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Our Business is Making Your Business Grow Copyright Dr Alan Rae 2010 How to use social media in real businesses Dr Alan Rae – Managing Partner www.howtodobusiness.com
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Social media for real businesses

Aug 29, 2014

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Business

Alan Rae

How real companies use social media - based on research carried out in aerospace supply chain.

Covers principles of networking and how social media can help
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Page 1: Social media for real businesses

Our Business is Making Your Business Grow  

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2010

How to use social media inreal businesses

Dr Alan Rae – Managing Partnerwww.howtodobusiness.com

Page 2: Social media for real businesses

Our Business is Making Your Business Grow  

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2010

You need to know how

much activity at each stage is needed to get the sales

you want

Marketing and Salesis a process

Page 3: Social media for real businesses

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2006

Copyright Dr Alan Rae

Marketing1. It’s about generating opportunities.2. You need a strong story that connects you to

your customers.3. You have limited time for sales and marketing

– 12 hours on average for a small business.4. You need to use the internet to prospect for

you – to generate warm leads. If you’re clever you can get a 40% boost in leads.

5. We can help you achieve this

Page 4: Social media for real businesses

What’s your story?

• You need a narrative that connects you to the customer and motivates them to work with you.

• It needs to be– Compelling– Relates you emotionally to the listener– Phrased in their language– Addresses their pain and spurs them into action

• And is absolutely crystal clear and unambiguous about what you do and why.

• All our research shows that people give or refer business to people that they know what they do

Page 5: Social media for real businesses

Getting your story right

One exercise that I find useful is to compare our needs and values with those of the clientThis can give us a framework in which we can develop compelling narratives.This is all about values and how people think

Copyright Dr Alan Rae 2010www.synergy-global.com

Page 6: Social media for real businesses

How do I tell it?• You can tell it in writing, face to face or

online• For most businesses the actual sale will

involve face to face activity – the action of the play.

• The scenery is the online / written collateral

• The next slide shows your options

Our Business is Making Your Business Grow  

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2009

Page 7: Social media for real businesses

Approaches to Market

Page 8: Social media for real businesses

Examples from our own businesses

• Plants4presents.co.uk - Route A– transactional – b2c – depends on web-site, pay per click and PR /

offers. – National, Scalable.

• FletchingGlasshouses.co.uk - Route C – business to business – reputation and certification driven– on farmers market fresh/local/unsprayed trumps organic– Local – non scalable – depends entirely on face to face reputation

• Ai Consultants / How to do Business Route B– Specialised non scalable – international – business to business– Depends on reputation for high quality specialist work– Uses social media and networking extensively to promote – face to

face activity to close

• .Our Business is Making Your Business Grow  

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2009

Page 9: Social media for real businesses

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2006

Criteria for spending much time online

• Am I a national or a local player?• Is my business scalable?• Is it transactional – or relational• Do I have a reason to go on line?• How much time do I need to spend sales

and marketing • What is the balance between on line and

offline?• How much do I believe in chance and

random connections?

Page 10: Social media for real businesses

On line networks work thesame as face to face ones

Our Business is Making Your Business Grow  

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2007

• People have to like you and trust you before they follow and recommend you.

• You need to get to know people first before you sell to them in a face to face relational sales process

• Doing small favours helps.• The online world works in the same way –

but you have much greater reach

Page 11: Social media for real businesses

How networks operateNetworks are lumpy and uneven. This map of the internet that Lucent produced in the 90s shows there are some really dense nodes that have many connections – while most have very few.

Sales agents know lots of people and use their connections to do deals and generate money.

It’s the same on-line – some people are much more known and connected than others. We find the same patterns occurring in networks, markets and anywhere that people make a free-ish choice about what they do, read or whom they associate with.It follows a power law.

The second player in a market has half the market share of the number 1 player, the third has a third, the quarter has a quarter etc. If the leader has a 40% share then the number 2 has 20%, the number 3 has 16% and the number 4 has 10%. As an example here are the top 6 UK networkers on Ecademy (July 2008)Name Network size Thomas Power 18728 Jim Tuffin 10560 Geoff Cox, 6436 Denis Kondopoulos 3485 r i c h a r d p e r r y 3451 Andrew Widgery 3433

Page 12: Social media for real businesses

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2006

Our task is to getnoticed by influencers

• Find out what networking organisations they belong to and join them

• Work conventional membership organisations• Back it up with PR and in a technical market – by line

articles in the trade press• Understand what motivates the influencers, money,

prestige whatever• If we need to go on-line we can se linked-in, blogs

and follow them on Twitter• BE CLEAR ABOUT WHAT YOU DO - AND WHY IT’S

IMPORTANT TO THEM

Page 13: Social media for real businesses

Developing Trust• People trust people• That are clear about what

they do• That have a good

reputation – Know their stuff– Do what they say– Are likeable or easy to

work with• That get back to them

quickly• That practice “givers

gain”

• So Listen• Spend time in one to

ones understanding the other persons needs

• Do small favours• Understand who’s

important in your network• Find ways to come to

their attention.

