SMBME #42 – Starting Fresh

For this month’s breakfast we got back to basics and focused on setting up a foundation for social media success.

Trevor Jones of GWI talked about the basics of social media – from why to use it and how to get started, to measuring your results. Trevor pointed out some of the ways that social media can be good for search engine optimization, specifically blended and social search. Google now gives precedence to visual media, meaning that photos and videos can be used to dominate page one of Google. And social search? People just trust their friends more. Google and Bing now both offer social search and as it grows, social media will play a huge role in that space.

Trevor also talked about how important it is to know your customers’ goals before you begin – and to use the right networks for your different audience types. Other great tips for profile set up? Don’t forget to use photos and make sure you utilize keywords to optimize your profile for search. He also shared a great tool that allows you to check for your desired name or identity on multiple social networks at once – namechk.com

Trevor also highlighted the importance of content and responsiveness when building your audience. When curating others content, make sure to share your own point of view instead of simply re-sharing. Social media apps like Hootsuite and TweetDeck can help with content curation and monitoring – just remember that these tools can hurt Facebook Edgerank if used for scheduled posting.

Last but not least, Trevor talked about measurement, specifically what to measure: audience, sentiment, engagement, conversions and sales. He also shared the tools he recommends using for measurement: Excel, SocialMention, Google and Facebook Analytics and link tagging.

View Trevor’s presentation here:

Starting Fresh with Social Media from Social Media Breakfast Maine

 

When you’re building your social identity and presence, consistent content creation is vital. That’s where Dawn Doiron of Creative Content Partners comes in. Through a case study of her company’s event marketing of Stache Pag, Connie outlined how to build a consistent and integrated social marketing campaign. She talked about how she and her business partner took a strong but disjointed event campaign with existing viral potential and PR presence to an event with a cohesive message and quickly growing following.

She focused on four areas:

1. Voice – blog, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest – they found someone to be the voice of the event to keep the messaging across all networks consistent and true to the brand
2. Logo development – the brand got a new logo that is still creative, but that better communicates what the event actually is
3. Street poster teaser campaign – the poster had web info only and excluded any social info at first as a way to test how effective the site was as a marketing tool
4. Website – the new site is interactive and has a look and feel that aligns with all other elements above

View Connie’s slides below:

Marketing, Moustachios and Social Media Messaging from Social Media Breakfast Maine

 

Many thanks to this month’s sponsors:

Mainely SEO, Hall Internet Marketing, The Cohen-Tracy Team, GWI and Others! Fair Trade Coffee.