Social Media Checklist for Marketers

By Kathy Cabrera

Planning your B2B social media program is only the first step in a long process. Once you have clearly defined your social media objectives, there are a few other steps that can put you on the right footing for success.

Here is a simple social media checklist for B2B marketers you can use to get things started in the right direction:

* Gain internal support from the top-down. Social media must be embraced at all levels of your orga­nization. This is important for approving an on-going budget and to ensure long-term sustainability of social media programs. In addition, executive participation is often a key requirement for many social media activities.

* View social media participation as an extension of your brand. Many of the same considerations given to content on your company website should be extended to content you publish via social media chan­nels.

* Know your audience. Before deciding on a specific social media program, learn about what types of social media sites your target audiences already frequent, or what social media tools they use.

* Become an active contributor. Social media engagement is based on user-generated content and regular communication with audiences. Establishing schedules for publishing or producing content can help you stay consistent.

* Get help. External help is available to support a range of social media initiatives, from strategic planning and consulting to professional content production. Many PR and marketing agencies offer social media expertise. Businesses new to social media may require the assistance of these resources to strategically plan and execute initiatives.

* Create an honest, welcome dialog. Time and again, successful adopters use social media to estab­lish a two-way exchange of information and perspectives. Avoid the temptation to use social media as an advertising channel, and work to ensure your communications are never considered spam. Social media must be thought of as a shift from autocratic thinking and one-to-many communications to a participatory environment. Social media is not about selling and talking at your audience. It is about sharing and engaging with them.

Social media is where the future of PR and marketing is headed. By exploring now, you can be a step ahead of the crowd and gain a tremendous competitive advantage. Have fun, be creative and participate!

Use Social Media for Petitions

Whether it is for a grassroots campaign or a presidential campaign, social media networking can help you get the point across while gathering support. With online sharing, it makes it even easier to reach larger demographics and markets. Online petitions are easy and convenient.

In the first hour of this petition, there were 60 signatures with very little promotion. That means one signature per minute. WOW, that's fast.

It all boils down to SEO

Today, I participated in my first speaking engagement teaching a group of real estate agents on how they can use social media for their business. My speaking engagement became more of a discussion and I quickly realized I had to start from the beginning. I called my presentation, "The Power of Social Media Networking."

Before I could begin my discussion, a few members started talking about a new movie released today titled, "Precious." One of them had never even heard of the movie. Since my presentation was more of a freestyle, I quickly pulled up YouTube and showed the trailer for the movie. Interestingly, it led right into my presentation. In just a few moments of watching the trailer, the young lady who had never even heard of the movie, was eager to go see it tonight! That's how easily, social media can translate into dollars. It was a great segue into my presentation.

Real estate, like most businesses and industries today, need a new way to market their products and/or services to new consumers or a larger demographic. While I wanted to highlight using popular social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube for marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) easily became the highlight of the discussion. I was able to connect the PC to a larger screen and I showed the audience real-time conversations about home buying on Twitter, quick searches on Google, home tours on YouTube and even found groups and relevant profiles on Facebook.

I am coming to realize that everything boils down to SEO. Whether it is Bing search, Search.Twitter or using a search engine on a blog or website, are you using the proper keywords and phrases to help others find you? Are you using highly searched keywords on your LinkedIn profile or tagging the necessary keywords on your professional or personal blog so your target audience will be able to view your posts?

What in the world is a pingback and how can I use it for my company?

So, you are taking better care of your online brand. You have an SEO website and you are maintaining your blog. Great! Now what?

The point of establishing an online presence is to attract web traffic, so let's take a look at some tools to help gain attention to your site.

First, let's examine the the world of linkbacks.

A linkback is a method for Web authors to obtain notifications when other authors link to one of their documents. This enables authors to keep track of who is linking to, or referring to their articles. The three methods (Refback, Trackback, and Pingback) differ in how they accomplish this task.

Any of the four terms -- Linkback, Trackback, Pingback, or (rarely) Refback -- might also refer colloquially to items within a section upon the linked page that display the received notifications, usually along with a reciprocal link; Trackback is used most often for this purpose. Also, the word Trackback is often used colloquially to mean any kind of Linkback.

