I attended a very interesting speech given by Anthony Llloyd of Fallowfield's Country House Hotel on Social Media.
Before you say - this is just another of those, let me give you some background.
Anthony is (well was) a cold-war fighter pilot. He loves and flies Vulcan Bombers (at least he's behind keeping the last one in the air). He's in his sixties and he runs a successful Oxfordshire hotel. Anthony is no 'youf' tweeter.
In fact he reckons that Twitter helped his business through the recession. Even I (who had used Facebook and Twitter just to satisfy technological curiosity) had to sit up.
What is Social Media?
For businesses it is mainly Twitter, Linked-in and Facebook. You'll be surprised at the demographics - over 60% of users of Twitter and Facebook are more than 35 years old (on Linked-in it's 80%) - this is the US, but the UK ain't much different! You can see this from a nice chart put together by www.pingdon.com.
And when you look by network
Does it matter to me?
Many people are quite wary of social media - but like anything it's a tool. So used right, it gives you results. But like anything (SEO, Marketing, Building a Business) it costs you - it costs time.
So if you do decide to do it, you do it for two reasons.
1. To create content - and you should be doing this on your website regardless, so this is just another good way
2. To create 'conversations' with potential and current customers. It's networking.
So for example, Fallowfields uses it to drive people to their website. Once there, it's the role of the content of that website to entice people to try the restaurant (all local - as in from their own farm and kitchen garden), their meeting facilities and their hotel.
Tie-ing Social Media to your marketing plan
You will want to do this as Fallowfields did. Once you're using it well, then the results can be measurable. Anthony says that he attributes £100,000 in revenue to that work, 6 national newspaper articles, countless local media exposure, TV appearances and a 20% increase in website traffic.
So it's about having a plan with measurable objectives and then using Social Media as part of that mix.
Anthony's 7 steps
This is what you need to do from Anthony's experience:
Step 1 - Define your objectives
Examples of this include
a. To create enough PR & content for the Google crawlers to visit www.fallowfields.com every 4 days, - to ensure it ranks above my competition on all keywords.
b. Listening to customers and prospects –
To monitor my brand;
c. Networking –
To put a human face to and to build the Fallowfields brand, promoting the products and services
Increasing customer retention, by generating stronger relationships with customers
d. Creating action
Identifying potential customers
Creating referrals - existing customers persuading potential customers
e. Supporting –
facilitating customers to help each other
Step 2 - Action plan to achieve each objective
Then for each of the above objectives there is a specific action. Here is just one
b1. Objective - To monitor my brand
Action. To use Google Analytics weekly to measure performance against each of my keywords, adjust my posting strategy accordingly
Step 3 - Create a professional profile
Use the About me places to create a personal profile of the business - which means you. A nice photograph, detail of who you are and what you're interested in. To get a sample go onto Twitter and look at Anthony (@fallowfieldsuk). And remember always point people back to your website.
Step 4 - Be prepared to create content
As on your website, so on social media you must create content - something interesting that people may be interested in hearing about. We all have interests and much of our business derives from that. Anthony loves food, the countryside, rugby, Vulcan bombers, flying. 90% of what he posts on Twitter is about this stuff. 10% promotes his business directly.
Remember, your business is born out of you and your interests - so list them. I run a web technology business and I do that because I find website design and technology (writing software) fascinating. I find solutions to problems other people face too - and I should really be sharing those - in amongst my love of imagery, writing books for my kids, beautiful design, Africa (where I grew up) and more. And quite frankly all of that ends up in my work.
So it should be easy to create content on all sorts of things. The beauty of Twitter is that it can be short (140 characters). And when you have more to say - link people back to your website (assuming you have a good content management system).
You'll be amazed once you start how many things catch your interest. For example, here I am writing this on the basis of a presentation I saw.
Step 5 - Be prepared to engage others
You need to be happy to 'network' with others as you do offline. Chat with them on Twitter - even if it's short. Respond to complaints, ask for feedback. Have a conversation.
Once you start, you may find it a fabulous way to stay in touch with your competition, your customers and your environmnent.
Step 6 - Share & distribute content
When you find something interesting - pass it on. As I'm doing today. Much of what is in this is Anthony's.
It is of course good etiquette to tell people where your stuff comes from - and part of the networking.
You don't need to spend a lot of time writing it - you can just send on links. But you may always find you want to add something. And that is good - creating content is good.
Step 7 - Use Analytics
Use Google Analytics. See our help guide on that. See what is actually happening and respond to it.
In summary, I'd say the following. A good web presence is about content and technology. Make sure you have a decent website on a decent content management system (like Drupal) which can take on as much content as you can throw at it (it can even import your Twitter stream back onto the front page, as ours does). Then get yourself a nice desktop application to help manage your Tweeting, Facebooking and more (such as this http://www.tweetdeck.com/desktop/). Then go about creating content - "a bit a day will bring you the loving arms of Google's web crawlers"!