Page 14: Social media for real businesses

Exercise – who is important to me

Market 1 Market 2Name How you will meet Name How you will meet

Page 15: Social media for real businesses

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2006

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2004-2009

What to do with your 12 hours

• Find a home group to network with• Be crystal clear about what you do• Get back to people quickly• Practice Givers Gain• If you need to build an online presence

– You can write one blog article and keep a presence on one and a half social networks per week

– Focus on Linked-in then Ecademy which combines on line and offline

• Conventional face to face activity with a bit of PR and adwords spend is what people actually do.

Page 16: Social media for real businesses

Our Business is Making Your Business Grow  

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2007

You can be referred or you can be found

• Being found on line means understanding what people are looking for and using those phrases – called keywords – to tag online objects.

• Simply you have to research these – you could do that by running a Google ad-words campaign

• And then you need to put them in certain specific places in web sites, in blogs, on photos and videos etc.

Page 17: Social media for real businesses

Our Business is Making Your Business Grow  

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2007

When they notice you they check you out

• You need something for them to find• Stories about you – PR• Profiles on social media• 10 things people really ought to know about your

area of expertise• White papers to demonstrate thought leadership• Case studies and examples of your work• Testimonials

Page 18: Social media for real businesses

Our Business is Making Your Business Grow  

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2007

• In today’s business world people believe their peers – not the experts - ebay/amazon ratings

• And certainly not the marketers• So make it easy for people to say good things

about you• Why what you did was worthwhile• And hand out a few of your own to people you

genuinely rate• It really does pay to be thoughtful about this

Particularly Testimonials

Page 19: Social media for real businesses

Our Business is Making Your Business Grow  

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2007

Many industries are small and traditional

• You need to be known• You need to have a good reputation• Your face has to fit• You need others to speak for you

• This is traditional old boy networking

• Online new girl networking is just the same

Page 20: Social media for real businesses

But you can use SocialMedia to speed it all up

• Social media are online networks• The same rules apply as in face to face

networks– Reciprocity– Listen before you talk– Be polite– Be helpful– Be clear about what you do and what you want

Our Business is Making Your Business Grow  

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2009

Page 21: Social media for real businesses

The web runs on words

• So you need to know how the keywords and tags operate

• And how to find them and deploy them• And how it all connects together• We call this “Punch above your weight”

Our Business is Making Your Business Grow  

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2009

Page 22: Social media for real businesses

How you do it• First turn your story into keywords• Test them using Google ad-words• When you’ve got them put them into

– anchor text • Small Business Marketing course sits over• www.1manbrand.co.uk

– Headlines, page title, keywords metatags– Tags for any online materials you create

• Create additional places you can link from– Blogs, Social network sites, other people’s sites

Page 23: Social media for real businesses

Use them as Meta-tags

• Description Tag is key –it’s the description of your page within the search engine report. If you don’t have it Google will cobble together some tosh from the page that you can’t control

• Use most important keywords to make a strong 60 character title tag

• Have the most relevant keywords for the page in the keywords tag

• And make sure each page is different and relevant

Page 24: Social media for real businesses

Now you’ve got them – what do you do with them?

• Put them in the anchor text of inbound links from partners – you may have to negotiate individually but it’s worth it

• Set up an affiliate link programme• Put them into your email auto signature• Build them into your auto signature when you’re

blogging or posting where Google will see it• Use them for brand consistency with your off line

messages• Use them to Tag your Blogs• Create your own environments

Page 25: Social media for real businesses

In many supply chain industries your freedom to use these tools is limited

But you need to understandhow it hangs together

Our Business is Making Your Business Grow  

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2010

Page 26: Social media for real businesses

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2006

Copyright Dr Alan Rae

Your online toolkit. You can create structures like this

to get noticed by influencers

Page 27: Social media for real businesses

Social Media – Summary

  Ecademy Facebook Linked-In

Connection MechanismLook at profile - ask

to connect Ask to connect

Ask to connect if you know them. Get

introduced if you don't

Can you see profile of someone you're not connected with Yes No Yes

Primary Use Business + Social Social Business

Typical User Small Business Individual Corporate

Connection Style Random Amongst Friends Deliberate

Groups and Clubs yes yes Yes

Rich Media Friendly A bit Yes No

Page 28: Social media for real businesses

Source MediaBlogs, Ecademy, YouTube

• Ecademy• Ecademy is a smaller networking site but it’s a good place to start –

the subscription is £10 per month. You can network online and offline with 100,000 other members worldwide. It also lets you– Create blogs– Advertise in the Market Place– Form special interest clubs– Take part in discussions, seek advice from other members or give

advice in response to the posts of others– If you devote time to learning to use it – it really is a school of online

marketing.• 2 unique features make Ecademy important:• It runs face to face meetings as well as online networking.• Google looks at it every day and anything you post there, if you use

keywords properly will deliver a search engine linking bonus. • It definitely has a pivotal role in an online marketing strategy. You

can contact all of your connections once a month.

Page 29: Social media for real businesses

Source MediaBlogs, Ecademy, YouTube

• Blogs• We standardized on Wordpress because

– It’s easy to use– It integrates with your own site– You can create extra pages so it works as a

mini-site– It’s customizable– The tagging is foolproof– You can link to other sites via your blog roll.

