On November 22, 2012 participants of Langara’s Self Employment program and I met for Social Media 2 – part two of the social media workshops for new businesses.

At the end of the first workshop, I had asked participants to choose 2 social media platforms that they would like to learn more about and they selected LinkedIn and Twitter. I also assigned optional homework for participants who wanted to work on their social media presence.

During this second workshop, we spent dedicated time on LinkedIn and Twitter using the assignments as the framework for discussion:

LinkedIn

To begin, we reviewed the 5 top LinkedIn tips I shared during the last workshop.

Here is a summary of the rest of the topics covered in this section, which built on the basics shown to participants during the first workshop:

Personalized URLs

You can customize the url to your LinkedIn profile so that it is easier to share (and so it looks better) by clicking on ‘edit your public profile‘ in the settings section.

Projects

I mentioned that I recently added a project to my profile and we discussed the pros and cons of this section. Some of the participants were interested in adding ‘Projects’ to their profile and one of them shared how to do this with the rest of the class: if you have the older profile, you opt to edit your LinkedIn profile and then click ‘add section.’ (If you have the newer profile, the option to add a project section will be in the right sidebar.)

Public Profile

Quote from LinkedIn’s help pages: “A public version of your profile is called the public profile. It appears when people search for you on Google, Yahoo!, Bing, et cetera.” I showed participants how they can select which parts of their profile are visible to the general public by managing the LinkedIn public profile settings.

Groups

We talked about how to get started in groups and that it is important to lurk first and read any group rules or etiquette before participating. Ease into it: participate in someone else’s discussion (like or comment) before starting your own; join other groups before starting your own group; etc.

We also discussed how to select which groups to be involved in and looked at a group to see how they work.

Additional Resources

Here are some other topics covered during this section:

Here are some links to more resources (I may have mentioned these during the workshop with a promise I would provide the link):

Twitter

I started the Twitter section with a quick review from the first workshop (I just finally posted my Top 5 Twitter Tips on this blog, if you want to read them).

Here is an overview of the other topics covered in this section, which built on the basics shown to participants during the first workshop:

A good place to start is on the Twitter for Business pages – note the Twitter for Small Business section on the right side.

via business.twitter.com
Custom Twitter Backgrounds and Headers

 

Next, we talked about how to customize your Twitter profile and background and looked at the new header available.
Twitter Header Dimensions: 1252px wide x 626px high.
Twitter Background Dimensions: 2560px wide x 1600px high.
Finding Your Friends on Twitter

 

We reviewed how to find friends and contacts already on Twitter.

Additional Resources

Here are some other topics covered during this section:

Here are some links to more resources, not covered in the workshop:

Next we looked at content strategy, integration, and ROI/success measurements, with a focus on meeting the remaining objectives participants had shared at the beginning of the first workshop.

Content Strategy

We started this section by reviewing the definition of content – participants provided many examples, such as: text, images (photos, graphics), video, audio (podcasts, webinars), documents, slideshows, etc.

We also discussed traditional ways to share content (mail, print, television, radio, newsletter, etc) as well as newer ways (e-newsletter, YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook page, blog, etc.)

We talked about reach – where is your target market? That is where you want to be – there is no point in Pinterest activity if your target market is not there. I drew several diagrams on the board showing how the participants could develop their own content strategy.

Once you establish where your content should be, you need to identify connections, or flow, between the different places where you will publish your content. This brings us to the next topic…

Integration

For the purposes of this workshop, I talked about the ‘mother ship’ – the source of most of your content. You can use various tools to integrate the flow so that you post something once and then it auto-populates elsewhere. There are many, many different ways to do this – so it is probably easier to figure out how you want your content to flow first and then find the right tool aftewards.

Also, I stressed that participants need to look closely at each part of their web presence – they should all be used to promote each other where ever it is possible. For example, your website should link to your social media profiles and they, in turn, should send visitors to your website (and to each other).

 

 

Online/Offline Integation

This integration and inter-connectedness applies to your offline presence as well. In most cases, your website should be listed on all of the traditional methods for business communication: marketing collateral (brochures, posters, etc), signage (tradeshow, place of business, vehicle), business identity (stationery, invoices, business cards), and promotional products (pens, apparel)- but don’t forget your email signature- and what about your Facebook page, Twitter user name, or LinkedIn profile?

RSS

In most cases your blog (if you have one) is the mothership of all of your content, so your blog feed becomes very useful. We discussed what RSS means and how you can use feeds with Hootsuite, Feedburner, Mailchimp, and feed readers.

Additional Resources

Here are some other topics covered during this section:

Here are some links to more resources, not covered in the workshop:

ROI/Success Measurements

Everytime someone asks about the ROI of social media, a kitten dies. And a unicorn.

Scott Stratten, author of UnMarketing, quoted in Christopher Barger’s The Social Media Strategist

To end off the workshop we discussed evaluating ROI (return on investment) for social media. As a new business owner, you will either be investing your time or your money, or both. I once again emphasized the importance of having smart social media objectives. Also, I added that it was very important to measure a baseline before you start working towards the goal so there is something to measure against.

As a new business owner, social media can be an extremely valuable way to increase your visibility. Quoting Erick Qualman in Socialnomics, “Word of Mouth now becomes World of Mouth.” It is also a valuable free source of marketing research -once you identify where your target market is, you can go listen to them in real time. You can also connect with them, ask them questions or answer them, and start conversations. 

Resources Used For This Section

Here is a link to another resource, not covered in the workshop: