How to Leverage Social Media for Public Relations Success

1. How to Leverage Social Mediafor Public Relations Success

2. IT Leaders

3. Presenter • Dr. Tom Seymour • Business Information Technology Department • College of Business • Minot State University • Minot, North Dakota • www.minot.com/tom • www.minotstateu.edu • Tom.Seymour@minotstateu.edu

4. ND Telephone Company Model • DCN was formed by “fifteen” independent telephone companies in North Dakota who serve 148,000 customers in 244 communities. DCN operates a 100-percent fiber optic communications network linking all regions of the state, including all of the major population centers. The network allows North Dakota customers access to the “telecommunications highway” not only on a state level but also on a national level. DCN utilizes fiber optic networks in adjacent states and Canada to connect North Dakota customers to the world.

5. What is Social Media? • It’s all media that includes a social component • When you share a news story or post a press release with share functionality • When you post on facebook, twitter, etc. • When you write an article that allows for comments or comment on an article • When you use a live chat function on a website or leave a review on Yelp

6. The Social Web • Nearly every website now has a social aspect • Take advantage and make your content shareable

7. The Viral Impact of Social Media • 200 million Twitter users • 900 million+ Facebook users. • 50% of users log on to Facebook in any given day • Average FB user has 130 friends. • Social media is critical in your marketing plan! Twitter: September 2010; Facebook: March 2011

8. Why engage in Social Media? • Reach New & Younger Audience • Generate Direct Customer Relationships • New Sales and Service Opportunities • 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations vs. 14% trust advertisements! • Increase Customer Satisfaction • Mobile is an extension of Social Media! • 10.5% of all Social Media usage is on a mobile device! use social media on their mobile devices! http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/08/05/latest-research-reveals-social-media-usage-up-43/

9. Where Should I Be? • Where your customers are!

10. What are my customers using? • Facebook • More than 135 million users in US • Avg. users spends 6 hours each month • Fastest growing demographic is 55+ • Avg. user is a fan of 8.7 brands • #1 reason to fan a brand is to receive promotions* • # 2 reason to fan a brand is show brand support* Information taken from 2010 Exact Target Facebook Report

11. What you need to know about Facebook EdgeRank – refers to how likely your content is to appear in a user’s “top news” Insights – The analytics collected about your fan page – very important to crafting message North Social – A cost-effective suite of apps that enhance your page across multiple media

12. What are my customers using? • Twitter • 200 million worldwide users • Will show up in searches • Easy way to syndicate content • Main users are early adopters and opinion leaders • Information spreads beyond twitter • Can instantly view conversation about your company

13. What You Need to Know About Twitter Search Engine Optimization – Use your keywords in your tweets Timing – Average half-life of a tweet is 4 minutes. It’s OK to share the same link several times. (just vary content and wait several hours) Clients –Programs like HootSuite, Seesmic and Tweetdeck make managing twitter easy

14. What are my customers using? • YouTube • More than 2 billion views each day • Syndicated to facebook, linked through twitter and embedded in websites and blogs • Easy to create and upload • Very easy to share

15. What You Need to Know About YouTube YouTube is owned by Google – Videos are great for Search Engine Optimization Users expect videos to be authentic – Don’t worry about content being “perfect” Easily embedded – Place into your facebook page, blog, etc.

16. What are my customers using? • Blogs • Blogs are a great way to enhance your brand • Tell your story • Provide added value for your customers – answers to frequently-asked-questions • Push this content to all of your other social sites

17. What you need to know about blogs Host Sites – Many companies use outside sites such as wordpress, blogger, posterous or tumblr Add share buttons – Everywhere Links – Make sure that links to and from your website are easy to find Integrate – Place links to your other sites into your blog

18. What are my customers using? • LinkedIn • Great for B2B outreach • Can add products and services with full social media support • Let company’s find your services • Position company as a thought leader

19. What You Need to Know About LinkedIn Promote –You can add all of your Products and Services to your company profile Take Control – Any employee with a @yourdomain email address can edit the page until you lock it down. Find content – Telecommunications section of LinkedIn Today

20. What are customers using? • Google and Bing • Search Engine Optimization – how do you rank? • Google and Bing account for 95% of all search traffic* • Google Analytics (free) can report your company’s search engine use percentages • Social Search – Friends social actions affect search rankings Information taken from Mashable April, 2011 report

21. What You Need to Know About Google and Bing • Search is Social - • Social Media and Search Engine Optimization go hand-in-hand • The more content you develop across the web, the more chances you have to be ranked • The more your content is shared, the more valuable it looks to search engines

22. How Do I Use Social Media? • Know Your Roles!

23. The Many Roles of Social Media Customer Communications Engagement Tool Listening Tool Media Relations Brand Management

24. Listening Tool • Google Alerts – Allows you to capture any conversation about your company or other keywords online • Provide places for customers to give feedback • Twitter – create a unique hashtag for product launches or other promotions • Offer review or discussions tab on Facebook • Review Sites – see what customers think about your business (yelp, Google places)

25. Find Out Where You Are Now • You must understand your current efforts! • What are you currently doing in Social Media? • Create a baseline for your social media efforts and benchmarks! • What accounts does your business have? • Are they the appropriate type? • Facebook Fan Pages NOT PERSONAL PROFILES • Twitter Accounts • LinkedIn Profiles • Foursquare / Locations Pages

26. Customer Engagement • Join conversations • #hashtags allow users to have a conversation over twitter • Review blogs that relate to your industry – Alltop.com • Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Seesmic all allow for easy monitoring of social sites • Ask questions • Customers love feeling valued

27. Media Relations • Make your press releases easy to find and share • Syndicate press releases through your own channels • Take advantage of wire services with share features • Businesswire, PR Wire, PR Log

28. Media Relations • The Social Media Press Room • Have share buttons for all press releases • Add your press releases as individual web pages rather than PDF’s for greater searchability • Include links to any images, videos or other collateral • Have shareable versions of all company fact sheets, logos, and bios.

29. Brand Management Social Media has no gatekeeper Produce content that shows your brand’s personality Ex: New Ford Focus Campaign

30. Know Your Social Reputation • What are people saying about you online? • Do you know? • Develop a strategy to overcome bad reviews on social media and engage those with positive feedback! • A few bad reviews can turn people away from your business! • Customers can broadcast their sales and service experiences quickly and easily. • Who is monitoring what is being said publicly about your brand everyday?

31. What Do I Have to Say? • Focus Your Message & Strategy

32. How to determine your strategy How much time can you devote? Who will “own” the social media channels? What are your goals? Where are your customers?

33. Create Compelling Content • Content is key to your social strategy • Give customers a reason to return to your social channels • Review what type of content is popular • What’s the difference? • Type: photo, link, video • Content: community focused, product driven • Timing: early morning vs. afternoon

34. How do you develop content? • Content Calendars • Easy as an excel spreadsheet or email calendar • Determine how often you want to update each channel • Facebook: 1-2 times a day • Twitter: 3-4 times a day • Blog: 2-3 times a week • YouTube: 1 time every two weeks

35. How do you develop content? • Determine what you want to talk about • Divide content into topics • Promotions • Community focused • Value added – additional info customers are seeking • Will you need images, video, links? • Posts with these items are shareable on facebook

36. How do you develop content? • Ideas for content • Photos from events • Video of employees talking about company • Especially C-suite • New campaigns • Interesting links relating to your products and services • Questions Get every department involved in the brainstorming process!

37. Your Social Media Policy • Develop a social media policy for your sites:

38. The ROI of Social Media • Does This Help Us Make Money?

39. Set Goals and Measure Results • Social Media Goals • Facebook Fans, Twitter Followers, etc • Engagement • Twitter Retweets • Facebook Comments and Likes • Referral Traffic to websites • Revenue = Results • New customers • Sales tied to Social Media

40. Driving Sales With Social Media

41. Find Competitive Advantages • Maintain Monthly Counts of Facebook Fans and Twitter Followers of your competition. • What are they doing well? • How can you do it better? • Identify competitor growth on a monthly basis! • What are they doing to grow their audiences? Set a goal to become the local market leader!

42. What’s An App? • An “App” (short for application) is a program on a phone or other device that does a certain job. • Many types such as games, productivity apps, organization apps etc. • Range in price from free-to high dollar prices.

43. Android Applications

44. IPAD APPS Ipad apps are available from Apple's online app store, which can be downloaded directly from the Ipad. There's virtually an app for every category. And more are added every day Business Entertainment Educational Social Networking Travel & More!

45. Case Studies Let’s look at real world examples

47. How was Social Media Used? • Case Study: Great Plains Communications • Awareness Campaign • Brand Management • Search Engine Optimization • Listening Tool

48. Case Study – Great Plains Communications • Situation • No social media presence until September 2010 • Goals • Wanted to increase search engine rankings – differentiate from similarly named company • Provide customers with additional tools to engage with company • Increase channels customers have for finding information

49. Case Study – Great Plains Communications • Solution • Integrated set of branded channels including • Facebook • GPC-Blog • Twitter • YouTube • LinkedIn

50. Case Study: Great Plains Communications • Facebook • 200 fans with an average of 10,000 post views/month • Helps drive traffic back to blog and website • Top referring site to GPC-Blog • Provides area for customer engagement • Ads drove 27% of traffic for recent HD launch with a price tag of $65