Pingbacks
Drost Designs explains that the pingback system is a way for your blog to be automatically notified when other Web sites link to it. It is entirely transparent to the linking author, requiring no user intervention to work, and operates on principles of automatic discovery of everything that it needs to know.

Pingbacks allows you to automatically ping all the RSS and blog feed directories every time you make a post. This is a very powerful feature if you want your blog to get a lot of web traffic immediately. You automatically gain backlinks to your blog.

Trackbacks
Trackbacks are ways for one site to notify another about an update.

A trackback consists of a link and optionally a snippet of text. On many blogs you do not have to enable trackbacks and just like comments the trackbacks are moderated.

Chris G explains how it normally works.

1. Mary Blog writes an article on cheese
2. Joe Blogger writes about Mary Blogs new post saying it is really cool
3. Joes blog sends a trackback to Marys blog
4. Marys blog receives the trackback and Mary sees the trackback in her comments moderation

In most cases this is all automatic, you just link to a post and it is all handled for you, in others you have to send trackbacks manually. If you use the scribefire firefox plugin you can send manual trackbacks for example. This involves pasting the special URL displayed in the other blogs post.

Why bother?
Trackbacks are like a kind of commenting. You are saying “I have written about this post over on my blog”. The hope would be that the blogger would notice and also if the trackback gets published that people will click through to read what you have to say. Many trackback links are wrapped in “no-follow” condoms but in some cases you get a clean link.

So, what's the difference?
While all of this may be new to you, trackbacks are the old, manual way of doing this while pingbacks are the more modern and automatic way. The old trackback way includes:

1. Getting the trackback URL for the other person’s content
2. Putting that URL into your blogging software’s editing interface
3. Writing an excerpt for what you said about their content

Pingbacks are much easier. All you have to do with a pingback is:

1. Links to someone else’s content

Daniel Miessler further explains that since pingbacks are enabled (both incoming and outgoing) by default on most major blogging engines. Here are a few other differences:

* Trackbacks contain more content, i.e. the excerpt, where pingbacks just have the source and destination links
* Pingbacks are less prone to spam than trackbacks, as incoming software checks to see if the source link actually exists before it allows it to be posted
* Pingbacks use XML-RPC while trackbacks use a standard HTTP POST

Pinbacks are essentially the newer and less time-consuming way of doing trackbacks.

Social media for business now is life or death

As my daily PR tasks focus on social media marketing, I've realized that I participate in social media everyday. There are no 9-5 hours with availability on Mondays through Fridays. Nope. I live and breathe social media whether I like it or not. Whether it is voicing my political opinion on Twitter and Facebook while watching Sunday's Meet the Press and This Week with George Stephanopoulos or finding new ways to get my clients media coverage through an online publication or on a blog, I understand the need and inclusion of social media in both my personal and professional life.

Still, I have come to realize that most companies still don't see a need for social media and search engine marketing. Social media marketing is crucial especially when it comes to managing not only an online presence but an overall brand both online and offline.

An article in the New York Times examines managing an online reputation. Whether you like it or not, your customers are online talking about you and the whole wide world is listening. According to the article, local review sites are reshaping the world of small business by becoming the new Yellow Pages, one-stop platforms where customers can find a business — and also see independent critiques of its performance.

The article goes on to say for some business owners, this is a terrifying prospect that seems more like mob rule than the wisdom of crowds. Negative reviews can hang an albatross around your neck if they appear prominently in search results. Happily, there is a big upside: referrals from happy clients are traditionally the best source of new business — and online forums are powerful word-of-mouth. The review process has been democratized.

But managing your online reputation requires a whole new skill set, including monitoring the online conversation and engaging with customers and the tech-savvy to promote yourself in the best channels. These skills are becoming essential for mainstream businesses. According to a survey by the Opinion Research Corporation, 84 percent of Americans say online reviews influence their purchasing decisions.

Here are some quick tips to managing your online reputation:

~Set up automatic alerts to notify you when your business is mentioned in a review or blog.

~Local search sites are the new Yellow Pages -- make sure your business is listed. The more complete your listing, the more likely you are to get good search results.

~Respond to reviews to show readers that you are listening and that you care about customer service.

