How To :: Become Involved With Social Media

For businesses or companies of any kind or size who want to get involved with social media and aren’t sure how to get started, there are only a few easy steps to follow to determine how your target audience is involved in social media, if at all.

The first step is to go to the Forrester’s Social Technographic Profile tool. There is a profile tool to determine how to best connect with your customers, and there is also a B2B profile tool as well. Then you need to ask yourself a few questions to figure out which profile tool to use.

-Who is your target audience?

-Are they consumers? If so what’s their age rang?

-Are they a business?

Once you have decided which profile tool to use, it’s all down hill from there. If you’re using the consumer profile tool, you need to plug in some information. First you’re going to have to decide the age group of your customers.

Then you’re going to have to select what country they are from.

Last you need to select their gender.

Don’t worry if there are multiples to any of these categories, there is a simple way to add that to the equation. If that is the case, plug in the first set of information, then write down all of the percentages for the different groups. Then plug in the second set of information and write down those percentages. Then for each category add the two numbers then divide by two and you then get your new percentage.

After you figure out what category the majority of your target audience is, there is a Slide Show that you can go through to find out what kind of social media your target audience is apart of. It’s call the Social Technographics Ladder, and it explains how your audience is involved in social media.

After you figure out what social media your audience is involved in, all that’s left to do is involve your company in the appropriate social media and make sure that you are keeping things up to date and current. 

            

Children’s Home Society of Florida :: Protect. Strengthen. Guide.

The fourth company I talked to was Children’s Home Society of Florida, Buckner Division.

Background:

Children’s Home Society of Florida is a state-wide non-profit that was established in 1902. They have been Nationally accredited by the Council on Accreditation, since 1982. Their headquarters are in Winter Park, Fla. They have 14 divisions across the state, with almost 2,000 staff members. They provide services for children and families who are at risk for abuse, neglect or abandonment, to help strengthen and stabilize families, to help a younger generation break the cycle of abuse and neglect, and to find safe, loving permanent homes for children. Every year, CHS helps about 100,000 children and families.

The Buckner Division in Jacksonville provides more than 20 services, including, foster care, adoption, on-site group homes, prevention services, counseling & therapy and independent living services.

Analysis:

Currently, CHS the Buckner Division only has a Facebook page. Although their corporate headquarters has a Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts, but they are not updated or used very often. Nanette (Development Specialist—Public Relations) said that their biggest problem is that being are a non-profit  they don’t have a very big staff and don’t have the resources to keep their Facebook page updated. Presently she doesn’t feel that it is possible to become more active in social media and to use it effectively. “In order to do social media effectively, one must use it as a tool to interact with followers on a consistent basis.”

Fortunately, they understand the power that social media has and that it’s a great tool to connect and strengthen their relationships with donors, volunteers and others involved in their organization.  They currently use their Facebook for just that, to keep in touch with the people who are friends with their organization and keep them updated on a regular basis with opportunities that come up for them to become involved with the organization. 

For this organization, their target audience are people who are willing and able to donate time and money. For the Social Technographic Profile, their audience is Spectators 72% and Joiners 52%. Spectators read blogs, listen to podcasts, watch video from other users, read online forums, read customer ratings/reviews, and read tweets. Joiners maintain profile on a social networking site, and visit social networking sites.

Conclusion:

I think that that would also be to their advantage to also get a Twitter account for their individual branch. It would be another great way to keep people who are interested in this organization updated on ways to volunteer and stay involved with the organization. Another thing that could help their organization would be utilizing YouTube and making videos of their events. That would be an optimal way for prospective volunteers and donors to get an inside look at what they would be helping with.

Although they are doing a good job keeping their Facebook updated, there are also a few other things that can do to really utilize social media and help their organization. It will take some time, energy and effort, but it would be well worth it. 

EcoSure

The third company I talked to was EcoSure. EcoSure was happy to help me, but could not reveal who their clients are due to company client confidentiality. That is why there are no specific companies names involved in their answers or this entry.

Background:

EcoSure is a food safety and quality assurance service division of Ecolab. They focus on Brand Protection, Food Safety and Risk Minimization Services to the Food Service, and Hospitality and food supply Industries. They have over 400 certified professionals across the country that helps provide: food safety evaluations, brand standards assessments, customized training, data management, employee/guest safety assessments, guest experience assessments, and health reporting.

Analysis:

Currently EcoSure only has a blog and a message board for their Specialists. It is used to allow their Specialists to communicate with each other. The reason they have a general message board is for anyone and everyone who had a question to be able to post it and it allows the Specialists to answer those questions, and it allows everyone to see it. They also use it to provide the individual businesses and customer program updates to their contractors.

Over all, they say that they keep the blog relatively updated, although they said it depends on the cycle they are on. Sometimes it’s updated multiple times a day and sometimes it’s only once a week. But over all they do make it a priority to keep it as updated as possible by their customer support team.

As stated above, they only have a blog and a message board, but they are very open to using other social media sites. They said that the reason that they haven’t gotten more involved was due to the fact that they didn’t want to overwhelm their employees by having too many social media sites to keep up with.

According to the Groundswell Forrester B2B Profile Tool with 100-499 employees and the primary purchase category being services, their main categories are Spectators at 74% and Joiners and Critics are tired at 37%. Spectators read blogs, listen to podcasts, watch video from other users, read online forums, read customer ratings/reviews, and read tweets. Joiners maintain profile on a social networking site, and visit social networking sites. Critics post ratings/reviews of products or services, comment on someone else’s blog, contribute to online forums, contribute to/edit articles in a wiki.

The best plan of action for EcoSure to get more involved with social media that would help their company, would be to have a more a blog that is more accessible by the public. Where not only their Specialists can post questions and answers but allow their clients to post problems, complaints, praise, and/or love for EcoSure. By doing that, they would be able to send that link to perspective clients which would give them a way to look the communication between the clients and specialists and the EcoSure headquarters. And it would show them how problems (or possible problems that could arise if EcoSure were hired) were solved. It would also be wise for them to have a LinkedIn account as well since their main focus for clients are other businesses. It would be an easy way for one company to look up another without having to contact them. A twitter, which may not be 100% necessary, I also think would be helpful to keep in contact with their Specialists, Clients, and other employees, in a user friendly way that's short, sweet and to the point.

Conclusion:

There are a few different ways that EcoSure can get more involved in social media and by doing so, they potentially have a way of also boosting their ROI. It would be something that would take a lot of time to get started and it would potentially need to be someone's main focus, but I definitely think that it is something that could pay off in the end. 

Rembrandtz :: The Art of Gift Giving

The second company I talked to is only partially involved with social media, and that company is Rembrandtz Gallery.

Background:

Rembrandtz Gallery is a local shop in Historic St. Augustine that is owned by a mother and daughter duo. It was established in 1995 and has been a local favorite and has won the “Best of St. Augustine” contest since it began. They are a store that focuses on having quality, handmade American and Canadian work and being able to provide the best experience for their customers.

Analysis:
Currently Rembrandtz runs their own online website and has a Facebook and Blog. When I asked the owner, Kimberly Hunt, why she became involved in social media she said, that social media is now an integral part of branding and is an important aspect of staying relevant to their current customers, as well as attracting new customers.

The reason they are involved with a Facebook and a Blog is mainly because their customers asked for it. It was also something that they had been researching for quite some time, and she felt now was the best time to become involved. Although Kimberly did admit that she accidently made herself a teenager when setting up the account for her business, “which made me laugh and feel old at the same time!”

Kimberly admits that she does not log on and update either of the social media sites as often as she should. It’s not that it’s not a priority for her or her business, it’s just that since it is a small family owned business, that is also a high priority that needs a lot of tender love and care. “I am normally up by 6am, and to sleep by 1am, continually working on and in my business. There is often not enough time to update our social media in the way that I would like to.” On top of being in charge of the online store, physical store, Facebook and blog, Kimberly is also the president of the Art Association of St. Augustine, so when I asked her why just a Facebook and Blog, she laughed and said that there aren’t enough hours in a day.

