Building your fan base with content and social tools

Build Your Fan Base with Content and Social Tools

Susan Catosusan.cato@balanceinteractive.com@susancato

Overwhelmed by “experts”

Practical Approach for Success

1. Offer value with content and knowledge

2. Share and engage (links)3. Build reach – grow audience4. Generate leads5. Sales and Conversions6. Measure performance7. Tweak and repeat

Success on the social web

The importance of reach

SharingContent

Sharing Content

60%Links to third party content

10%Direct promotions

30%Links to company

content

Links, Reach & SEO• SEO-driven leads have the highest lead-to-close rate

(15%) among common lead generation sources. Paid search leads average a 7% rate, while outbound marketing leads (e.g., direct mail, telemarketing) close at a 2% rate. (Econsultancy)

• B2B marketers believe social media is critical to organic search success. Marketers rate social media as the second-most important factor (64%) in search, behind only strong content (82%). (BtoB Magazine)

• 57% of B2B marketers say SEO has the biggest impact on their lead generation goals. (Mindjumpers)

Build your network• Search on key phrases in each

network, and in Google• Look for highly engaged people,

pages, and groups• Use listening tools to find influencers• Find creative ways to connect, share,

follow – engage!

Maintain an Online Influencer list Blog/Publication/Organization First Last Type Beat/Focus URL Twitter Linkedin Facebook

Facebook Group: "Cloud Computing" FB Group Cloud Computinghttp://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_8450870046

LinkedIn Group: "Cloud Computing" LI Group Cloud Computinghttp://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=61513&mostPopular=&trk=tyah

Cloud Computing Blog: "Chaotic Flow" Joel York Blog Cloud Computing http://chaotic-flow.com/ chaoticflow Cloud Computing Blog: "Cloud Computing" Chirag Mehta Blog Cloud Computing http://cloudcomputing.blogspot.com/ chirag_mehta Cloud Computing Blog: "Cloud CTweaks" Blog Cloud Computing http://www.cloudtweaks.com/ cloudtweaks

Cloud Computing Blog: "Infoworld Cloud Computing Blog" David Linthicum Blog Cloud Computinghttp://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/blogs DavidLinthicum

Cloud Computing Blog: "SaaS Blog" Blog Cloud Computing http://www.saasblogs.com/ datamation Cloud Computing Blog: "Smooth Span" Bob Warfield Blog Cloud Computing http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/ BobWarfield Cloud Computing Blog: "Software as Services" Phil Wainewright Blog Cloud Computing http://www.zdnet.com/blog/saas zdnet, pchilww Twitter: @Health_IT TW Healthcare IT health_it Twitter: @HITNewsTweet TW HealthcareIT hitnewstweet

Facebook Page: "Healthcare IT News" FB Group HealthcareIThttp://www.facebook.com/healthcareitnews

LinkedIn Group: "Health Informatics Technology (HIT)" LI Group Healthcare IThttp://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=40096&mostPopular=&trk=tyahLinkedIn

LinkedIn Group: "Healthcare Information & Management Systems Society" LI Group Healthcare IT

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=93115&mostPopular=&trk=tyah

Facebook Page: "National Cyber Security Alliance" FB Group Cybersecurity http://www.facebook.com/staysafeonline

LinkedIn Group: "Information Security Community" LI Group Cybersecurityhttp://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=38412&mostPopular=&trk=tyah

Twitter: @cybersecure TW Cybersecurity Twitter: @msftsecresponse TW Cybersecurity

LinkedIn Group: "IT Specialist" LI Group General IT

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/IT-Specialist-Group-37485?gid=37485&mostPopular=&trk=tyah

Use content & knowledge to engage

60% of the sales cycle is over before the buyer even talks to your salesperson

Corporate Executive Board

You are a SubjectMatterExpert!

You know your customers best

LinkedIn: Information Security Group

It’s not about you

Remember, no matter what type of content you are sharing – it’s about your customers, not you!

Exercise 1

Write down three customer/audience pain points or priorities.

What do they care about?

Curating Content

• Internal: Make an inventory, organize by customer pain points, etc.

• Third party content: Scan consistently

• User-generated content: Engagement & content at the same time

Internal Content

• Whitepapers• eBooks• Presentations• Articles• Blog posts• Research

reports/summaries• Event video• Photos

• Infographics• Charts/graphs• 90 sec interviews• How-to video using

screen capture with voice-over

• Quick-start guides• Webinar recordings• Product demos

Third Party Content

• Industry publications• Video channels• Twitter feeds• Blogs• Articles• Podcasts• Books

• Photos/images• Infographics• Research• eBooks• Webinars• Tutorials

User-Generated Content

• Guest bloggers• Video from contest

submissions• Photos/images

• Customer curated content, Pinterest boards, blogrolls

• Best industry blog contest

Exercise 2

Pick one of the pain-points from the first exercise and make a list of content assets you have that could be valuable.

Layering content

ResearchReport

Exercise 3

Pick one of the content assets from Exercise 2 and make a list of new items to create.

Use a Social Content Calendar

Use a content dashboard

Use a Blog

Organize your content around customer priorities

Put CTA’s everywhere

Blogs and customer acquisition

Increased frequency of blogging correlates with increased customer acquisition. (Marketing Charts)

> than 1x per day 1x per month < 1x per month0%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

% of bloggers who acquire customers via blog activity

Blogs: The single most important inbound marketing tool

• B2B companies with blogs generate 67% more leads per month on average than non-blogging firms. (Social Media B2B)

• When asked to rank the importance of the services they use, 25% of users rated their company blog as critical to their business, while a further 56% considered them either important (34%) or useful (22%) for a total of 81%. (Marketing Charts)

Engage with content

Case Study: CompTIA A+ Facebook Page

Exercise 4

Pick a customer pain-point/content asset from your list. Write down some ideas for engagement.

Reward engagement

• Listen• Be responsive• Make it all about people

Combine online efforts with in-person activities

Example: Pitch-it Contest

BIO Convention

Monitoring

Measurement & Analytics

Measure, learn, improve…and repeat

What business are we really in?

“Some say we should think like

publishers. I would add that we

are in the knowledge business.”

Tools

• Content Tools: Blog, Slideshare, Flickr, Youtube, Pinterest, Instagram

• Content Dashboards: Google Reader, Netvibes• Analytics Tools: Argyle Social, Sprout Social,

Radian6, Socialmention.com, Hubspot• Facebook Contest Tools: Wildfire, Pagemodo

Be an industry Superhero

Susan Catosusan.cato@balanceinteractive.com@susancato

Thank You