Today I was asked to give a short presentation on Social Media Marketing to members of BNI Camberley rather than follow the usual 10 minute BNI presentation ‘norm’ about my own business. This was on the 24th July 2014 and I just happened to have delivered a similar presentation a couple of days earlier in Farnham.
As the current Chapter Director I arrive well before the official start of the meeting and often manage to take a few pictures of the golf course, especially as in July I arrive in daylight.
Working with my colleagues in The Social Media Bureau and UK4Business over the last few years I have been teaching people how to use social media effectively to promote their business. These sessions typically last for up to 3 hours and order to meet the short time requirement I carefully timed each slide and set Powerpoint to automatically move on to the next giving me a small audible click as it did so.
As the owner of a business (or a customer facing employee) then the most important page on the Internet is your LinkedIn Personal Profile. I explained what I believe to be the key components including a suitable picture and keywords that will enable you to be picked up by Google searches.
This version on Slideshare has had extra text added to some slides and has a simple version of the script that I used explaining why we chose to concentrate on Twitter.
- All your posts can be seen by your Followers (no advertising driven algorithms get in the way)
- Very easy to get started, after all a Tweet is only 140 characters long
- Active users do follow brands/companies, easily used for promotions or discounts
- Hashtags available to highlight not only your services or products but your location
- Can easily ‘talk’ to your customers and prospects
And I retained the 2 minute ‘text’ slide giving a very quick guide on using Twitter
- When to post
- Follow people found using hashtags in their tweets,
- Or via who they follow
- Post using hashtags especially for places
- Post regularly (but too often and NOT immediately after each other)
- Mix up your posts (text, pictures, links etc)
- And ‘talk’ to people by putting their username first
- LISTEN ! ! !
I did have a little time to answer some questions:
Please explain a bit more about hashtags
A hashtag is a word in post that has the ‘#’symbol immediately in front of it – for example #Camberley. Words that have been made into hashtags can then be clicked and related tweets (or in the case of Facebook – posts) are then displayed.
Hashtags are such a useful feature across most of the social media platforms that understanding their purpose and how to use them is a key part of your social media marketing. Just as important is not to ‘over use’ them – for example putting a hash on every word in a post.
http://mashable.com/2013/10/08/what-is-hashtag/
The Beginner’s Guide to Hashtags on Mashable is a really useful start that explains hashtags if you need to know more.
Can you have hashtags in Facebook as well as Twitter?
Facebook added hashtags some time ago. I find them useful to highlight places or for events that have lots of people attending (or watching). Facebook describes hashtag usage here “How do I use hashtags?”
When you click on a hashtag in a Facebook post, it is important to remember that only posts from others that have been shared with you (or are public) are visible to you.
“Informative plus well targeted to audience”
~ Paul Marcus of 964 Eagle Radio
@EagleRadioBiz
@PaulMarcusRadio
“Very clear, precise and easy to understand for everyone in the room”
~ Lindsay Betton of Beechleigh Promotions
@beechleighpromo
“I felt very educated as I didn’t realise [there were] hashtags for both Facebook and Twitter”
~ Jamie Ferris of Knights Property Services
@KnightPS
“Thank you for lots of tips in a short time”
~ Kathryn of Kathryn Austin Flowers