Social Media Tips and Techniques -- By Jessica Miller

When Jon McBride started a Facebook page for Weber State University in 2009, the page had over 7,000 fans in the first year. In just two years, the number of ‘fans’ the page has had nearly doubled, with over 12,000 fans of the page, coming from 18 different countries, and speak 19 different languages.

McBride, who works within the University Communications department, said he never thought the page would take off like it did. Initially, he spent about a tenth of his day on various social media tasks. In 2011, he said nearly half of his working hours are spent related in some way to WSU’s social media outlets, which now include YouTube and Twitter accounts.

The key to WSU’s success? McBride said it has everything to do with the idea of “user-generated content.”

“It’s not about me creating the funniest and catchiest posts on our page that people are going to love,” he said. “It’s more about creating content on our page that teases out this user-generated content, creates dialogue, a conversation, gets people to answer questions.”

One of the features that generate some of the most interaction on WSU’s Facebook page is a question of the day. This ranges from where the best spots to hang out on campus are to what students think about controversial smoking policies being discussed in student senate. The questions get the users talking to the university, about the university, and to each other.

And this, McBride said, is another benefit to social media. He calls this sort of user-generated content the 2011 version of a paid testimonial, but the difference is, Facebook users aren’t being paid to give their opinion.

Good or bad, a raw opinion about a company can speak volumes to users who may be looking into whether they would like to do business with that company. Even if some of the posts are negative about the company or organization, McBride said that’s alright too.

“Even that negative stuff brings to your page credibility,” he said. “Users see that people are being open and that this isn’t some super-filtered forum with fake people. Those negative comments make the positive ones shine out even more.”

So how do you get started in social media? Setting up the actual account may be the easiest part about social media – most homepages will give you a guided form.

After the set-up, comes the execution. This is where your adventure in trial and error begin. Social media can be a delicate balance. Post too little, and your audience will forget you even exist. Post too much, and you might as well guarantee an ‘unfollow.’

Rules for social media often vary depending on the type of platform being used. On Youtube, for instance, one could post several videos in one day because many of those who view the video will most likely not ‘follow’ them and be notified, and subsequently annoyed, when a video is posted.

However, take your Facebook account and post more than three times in one day, and a drop in ‘friends’ is almost a guarantee. Most Facebook users find an excess of posts to be just that – excess. To them, your business shout-outs are clogging up their newsfeed that could be used by other friends and businesses.

But take Twitter, for instance. The social media service is presented in an entirely different format. Short, timely tweets are thrown up quickly, are viewed quickly, and are most likely, moved away from quickly. The fast pace of Twitter allows users to post much more frequently.

After deciding to jump on the social media shift, many questions will rise: When do I post? What do I post? How do I get people to pay attention to me? What if I mess it all up?

First of all, the time you send your posts may reflect on how many people read them. Internet marketer Gary McCaffrey shared on his website his own web traffic from his Twitter account. He said, for his personal account, he received the best Twitter responses between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. Pacific Time Zone. His data also showed that any posting between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. gave a tweet more exposure.

As for what to post on your page, that is a little less number crunching and a little more feeling. No one approach to social media is going to work for every business. Many businesses trying to gain more foot traffic find posting coupons exclusive to a certain social media platform successful. Others may find this a wash. Either way, every business just has to experiment what works best for them. The most important thing to remember is to maintain a consistent feed that has a genuine feel.

Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling you are talking out to no one, especially when you are talking business and wanting more customers. Once you create that account, how are you supposed to garner followers, anyway?

First of all, get the people who know you personally or work for you follow your page. They will be the most supportive of your social media cause.

As far as reaching those who are outside of your social circle, that’s trickier. It used to be the norm for businesses to search for keywords, like “tires,” “phone service,” etc., and send out a private message or link the second someone had anything to say about anything that in any way scarcely related to their business. That formula has begun to fail after people grew tired of what appeared to be spam appearing in their accounts. Businesses still do it, but it is not nearly as effective as it once was.

The best way to garner follows is to gain them organically. Post your social media information on your contact page on your website, put it on your business cards, in your newsletter, on the bottom of email messages. This allows people who have already showed some interest in your company the opportunity to connect to you in social media land.

If you are really looking for a way to get a high volume of followers quickly, host a giveaway. Nothing draws people when a free product or service is being given away in exchange for a mere “Like” on Facebook or “Follow” on Twitter.

But what do you do if you screw up big time? A misfired tweet, YouTube video, or Facebook post can spread quickly, becoming viral in a matter of hours. The thing to remember is such social media scandals are often short-lived.

Take for instance a 2011 mis-tweet from clothing designer Kenneth Cole. With headlines buzzing about violent and deadly riots in Egypt, Cole took to Twitter and posted this tweet along with a link to his website:

“Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection in now available online.”

