BTVSMD – Burlington Social Media 201 Workshop – Gahlord Dewald

Social Media 201

This presentation was made at Burlington’s Social Media day by Gahlord Dewald, Thoughtfaucet Online Strategist & President, on June 27th, 2013

It’s good to have playtime on social media. If we want to learn, it’s our obligation to play – i.e. 6-8 months

Weird tip to improve your Twitter:
Thought leadership important, but will focus on IFTTT tool
Real estate clients compile lists of best NYC places, and Foursquare tips, then uses IFTTT tool and when temperature drops below a certain degree, the IFTTT sends an auto tweet about best cocoa place, or if raining here’s best museums, or other indoor activities.

Connect people to content
Use IFTTT when a picture appears on Instagram, save it to Dropbox, or if picture of me tagged, save it to Drop box or email it.
Also used Google Reader to compile articles with star, then set IFTTT to send to Buffer service, which drips links out throughout the day or week, but it’s just a headline and link, and will need finalizing,

Doesn’t use modified Tweets, and when finding a useful article tag those users who are relevant to the article.
i.e. national Realtor association friend who likes motorcycles and tech, and finds a motorcycle with iPhone on dashboard picture, then shares with him.
Make sure the links you spread are others, for every link get 4-5 other sources

Question: How often are connections updated?
Not sure as Twitter recent update removed support.
Align your business goal with social medium’s business goal.
Don’t recommend just having a Facebook page, as they may make updates – i.e. 16% like

Question: What do you think is the next big network?
Tumblr – Due to the age demographic,  and types of content created and shared
Vine – Great tool to play with
Instagram – Media’s created a conflict/competition with Vine, but they have more room to grow, as more become comfortable with the medium

Question: What if my results from a local advertiser do not match my numbers?
 Look at web analytics, and note referrals from site. If advertising with a local source, and they give number that doesn’t match analytic, they might be lying, or people are not letting page fully load, as it still counts; recommends links given from the advertiser should be campaign tagged –

Advantage Creations note: If tagging campaigns, make sure that the landing page has a canonical tag in it, which tells search engines that the url with tags is the same as the url without tags, which helps to ensure that you get the search engine optimization benefit of the link.

Question: Facebook as major social media outlet? – Facebook groups more effective for connecting to audience, around an audience – Reach, conversion, satisfaction model

Realtor clients make list of 365 things to do in city, which builds community around a topic.

Question: Creating event in Facebook? – Doesn’t use, as it’s restricting to those who don’t use Facebook; Push the link to site instead, i.e. Amanda Levinson’s upcoming BTVSMD13 Workshop for Nonprofits

Question: Learn about analytics?
WebAnalyticsWeds meetings – BTV Digerati
Also, each of tools has their own measurements

Question: People wasting time on social media?
Don’t measure by number of likes, measure by having better customer relationships, finding their interests, it’s a psychological tool i.e. Klout score

Identify the company decision maker, then customize marketing to that person, friend on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.
Check how many fields they have filled out on Facebook – or if on Twitter, it’s not stalking.
LinkedIn also another tool, especially in the last year for business people.

Basically, social media is a giant focus group feedback form, for each profile field you fill out.

This was one of the five of the eight seminars for Burlington’s Social Media day on June 2 7th, 2013 that the Advantage Creations staff attended. More notes to follow, keep posted.