all businesses need social media presences. • Don’t bite off more than you can chew. • Set expectations within your company. • Engage. Pose questions. Reply. • Watch your spelling and grammar. • Promote the accounts. • Don’t be too promotional. • Provide value. Remember: WIIFM? • Social media is about having a two-way conversation.
- 21. QUESTIONS? CONTACT ME! Maria Fogliasso @KCGrammarGirl
Editor's Notes
- #3: When you think of “social media,” most people think of types rather than the definition. There are forums, blogs, networks, multimedia sharing sites, bookmarking sites, RSS readers and microblogs.
- #5: Pew Research Center reported in January 2011 that 41% of people say they get most of their news about national and international news from the internet. more people continue to cite the internet than newspapers as their main source of news, reflecting both the growth of the internet, and the gradual decline in newspaper readership (from 34% in 2007 to 31% now). The proportion citing radio as their main source of national and international news has remained relatively stable in recent years; currently, 16% say it is their main source.
- #6: There isn’t just one purpose. This is also where it sometimes lives. All of these organizations need to be represented in both strategy and messaging. Customer service: Every business needs customer feedback, and interacting with your audience is very important in today’s marketplace. People really want to get to know who it is they are dealing with on a daily basis, and this will help them with making buying decisions and in turn – they will help you with getting customers if they are treated well. And people will voice complaints. Marketing: There is no other method of marketing that is as effective as social media marketing and to make things even better, you can’t beat the cost. You see, social networks level the playing field when it comes to small, medium, and large businesses. If you have a product that someone finds interesting or useful, you could potentially be an overnight success and spend pennies achieving it compared to other marketing methods.Brand: Having a social media presence allows people to get to know your brand – the voice, the valuesBuilding Trust among the CommunityOnce you’ve spent a considerable amount of time interacting with the community, you will find that this method not only allows people to get to know you but it also builds trust between people and the community. When people trust you, they will buy from you. And they will tell others to buy from you as well.
- #7: Some companies make the mistake of jumping into social media accounts without thinking through important considerations.
- #8: There isn’t just one purpose. This is also where it sometimes lives. All of these organizations need to be represented in both strategy and messaging.
- #9: Organic: Notice that the dots (those using social tools) are inconsistent in size and one set of employees are not directly connected to others.-- Advantages: Looks authentic and therefore trusted as multiple conversations appear closer to products and customers.-- Drawbacks: Inconsistent experience to customers, one side of the company has no idea what the other side is doing, and multiple enterprise software deployments. Later, a nightmare for IT data management and marketing.Centralized: Notice that a central group initiates and represents business units, funneling up the social strategy to one group.-- Advantages: Great for consistent customer experience, coordinated resources, and rapid response-- Drawbacks: May appear very inauthentic as press releases are rehashed on blog posts or videos by stiff executives.
- #10: Coordinated: Notice how a central group will help to provide an equal experience to other business units.-- Advantages: The central group is aware of what each node is doing and provides a holistic experience to customers with centralized resources-- Drawbacks: Costly. Executive support required, program management, and cross-departmental buy in.Multiple hub & spoke notice how each business unit may have semi-autonomy with an over arching tie back to a central group.-- Advantages: Business units are given individual freedom to deploy as they see fit, yet a common experience is shared amongst all units-- Drawbacks: Requires constant communication from all teams to be coordinated which can result in excessive internal noise. Requires considerable cultural and executive buy in, as well as dedicated staff.
- #11: Holistic “Honeycomb” notice how each individual in the organization is social enabled, yet in a consistent, organized pattern.--Advantage: Tapping into your entire workforce (Best Buy’s Twelpforce is an example) to support and help customers-- Drawback: Requires executives that are ready to let go to gain more, a mature cultural ethos, and executives that walk the talk.
- #12: Klout’s one of the more well-known tools on the social market and says its mission is to identify who has influence on the Web, how much of it they have and on what topics they are influential about.To do this, Klout tracks activity on ten different social networks to get a better understanding of a user’s online profileTo get a glimpse of your own or someone else’s Klout-determined influence, just sync your accounts OR enter in a username. Once you do, Klout will graph the influence and pick out several key data points, including:Klout Score: A measurement of your overall online influencer.Network Influence: The influence level of your engaged audience.Amplification Probability: The likelihood that your content will be acted upon.True Reach
- #13: There are a lot of social media networks out there, but here are 5 that companies traditionally focus on. They’re similar, but they all can be used in slightly different ways.
- #14: Blogs
- #15: Twitter
- #16: Facebook
- #17: Youtube
- #18: LinkedIn“MySpace is the Bar, Facebook the Backyard BBQ, and LinkedIn the Office”