COMMUNITY IS KING BRENDAN GAHAN Reach Your Dream Audience through Social Media
COMMUNITYIS KING
BRENDAN GAHAN
Reach Your Dream Audience through Social Media
This is not a list of 83 Social Media Tips
I’m assuming you’re two steps deep into the basic communication framework:
You know the story you want to tell
You have a deep understanding of your audienceYou understand their hopes and fears, you know what content they respond to, where they like to spend time, and their biggest pain points. Ideally you’ve actually spoken to a few people in your target market.
You have a strong grasp on what you want to say and how you want to say it. You’ve paid attention to common themes and insider language. You know the narrative.
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First, get to know media types
You start with the three categories of media that are possible to generate online, categorized like this:
Earned Media
Owned Media
Paid Media
Buzz you generate (i.e., bloggers talking about you)
Ads/awareness you buy
Distribution through the channels you operate
Let’s dig into each. 3
Generate earned media step-by-step
Within the earned media space and engaging online influencers, take a three-step approach:
Identify Relevant Targets Establish Incentive Engage Effectively(i.e., what the benefit is to
them)(i.e., reach out to them via
email, phone, etc.)
We’ll break out the individual tasks contained in each of these steps.
(i.e., writers, influencers, bloggers in the space)
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How to identify targetsIf you know your audience well, you have a good idea of what they’re reading online.
Search for blogs by using any of these sites as a jumping off point:
http://blogsearch.google.com/http://www.icerocket.com/http://alltop.com/
STARTING OUT?
Start with sites you know.Identify the contributors.
Identify additional sites.http://www.similarsites.com/
Visit the site blogroll.Blogs cross promote each other.
IDENTIFY
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Collect data points along the wayCollect data on targets you’ve identified in an Excel or Google doc. Break this out into five basic sections (tweak to suit your needs):
- Name- URL- Contact info- Why they're relevant- Engagement (comments, shares, likes, etc per post)- Reach (size of their total audience)
IMPORTANT:Whittle it down to the 5-10 most relevant outlets.
A blog with 10M unique monthly visitors that covers a range of topics is
less valuable than one that has 1K unique monthly visitors and covers
your topic exclusively.
RELEVANCE OVER REACH
IDENTIFY
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The Power of YouTube
YouTube creators drive massive engagement–oftentimes more so than blogs.
Get started like this:
1. Search YouTubeSee who’s already evangelizing your brand, product, topic.
2. Get Contact InfoCheck the ‘About’ section of their channel.
SIDENOTE
You can also search a directory of creators by their channel statistics at http://vidstatsx.com/.
170YOUTUBE CHANNELS PASSED1 MILLION SUBSCRIBERSin the first half of 2013
...there are now
317CHANNELS1 MILLION SUBSCRIBERS
with more than
IDENTIFY
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How to establish an incentive
When you reach out to people you want to answer two questions:
Make it easy to say yes. Can you offer an exclusive trial of your product, interviews with the founders? What can you do to build a relationship and make it worth their time to check out your product or content?!
Why should this person share my story?
What value can I offer to them and their audience? 1 2
Ideally you help your target achieve their goals (which requires you know what they are in the first place).
In a similar vein, make sure your offering actually helps the audience. Make it concrete.
INCENTIVIZE
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How to engage effectively
Have a Pre-Existing RelationshipGets the best results.
Get an IntroductionSearch Facebook and LinkedIn to see if you have mutual connections.
Cultivate the RelationshipComment on their blog, interact with them on Twitter—add value to them over time.
Cold PitchMake it as custom as possible. Never create a template email and spam people. Use their actual name, call out specifics of their work.
Tease what you've got in your email, and escalate to a phone call as soon as possible. This allows you to become a person and build a relationship vs. remain just another email in their inbox.
PHONE TAG
Bloggers, YouTubers, thought leaders, and influencers get pitched constantly. Here’s how to engage them:
ENGAGE
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Pitching can get tricky
Hi (Name),
I wanted to reach out because [insert brief explanation of what you’re doing – for ex, launching an album]. I thought it might be relevant for [site] because [insert example of similar stories covered by blogger in the past – for ex, they covered a similar artist and the post performed well]. Any chance you’d think it would be a good fit?
I’d love to hop on the phone [insert time] if you think its something you’d be interested in [insert reference to incentive – for example, you could potentially provide a sneak peak to the demo before launch]. Just let me know!
Best,[insert name]
If you need help framing your pitch or coming up with ideas, I highly recommend you read these two posts on how to pitch a blogger:
How to Pitch Bloggers – Make it a Win/Win/Win Situation
20 Tips for Pitching Bloggers
To make pitching easier, here’s a template.
SIDENOTE
PITCH 101
ENGAGE
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Now we’ll discuss owned mediaWhen interacting with target online communities, e.g., through Facebook, Twitter, or a blog, you can break things out into two categories:
Proactive Communications
Reactive Communications
Events/initiatives you can plan for.
Responding to the community, current events, or whatever is happening in real time.
Let’s hack awayat this....11
Being a proactive communicatorOn the proactive side you'll want to create content calendars highlighting:
Then, you’ll want to plan what you're going to say.
Click here for a great example of a content calendar template you can use.
Relevant holidaysEventsProduct launchesIndustry milestones
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Learning to react in real time
On the reactive side, create guidelines outlining the tone for the social media profiles:
Create an escalation chart (if you've got a client that will need to weigh in on some approvals).
Use a community management tool to track fan engagement and schedule posts.
Examples for Facebook & Twitter:
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Hootsuite Buffer App
Do’s and don’ts on what can be saidWho is allowed to say itWhen responses should go outHow to resolve conflicts
And now paid media (if you have budget)To distribute content quickly, paid media can be a great option.
Across Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, buy directly through the platform with small scale buys (i.e., less than $5k-10k).
Links to the ad platforms:
Twitter AdsFacebook Ads YouTube Ads
Each platform has self-serve advertising platforms with varying complexity.
Twitter and YouTube
COMPLEXITY
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It’s important to track your progressStart out with some of the great free options:
PeopleBrowsr to get emails of mentions around key
Topsyto get emails of mentions around key
Facebook Insightsto get emails of mentions around key words that you choose.
Google News Alerts to get emails of mentions around key words that you choose.
Wildfire social monitoring tool is great if you want to do competitive benchmarking.
Each of the above services include a wealth of getting started materials and best practice case studies.
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And that’s it. Simple right?Truth is, the basic stuff is simple—marketers, pundits, gurus, and “ninjas” overcomplicate this form of communication.
But: simplicity does not equate ease.
Successfully executing these tactics takes a great deal of time and effort.
However, with this information you can begin to generate awareness and understand what’s working for you.
So… what community are you going to reach?
REMEMBER
Stick with the fundamentals:
Where is my audience spending time?
How can I provide value?
How do I engage my existing community?
Where can I amplify my efforts through paid media?
How do I track it?
COMMUNITY
IS KING
BRENDAN GAHAN
Visit Brendan’s blog to read more social media strategies.