Talk about bad timing and bad Tweet behavior. People were outraged that the designer would joke about such a sensitive subject. Within an hour, Cole tweeted an apology:

“We weren’t intending to make light of a serious situation. We understand the sensitivity of this historic moment.”

And, somehow, despite the uproar, the company’s stock managed to jump 1.8 percent by the end of the day.

Not every fiasco will have such a neat ending. Sometimes when you mess up in social media, there’s nothing you can do but apologize and take your bruises from the public. Granted, most new users in social media won't be managing a campaign as large as, say, Kenneth Cole, so don't be overly concerned with misfiring a social media message. Just take a moment before hitting that “send” button to think about the message you are conveying, and if it is the message that you, in fact, want conveyed.

Another example to note: even if you don’t get on the social media bandwagon, it doesn’t mean you still can’t find yourself in the middle of a social media meltdown.

Take for instance the 2009 social media fiasco of “Nikon hates babies.” Talk about bad branding.

In 2009, Nikon hosted an after-party during the BlogHer conference in Chicago. (BlogHer is a popular network of blogs written for and by women.) One mom was preparing to board a limo to go the party, when she was informed she couldn’t bring her baby with her to the event. She tweeted:

“I just got kicked out of the Nikon party because I have a BABY & no babies are allowed #blogher09 #nikonhatesbabies”

Soon enough, the searchable hashtag #nikonhatesbabies spread like wildfire throughout the Twitterverse, and Nikon was gaining the reputation of a company who hates babies – not a good marketing point.

Nikon took to their blog and explained:

“Due to the time of the event, the noise level, the availability of alcohol and the proximity to water, we determined that from a safety perspective, children should not attend.”

Nikon successfully killed the fire after explaining their reasons for keeping the event adult-only. Like most social media scandals, eventually Nikon’s also died out as well. In 2011, most of the general public would not think Nikon and think of baby-haters.

But the biggest reason that many people choose to stay out of the social media arena is because they feel that social media is a passing fad that requires too much time and effort.

McBride put it best when he said:

“This isn't a slap watch that kids are going to think is cool for a few days, weeks or years and then move on to the next toy. This is a fundamental shift in how people communicate — interpersonally, yes, but also with businesses. People have never been able to interact with big business the way that they can through Facebook. That provides a phenomenal customer service opportunity for businesses.”

Interacting through the Internet is never going to go away. This is not a fad that will fade like the eight-track – this is changing the game in the way we communicate.

Not to say that the services that are being used today may not evolve into something else, such as MySpace became irrelevant and Facebook taking over as king of social networking. There will always be this evolution of how we communicate using technology, but what medium that is in will undoubtedly change.

So why put all the effort into learning some new technological world if its just going to be dumped for something else in the next year or so?

Simply put: That’s where your customers are.

According to Twitter, 200 million people have registered accounts as of January 2011, with 100 million of those accounts added in 2010 alone. YouTube garners 200 million views every day solely on mobile devices. Every month, Facebook users share 30 billion pieces of content on their pages.

Social media is simply where the customers are. Not only are the services offering you a hotbed of people eager to share information about their hobbies, where they live, and what they love, it’s free too.

Granted, it takes your time. Time equals money. But for many businesses, the time (or money used to pay someone else to do it) was worth it.

Katie Delahaye Paine wrote an article that was published in the January 2011 edition of “Communication World” that proved just that point.

Paine wrote of several businesses who successfully used social media to garner an incredible return on investment. She wrote of the food service company Sodexho, who hired 50 recruiters (and spent about $50,000) to search Twitter to find tweets about food, cooking, and job searching. They then would engage those users in conversation and eventually referred them to the Sodexo recruitment web page.

In six months, the Twitter approach filled enough open spots to cancel the $350,000 they had been spending maintaining a Monster.com account. That means Sodexo saved $300,000 – or received a net return on investment of 6,000 percent.

Paine also detailed another similar story where the Humane Society of the United States used the photo-sharing site Flickr. Anyone was able to upload a picture of his or her own pet for a “Spay Day Pet Photo Contest.” Each upload cost the user $1. After six weeks, the Humane Society had received $650,000 in donations. And setting up that Flickr account? It was free.

The big picture here is that if you don’t use social media – or are making a lackluster attempt at doing such – you are doing nothing but hurting yourself. This is no passing trend and is no longer exclusive to a certain crowd or age group. Social media has taken off, and has become the norm. If you want to compete in business, you’ll need to utilize these new forms of communication to garner attention.