According to the Groundswell Forrester Social Technographic Profile Rembrandtz’s top two groups for their target audience would be Spectators (72%) and Joiners (46%). Spectators are people who read blogs, listen to podcasts, watch video from other users, read online forums, read customer ratings/reviews and read tweets. Joiners are people who maintain a profile on a social networking site and visit other social networking sites.

Rembrandtz is doing some of what they should be doing that works for their target audience. Although if and when they have more time or find someone who is able to be in charge of their social media, there is still more that they could do to get more involved with social media; for example, a Twitter, or making a podcast to let people get to know a little bit more about the business to name a few. Also another thing that Rembrandtz could do to get more involved is create more of a two-way communication where they are posting things more regularly and getting their customers to interact with those posts more often as well. 

Conclusion:
Rembrandtz did a good job at researching what their customer base is involved in and also seems to be getting a good amount of feed back as well, and they are a good example of what a small company can be doing to get their name out there in the social media world. Although they could be more involved, they are still making sure that their Facebook and Blog are being updated in a reasonable amount of time and being updated with relevant information that appeal to their customer base.  Rembrandtz is an good example of how a small business can get started in the social media world and make it look easy.

Vernis & Bowling :: Attorneys At Law

The first company I talked with was Vernis & Bowling, a law firm that focuses mostly in insurance law. I spoke with Robert C. Bowling one of the Managing Partners of the law firm and asked him a few questions.

Background:

Vernis & Bowling is a law firm that has been around for 40 years, opening their first firm in Miami. They have 13 firms, 10 of which are in Florida. They focus mainly on insurance law, but also practice in admiralty/maritime, alternative dispute resolution, appellate practice, bankruptcy, commercial & complex litigation, construction law, corporate transactions, criminal law, director & officer liability (D&O)/Errors & Omissions (E&O), elder law, employment related practices & civil rights, family law, insurance fraud defense/special investigation, labor law, liability defense, local government law, Medicare set-asides and Medicare compliance, real estate and workers compensation.

Analysis:
Vernis & Bowling currently is not involved in any kind of social media, according to Mr. Bowling it is not something that their target marker or decision makers utilize in selecting what legal counsel to use. And they see no reason to get involved.

This is a common misconception that many companies have. Although it may not be appropriate for a law firm to have a Facebook or Twitter, because of client confidentiality, this doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t be able to utilize other social media sites, a more professional social media site, especially if it is business-to-business transaction.

When plugging in some of Vernis & Bowling’s information in the Groundswell Forrester B2B Profile Tool, they have 74% Spectators and 37% Joiners and Critics.

Spectators read blogs, listen to podcasts, watch video from other users, read online forums, read customer ratings/reviews and read tweets. Joiners maintain profile on social networking site and visit social networking sites. Critics post ratings/reviews of products or services, comment on someone else’s blog, contribute to online forums and contribute to/edit articles in a wiki.

I think that the best plan of to get involved with social media would be a open forums, podcasts, or even a company blog that the founders of the firm could update while still adhering to client confidentiality and getting pre-approved consent from the Florida-Bar.

Conclusion:
Those are just a few ways for a growing firm to get involved in the social media craze and utilizing those things could help them see return on investment, which is what every law firm is looking for. 

What is :: The Truth About Social Media?

Social Media Revolution



As you can see from the Social Media Revolution video social media is growing very quickly and it shows no sign of stopping.

There are a lot of people/companies that are wary about being a part of this social media craze. For people who don't know how to utilize social media sites to their advantage, they see it as unknown territory and they don't necessarily have the courage or time to figure it out.

This is what I'm going to talk about in this blog. I have talked with a couple of different companies, small and large, about their involvement (or lack there of) in social media. I will also explain either how they can get started in social media or how they can utilize the social media they have.

The companies I have chosen are completely different from one another, and so this should help anyone who is wanting to get themselves/businesses involved in social media.

Enjoy!