Social Media: Share and Share Alike
Besides social media, what’s the most important word in the Newport Interactive Marketers vocabulary? That would be “share.” The group shares connections, contacts, information, leads, advice, insight, links, hashtags, business cards, stories, you name it. With social media dominating marketing today, business owners large and small need one another to succeed. So they share – and share often.
In light of this summer’s big events – America’s Cup World Series and Ocean State Tall Ships – 3 social media experts who are also NIM members shared their tops tips and insights for using social media to boost events or bring people through your doors.
- Mindfull’s Social Media Training Guru Chip Leakas, specializing in real estate
- RI Blood Center’s Social Media Maven Kathy Manchester, who rocked NIM’s Social Media on a Budget panel
- Social Media Manager Brian Hodge, who feeds multimedia for GoProvidence.com
The May 17 panel focused on marketing and new media, trading short cuts, hot tips, and best practices that could be implemented by businesses based in Newport and in surrounding locations. Participants came away with their brains chock full of tips they could try immediately and … of course, share via Twitter, Facebook, and all manner of social media platforms.
Events and Social Media
- There are 3 phases to any planned event: lead-up, spreading, get others to share, generate buzz during event & post-event
- Facebook lets brands schedule ads via an “offers” button right from the brand page
- Understanding customers via social comes first; getting them to know you is second
Social Media To-Dos
- Update Facebook header image often. Look on Flickr for Creative Commons, which let’s you use photos freely. Highlighted posts cover the width of your Facebook page
- Facebook and Twitter move on an momentary basis; be actively engaged or you will lose business
- If you’re on Twitter, you need to be monitoring the feed. People expect answers, and they expect their complaints to be answered
- Host a Twitter powerhour for social media savvy folks, offer some freebies, or a prize
- Restaurants should be sharing menus and specials on Facebook and Twitter
- Offer social customers discounts. Create an event, because social media people love to interact in real life, too
- Ask customers who have had a great experience to review your business, because testimonials are huge
- Encourage people to tag themselves when you feature them in your photo and post it to Facebook
- Check privacy settings so you are notified when people post on your Facebook. page
- Encourage people to share their photos and post them on your brand page.
- Set up a Facebook contest, use Wildfire to help with contests, set up a photo contest during Americas Cup and Tall Ships, offer a gift certificate to the winner
- Post events to RI Monthly, Patch, and @NewportBuzz willing to share.
Social Media Resources
- Fbcovers.com and similar tools allow you to customize your Facebook header.images
- Inboxq is another helpful tool to build campaigns around keywords
- Foursquare is a great tool to drive awareness and loyalty
- Yelp is a great tool to build awareness, want to be sure you’ve claimed your biz
- Google Places (now converted to Google+ pages) give you an opportunity to upload photos and videos. 84% of people use consumer videos when travel planning
- QR codes can be really handy, just need to make sure your site is mobile-friendly
Thanks @NewportBuzz, @12MeterCharters, @NoirBlancDesign for sharing Tweeting insights.
