20 Reasons Businesses Should Use Social Media
Your goal is to act as a social media specialist for a local business. We are using local businesses because many of them have little or no web presence. This gives us a clean slate and a chance to be creative. Part of the challenge of using a pre-existing business without much information out there, is you will have to create content for the company you choose. This assignment is part social media for small businesses and part creative writing.
Directions: Create a Google Doc called, “Social Media for (name of your local company)”. Begin with a LinkedIn Profile, and the continue down the page with example of what could be posted for your business on each of the social media platforms.
The first thing a business should do is create a profile on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the default website for professional networking. LinkedIn profiles should be fairly short and to the point. You will need to imagine the kinds of background, skills and education an owner of the business you choose would need. You are acting like you are the owner of the business and LinkedIn is where you get to advertise yourself and show all the credentials you have that will make you an amazing business owner. Your LinkedIn Profile should include the following:
Background & Experience:
Skills and Expertise:
Education:
Contact Information:
Here’s an example of what should be included on a LinkedIn Profile for the Flint Crepe Company
Blog Posts
Writing for a company blog is where you get to tell story and create a forum to interact with potential customers and clients. Each person will create 3 blog entries. Each entry should be edited perfectly and contain between 75 and 100 words. Your first blog post should be a summary of your business. Other blog posts can be part of a series, or posted as independent pieces. Blog posts are your opportunity for extended story-telling. Here are some ideas for your posts:
1. Answer Questions
If your company receives questions via email, blog comments, or even in person, then you already have great blog posts percolating! If one customer or reader has a question, you can bet there are other people who have the same question. Answering reader or customer questions is a great way to create a series of posts. For example, you can create a “Monday Questions” post. Every Monday, your readers will know that there will be a question and answer waiting on your company’s blog for them!
2. Ask Questions
Invite your readers to add their opinions to your blog. You can do this by posing a question in a post and asking readers to leave comments with their opinions or post a poll through PollDaddy or another poll tool. Typically, your question posts should be related to your business in some way, but that’s not a hard and fast rule. Don’t be afraid to have fun and let your blog reflect your personality and your company’s brand by publishing fun or offbeat questions sometimes.
3. Conduct an Interview
You can contact a customer, distributor, supplier, manufacturer, or even an employee and ask if they would be interested in answering some questions to appear in an interview on your blog. Most people don’t mind the online exposure and interviews give your blog readers an inside look into your business.
4. Highlight Your Office, Employees and So On
Another way to give your blog readers a view into your business and help them make a personal connection with it (which leads to customer loyalty) is by inviting them behind the scenes. Post photos and stories about employees or photos of your office. Write about company events or anything else that lets your readers feel like they’re part of your “family.”
5. Predict or Critique Trends
Either take the plunge and make predictions for future trends related to your business or critique trends from other experts. Discussing trends is a great way to make your readers feel more educated about your business and industry, and it offers readers an opportunity to add their own opinions.
6. Provide Tutorials or Product Demonstrations
You can create screencast tutorials showing visitors how to use your products or videos demonstrating your products to visitors. Both screencasts and videos are not only useful to visitors, but they’re also interactive!
7. Reviews
Your business blog visitors look to you as the expert in your industry. Help them by reviewing products and services related to your business and show them why you like or dislike certain products.
8. Lists
People love lists. You can incorporate lists into your business blog that help your customers or simply add some fun to your blog. For example, create lists of the top 10 books related to your industry, the top 5 do’s and don’ts related to using one of your products, and so on. Don’t be afraid to get creative!
Here’s a list of 41 more blog ideas
Here’s an example of what blog posts should look like for a business like the Flint Crepe Company
Twitter & Facebook
If blog posts are your opportunity to tell extended stories connected to your company, then Facebook and Twitter are mediums for telling story snippets. These should be brief and engaging posts. Things people would be likely to “like” or retweet.
Each person should create 3 brief, relevant and engaging posts that could be tweeted (140 characters or less), and 3 30-50 word, relevant and engaging posts that could be put on Facebook. Create at least one tinyurl link for relevant content connected to one of your tweets, and find at least one picture to post along with each of your Facebook posts.
Please put your tweets and Facebook posts together, and type your name before each of your tweets and posts. Be sure to put a “T” before your tweets, and an “F” before your Facebook posts.
Here are 10 reasons to tweet (via Ask Aaron Lee)
Here are 10 things you should tweet (via INC.com)
Here’s an example of 6 brief, relevant and engaging posts (scroll down the page).
Video & Podcast
Another addition to most successful social media campaigns is some form of video or podcast. A successful podcast or video should be informative and engaging. The title or link should accurately reflect the message of the video or podcast, and you need to give your audience a good reason to invest their time in listening to you.
This part of the social media project may take more time and research than the others. Your job is to create a script for podcast or video. The length of the script should be a 200 words for a group of 1, and then 100 additional words for each additional group member. A group of 2 should have a 300 word script. A group of 3 should have a 400 word script. The script will vary depending on the type of project you want to do. Your podcast or video can be
- Instructional – teach your audience how to do something
- Informational – an in-depth explanation about something important for your company
- other?
Once you have your idea, start hammering out your script. You script should have a clear introduction, one or two voices, and follow standard script writing format.
Script writing tips and techniques
Here’s an example for what a script should look like (scroll to the bottom of the page)
Structuring Your Audio Presentation (via Copyblogger)
Structure is just as important to compelling audio as it is to an article or other written content. The quickest way to lose a listener is to fail to achieve a coherent flow of the points you’re trying to make.
So should you script the entire presentation? Rumor has it that teleseminar guru Alex Mandossian scripts ever single word of his calls, and then memorizes it all.
In my view, that’s not necessary for solid conversational content. But a detailed outline that guides you through the presentation and reminds you when to use your key engagement techniques (covered below) is absolutely imperative for most people to effectively present in audio.
So, you might outline your presentation with this structure:
- Attention – Attention begins before the audio presentation begins, because you have to convince someone to listen in the first place. So the title of the presentation and key bullet points of what’s in store for the listener is where attention begins, but you must maintain attention with a compelling opening to the audio combined with a reiteration of what value the listener will receive for sticking with you.
- Empathy – Why empathy? Because you’re trying to form a bond with the listener. You’re trying to create a sense of intimacy that forms a connection. If you achieve that connection with listeners, they’ll know you understand their problems. That makes the desire for your proposed solution naturally stronger… and this is much easier to achieve with your voice than it is with text.
- Solution – Don’t drop the ball when it comes to effectively explaining the solution. Holding attention and establishing empathy will be all for naught if you fail to communicate exactly how and why the solution works. Just because you understand how and why the solution works doesn’t mean that the listener is getting it, so you’ll want to augment understanding as much as possible.
- Action – At this point, hopefully you’ve created desire for the proposed solution. But creating desire is not enough. You’ve got to expressly ask or tell the listener what to do next, and also make the call to action as compelling as possible. It shouldn’t be pushy, but it can’t be assumed that the listener will take the next step on his own… so be a leader.
Now let’s take a look at how we’re going to present the content in a compelling manner. After that, we’ll look at an example of how each technique fits within our presentation structure.
1. Stories and Anecdotes
The most powerful persuasive content strategy is storytelling and the smart use of anecdote. Besides being highly engaging, stories are the most effective way for people to decide for themselves that what you’re saying is accurate. So, by choosing the right stories, you’re actually pointing people in the direction you desire.
What’s the secret to choosing the right story or anecdote? No matter the subject, the right story is always one way or another about the listeners. Remember that and you’ll become a persuasive spoken-word storyteller.
2. Metaphors, Similes and Analogies
Want someone to “get” what you’re saying? How about if you want them to “get it” in a particular way? The key is to get metaphorical by using language that directly compares what you’re explaining to something the listener already understands.
Beyond ensuring comprehension, the strategic use of metaphor or analogy can be highly persuasive. By choosing the right comparison, you can steer people in the direction you want. Positive associations can be created at will, and potential stumbling blocks can be neutralized or reframed.
3. Mirroring
Mirroring is the ultimate empathy tool. Mirroring is a technique in which you demonstrate that you are a kindred spirit to the listener (it helps immensely if this is authentic). In other words, you’re just like your listeners (or more importantly, you used to be just like them… but now you’re what they want to be thanks to the solution).
This is why your word choice is important even though you’re not “writing.” In that regard, David Ogilvy said it best:
“If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think.”
4. Mind’s Eye Scenarios
With “mind’s eye scenarios,” you ask the listener to visualize the desired beneficial outcome they hope to achieve, and then tie that desired future projection to your solution using scenarios and results. In other words, this time the subject of the story is literally the listener.
You can prompt someone to imagine what they want, and combine that with various related scenarios and potential outcomes that result from the action they take today. This can be a highly persuasive strategy when your solution is tied into a learning scenario that plays out in the prospect’s mind.
An Example of Structure Paired with Technique
All of the above may seem a bit esoteric, so let’s look how we might do this with a real podcast. Let’s say you’re really passionate about the “location-independent lifestyle” and are actually living that way, and you want to convince people that it’s totally doable for anyone who earns their living online.
Attention: Lead with a mind’s eye scenario that instantly engages the listener and sets up the content that follows:
“Imagine you woke this morning in Paris to the smell of rich black coffee and soft warm croissants. No, you’re not on vacation… this is just another regular ol’ day. And last month it was Buenos Aires…”
Empathy: You’ve told people what content is coming in the solution section, but before you get to that, tell a personal mirroring story to better connect with listeners:
“Two years ago, I thought becoming a world traveler while continuing to earn a living was an impossible dream, especially since I have small children….”
Following the “I get how you’re feeling” story, tell the “I’m now where you want to be” story that reinforces that the earlier mind’s eye scenario is achievable:
“Well… I really did wake in Paris this morning, and enjoyed that coffee and croissant before getting on the phone with a client. And Buenos Aires was exquisite last month….”
Solution: Convincing someone they can really do what they want to do can be harder than it seems, especially when fear and doubt are involved. Use plenty of analogies to common and simple tasks to show that your solutions are doable, and augment with success stories of location independent professionals you personally know:
“Many people believe that they’ll never create the location independent lifestyle for themselves due to all the initial hurdles. But think about things you now take for granted that seemed insurmountable at first. Like driving a car for instance….”
Action: What do you want listeners to do next? Ask them to do it… and be confident about it. You’re trying to improve lives, no reason to be apologetic about it.
Use the Power of Audio to Your Advantage
Want to know why copywriting and written content can be so difficult? It’s because you have to find a way to communicate things like enthusiasm, excitement and sarcasm with static words and punctuation alone. It’s no wonder so many resort to exclamation points, yellow highlighting, and emoticons to make sure people get the point. 
When your communication tool is your own voice, it gets much easier. Your inflection, tone, and laughter are naturally apparent, which allows your passion and sincerity to shine in a way that might be lost in text. You can even “hear” someone smile as they speak, and that’s pretty powerful.