~Online reviews are a gold mine of business intelligence. Analyze metrics to get a better sense of your customer demographics.

~Don’t write false reviews to puff your business or trash a competitor. You can severely damage your reputation...and look really silly.

New Social Media Company: Ella Bee Social Media & Public Relations

Promoting an Indie Film through Social Media

Currently, I am promoting an independent movie, Grapes on a Vine, through using social media platforms. Based on my research, I have not found too many independent movies promoting their film through social media. I am using tools and social networking sites like Facebook fan pages, Twitter, and YouTube to increase awareness, promote sales, generate a buzz and engage with the independent film community.



See the Grapes on a Vine movie blog.

10 Easy Steps to Increase Your Twitter Following...What are you waiting for?

Everyone wants more Twitter followers, but are you putting in the time and effort to actually attract a larger following? When you first join Twitter, it is okay to to let your account sit for a couple of days to get a natural following, but after that, it is up to you to increase your Twitter following.

Here are ten easy steps to increase your Twitter followers:


1. Let's start with the basics.
Have you listed your Twitter profile with relevant keyword for your bio? If you are a make-up artist, but your bio-which only gives you 160 characters- says you love your dog, Pookie, then you might attract other animal lovers or animal doctors. Your bio is a chance to summarize who you are, so use targeted keywords instead of sentences or phrases. In the make-up artist example, the bio might look like: Beauty Expert | Make-Up Artist | M.A.C lover | Esthetician | Cosmetics | Lipstick | Eye Shadow | Beauty Products | Make-Up Tips | Facials | Salon | Skin Care. All within 160 characters and are highly targeted keywords.


2. What's in a name?
Does your name reflect your brand/profession/industry? I work in PR. My Twitter name is EllaBeePR. When I first joined, the easiest way I found other PR Twitter profiles was by simply typing in PR in the Twitter "Find People" search. Twitter searches profiles by name results. Also, don't be afraid to include your real name on your settings.

3. Follow, follow, follow- oh and did i mention to FOLLOW
Follow as many people as you can. Although Twitter put restrictions to stop spammers, you can still follow as many relevant profiles until you reach your limit. There is a very high chance that at least half of those followers will follow you back. Once a higher percentage of people start following you, you can then continue to increase your following by searching and adding.

You HAVE to search for people. If everyone was waiting around expecting to be discovered, then we would never find each other on Twitter. Social media is all about being active and getting involved. It's a two-way street. They don't call it Web 2.0 for nothing. Find relevant profiles by searching for highly targeted keywords. For PR, I use keywords like marketing, social media, and media to continue to find new profiles to follow. Don't ever get comfortable with who you are already following. Keep it fresh and continue to look for your target audience.

4. Tit for tat
You should have the mind of "follow me and I'll follow you back." It's very useful to building meaningful relationships on Twitter. You never know who you could possibly be ignoring if you don't live by this concept. Just because you don't know someone doesn't mean that person doesn't know someone who could help build your business or share your comments with their Tweeps (Twitter + People).

5. ...somebody's watching me
Monitor what other people are saying by searching for keywords. If you are a non-profit consultant and you want to find non-profit organizations who need help with fund raising, you can use Twitter Search to see what people are discussing with real-time conversations listed in the results. Follow those profiles, offer advice and most likely they will follow you in return.

6. Get rid of the dead weight.
Because Twitter has put a limit on how many people you can search, use sites like Twitoria to find out who you are following, but are not actively using Twitter. Twitoria will tell you which profiles have not posted in as little as two weeks or as long as two years. Stop following people who are not even using Twitter. Also, stop following people who have not followed you back. To find out if someone is following you on Twitter, check to see if you can send them a direct message. If you can't send a message, they are not following you in return, so get rid of them.

7. List your profile on Twitter search directories.
There are many Twitter search directories, but I will only promote two right now. We Follow will let you add tags to your Twitter profile with three simple keywords. For example, my PR profile is tagged under a directory listing for #PR, #SocialMedia and #Marketing. The great thing is that you can change it as much as you like and also search for Twitter profiles under a variety of listings. Also, list your business on Twitter's yellow pages, Twellow.

You can also search Twitter bios with Tweep Search which makes searching a whole lot easier.

