How to use Social Media the RITE way
Steve Davis’ Regional Insights from the Top End for Business
Steve Davis, Facilitator and Presenter, The RITE Series
Funded by Department of Business and Employment, Northern Territory, as part of October Business
Month 2011 and supported by the Business Enterprise Centre NT
T: +618 8352 3091 M: +61403 022 077 E: [email protected]
How to Use Social Media the RITE Way by Steve Davis is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
How to use Social Media the RITE way | 2
Introduction
Running a business or organisation in the Northern Territory brings a unique set of
challenges as well as some unique opportunities.
The challenges include planning for a long Wet season in which most non-compulsory,
elective business and consumer activity grinds to a halt, finding and maintaining a
stable workforce in a population that is very transitory, and dealing with customers
who don’t really want to ‘muck around with silly games’.
The opportunities include harnessing the ‘give it a go’ attitude, exploiting the small
population base which allows you to get known quickly, and dealing with customers
who don’t really want to ‘muck around with silly games’.
That is why the Department of Business and Employment and October Business Month
commissioned The RITE Series, Regional Insights Top End, to provide marketing
insights grounded in Top End realities.
About The RITE Series guide
This first guide of the RITE Series is designed to give Top End business people some
insights into the various Social Media tools that increasing numbers of local and
international customers are connected to.
Social Media refers to online tools such as Social Networking sites like Facebook,
Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn, the publication process known as Blogging, for which
Wordpress is the best in field (in my humble opinion or IMHO), and media sharing sites
that we don't cover in this first edition of the guide, sites like YouTube, Flickr, Slideshare
and Scribd. The RITE Series guide to using Social Media for your Marketing covers:
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Blogging ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 05
Facebook ………………………………………………………………………………………… 10
Google+ …………………………………………………………………………………………....14
Linked In ………………………………………………………………………………………… 17
Twitter ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 21
The RITE Series / Steve Davis …………………………………………………………...24
There are limits to how detailed a general guide can get and so my aim has been to
share the ideal way to approach or consider the various tools, so that you can match
what they do best with what your business needs to achieve.
As I said in my October Business Month keynotes, the tools are not the issues nor are
they your biggest problem. The challenge in using Social Media for your Marketing is
getting your 'head' and 'heart' in the right place, aligning your insights and knowledge
with the needs and questions of your target market, and then embarking on a long term
journey of serving your target market with advice, help and information so that they can
make informed purchase decisions, learn to trust and respect you, and hopefully
recommend you to others.
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
How to use Social Media the RITE way | 3
The RITE approach
Unfortunately, from a business perspective, it is tempting to just flood these free
communication channels with advertising content. However, such a move must be
avoided at all costs because social channels are just that; social channels.
People do NOT log in to Facebook to watch television commercials or read brochures.
The 74,000 Territorians who use Facebook (October 2011) login to see what friends are
doing, share photos and commentary about their lives and cast an eye of interesting
things being shared by the businesses or organisations whose Facebook properties they
have elected to follow.
It is so easy for consumers to delete you from their online social worlds, or cut you
down with criticism, that it pays to think clearly about what you might be able to offer
publicly and socially, that relevant people will find helpful and compelling enough to
save, share or consider on their pathway to a purchase decision, BEFORE you start
publishing in Social Media.
I have captured some preparatory thoughts in my blog article and keynote, The Two
Commandments of Social Media Marketing, and I urge you to read it if you are unsure
about what you might 'say' in social networks and how much of your time and energy
you are willing to commit to the task.
Remember, however, that using Social Media is NOT rocket science. In fact, it rewards
those who share knowledge and who do it authentically.
Some final thoughts from Steve Davis
The tips that follow do not replace advice from your existing, trusted business or
marketing/PR advisors. I hope it complements what they are telling you and helps you
engage them at a deeper level.
It also does NOT get down to the nitty gritty 'click this button then pull that lever' level
of detail either - these tools change too frequently for that AND it should be relatively
easy to find people close by who can hold your hand with the practical steps of knowing
what to click or scroll. You can also Google for videos and tutorials to learn such simple
techniques.
Another aspect of the advice in this guide is that most of it has come from one-on-one
dealings that I have had with more than a thousand Top End business people since
2007. There is plenty of generic material available online with tips and tricks for getting
the most out of Facebook or Twitter, etc, so this guide has been deliberately aimed at
business people starting out with Social Media marketing and business people based in
the Northern Territory.
The opportunity to work with so many Top End business people has been due to being
involved in planning and running workshops organised by the Business Enterprise
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
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Centre NT. I join with other presenters in delivering business-focussed sessions
exploring these tools and they have been held in many towns around the Top End, and I
recommend you contact the BEC to see what is coming up over the next few months.