• There are 2 flavours, .com and .org. The .com version is hosted by Wordpress, has everything in it you need and you can just set up.

• The .org version is downloadable - you have host it yourself or you can buy a site already set up via GoDaddy

• It’s very easy to set up and use and will be a main building block of your on-line activity.

• A Blog can be an ideal business tool as long as you can generate 300 - 400 words of well written copy every 7-10 days. If you put a Blog on the front page of Ecademy every week you’ll be in the top 100 Bloggers.

Page 30: Social media for real businesses

Source MediaBlogs, Ecademy, YouTube

• You-Tube• YouTube lets you upload short videos.

These can be embedded in web sites or blog pages or online profiles to make them more interesting.

• If you embed them in a page you get a lot of marketing data about who’s watching it.

• On our Turkish Villa site I’ve embedded a video about Bodrum http://www.seaviewturkey.co.uk/gallery_v.html

• We can get Google analytics data on the video but also the demographics about who’s looking at it. So we can retag the video with the best keywords and boost the rankings.

• For business you can create your own channel about your own offers.

Page 31: Social media for real businesses

Carrier MediaTwitter, RSS

• You need to know about twitter –• Its pure permission marketing. People follow you if what you

say is useful. If you bore them – they’ll abandon you.• You’ve 140 characters to make your point. You can link to

something you want to signpost – a Blog, an event, an offer.• Be interesting and converse - don’t broadcast• Tweetdeck helps you sort the conversations out• Tweetlater can automate your “business” posts. Chat with

colleagues, re-tweet items of interest and use it to inform and entertain. No more than 15% promotion

• Twitterfeed helps you feed material to it.• Route blogs and other posts via twitter to end user

destinations in Facebook and linked-in.

Page 32: Social media for real businesses

Sink MediaLinked-In, Facebook

• FaceBook• I’ts allows 3rd party applications and is

good at easily importing pictures and videos

• It blurs boundaries between ‘professional’ and ‘social’ worlds. Fine if you live blamelessly.

• Special interest groups can be created such as ‘Facebook for Business’ or indeed “How to do Business” which has acquired 600 members with very little energy being applied.

• RSS feeds can pull in content from your blog or other source – Wordpress widgets or twitter feed.

• Facebook Flyers can be accessed from the ‘advertisers’ section at the bottom of your profile page. If you want to reach people from Generation Y as employees or customers it may be worth reviewing.

Page 33: Social media for real businesses

Sink MediaLinked-In, Facebook

• LINKED IN• Most transactional network • You can only connect directly if you

already know them via a first circle of people that you are directly connected to, a 2nd circle of their connections and a 3rd circle of their connections. You have access to these people only by invitation.

• To connect to a specific individual I can search for “Google vice president” I found one who’s a senior programmer in Krakow. 14 people who know me know someone who knows him. To contact him I can get a referral

• Good for recruiting or structured selling particularly into corporates.

• Groups (IOD, CIM, ProMarketing Forum) help you get known by asking and answering questions

Page 34: Social media for real businesses

Sink media are where people check you out

• Ex Military people keep in touch via FaceBook• Corporate people use linked-In• For real businesses, linked-In is the main tool

– It has groups you can join and participate in based on professional bodies, Alumni organisations etc

– You can get your thought leadership collateral onto your profile – via slideshare, blogs etc

– Find prospects, get introductions and understand the structure of your industry better – who knows who etc

– Be connected and seen as a thought leader

Our Business is Making Your Business Grow  

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2010

Page 35: Social media for real businesses

People Google you before or after they meet you

• Chances are they’ll find your profile – linkedIn, FaceBook, Ecademy

• You want what they find to have good, current stuff from a blog or a slide set plus some testimonials from other people to jack up your credibility.

• As we said before it’s the scenery not the play – but it can be powerful scenery!

Our Business is Making Your Business Grow  

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2010

Page 36: Social media for real businesses

Marketing to do list• List 50 people you need to meet and how

– They can find you– You can get introduced to them– You can collide with them

• Use social media to create the scenery– join linkedIn

• Build profile join groups contribute– Use PR– Build Collateral library - 7 things you should know – white papers etc– Create a form for people to sign up for these so you can email them– Build Social media profiles– Connect it all together – so that when people check you out they find

your stuff.

Our Business is Making Your Business Grow  

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2009

Page 37: Social media for real businesses

Once you have an order the real business starts

• Brand is about performance

• To be successful everything you do must add value to the customer

• Otherwise it’s waste

• This is called Lean.Our Business is Making Your Business Grow  

Copyright Dr Alan Rae2009

Page 38: Social media for real businesses

What next• Visit www.howtodobusiness.com for details on the

services we provide.• If you are interested in Market planning try our free

teleclass http://marketingbasics.eventbrite.com• If you are interested in Business planning try our free

teleclass http://basicbusiness.eventbrite.com• Or consider buying one of our e-books at

http://www.howtodobusiness.com/howtodobusiness-e-books.htm

• More information from Alan Rae on 0845 094 0407 [email protected]