8. Bigger is not always better.
Sure, The Ellen Show has 3,123,278 followers and The Real Shaq has 2,145,515 and counting, but unless you are a die-hard fan, I would not recommend following these profiles. Why not? Because unless you are Gayle King, Oprah is NOT going to follow you back. Sure there are larger than life Twitter profiles that you can follow, but be careful not to load-up on too many high profiles if your goal is to have someone follow you in return. When you are looking at lesser known profiles, check their follow/follower ratio. If it's not likely they will follow you in return, then don't bother following. Also check to see if they comment to their followers. Chad Ocho Cinco (@OGOchoCinco) may have 150,000 followers and is only following 400 people in return, but he ALWAYS comments to his fans for his other followers to see. Use the @ sign with the person's profile name for example @EllaBeePR.

9. Shout, shout, let it all out.
Announce to your Facebook friends that you are on Twitter. Anytime I see a Facebook friend update their status saying, hey check me out I'm on Twitter, they automatically get tons of comments of people providing direct links to follow them also. List your Twitter name on all your social media profiles. You can also include your Twitter name in your e-mail signature. If you are in sales or pitching a new idea, it's a great way to track who is interested in you and wants to learn more.

10. Have fun and get involved.
The most effective way to gain Twitter followers, is to actively use the micro-blogging site to interact with other people and brands. If you see an interesting link, click on it and thank that person for sharing. If you are following them and they are not following you, this may prompt a conversation and new follower. Re-tweet (RT) other comments that you think are funny, helpful or that you think should be restated. Always thanks others for re-tweeting your updates and comments. Think about it, if someone RTs something for you, ALL of their followers have a chance of not only seeing your message, but your profile name. You never know who will re-tweet your update and there you have it, an opportunity for others to find out more about you. Participate in #FollowFriday and follow other interesting profiles. Look at the trending topics and engage in the conversation.

Get in there, get involved and happy tweeting.

Don't be afraid of social media

I just participated in a helpful webinar from HubSpot and Shift Communications that focuses on PR for inbound marketing .

Inbound marketing is a style of marketing that focuses on being found by customers. Being found by the customer nowadays means getting picked up by search engines like Bing and Google. You want to be in the top results listed. Since the media landscape has changed from a top-down approach to real interaction and engagement with an audience, social media creates opportunities for PR pros and marketers like never before.

New media uses tools like blogs, micro-blogs, podcasts, RSS feeds, videos, and social networking sites to increase awareness to a product or service.

With more people joining the social media community, it's the perfect time to explore ways to implement social media into your marketing efforts.

The webinar used a great analogy: Think of social media as a neighborhood potluck. Who doesn't love a potluck, the real question is, what kind of neighbor do you want to be? So, even if you want to use a Twitter profile, create a blog, or just read the Huffington Post.com, what will you bring to the table?

You could be:

~The Wallflower who just listens and observes. While this is important for research, without participating in the online discussion how can you expect to get involved with your prospective clients or target audience. You may end up seeming to be scared and insecure. You have to get in there, meet new people, and build meaningful relationships.

~The Blowhard who does no research, participate in social media with no real purpose and has no regard for a target audience. Realizing your personal brand will help eliminate confusion with a more direct focus on a message you want to convey. Even on Facebook, I have friends that I have profiled for advice, a good laugh, inspiration, or just to discuss the day's news stories. How did I come to profile my Facebook friends- many of whom I've never met? Through active conversations, comments, sharing links and other news. If you don't know who you are, how will anyone else?

~One of the gang. This is someone who has done the research, understands their target audience, and is ready to offer insight and advice.

It's never too late to hire an SEO expert

Finally, your web site is complete. It looks great, the content is appealing, but web traffic is not where you want it to be. There may be a problem that you have not considered: search engine optimization a.k.a. SEO.

What is SEO?
Search engine optimization is the process of driving traffic to a website by weighting algorithmic search results in a site's favor. Typically, the earlier a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a web site web presence.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.

Hire an SEO expert
If you haven’t completely exhausted your online budget on the web build or online media and can carve a bit more room in the budget for assistance with SEO, by all means do so. It is not nor is it ever too late to hire an agency, consultant or in-house expert to assist you with getting your website up to par and ready for indexing with the search engines. In fact, there are certain barriers that your newly designed website may have that can be overcome swiftly with a bit of hired help. In the long run, this can be worth the additional investment for your website.

Consider the following when deciding whether or not to hire yet another vendor or outside consultant to assist you with the next phase of your website’s development as recommended from SEOChat.com:

-If your website is very large and complex and contains deep content and variables in the URLs, then an SEO or programmer who is knowledgeable in URL rewriting can help you overcome this barrier quickly and effectively.

-If your primary navigation and/or site structure is in Flash, hidden behind frames or composed mainly of images, a seasoned SEO can work with you and your programmer to optimize the site as much as possible and assist you with major overhauls, if necessary.

-If you do not have much actual content on the site (e.g., product numbers but not descriptions), then an SEO copywriter can work with you to create relevant keyword-rich content that ensures people will find your site for your targeted keywords.

-If you are overwhelmed by the laundry list of SEO tasks that must now be implemented, you may want to hire an SEO for a few hours of consulting to help guide you. Remember, you do not need to be the expert here. You are already an expert in your chosen industry. A professional SEO can provide you with a game plan based on their own expertise in the field, which will save you time and money in the long run.

Just because you did not plan for SEO in the first phase of your website’s development does not mean it cannot be effectively implemented after your site has been made live. Always keep in mind that SEO is an ongoing process and can be incorporated into your annual online marketing budget along with things like regular website updates, newsletter mailings to site subscribers and online and offline media planning.

It can be overwhelming to discover that your work is not done once your website is live, but learning about SEO at the end of the project curve, rather than the beginning, is not as much of a setback as it seems. Most website owners already have the tools in place for good SEO and with some relatively simple tweaks to code and copy for the short term, and a comprehensive SEO strategy for the long term, you’ll do just fine.

For more information on how I can help your website or blog with SEO, contact me at 816-267-0678 or by email at EllaBee PR @gmail.com.

Outsource social media to increase online sales

Here is a great article from the New York Times that shows how even musicians are no longer trying to sign major record deals to sell records. Instead, they are looking to create a marketing strategy with an online presence. Artists are reaching out to their audience through online selling platforms like iTunes because the old business model is no longer working. I hope this article inspires you to look into outsourcing your public relations efforts to someone who specializes in social media. Don't underestimate the power of online sales.

According to the article, much of the success of artists rising to the top without signing to a record label has to do with the rise of the Internet as a means of promoting and distributing music. Physical album sales fell 20 percent, to 362.6 million last year, according to Nielsen, while sales of individual digital tracks rose 27 percent, to 1.07 billion, failing to compensate for the drop. Mindful of these changes, in the last few years marquee musicians like Trent Reznor, the Beastie Boys and Barenaked Ladies have created their own artist-run labels and reaped significant rewards by keeping a larger share of their revenue.

Under the Polyphonic model, bands that receive investments from the firm will operate like start-up companies, recording their own music and choosing outside contractors to handle their publicity, merchandise and touring.

Instead of receiving an advance and then possibly reaping royalties later if they have a hit, musicians will share in all the profits from their music and touring. In another departure from tradition in the music business, they will also maintain ownership of their own copyrights and master recordings — meaning they and their heirs can keep earning money from their music.

“We are all witnessing major labels starting to shed artists that are hitting only 80,000 or 100,000 unit sales,” said Adam Driscoll, another Polyphonic founder and chief executive of the British media company MAMA Group. “Do a quick calculation on those sales, with an artist who can tour in multiple cities, and that is a good business. You can take that as a foundation and build on it.”

About Lila Brown

Hi, my name is Lila Brown. I am a young public relations professional with experience in implementing social media marketing campaigns for small to mid-sized companies with social media and public relations. Recently, I started my own public relations company, Ella Bee Social Media & Public Relations.

Most recently, I was an account manager for a social media marketing firm in Kansas City. It is a full service public relations firm that specializes in social media tactics and strategies. In addition to working with JPRA, I have more than three years of public relations experience. Previously, I have worked as account support for Public Affairs PR, Bloomingdale’s, The Spizman Agency and Hope-Beckham Inc.