The BEC is a flexible and responsive outfit and is always ready to respond to needs in
the marketplace. Together with DBE, you have a wealth of resources available to help
you start and/or grow your Top End business.
I hope you find this guide helpful and look forward to you sharing summaries of what
you are trying (and links) in the online version of this guide available at EBOOK: Using
Social Media the RITE Way.
Steve Davis
Facilitator, Presenter The RITE Series
Marketing Director, Baker Marketing, Adelaide
PS This PDF version of the eBook was made on October 31, 2011. The online version is
likely to be updated and tweaked as new comments are added. Therefore, if you want to
stay up to date with the latest version, please visit and bookmark the online index:
EBOOK: Using Social Media the RITE Way
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
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Blogging
Some background on blogging
Blogging is simply a process for publishing articles to the internet in a way that it easy
for the writer AND easy for search engines to reference and rank. Hence, as marketers,
it makes our content easier for our prospects to find.
A screenshot of blog articles queued in Wordpress
The term, blog, is short for 'web log' or online diary. While blogs did perform this
function in the past, our interest is in using their functionality to make it easier for us
busy business owners, managers or employees to publish helpful, informative or
entertaining content to the web so that this content will appear when people most likely
to need or want our products or services conduct research online at any stage through
the purchase decision-making process.
While you can use online services that host blogs like wordpress.com and blogger.com,
it is considered much stronger for your search engine ranking when you host the
blogging software on your own website. Much like The RITE Series website, the blog
becomes just one part of your website content. The blog section showcases your stream
of blog articles referenced by title, category or topic tags, while your other pages house
'static' content organised thoughtfully through a menu system.
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
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Blog articles can be as short or long as you need them to be, however Google has
become suspicious of short articles of late because they were often the hallmark of spam
content producers. There is some thinking that a minimum of 300 words provides
enough context within your article to demonstrate to Google what the article is about
and prove you are offering some substance. However, the core ethos of the RITE Series
and my approach to social media marketing is that you produce content for your
audience FIRST and Google SECOND. If your blog articles make more sense being a short
paragraph and a picture, so be it. Always write as much as you need to cover the specific
topic of the article as opposed to stretching out flimsy content with word-stuffing just to
meet some magical word count target.
With that in mind, here are some approaches to blog content:
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how-to articles
responses to current events associated with your business or product/service,
eg, if you own a restaurant and the world suddenly becomes obsessed with basil
it would pay to share your chef's basil philosophy in one article, expand with a
profile of your most popular basil dishes in another, and respond to any high
profile commentator who is making basil comments you agree with or disagree
showcase profiles on products, contracts or other achievements but be sure to
share interesting insights with these stories, not many of us enjoy reading you
patting your own back for its own sake
questions (this is where you can start building a library of all the common
questions you get, along with quirky ones, and share your answers or approach
to such questions for the world to read and for Google to index. Before long, you
will have resources that you can refer customers or prospects to instead of
needing to repeat yourself 100 times a day)
commentary on your industry or field
Some reasons to use blogging in your Social Media Marketing
As alluded to already, blog articles are readily referenced by Google and the other
search engines meaning your articles have a high likelihood of turning up prominently
in search results when prospective customers research online. So when a prospective
customer searches for 'what should I wear when I visit Kakadu?' it would be ideal if you
had a blog article with that title sitting on your website to make it easy for Google to
connect your content with that searcher. Of course, you won't often get a word-for-word
match between search terms and your blog post titles, but modelling your blog article
titles on phrases and questions your target market is likely to use when searching is the
challenge and the goal of blogging as a marketing tool.
Even if nobody ever reads your blog articles and Google ignores you (both unlikely if
you are writing helpful content for YOUR audience), the mere discipline of structuring
some thoughts around a topic and publishing them publicly on a regular basis does
'sharpen your saw' as Stephen Covey would say. I have found the regular creation of
thoughtful pieces of content about topics relating to my business, has helped me think
through topics more thoroughly and become clearer and more succinct when talking
directly to clients.
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
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Another benefit of publishing regular blog articles is that it can build your reputation as
a thought leader or 'go to' person in your field. Do not be surprised if journalists contact
you for comments having Googled your topics looking for spokespeople. Whether such
follow up comes from the NT News, ABC, Darwin Life, local bloggers, or other
group/media representatives, it is likely to give you a stage for sharing more knowledge
and building up strong recall and association values within the minds of your target
market. Remember, search engines like Google are as much reputation aggregators as
they are search engines.
How to start blogging
To prevent 'blog fade' where people start blogging with gusto and then get lost or
distracted and abandon their efforts, it is best to plan some topics in advance. My
recommendation is to blog at least weekly and to that end coming up with a list of 52
blog article titles in one sitting is a great way to give you a year's worth of topics.
Your initial planning session of topics should balance three things:
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questions and content most likely to be helpful to prospects and customers,
titles that most likely match the wording your customers or prospects would use
(sometimes that includes technical jargon but other times it will be the opposite,
even slang), and
the inclusion of keywords that you know are used already in search engines (the
Google AdWords keyword tool is a great place to start)
So if you are a tour operator in Kakadu and people often ask about what special
requirements are needed for travelling to the region and you know people often ask
'what should I wear when visiting Kakadu?', and you know the terms Kakadu and
Outback Tour have high search volumes each month (49,000 and 3,600 respectively in
Australia via Google), you can create a blog article title such as: What to wear on your
outback tour through Kakadu National Park. This could also lead you to plan a range of
different articles related to this one on what to pack, how to plan travel, etc.
Top End Explorer Tours has created a blog article on their 'tread lightly' policy for
Kakadu travel but it could have easily spawned dozens of mini articles using each of its
policy points as a theme for a specific article. You can read Tread Lightly — Travelling
Kakadu the Sustainable Way here. Remember, the way to think of each article is as a
one-off piece of content placed online to help a specific person with a specific question.
As you build your online library, you will start casting your net over a larger collection
of questions and searches.
Finally, regarding planning, the title of each article should be meaningful on its own
because it is one of the most crucial things that Google compares when trying to find
articles to share with people searching. Your anatomy of a blog article, therefore,
consists of:
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title (can be in the form of a question or an information piece)
lead (your first sentence or two should cut to the chase and share with us what
you are about to reveal)
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Steve Davis
October 2011
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body (main content)
sub headings (if your piece is longer than a few paragraphs, break up your text
with little headings along the way to make it easier to read)
image (adding a picture to each blog article means when you later share links to
your articles in places like Facebook, your link has a picture next to it increasing
the chance of someone clicking through to read it)
links (when appropriate, your very specific article should include some links to
more general, helpful, static content found elsewhere on your website)
category (most blogging platforms like Wordpress encourage you to group your
articles into categories - search engines appreciate this. Make your categories
useful, broad terms)
tags (blogging platforms also allow you to add a collection of keywords to your
article to help the software and search engines reference your material correctly
- these should be narrow and specific to each article)
Now to getting our hands on the tools
You can visit wordpress.com or blogger.com create an account. Or, preferably, ask your
webmaster to install Wordpress on your own web hosting to act either as your
complete website content management system or to just provide a blogging channel
through a folder on your site, such as yourwebsite.com.au/blog.
Open the 'new post' section in your blogging software, type in your article title, follow
with content and images, and then publish.
Once you have published a blog article, be sure to share a link back to your article via
Twitter, other social media channels, with relevant customers and in forums when
appropriate. Remember to share links to specific articles if you think they will help a
prospect or customer. Once you have a body of work, you will start to enjoy the
convenience of being able to refer people to previous articles.
The only step remaining is to reply when people leave comments under your blog
articles. Your blogging software will most likely be set by default to hold comments for
your approval before they go live to your website and it will most likely email you to let
you know there is a comment 'awaiting moderation'. When someone asks a good
question or even challenges some of your points, be sure to respond thoughtfully and, if
need be, invite the conversation to take place directly if the conversation is likely to be
emotionally charged or involve personal/case-specific details. Other than that, it is best
to maintain the dialogue publicly as it will be referenced by Google and help bolster
your rankings. You might even find that follow up comments spawn ideas for new blog
articles altogether.
Ultimately, as you proceed with your blogging, you will most likely be turning to your
planned list of titles and more likely be drafting fresh content based on market trends,
current affairs and recent customer questions.
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
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Good examples of blogging
The Chiropractic Place, Darwin, is a great example of a business using blogging
effectively. You can read more about them in a profile on The RITE Series blog in a post
entitled, Darwin chiropractors show how to crank out the blogs without pain.
Desert Life, a wildlife-related business in Alice Springs, uses Wordpress to run a website
and host a blog. You can learn more via a previous article in The RITE Series entitled, Be
your own media.
Things to avoid when blogging
Reproducing other people's material should never happen. If you have been inspired by
a blog or article online, by all means refer to it, summarise it and quote from it, but be
sure to share a link to it AND to tell us why it inspired you. We will be reading your
article for YOUR wisdom and voice.
Avoid flowery language or marketese. If you write your blog articles like advertisements
us readers are likely to treat them like advertisements and dismiss them.
If you have examples of Top End businesses using blogging effectively, please share details
in the comments field at the online version of this chapter on blogging.
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
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Facebook
Some background on Facebook
Facebook is the single most popular search engine in the Western world. It boasts 800
million users worldwide (figure October 2011) and, most importantly for us, 74,000
Territorians (figure October 2011).
A Facebook profile page
Facebook users create their personal profile and after that can start linking their
accounts to 'friends' so that they can see each other's published thoughts, photos, videos
and links.
For marketing, Facebook offers a few different tools within the tool:
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Business pages (these are just like personal profiles but are based around a
business)
Groups (these are like online forums within Facebook and can be public or
private)
Events (online invitations to events, when people respond by clicking 'yes, no or
maybe' they will attend, all their friends get to see the invitation, thus spreading
the invitation 'virally' beyond your initial reach)
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
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Advertising (this service allows you to create ads and have them appear within
Facebook for users you have targetted on demographic factors like age, gender,
relationship status, interests, education facility/course, and most importantly
location)
Facebook is constantly changing with new tweaks released weekly and features
changed, improved, removed, or downgraded regularly.
Some reasons to use Facebook in your Social Media Marketing
Because almost half of all Territorians are members of Facebook, it makes sense to 'fish
where the fish are' and share content through this channel. However, given the everchanging nature of Facebook AND the fact that you are creating content on a platform
owned by someone else, it is risky to make this your sole online channel.
I believe best practice involves setting up your own website (preferably with a blogging
component) and using this as your central hub for online marketing. Produce and
publish your original content on your site but use Facebook to help share and
disseminate links to your material. This way, if Facebook changes its rules tonight, or
even closes, you would still be left with a solid foundation of online marketing material.
Facebook business pages have been well referenced by Google in the past. All these
things are open to change, however the fact that content you share on your business
page will be visible even to people NOT using Facebook means this can be an efficient
and effective way to start building awareness and making yourself available to potential
customers.
Even though I would argue your own website is a more substantial way to lay the
foundations for your online marketing efforts, if you find it easy to use Facebook and
you are familiar with it, then it makes sense to go with your strengths, provided it is a
natural place for your target audience to use. And be careful with your assumptions.
One in three Northern Territory Facebook uses is aged 40 and over.
How to use Facebook for Social Media marketing
This is a very difficult passage to write when there are so many variables. So here are
the questions to consider:
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Does your target market use Facebook?
What sort of material would you share on Facebook? Simple questions work well
in generating engagement (would your target market talk back to you in
Facebook?) and research tells us people enjoy getting access to special privileges
when connecting to a business through Facebook.
How 'shareable' is your planned Facebook content? Success and visibility in
Facebook is largely determined by how actively people respond to you or share
your content with others.
How complex is the purchase decision-making process for your
products/services? If you sell products/services that involve low to medium
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
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amounts of thinking and comparison, I believe the jovial, public nature of the
Facebook environment will suit you well. If your customers need to do some
serious research and complex comparisons, more detailed blog articles and/or
white papers might be a better use of time and energy.
How much kudos to people get from associating with your brand? The public
way that people who 'like' business pages get associated with a brand is perfect
if it is 'cool' or 'important' for your clients to display such associations.
Once you have decided that Facebook suits your business and marketing needs, the next
step is to determine which Facebook tools apply because each have strengths and
weaknesses.
Facebook business pages will allow you to share links to blog posts and host polls and
competitions (using approved competition apps or by embedding links to competition
mechanisms on your own website). However, note that only one per cent of people who
'like' a business page ever return to it. This means that you must rely on your content
alone engaging interest and being interesting so that when a 'fan' of your page sees it
come through their news feed they will be inclined to click like or comment or share.
This is why you must spend time thinking about what your audience cares about and be
as strict as a magazine editor - magazines don't just publish gunk for the sake of gunk,
they publish stories that will make readers STOP and pick up the magazine or keep
turning pages.
NOTE: When setting up your Facebook business page, I urge you to consider a custom
welcome page to give people context to your business, let them know what content you
plan to share or how you plan to use Facebook, and to encourage them to click 'like' to
stay part of your community. I suggest you read the RITE Series article called Three
FREE apps for adding custom tabs to your Facebook business page for more
information.
Facebook events can spread your event invitation far and wide. To be successful though
it is best to be concise with your invitation and to actually create an event of VALUE.
