MT - Business case - Social Media Cert Workbook

Social Media Certification Workbook A Beginner’s Guide to Applying Social Media to Your Business Table of Contents Introduction: The Ever-Changing Social Media Landscape .................................................................... 2 Section 1: Developing a Social Media Strategy......................................................................................... 3 Section 2: Social Media Listening and Monitoring.................................................................................... 6 Section 3: Building a Content Strategy for Social Media ....................................................................... 11 Section 4: Extending Your Reach on Social Media ................................................................................. 16 Section 5: Using Social Media to Build One-on-One Relationships ..................................................... 18 Section 6: Understanding the Basics of Digital Advertising .................................................................. 25 Section 7: Measuring Your Social Return on Investment........................................................................ 29 Section 8: Essentials for Continued Success With Social Media ........................................................... 31 The Results: Your Completed Workbook ................................................................................................. 34 1 Introduction The Ever-Changing Social Media Landscape Welcome to the Social Media Certification workbook. You’re about to start an exciting journey to transform your understanding and approach to social media marketing. Today’s digital revolution has fundamentally changed how people gather and consume information. Gone are the days when consumers had to rely on companies to tell them what to buy and what to think about their products or services. Consumers instead prefer to discover relevant information on their own and through trusted friends or resources. Most importantly, they prefer to do so at a time and place most convenient to them. This shift in consumer culture and behavior demands a fundamental change in how companies approach social media. Social media is much more than posting and sharing your content while praying that it goes viral. Instead, it’s a strategic marketing tool to help you build human connections with your customers and reach your business goals. When used strategically, social media is the ultimate way to practice inbound marketing. Because of its unique nature as both a public and one-on-one medium, social media has the potential to shape public conversations and perceptions, build brand awareness and loyalty, attract partners and customers, and create brand evangelists. The Social Media Certification online course will help you accomplish all of the aforementioned goals by equipping you with a solid understanding of social media strategy, digital advertising, social monitoring and listening, influencer marketing, content strategy, and much more. What Will You Learn in This Workbook? This workbook includes additional readings and activities that will help you digest the information covered in each section of HubSpot’s free Social Media Certification course. The content in the workbook runs parallel to the video course series. In addition, within each section of the workbook, there are links that guide you to the original course content. The content in the workbook together with the online course will solidify your understanding of social media. This workbook was developed by Dr. Ai Addyson-Zhang (@AiAddysonZhang), associate professor of Communication Studies at Stockton University, with HubSpot social media professor, Crystal King (@Crystallyn), to accompany the HubSpot Academy Social Media Certification. Feel free to reach out to us with any questions. Please keep this workbook handy as you go through the online course. Now, let’s get started. ** Please save this workbook to the desktop on your computer. This way your progress will be saved correctly as you complete each section. ** 2 1 Section 1 Developing a Social Media Strategy Why does your business need a social media promotion strategy? You’ve probably heard the phrase, “fail to plan; plan to fail.” Strategic planning is the root of successful social media marketing. Be sure you have a solid foundation in place before you start your social media marketing efforts. The first step is understanding who your target audience is and creating a buyer persona. Equally important is understanding your overall business goals and objectives and having your social media goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) aligned to your overall business goals. Too many social media marketers jump into the content creation game without any understanding of their customers, business goals, and social media KPIs. Luckily, you won’t make the same mistake because you’re here taking this course. The readings and activities below will help you practice creating a buyer persona and identifying social media KPIs based on your business goals and objectives. Reading: Buyer Personas Learn more Buyer Personas by reading: • Create Buyer Personas for Your Business This article includes a free downloadable ebook and buyer persona templates. Activity 1: Buyer Personas Regardless of what business or industry you’re in, understanding your customers is crucial. Creating a buyer persona is the first step to understanding your audience and serving them effectively. Use this free template to create a buyer persona for your business. Please note that depending on your business, you may have as few as one or two personas or as many as 10 or 20. For the purpose of this activity, consider your primary buyer persona. 3 If you’re having a hard time developing a persona for your business, try this free MakeMyPersona tool or read this list of 20 questions to get started on developing a buyer persona for your business. In the box below, summarize your primary buyer persona’s background (job, career path, family). In the box below, summarize your primary buyer persona’s demographics (gender, age, income, location). In the box below, summarize your primary buyer persona’s identifiers (demeanor, communication preferences). In the box below, summarize your primary buyer persona’s goals (primary and secondary). In the box below, summarize your primary buyer persona’s challenges (primary and secondary). If you need more information on this, check out video one of the Developing a Social Media Strategy lesson in the video: “Why You Need a Social Media Strategy” at timestamp 1:54. 4 Activity 2: Developing KPIs With a buyer persona in place, you’ve developed a deeper understanding of your ideal customers. Now, it's time to map out the KPIs so you can measure the effectiveness of your social media strategy and activities. There are four categories of social media KPIs: • Reach • Engagement • Return on investment (ROI) • Retention and loyalty In the box below, identify the KPIs that you’ll focus on in your social media strategy. As you develop your KPIs, keep in mind your overall business goals and objectives, and think about how your social media efforts can move you closer to accomplishing those goals. If you need more information on this, check out the Developing a Social Media Strategy lesson in the beginning of the video: “Building the foundation for success-setting social KPIs.” 5 2 Section 2 Social Media Listening and Monitoring Why do brands, organizations, and professionals alike need to invest time and money in social media listening and monitoring? Social media is a two-way communication channel. It's not merely about promoting and sharing your own content, products, or services, but also about listening and monitoring what other people are saying about you. Research has shown that becoming a smart social media listener can help improve your business performance in tangible ways. Read here and here to see how several brands have benefited from practicing social listening and monitoring. In this section, we’ll review readings and activities to help you practice social media listening and monitoring. Let’s get started. Reading: Social Listening Learn more about what the importance of social listening by reading: • The Complete Social Listening Guide • What is Social Listening & Why is it Important? Activity 1: Social Listening As social media marketers, we sometimes forget how it feels to be a customer. You probably have heard the saying, “think like a human, not a marketer.” This activity on social listening aims to put you into the shoes of everyday consumers and remind you of how it feels to be a happy or frustrated customer. As you do the activity, please make sure that you understand the differences between social listening and social monitoring. Social listening is “how you track, analyze, and respond to conversations across the internet.” Keep that definition in mind as you examine how well brands are listening to their customers or prospects online. Choose two brands (Brand A & Brand B) in the same industry. It can be your industry, an industry of interest to you, or products or services that you’re currently using. Then, identify the social media platforms where these two brands have a presence, and engage with them on each of those channels. Maybe it's a tweet, a mention on Instagram, or a shoutout on Facebook. 6 Next, depending on how well the brand listens and responds to you, document your sentiment toward each of the two brands on a scale from one to ten, with one being the least favorite and ten being the most favorite. Then explain your reasoning for each score. As you do the activity, take notes on the brands’ responses, and reflect on how your sentiment toward the brands changes over time. Share your responses in the following two boxes. Your sentiment toward Brand A Your sentiment toward Brand B If you need more information on sentiment, check out the first video of the Social Media Listening and Monitoring lesson at timestamp 1:15. Activity 2: Social Listening Activity 2 focuses on social monitoring. Again, make sure that you understand the differences between social listening and social monitoring. Unlike social listening, social monitoring demands a more proactive approach. You’re actively looking for “mentions and conversations that pertain to your brand, your products, your hashtags, your employees, your competitors, and your customers.” In other words, when you’re practicing social monitoring, you’re measuring the broader context within which your business operates. Its scope goes way beyond your immediate business. 7