Without further ado the Altrincham HQ A-Z Of Social Media 2016
It’s a weighty one – so grab a brew and soak up the knowledge
A – Anchor
Officially described as “Anchor is radio by the people, where any voice can join the conversation”
Imagine twitter for voice and you’re halfway there
Look at www.anchor.fm
B – Blogging
I’ve been blogging since 1999 – it’s helped build 3 businesses and careers and that was way before people started using the phrase “Content is King”
Want to find out why blogging is still important in 2016 – read out blog on “An Essential Lesson On Why You Shouldn’t Stop Blogging”
C – Clickability
Every Social Media channel is getting noisier and to break through the noise you have to make sure your status / link has the clickability factor
At one stage in your life you will have clicked on a Buzzfeed / Huffington Post article – because at their core they think of social in terms of clickability and shareability
In a business context there’s a reason you click on some LinkedIn Pulse articles and not on others
Think in headlines and spend as much time thinking about your statuses as you do the long form content
D – Domination
Nobody wants to buy from the 2nd or 3rd best business in town – they want to buy from the number 1 business
When it comes to Social Media you need to dominate the market place – by turning up more often and by offering more value than the competition
The latter is important – you can’t dominate simply by turning up and adding more noise (aka spam) – you have to offer more value
E – Engagement
Engagement is proof that what you’re posting is working – the clicks, the likes, the shares / retweets, the replies / comments
Everybody on social media wants engagement – it’s the holy grail and what will ultimately lead to social media success
What most people aren’t prepared to do is spend their time engaging with others
Care enough to engage – 80% of our tweets are talking to other local businesses and from that we get a lot of engagement back … and ultimately that leads to a lot of business
F – Facebook Adverts
Facebook Adverts are not a total replacement for your organic Facebook strategy – I see many businesses going down the paid route without even trying to build a brand organically
But they are a complement to that and there are no more targeted online adverts than Facebook’s platform at the moment
Take a look down your newsfeed after reading this article – usually the 3rd or 5th post down will be a sponsored post. Question why you have been targeted for that advert … and then realise just as you have been targeted with adverts, you can do the same to your target market
G – Gram
The Gram … or Instagram for the fit 🙂
If your business has visual elements to it (and most businesses do – you have people at your core) then heads up – there are more monthly active users on Instagram than Twitter
Like any platform – consider whether your audience are there and build a plan before signing up and getting lost – but as a B2B business we’ve got meetings out of it – so don’t discount it off hand as a “young persons platform”
H – Humanising
There’s a reason we post selfies on social media – and it’s not vanity
It humanises the brand Altrincham HQ beyond just being a logo
Every weekend I get at least one person coming over to me in a bar off the back of the selfies saying “You’re the bloke from twitter aren’t you” “Yes” “Oh, I’ve told my mate to speak to you about Social Media Training”
Add in the fact that I also talk about where I dine out, go to gigs and what I’m watching on TV – it adds to a much more human social media account than just talking about business all day long
People buy from people
I – Influencer Marketing
When we think of influencer marketing we often think of Youtube / Twitter celebrities with huge audiences charging a small fortune to plug a product
Think smaller than that – think about your industry or your local town / city
Who are the 5 most influential people in your town? And think beyond number of followers? Think who their followers are and look at what they engage with content wise?
When they post about businesses do they get engagement … or are the posts they get a response from tabloid fodder and online rants?
J – Jacking
This year i’ve seen some great examples of Trendjacking from brands
Brands that know their audience and their interests and have successful managed to trend jack the Euros and Stone Roses. If you’re looking for a great example of trend jacking in the real world check out Aldi’s Stone Roses Lemon posters
Similarly I’ve seen brands trendjacking celebrity deaths like Bowie – really tragic jacks Like “Come and get a cocktail tonight with us #bowie” as if capitalising on death is acceptable
When trendjacking think does it fit with your brand? Does your audience have an interest in it? Be original and be fast and don’t be offensive
K – KPI’s
“If you can measure something you can improve it”
The biggest difference between outsourcing social media / social media training versus dabbling with social media is businesses who do the former realise the important of measurement
So what KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) are you using to measure the success of a Social Media Campaign? Engagement, reach, impressions, clicks, shares / retweets etc
And all of the above should lead to actual sales or else they’re simply vanity metrics
   
   
L – Live Streaming
I remember around March 2015 and there were “social media experts” who said that live streaming isn’t important and it won’t catch on
They’re the same people who now are using Facebook Live at least twice a week because – well it did catch on and they had to catch up
Periscope, Meerkat, Blab have all had a degree of success and to a certain extent it doesn’t matter if they didn’t take over the world – the skills people learnt in presentation style on those platforms are still hugely relevant to Facebook live
Currently our highest performing type of content on Facebook is Facebook Live videos due to the notification push and the repeat plays
M – Messaging Apps – Snapchat, Whats App Etc
Snapchat Inc. has 150 million people using the service each day making it more popular for daily active users than Twitter
According to eMarketer it’s growing in popularity amongst older people with Users age 25-34 are expected to double by 2020, surpassing 25 million and Users aged 35-44 are expected to jump from 4.8 million to 7.9 by 2020
By 2020 more and more data will be shared on private messaging apps rather than the public world we’ve come to expect
N – Networking / Referrals
Altrincham HQ as a business was built on 3 streams – Social Media, Blogging and Networking
My offline world is intertwined with my online world and therefore networking and referrals aren’t restricted to 6.30am Business Networking Meetings
I joke that I’m a “One Man Referral Machine” because I refer as much work to local businesses on Twitter / LinkedIn than a whole Breakfast Networking Meeting
Always log onto social media with the mindset of “Givers Gain” and how can I help another local business today – it always comes back when done authentically
O – Open Questions
Keep asking them as they’re one of the best ways to get engagement and research your audiences opinions in an instant
An open-ended question is designed to encourage a full, meaningful answer using the subject’s own knowledge and/or feelings. It is the opposite of a closed-ended question, which encourages a short or single-word answer.