What is in it for me? Too many businesses use event invitations badly, staging ho-hum
'sales' events instead of 'stop everything I must go to this' events. Try to hold the
'events' card for events really worth attending. One of the bonuses for using Facebook
event invitations is that you get to send a private message directly to people who RSVP
as a 'yes' or a 'maybe' to remind them about the event and, where appropriate, of the
need to buy tickets if it is a ticketed event.
Facebook groups can be fervent pools of activity but ONLY if your audience is given to
passion about your field of expertise or requires a high level of technical expertise and
sharing.
Facebook advertising can be powerful BUT you need to be diligent with a few things:
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Write a very specific ad for the very specific target market you are writing for remember if it is just single, women 35-45 write something specifically for them
(they are the only Facebook users who will see your ad)
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
How to use Social Media the RITE way | 13
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If you set a click on your ad to take people to your website, please send them to a
specific page or article on your site that relates directly to the topic of the ad and
NOT your homepage (better still, make a new page specifically for each Google or
Facebook ad you run - it reinforces trust in people that they have indeed landed
at the right place)
I suggest paying per click instead of per impression - it strikes me as more
accountable
Be stingy with your budget at first. While you are experimenting, set a small
campaign budget of $50-$100 and set your cost per click to 15 cents or
thereabouts. Facebook will groan and warn you to bid more but ignore them. Let
some ads run and get a feel for whether you are on target or not before changing
your ad or your amount per click
At all times with Facebook, it is important your material generates an action with your
audience. This way, Facebook's 'edgerank' score for your material will be high enough
to increase your site visibility.
Good examples of Facebook use for Social Media marketing
Humidity Gifts and Homewares in Darwin makes great use of Facebook. Mel shares a
barrage of new and enticing gifts and gives lots of loot away to keep interest and make
'liking' the page a valuable thing to do. You can read the RITE Series profile called,
Humidity, a strategy that pours likes and comments.
A simpler use of a Facebook page can be seen with the Humpty Doo Clip Clop Club. This
small community group now has 80 likers who arrange horse riding outings through the
Facebook page. Take a look at the RITE Series profile called, Humpty Doo Clip Clop Club.
Things to avoid when using Facebook
Do not use Facebook simply as a place to pump advertising. As a business, I believe your
place in the 'social' network is as a privileged guest so we need to make sure what we
share is valuable and relevant to our target market.
If you are unclear about how or why to use Facebook for your marketing, stop. It is best
to enter with a clear purpose. If you do not use Facebook much yourself, maybe
devoting a few minutes a day to the network will help you become more familiar. Grab a
laptop or tablet and have a play while watching tv in the evening - a growing number of
Australians do this already!
If you have examples of Top End businesses using Facebook effectively, please share details
in the comments field at the online version of this Facebook article.
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
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Google+
Some background on Google+
Google Plus (or G+) is Google's attempt to tap into the dynamic world of social
networking.
Google+ in action
Its previous attempts have failed miserably but the online juggernaut is throwing
everything it has at this venture to 'make it work'.
Already, some of its innovations have been directly copied by Facebook, so we will see a
game of cat and mouse between these two over the next year or so.
G+ is based around your personal profile, just like Facebook. In fact, the services do look
and feel similar.
You arrange your contacts in G+ into 'circles'. You create circles for work colleagues,
family, friends, interests, clients, etc. This then allows you, when sharing content, to
share exclusively to the people in a certain circle.
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
How to use Social Media the RITE way | 15
This fledgling social network is estimated to have half a million Australian users (Social
Media News, October 2011) compared to Facebook's 10 million Australians.
Some reasons to use Google+ in your Social Media Marketing
Although G+ has a smaller base of users in Australia than Facebook, various Google
insiders and commentators are claiming that Google is paying a lot of attention to
content shared in G+ to help it rank content on the web. For your business or
association it means that even if G+ remains closed to official business accounts for the
foreseeable future, it might pay you as a passionate business person to build into your
social media marketing routine the habit of sharing interesting and valuable content
through your G+ network. As always, this should be valuable content of interest to your
contacts even though we are really hoping to grab the attention of the Google spiders.
If your business uses teleconferencing or videoconferencing you might want to consider
equipping personnel with G+ accounts and webcams so that you can use the Hangout
feature. This free feature allows a small group of G+ users to chat with each other via
webcam. Although it has a novelty factor, it could be a money saving option if you have
staff burning a lot of rubber around the Territory gathering for meetings (or burning
time waiting in airports).
How to use Google+ for Social Media marketing
Firstly, given that as of October 2011 G+ is still a 'personal' networking venue (you are
not allowed to set up business profiles yet), using it for marketing will be valuable if
YOU are the central drawcard of your business and making yourself available through
G+ is appealing to your target market.
Secondly, as mentioned above, sharing content through G+ might be a valuable extra
minute to spend when you have published original content on your business blog so
that Google gets a front row seat for referencing and ranking your material.
While G+ is very promising, at the time of putting this guide together (October 2011),
generally low levels of engagement between members means that there is a way to go
before G+ can match Facebook for vibrancy and viral outbreaks of publicity. Of course,
things can change quickly in this space, so I encourage you to explore and play here in
your leisure to begin with until you get a feel for this network.
One personal observation to share is that G+ content in these early stages does appear
to be dominated by:
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geek material (web and computing articles and commentary, reflecting the
nature of 'early adopters who joined G+ out of their curiosity to try the new shiny
object and stay abreast of technology developments)
educational material (many teachers and educators seem to have adopted G+ in
these early days to share teaching resources and discuss issues around
education)
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
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
art (photographers, writers, poets and artists of many varieties seem to have
been attracted to the cool, clean archtecture of G+ where they share samples and
snippets of their work to raise awareness, invite feedback and connect with likeminded souls)
From a marketing perspective, it would follow that if you can create valuable content
that fits into any of these categories or your target market includes people who would
identify with these three groups, it would pay you to spend some time to familiarise
yourself with G+, build connections and test the waters.
Good examples of Google+ use for Social Media marketing
The personal nature of G+ at the moment means there are no great business case
studies in the Territory yet.
However, following my anecdotal observations about the sharing of art and
photography in G+ I have noticed it is common practice for images of the Top End being
shared by tourists and visitors. Indeed, Cape Crawford Tourism in the Gulf of
Carpentaria region of the Northern Territory, has stimulated chatter and discussion
about its Lost City, prompted, it seems, by sharing stunningly beautiful photographs.
Sandra Schleter is driving this endeavour and it would be invaluable for other tourism
operators, in particular, to watch what she is doing and take note.
Things to avoid when using Google+
The early signs are that G+ users have a much shorter fuse when it comes to spammy
content than Facebook users. This is a good thing. If you abide by the two
commandments of social media marketing, you will avoid such pitfalls in G+.
If you have examples of Top End businesses using Google+ effectively, please share details
in the comments field at the online version of this Google+ article.
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
How to use Social Media the RITE way | 17
Linked In
Some background on Linked In
Linked In is a 'business' networking site rather than a 'social' networking site.
When you set up your profile is resembles your resume or CV with the addition of links
to you business blog, Twitter stream or website.
Linked In profile
Linked In membership tends to appeal to and attract white collar workers, management
and business owners rather than blue collar workers and in the Territory there are
about 8,000 members.
Local PR firm, Cre8tive Territory noted in their analysis of Linked In membership that
the majority of users are in Darwin with heavy usage involving RIO Tinto staff around
Nhulunbuy. So, as you weigh up whether Linked In is for you or not, remember that it is
based on individuals and their job titles rather than industry or sector. Hence, the white
collar engineers within a mining company can be extremely active whereas their blue
collar colleagues might not even know Linked In exists.
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
How to use Social Media the RITE way | 18
Some reasons to use Linked In in your Social Media Marketing
The power of Linked In comes from this fact of life:
It is not WHAT you know but WHO you know
Through Linked In, you can connect with people you do business with or have met and,
through them, connect to their contacts. This can expand your networks and your reach.
I think my few hundred direct contacts theoretically connects me to 3.3 million people
around the globe, all accessible through a mutual friend.
You might use your connections, or seek to be introduced to people (you can search
Linked In by name, job title, company and location to name a few) who could become:
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new suppliers (instead of introducing yourself to a supplier as an 'unknown', by
touching base with a key person first, you can get a warmer welcome and
possibly a better deal)
new customers (if a certain job title is responsible for researching or ordering
your products and services it is worth crafting a strategy for qualifying and
warming leads through Linked In)
new staff (Linked In really came about to help people promote themselves to
new employers and it is still invaluable as a recruitment and backgroundchecking tool)
Finally, when you have completed your profile fully on Linked In, you do benefit from
some Google juice - it seems Google trusts the Linked In domain and therefore if people
search for you, you will find your Linked In profile often floating higher in search results
than your own website profile.
How to use Linked In for Social Media marketing
For most small businesses and organisations in the Top End, your main use of Linked In
will be one of those things that are set aside as a medium to long term investment more
than a quick sales hit.
There are three steps to take.
The first is to simply set up your personal profile. I suggest you only need the free
membership for now. Fill in as much detail as you can and work towards getting the
completion meter to 100%. Along the way you will need to invite a handful of people to
Linked In and/or respond to some invitations. Start with colleagues, members of a
group or club you are connected to or family members. To complete your profile you
will need to not only leave some testimonials for some of your 'connections' but you will
need to get THREE testimonials about you from them. Remember, although this might
feel uncomfortable at first, it is an interesting experience and required to unlock the
Google value of your listing.
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
How to use Social Media the RITE way | 19
Please make sure that you add links to your business website, blog or any other online
channels where you broadcast business-relevant content. When somebody does feel
inclined to check you out online before approaching you or sealing the deal on a
contract/project, it is best to make sure they can see all of your professional output.
The second step is to poke around and get familiar with Linked In. Perhaps you could
set up half an hour once a month to look at your website statistics and go over the
Linked In activity of your contacts. While looking around, be forward enough to ask to
connect with people you might know (Linked In will offer you suggestions based on the
connections of people you have already connected with). But do read thinks NOT to do
at the bottom of this page. Keep an eye out for 'groups' of Linked In users that you might
be interested in connecting with. There are groups for industries, locations and
occupations. There is even a new group formed in September 2011 called Destination Darwin, created by locals to share what Darwin life is like for potential immigrants
thinking of moving to Australia.
A third thing I would encourage you to explore is the Answers section in Linked In. This
is a free forum where you can ask any business question you like and will most likely
receive some good answers from Linked In users around the world. People share
answers freely to build their reputation and demonstrate their expertise. I also know of
small business people who have picked up work locally and from overseas (the local
concert planner was flown to Canada to ply his trade there for three weeks), simply by
answering some questions and sharing some insights in the Answers forum. Again, I
wouldn't spend all day on it but to begin with a monthly visit will be enough to give you
a sense of whether Linked In and the forum are for you.
Good examples of Linked In use for Social Media marketing
As I explored in a previous RITE Series article on Linked In, this network gives you
unprecdented access to people across all occupations in many industries. I just did a
search on every LinkedIn member within 80km of the postcode 0870 and here are my
top five:
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John Wilkinson, Chief Engineer at Imparja Television
Tim Flynn, Consultant/Locum CFO to NFP and Public Sector
Eleanor Dennis, Gallery assistant - casual at Mbantua Gallery
Michael Steller, Regional Manager at Northern Territory Government
Brad Bellette, Director at Bellette Media Pty Ltd
Now that Linked In has also ramped up its profiling and promotion of businesses, it will
be very important for your search engine optimisation to make sure as many team
members as possible have completed their Linked In profiles to boost the company's
online profile.
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
How to use Social Media the RITE way | 20
Things to avoid when using Facebook
The biggest mistake people make on Linked In is what many people do in face-to-face
networking - they approach it with a 'what can I get out of this' mindset.
Of course, we are all interested in networking to explore opportunities for growth and
challenge but such opportunities typically grow from a foundation of trust and mutual
interest. And that means GIVING to the community before you TAKE.
I have catalogued a gross example of What not to do on Linked In in the RITE Series
blog. In many ways, that article sums up the main no-no in the space. Apart from NOT
doing the sleazy, hard sell approach, if you mimic what you do when mingling at a faceto-face networking event or social gathering, you will most likely have your mind in the
right place for approaching Linked In.
If you have examples of Top End businesses using Linked In effectively, please share details
in the comments field at the online version of this Linked In article.
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
How to use Social Media the RITE way | 21
Linked In
Some background on Twitter
Twitter is a Short Message Service to the world.
The RITE Series on Twitter
When you open a Twitter account, you can immediately start crafting content or
messages, called Tweets.
Tweets may have up to 140 characters including spaces and can be:
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standalone comments or announcements
links to resources elsewhere online, eg, blog articles, news articles, web pages
photos, video and other media (the Tweet would include an attachment linking it
to the shared media object in question)
questions
requests for help
conversations with clients, friends, service providers
commentary as part of a conference or established topic thread (these are
usually threaded together by adding a common 'hashtag' such as #OBM_NT for
October Business Month commentary)
Almost 1,000 Territorians use Twitter (figure as of October 2011).
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
How to use Social Media the RITE way | 22
Some reasons to use Twitter in your Social Media Marketing
When you share content on Twitter, especially with links back to content on your own
website, it associates your website with the topics you Tweet about. This in turn helps
Google bring more qualified visitors to your online marketing material. So whether or
not you believe your target market uses Twitter directly, the indirect benefit of
'teaching' Google more about what you stand for and where you are (online) will help
non-Twitter users find you.
You can track conversations in which people are asking for service provider or product
recommendations and respond appropriately. Elsewhere on The RITE Series website
you can read a how-to article on how to 'Listen in locally to Twitter questions'. Your
'eavesdropping' can be based locally or on specific regions where your prospects live
and Tweet OR simply based on keywords used that are relevant to your business.