Top 5 Tips to Remember with Social Media

1. Be a human. Sounds silly, but many businesses attempting social media are unsuccessful because they let a computer do all the work for them by sending spam to followers or using automatic links. After awhile, people just move over links with gazed eyes. There has to be some kind of interaction with the public, some real words that a real person has written.
2. Don’t spam after an immediate follow. So, someone just followed you back on Twitter or ‘liked’ you on Facebook? One of the quickest ways to get an unfollow is to put a message in their inbox – especially a generic message that is clearlycomputer-generated – about how great your company is. If you insist on sending a message at first encounter, perhaps find something interesting they have put online and mention it. Such as, “I see you are an avid mountain biker. Glad we connected, I love mountain biking as well. Let us know if you ever need anything from (the business.)” But don’t make up your love of mountain bikes. People can see through phoniness and insincerity, even in a digital medium.
3. Remember everything you post is public and is being archived. It’s not difficult to pull up a misguided tweet someone posted in the past. Remember that you are representing a brand, even if that brand is your personal self. If you use Twitter to promote your business self, but use Facebook for personal friends and family, make sure your Facebook settings are ultra-private. Nothing is more embarrassing than a potential business partner stumbling over photos from your boozy Cancun cruise.
4. Remember the key to social media is social. Nothing is more irritating than when a business uses social media to talk about nothing more than their company in a one-sided format. Social media users need to talk to their audience, not at their audience. Address feedback (both negative and positive) that users may share, ask them what specials they would like to see with the business, ask them trivia questions – anything to create a conversation between followers and the business.
5. Don’t get overwhelmed. Admittedly, wading through the do’s and don’ts of social media can be overwhelming and tedious. Find what works best for you. Sometimes what one person says is best, isn’t always going to work for your type of brand. Not everyone is automatically perfect at crafting an attention-grabbing tweet or awe-inspiring Facebook post. It’s OK. Just start something. Having a way to connect with potential customers is worth it.

Interview with a social media professional: Ben Winslow

Ben Winslow, a reporter for Fox 13 in Salt Lake City, Utah, is not who you would consider a social media expert in normal terms. He has not profited from his social media ventures, he is not selling a product, but has managed to garner 3,308 followers who hear everything from him: from the latest news, his song choice for the day, or where he’s getting his caffeine fix.

For many who follow him, he is the go-to when it comes to news and happenings within the state. He was voted as “Best Person to Follow on Twitter” in 2011 by the readers of the Salt Lake City Weekly, and placed second in the same category in 2010.

Winslow is obviously doing something right with social media, and has shared some of his secrets to his success.

He said he started his Twitter account (@BenWinslow) in 2009, and initially kept it private and didn’t tweet news or much of anything that was relevant to more than a few family friends.

He started going public, he said, after he had seen how other journalists were using their accounts to assist them in their reporting. So he took to his account and started sharing his behind-the-scenes views he was experiencing while reporting the news. And people responded.

Winslow said he liked this aspect of social media because it broke down a sort of wall that separated the media and the public.

“People do a lot more interacting,” he said. “There was always this kind of wall. Now, there’s no separation. There’s this instant feedback.”

Winslow said his top tips for being a social media success include being genuine and who you really are, and of course, making sure to interact with others.

“There’s a reason why it’s called social media,” he said.

He said to make sure to provide content that is original and will be new to most people who view it – nothing is more uninteresting than a person who just relinks other people’s web articles or news stories.

He also advised users to make sure users are accessible, and to make sure to play nice and not create “flame wars” online by throwing offensive or inflammatory comments towards someone else.

Winslow said he has not hard and fasts rules on when and what he tweets. He said some days he may tweet more because of the nature of the issue he is covering, but he generally just goes by the rule that if he thinks it’s interesting, other people probably will too.

He said he’s not sure anyone really has a certain formula for that works the best in the social media world.

“We’re still trying to solve that great equation,” he said. “How to use it, how to monetize , etc.”

But he said there’s no doubt about it: social media is here to stay. He said he doesn’t see the online interactions as a fad, but rather a shift in the way people communicate.

“I think it has staying power,” he said. “People thought TV was a fad, or the radio. I see it as another platform. It’s a whole new world within a world.”

Resources

1. The New Rules of Marketing and PR, by David Meerman Scott, is a book that provides a great look at how to use social media to reach buyers directly.
2. Measuring the real ROI of Social Media, by Katie Delahaye Paine, is an article printed in the January edition of Communication World. This article discussed the examples of Sodexo and The Humane Society’s success with social media, along with other examples.
3. 25 Ways to Get More Social Media Followers, by Diana Freedman, is a blog post on HubSpot Blog that shares 25 interesting ways to gain more followers from a business perspective: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/7512/25-Ways-to-Get-More-Social-Media-Followers.aspx
4. Let’s Talk: Social Media for Small Business, is a PDF file created by ducttapemarketing.com that provides an in-depth look at the importance of social media and how to use it for small business: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/7512/25-Ways-to-Get-More-Social-Media-Followers.aspx
5. Social Networking for Promoting you as a Brand, by Brian Solis, is an excerpt published by FT Press from his book “Putting the Public Back into Public Relations. It is a great and informative resource to social networking and branding.