Social Media Strategy
AUGUST 2013
Big Picture
1. Utilize social media to deepen relationships
with current clients and widen
our potential customer reach to maintain
and increase sales.
2. To deepen and widen relationships with
media and digital influencers for minimizing time and
effort within operations such as pitching.
Guidelines
• We also recommend implementing social media guidelines since
everything we do online reflects back on zcomm. In order to help the staff
with this transition, there will be training sessions on social media
platforms as needed.
• To find and use each social media platforms to
target the most appropriate audience (b2b or
b2c) for the success of zcomm sales and
services.
Content
Content should not be exactly the same across each platform.
It should:
• Be informative, relevant, useful and timely
• Be original, entertaining and engaging
• Include behind the scenes, quick tips, special offers and
events, breaking news and developments
• Reactive to current events, comments, posts, re-tweets,
likes, posts, and if appropriate (LinkedIn) business trends.
Measurement
We are looking for social media engagement and
relationships that are created utilizing the
appropriate audience, and within the guidelines.
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Re-tweets (or re-post)
Likes
Comments
Messages in and out
Twitter
GOAL: To increase engagement with our Twitter audience, showcase social
media skills to increase success in social media proposals. To increase
digital influencer relationships for use in pitching, digital influencer
programs, and client promotion (owned media).
Twitter is not a broadcast media, it is more like a telephone than a television.
Create tweets that engage but also reply, respond and react to other
tweets to increase engagement.
Consider:
Company news (b2c audience – like new employees or a move to DC), b2c blog posts, client promotion,
trending news, vines, food trucks, food/beverage/beauty/government relations, weather, DC, art,
reactions and responses to other tweets, retweets, digital influencer engagement.
Twitter is a b2c mechanism and should not be used for direct sales. Save this for LinkedIn or direct
communication within Twitter
•
80/20 Rule – stats show that people are only willing to put up with 20 percent of sales content at most
Facebook
GOALS:
• Increase engagement and influence the Facebook community.
• To showcase social media skills in order to successfully land
proposals to clients
• Widen relationships with current/potential clients
• Use in pitching social media campaigns and journalists
POSTS:
• Post regular updates, including industry news and original zcomm
content
• Interact with, comment on and share posts from other agencies and
news sites
YouTube
GOAL: Generate at least 10 videos by 2012 to increase SEO and visbility
CHANGES:
•
Create and upload video content regularly
– Minimum one video per month
•
Update channel profile and tags
•
Topics for videos can include:
– Footage from events we attend (short clips)
– Industry information presented as graphics with music and/or voiceover
– Biz Buzz Bites video series
– How-To videos
– Interviews
WHY?
•
YouTube tells a small part of zcomm’s story and builds trust
•
It’s the third most visited site on the internet (4 billion views per day) and viewership increased by 25 percent last year
•
Videos get preferential search placement – a search term is 53 times more likely to get a first page Google search result if
it has a YouTube video correlated with it
•
Video in an email communication can double your open rate
•
Good content gives your business credibility
•
75 percent of senior executives watch work-related videos at least once a week. More than 50 percent visited a vendor’s
website based on a video they watched and nearly 50 percent made a business decision based on a video they watched.
Blog
GOAL: Receive 3,500 page views total in 2012
CHANGES:
•
Secure a direct domain: zpr.com/blog
•
Start incorporating how-to posts, lists, interviews, trending topics, announcements, events, etc.
•
Titles need to be clear and literal for SEO purposes; can revamp clever titles into opening sentences instead
•
Keep tone conversational, but professional; Avoid profanity, slang, excessive jargon, etc. because it’s a turnoff
•
All posts need to have a strong and clear focus
•
Use smaller paragraphs, subheads, bullets, etc. to make content more digestible for readers
•
Update the theme of the blog so it’s cleaner and easier to read – light background, dark text – usability!
•
Begin commenting on other blogs (agencies, PR blogs, etc.)
•
Link to the zcomm blog on all online profiles and in our email signature
WHY?
•
Blogs should be the cornerstone of online engagement and our content marketing strategy; it tells zcomm’s story
and establishes subject matter expertise
•
SEO experts agree that having an integrated blog is the number one way to increase your site’s search engine
results
•
Allows us to better track analytics and stats
•
Commenting on other blogs will help build relationships, increase traffic to our blog and establish zcomm as a
thought leader
•
Blogs are good PR – they extend the value offered to customers and clients by providing information they find
relevant and useful
•
Blogs have a better chance of being indexed in search engines index blogs if you publish on a regular basis, on a
set schedule
LinkedIn
GOAL: Set up a minimum of five business meetings through online
networking
CHANGES:
• Make sure executive staff members’ profiles are 100 percent filled
out
• Update and maintain zcomm’s company page
• Join appropriate groups
• Participate and begin group conversations
WHY?
• LinkedIn generates testimonials
Google +
GOAL: Familiarize ourselves with the platform and find new
ways for zcomm to become visible to clients
CHANGES:
• Update and maintain our profile
• Brainstorm ways zcomm can use the Hangout feature
• Add clients and agencies to our circles
WHY?
• Companies are having a lot of success using the Hangouts
• It’s important to have a presence in all the major social
platforms to show we know what’s new
New Elements to Consider
• Podcasts (one per month)
– Short audio or video podcasts
– Write a blog post for each one to share with readers
– Topics can include:
• Five things to keep in mind this week
• Rundown of new keys stats
• Interviews
• Monthly series’ focusing on one topic
– One page “white papers” on a specific topic that can then be
condensed and repurposed for videos, podcasts, tweets,
Facebook posts, etc.
– Example: focus on curation for March