Twitter can be a fast and efficient communication tool for responding to questions sent
directly to you via the service. For some consumers, this is becoming a preferred
method of communication with businesses, at least for general enquiries or customer
experience feedback. Yes, it is public. All the more reason to treat every prospect and
customer with respect whether online or in person because you never can tell how
much of a liaison will end up going public.
Build awareness of you or your enterprise among influencers, customers or prospects
by searching for them on Twitter and following their accounts. This will not only mean
you get to see what they are tweeting about in your Twitter window, but they get a
notification that you are following them. This might be all it takes to get noticed and to
prepare the ground for a relationship to grow.
How to access Twitter
Visit twitter.com and create an account.
Your username will be your Twitter ID and you only get 15 characters to play with. So
think carefully about whether it would be stronger to use your name, your business
name, some keywords and/or some geographical terms. For example, ShirleyCitizen,
CitizenServices, PlanningAdvice, or PlanGove.
You can then access your Twitter account directly via the Twitter website or application
on your mobile phone/tablet AND/OR indirectly through a third-party tool like
HootSuite, TweetDeck, etc. These third-party tools often allow you to connect a number
of your social media accounts into the one user tool so you can create content and reply
to people via your Twitter or Facebook accounts all from the one service.
To search Twitter for terms and people of interest, use the search field at the top of any
Twitter screen, conduct your search and if you like the results, use the 'save this search'
function. Then when you log on to Twitter again, the searches tab will give you one-click
access to see the latest Tweets that meet your search criteria.
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
How to use Social Media the RITE way | 23
Good examples of Twitter use
Power and Water Corporation Northern Territory makes good use of Twitter for
sharing real-time updates on conditions affecting supply of power and water
throughout the Top End. You can read their Twitter timeline and, indeed, follow them,
at twitter.com/PowerWaterCorp
I Spry Digital is a small digital marketing firm in Darwin and the account often tweets
links to helpful articles that relate to topics like search engine optimisation. You can
read the Twitter timeline at ISpryDigital
An example of a consumer question came from Will Boyd in Darwin who tweeted: Can
someone help me with my dog training? I need some tips. Thnx! If you offered dog training
services, listening out for such terms via Twitter could have landed you a potential
client or at least given you a chance to share some tips publicly, hence establishing your
authority in the field. If you had a useful article or two on your website, you might have
been able to respond thus: @Willboy25 what breed is your dog and what are you trying
to achieve? I have a small guide online here dogsnt.com.au/guide. When you reply to
someone in Twitter, the system automatically places their username at the beginning of
your reply preceded by an @ symbol, in this case Will's username is Willboy25.
Things to avoid doing on Twitter
Like all the other social media channels, it is best NOT to blast advertising messages
through Twitter. Accounts that do this are typically blocked by other Twitter users and
often reported for spam.
While Twitter makes it easy for you to share links to material you find interesting, make
sure your business Twitter account stays 'on topic'. If I follow your business account it is
primarily because you are sharing helpful material in your field of expertise and/or
granting me access to you for quick questions or updates. If you feel inclined to sharing
funny cat pictures or grizzles about the government, I suggest you open a second,
personal account and separate such content from your business channel.
If you have examples of Top End businesses using Twitter effectively, please share details
in the comments field at the online version of this Twitter article.
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011
How to use Social Media the RITE way | 24
The RITE Series
This October Business Month (OBM) project aims to capture ‘real world’ ideas and
achievable steps for sharpening business practices and boosting the NT economy across
a range of disciplines.
In 2011, the focus is on best practice for businesses and organisations wanting to
engage in marketing through social media and social networking or simply wanting to
exploit efficiencies offered by the latest raft of online technologies.
Rather than just produce a one-off presentation, the RITE Series will involve a lead-in
period of research and development, engaging NT business people so that what is
presented in October is distilled directly from grass roots experience across the
Northern Territory.
You can read through blogs and the online version of this eBook at
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
The RITE Series is being developed and
facilitated by Steve Davis, Get Online NT
presenter and Marketing Director at Baker
Marketing, Adelaide, South Australia.
You can find out more about Steve via his profiles
at:
Linked In
Twitter
Google+
Facebook
Baker Marketing
Local NT business owners and organisation
representatives have been showcased through
The RITE Series.
The Northern Territory Government through October Business Month and the Business
Enterprise Centre NT have played crucial roles in guiding and coordinating various
elements of this program.
TheRITESeries.com.au
Steve Davis
October 2011