Think about this for a while – what information could you find out about potential clients by asking a open question?
P – Planning
The 1st time I delivered this A-Z Of Social Media 2016 Talk only around 5% of the room said they planned their social media activity
That meant 95% of small businesses in the room were literally using social media without a strategic plan
Planning your social media is critical to it’s success – a very simple content calendar planned 3 months ahead not only makes day to day running of the social media more easy and fluid, but allows for campaigns which really hit the mark
The secret behind any social media campaign is in the planning
Q – Quotes
Everybody loves a good quote on Social Media – you only had to see the love for Muhammed Ali on Social Media to see the love for a great quote from a great orator
But Quotes can either be a great addition to your social media strategy or undermine your entire authenticity
Don’t just plug in a automated quote generator from the social media scheduling tools as they may highlight everything you don’t do in life / business
Do think in quotes in terms of your own quotes and get a bank of quotes together that reflect your personality and business
Quotes tell a lot about a person – tell that story or narrative in quote form and it’s unbelievably powerful
R – Return on Effort
I hate to break it to businesses out there – but with Social Media you really do get the results you deserve
When it comes to results from Social Media, you are literally getting the return of what you put in – i.e the return on effort
Businesses get results from Social Media because they work hard on the right things
Equally
It’s a return on effort when you turn up once a day / week / month and still expect results from social media
It’s a return on effort when you don’t know how to use social media, dabble through and never get training
It’s a return on effort when you get training and then go back to what you used to do
Social Media is hard work and while so many businesses are asking the question – what is the return on investment from Social Media? Less are prepared to speak about return on effort and putting in the hard work
Remember no one ever achieved success by putting zero effort in
S – Social Proof
Social Proof is the difference between others saying you’re an expert and you saying you’re an expert
It’s the testimonials, recommendations, narratives that others say about you
It’s the results you get rather than the words you say
When people ask “what is the difference between ourselves and other Social Media companies”, we can say about 140 testimonials and businesses we deliver results for every day
Where is your social proof for your business?
T – Trolling
If you gain attention, if you get the social proof, the recommendations and the love – there’s almost a guarantee trolls will start paying attention
Simply – you can’t be trolled if people don’t know your name
So keep gain attention for the great things you do – ignore the trolls, hit the block button and screen grab anything defamatory for legal reasons
Grant Cardone has a great quote on trolls “If They Hate On The Winners, You Know What They Are”
U – User Generated Content
UGC is 20% more influential than any other type of media
You’ve seen the huge amount of #foodporn across various platforms – if your friends take a photo of their meal at a restaurant, you often take more note of that than if the restaurant had posted their own photos
At all times UGC should be encouraged = gamify it and offer a competition for the best photo that month
V – Video
20 percent of people remember what they HEAR
30 percent of people remember what they SEE
70 percent of people remember what they SEE and HEAR
That is why video is important whether it’s live streaming or pre-recorded video
They key is to provide something they want to see and hear rather than an advertorial on YOU – make the videos about THEM
W – When – Timing
Social Media is about posting when it’s convenient for your audience, not about posting when it’s convenient for you
Timing is everything and whilst there are various articles claiming to have the best time to post on social media – the best time to post is by guestimating your own timings and then measuring with data to change / adapting accordingly
We all know our customers patterns and daily routines to an extent so we have a good idea of when our customers are likely to be online
The key with timing though is to prioritise the time of day to engage – you’re engagement shouldn’t be at 3am in the morning before it’s the last thing on your to do list
X – XoXo – Love and Passion
XO = Hugs and Kisses
You can tell when someone is passionate about the social media for a business
There’s an energy that leaps off the screen when somebody loves what they’re doing on social media, in the same way there’s an energy off the page in a great book
You can also tell when a business is half-heartedly attempting social media and it’s something they’ve not fully bought into
There’s a lack of passion and lack of direction in the updates and everything feels drab
Learn to love social media even if it doesn’t come natural to you
Y – Youthfication
The world is getting younger
All social networks start with the youth – remember Myspace, all us now oldies were teens / twenty somethings on myspace
The youth went to Snapchat because the oldies couldn’t fathom out to use it – but it won’t be long before mums are snapchatting every day.
Businesses need to be aware of this and follow the curve – you might not get something now, but you will have to soon
Z – Generation Z 1995-2012
And Y leads us nicely to Z for Generation Z- the people who have grown up as digital natives
Those people are the future and they’ve grown up with social (although it’s worth noting – young people don’t neccessary have the business or marketing acumen to be the chosen one for your social media marketing)
They are your future employees and how do you look from the outside to them – will they want to work for you?
That’s the question you need to ask – is social and online integral to your business and future
CHAT TO US
Chat to about Social Media for YOUR business so we can better understand YOU and what would work best for YOU
We can only find out what is unique to your business by chatting to you
Please call Alex on 07806774279 or email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk
