Social Media Marketing All-in-One For Dummies

by Krasniak, Michelle; Zimmerman, Jan; Ng, Deborah

• ISBN13: 9781119696872
• ISBN10: 1119696879
• Edition: 5th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2021-04-06
• Publisher: For Dummies

Summary

Get social with the bestselling social media marketing book

No person can ignore social media these days--and no business can afford to ignore it either. Our lives are mediated through the flicker of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram--and brands are increasingly interwoven with our online identities. Even for the 90% of marketers who interact with social media regularly, its pace and scale can be confusing to the point of distraction. Social Media Marketing All-in-One For Dummies helps you take a step back, make sense of the noise, and get your brand voice heard over the babble--in the way you want it to be.

These nine mini-books in one give you essential, straightforward, and friendly guidance on how to use the major social platforms to promote your business, engage your customers, and use feedback to make your product or service the best that it can be. From evaluating the right social mix and planning your strategy to the really fun stuff--like creating videos on Snapchat and TikTok, diving deep on a podcast, or looking pretty on Pinterest--you'll find everything you need to get your social ducks in a row and say the right things. And once the campaign is over, you can follow the guidance here to evaluate success and iterate on your approach, before getting right back out there for an even bigger second bite.

• Keep up with the latest changes on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, and more
• Blend your social side with your traditional marketing presence
• Become more engaging and metric your success
• Get to know your fans with user data

Wherever you're coming from--social media strategist, site manager, marketer, or something else--social media is where your customers are. This book shows you how to be there, too.

Author Biography

Jan Zimmerman is the owner of Watermelon Mountain Web Marketing and has helped businesses of all sizes use online marketing and social media tools for more than 15 years. Jan is co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One For Dummies.

Deborah Ng is a professional blogger, freelance writer, community manager and social media enthusiast who grew her writing blog into the number one online community for freelance writers before selling in 2010. She is author of Online Community Management For Dummies.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

About This Book 2

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 3

Beyond the Book 4

Where to Go from Here 4

Book 1: The Social Media Mix 5

Chapter 1: Making the Business Case for Social Media 7

Making Your Social Debut 8

Defining Social Media Marketing 9

Understanding the Benefits of Social Media 13

Casting a wide net to catch your target market 14

Branding 15

Building relationships 15

Improving business processes 16

Improving search engine rankings 16

Selling in the social media marketplace 17

Finding alternative advertising opportunities 18

Understanding the Cons of Social Media 19

Integrating Social Media into Your Overall Marketing Effort 19

Developing a Strategic Social Media Marketing Plan 21

Establishing goals 24

Setting quantifiable objectives 25

Identifying your target markets 25

Estimating costs 26

Valuing social media ROI 26

Chapter 2: Tallying the Bottom Line 27

Preparing to Calculate Return on Investment 28

Accounting for Customers Acquired Online 29

Comparing the costs of customer acquisition 30

One is silver and the other gold 32

Establishing Key Performance Indicators for Sales 32

Tracking Leads 36

Understanding Other Common Business Metrics 37

Break-even point 37

Profit margin 38

Revenue versus profit 38

Determining Return on Investment 38

Chapter 3: Plotting Your Social Media Marketing Strategy 47

Locating Your Target Market Online 48

Segmenting Your B2C Market 48

Demographics 50

Geographic location 50

Purchasing behavior in different life stages 53

Psychographics or lifestyle 54

Affinity groups 55

Researching B2B Markets 57

Conducting Other Types of Market Research Online 59

Identifying influencers 59

Understanding why people use social media services 60

Setting Up Your Social Media Marketing Plan 60

Chapter 4: Managing Your Cybersocial Campaign 69

Managing Your Social Media Schedule 70

Controlling the time commitment 70

Developing your social date book 71

Creating a social media dashboard 72

Building Your Social Media Marketing Dream Team 76

Seeking a skilled social media director 77

Looking inside 78

Hiring experts 78

Creating a Social Media Marketing Policy 79

Staying on the Right Side of the Law 81

Obtaining permission to avoid infringement 82

Respecting privacy 84

Revealing product endorsement relationships 84

Protecting Your Brand Reputation 86

Book 2: Cybersocial Tools 89

Chapter 1: Discovering Helpful Tech Tools 91

Keeping Track of the Social Media Scene 92

Saving Time with Content-Distribution Tools 93

Alternative Content-Distribution Services 94

Snipping Ugly URLs 96

Using E-Commerce Tools for Social Sites 97

Selling through links 98

Displaying products on social media channels 98

Selling directly on social media 98

Reviewing third-party products for selling through social media 102

Keeping Your Ear to the Social Ground 107

Deciding what to monitor and why 107

Deciding which tools to use 108

Using free or inexpensive social monitoring tools 108

Measuring the Buzz by Type of Service 112

Chapter 2: Leveraging SEO for Improved Visibility 115

Making the Statistical Case for SEO 116

Thinking Tactically and Practically 117

Focusing on the Top Search Engines 118

Knowing the Importance of Search Phrases 120

Choosing the right search terms 121

Where to place search terms on your site 123

Understanding tags and tag clouds 124

Maximizing Metatag Muscle 126

Tipping the scales with the page title metatag 128

Pumping up page description metatags 128

Optimizing Your Site and Content for Search Engines 129

Writing an optimized first paragraph 130

Updating often 131

Making your site search engine friendly 134

Optimizing for local search 140

Getting inbound links from social sharing, social bookmarks, and social news services 141

Reaping other links from social media 144

Chapter 3: Optimizing Social Media for Internal and External Searches 147

Placing Search Terms on Social Media 148

Optimizing Blogs 150

Optimizing WordPress 152

Optimizing Blogger 153

Optimizing Wix 153

Assigning permalinks 154

Optimizing Images, Video, and Podcasts 155

Optimizing Specific Social Media Platforms 156

Optimizing Twitter 156

Optimizing Facebook 158

Optimizing Instagram 159

Optimizing Pinterest 161

Optimizing LinkedIn 162

Optimizing YouTube 163

Optimizing for Mobile Search 164

Gaining Visibility in Real-Time Search 166

Gaining Traction on Google with Social Media 167

Monitoring Your Search Engine Ranking 168

Chapter 4: Using Social Bookmarks, News, and Share Buttons 171

Bookmarking Your Way to Traffic 172

Sharing the News 174

Benefiting from Social Bookmarks and News Services 176

Researching a Social Bookmark and Social News Campaign 177

Executing your plan 178

Monitoring results 179

Submitting to Bookmarking Services 180

Submitting to Social News Services 181

Selecting content for social news services 182

Preparing social news stories for success 183

Using Application-Specific Bookmarks 183

Timing Your Submissions 184

Encouraging Others to Bookmark or Rate Your Site 186

Using Social Media Buttons 188

Follow Us buttons 188

Share buttons 189

Book 3: Content Marketing 193

Chapter 1: Growing Your Brand with Content 195

Introducing Content Marketing 196

Defining content marketing 196

Examining how content marketing can help your business 196

Determining the Best Content Platform for Your Needs 199

Selling Your Brand through Content Marketing 200

Making Your Content Stand Out 202

Chapter 2: Exploring Content-Marketing Platforms 205

Building a Blog 206

Understanding how blogging can benefit your business 207

Deciding if blogging is right for you 209

Setting up your blog 209

Using Podcasts and Video on Your Blog or Website 212

Deciding if podcasting is right for you 212

Using podcasts to drive traffic and land sales 214

Creating viral videos 215

Interviewing experts on camera 216

Sharing Images 218

Using images for your online content 218

Legalities: What you need to know about sharing images 219

Finding images online 220

Sharing images on photo-sharing sites 222

Using Social Media Platforms for Online Content 223

Deciding which social media platforms to use 224

Creating and sharing content with social media 225

Understanding the importance of community 227

Guest Blogging to Grow Awareness and Expertise 228

Understanding guest blogging 229

Finding relevant blogs and pitching your content 229

Promoting your guest blog posts 231

Chapter 3: Developing a Content-Marketing Strategy 233

Determining Content Goals 234

Driving traffic 235

Making sales 236

Establishing expertise 238

Growing your online community 238

Collecting leads with your content 239

Putting a Strategy on Paper 240

Understanding the elements of a content-marketing strategy 240

Doing a content inventory 241

Taking steps to achieve your goals 242

Delegating tasks 243

Chapter 4: Getting Your Content to the Masses 245

Creating an Editorial Calendar to Keep Content Flowing 246

Exploring the benefits of an editorial calendar 246

Deciding what to include on your calendar 247

Finding the Right Mix between Evergreen and Timely Content 248

Executing Your Content Strategy 249

Sharing Your Content with the Public 250

Measuring the Success of Your Content Strategy 252

Book 4: Twitter 255

Chapter 1: Using Twitter as a Marketing Tool 257

Deciding Whether Twitter Is Right for You 258

Communicating in 280 Characters 260

Promoting without Seeming like You’re Promoting 261

Researching Other Brands on Twitter 268

Knowing Quality Is More Important than Quantity 269

Chapter 2: Using Twitter as a Networking Tool 271

Finding the Right People to Follow 272

Finding the Right Topics to Follow 273

Finding Out Who Is Talking about You on Twitter 274

Responding to Tweets 275

Searching on Twitter 276

Filtering Search Results 277

Tweeting like a Pro 279

Articulating in 280 characters 279

Using the hashtag 279

Sharing on Twitter 280

Knowing when to @reply and direct message 281

Retweeting and being retweeted 281

Blocking people 282

Creating a successful Twitter campaign 283

Using keywords in your tweets 285

Following the Twitter Rules of Etiquette 285

Chapter 3: Finding the Right Twitter Tools 287

Customizing Your Twitter Profile Page 288

Creating a header photo 289

Creating a custom Twitter avatar 291

Pinning Tweets 292

Embedding Tweets 292

Using a Twitter Application 296

Exploring Twitter desktop applications 296

Tweeting from a gadget 297

Chapter 4: Social Listening with Twitter 299

Using Twitter to Listen to Your Customers 299

Responding to questions and complaints 302

Gaining new customers by being helpful 304

Chapter 5: Hosting Twitter Chat 305

Benefiting from Twitter Chats 305

Finding a Hashtag for Your Chat 306

Keeping Track of Who Says What 307

Finding Guests for Your Twitter Chat 308

Promoting Your Twitter Chat 310

Hosting Your Twitter Chat 313

Following Twitter Chat Best Practices 315

Book 5: Facebook 319

Chapter 1: Using Facebook as a Marketing Tool 321

Understanding the Appeal of Brands on Facebook 322

Branding with Facebook Pages 323

Examining the Components of a Facebook Page 324

Making the Most of Your Facebook Page 327

Adding a profile picture 328

Adding a cover photo 329

Adding finishing touches 330

Understanding Your Facebook Administrative Functions 331

Settings 331

Insights 333

Filling Out What You’re About 333

Using a Custom Username for Your Page 334

Inviting People to Join Your Community 335

Inviting friends to like your page 336

Getting likes from others 336

Liking Other Brands 338

Creating Facebook Events 339

Chapter 2: Creating and Sharing Content on Facebook 343

Creating a Facebook Content Strategy 344

Sharing Your Brand’s Story 345

Creating Content That Sings 347

Sharing and Being Shared 348

Posting content that followers will want to share 349

Using hashtags in your posts 350

Bringing Your Community into the Mix 351

Selling on Facebook 351

Creating polls, quizzes, and contests 353

Offering discounts to your community 355

Making Connections with Facebook Groups 356

Learning through Insights 357

Getting the scoop on your fans through Insights 358

Putting Insights data to good use 359

Chapter 3: Advertising and Selling on Facebook 361

Reaching More Fans with Ads 361

Deciding whether you want to invest in an ad 362

Choosing the right goal for your Facebook ad 363

Creating an ad with Ad Center 365

Targeting your fans 366

Measuring Your Ad’s ROI 367

Selling on Facebook 368

Facebook Marketplace 368

Shop Now button 370

Facebook Shops 370

Chapter 4: Streaming Live Video on Facebook 373

Understanding the Benefits of Live Streaming 374

Setting Up Your Live Stream 377

Engaging with Your Community via Facebook Live 380

Brainstorming Ideas for Live Videos 381

Book 6: Linkedin 383

Chapter 1: Promoting Yourself with LinkedIn 385

Exploring the Benefits of Using LinkedIn 386

Creating an Online Resume 387

Projecting a professional image on LinkedIn 388

Choosing and uploading a profile photo 390

Filling out your profile 394

Understanding Recommendations and Endorsements 396

Receiving recommendations 396

Giving recommendations 398

Asking for endorsements 398

Using LinkedIn Messages 401

Chapter 2: Promoting Your Business with LinkedIn 403

Exploring the Benefits of a LinkedIn Page 404

Creating a LinkedIn Page 404

Setting up your brand’s profile 405

Optimizing your company page 407

Adding and removing administrators 409

Sharing your brand’s content 409

Selling and Promoting with LinkedIn Showcase Pages 410

Highlighting your products and services 410

Utilizing showcase pages 411

Benefitting from LinkedIn Groups 412

Exploring groups 413

Growing a community with a LinkedIn group 413

Establishing group guidelines 415

Growing your group 416

Moderating your LinkedIn group 419

Recommending posts 420

Chapter 3: Using LinkedIn as a Content Platform 421

Blogging on LinkedIn 421

Creating your first post 422

Writing in a professional voice 424

Promoting Your LinkedIn Articles 425

Posting Content on LinkedIn Pages 426

Deciding on the content to post 426

Taking advantage of LinkedIn’s content tools 430

Book 7: Getting Visual 431

Chapter 1: Pinning Down Pinterest 433

Understanding Pinterest 434

Getting Started 436

Joining Pinterest 437

Setting up your Pinterest profile 440

Navigating Pinterest 441

Business hub 443

Getting on Board 444

Planning your initial boards 445

Creating your first board 446

Pinning on Pinterest 446

Pinning an image 447

Tagging 451

Following on Pinterest 451

Following friends 451

Following folks you don’t know 452

Sharing on Pinterest 453

Sharing other people’s Pins 453

Using share buttons 454

Driving Traffic with Pinterest 454

Being descriptive but brief 456

Using keywords 458

Building Your Pinterest Community 458

Commenting on Pins 459

Playing nice 459

Using Tools for Pinterest Marketing 461

Scheduling and automation 461

Growing your audience 462

Finding boards to follow 462

Creating content 463

Chapter 2: Snapchatting It Up! 465

Setting Up a General Snapchat Account 465

Understanding the lingo 469

Touring the Snapchat screens 471

Adding followers 473

Taking Your First Snap 474

Telling Your Snapchat Story 476

Knowing who is viewing your stories 477

Engaging with Snapchat 479

Using lenses, filters, and geofilters 480

Chapter 3: Getting Started with Instagram 485

Promoting Your Brand on Instagram 486

Creating and Using Your Instagram Account 487

Setting up your account 487

Completing your profile 491

Finding friends and fans on Instagram 491

Sharing photos 495

Controlling notifications 497

Determining What Is Photo-Worthy for Your Brand 499

Using Hashtags in Your Instagram Posts 501

Using Instagram Stories 502

Going Live with Instagram Live 503

Chapter 4: TikTok(ing) Around the Clock 507

Using TikTok for Brand Promotion 508

Creating and Personalizing Your TikTok Account 508

Setting up your account 508

Completing your profile 511

Touring the TikTok screens 512

Following (and getting followers) on TikTok 513

Sharing videos 515

Determining What Videos You Should Create 516

Chapter 5: Watching and Listening: Videos, Podcasts, and Your Brand 519

Deciding if Video and Podcasts Are Right for You 520

Determining What Content to Create 521

Informative 522

Company-related 522

Attention-catching (and keeping) 522

Competitive 522

Fun! 523

Getting Set Up with Equipment 523

Choosing software 523

Picking a camera 525

Using a tripod 525

Selecting a microphone 526

Creating Your Content 528

Publishing Your Content 530

Book 8: Other Social Media Marketing Sites 533

Chapter 1: Weighing the Business Benefits of Minor Social Sites 535

Reviewing Your Goals 536

Researching Minor Social Networks 537

Assessing the Involvement of Your Target Audience 540

Lurking 540

Responding 541

Quantifying market presence 541

Choosing Social Sites Strategically 542

Chapter 2: Maximizing Stratified Social Communities 547

Making a Bigger Splash on a Smaller Site 548

Taking Networking to the Next Level 548

Selecting Social Networks by Vertical Industry Sector 550

Selecting Social Networks by Demographics 553

Selecting Social Networks by Activity Type 556

Finding Yourself in the Real World with Geomarketing 558

Going geo for good reason 558

Deciding whether geomarketing is right for you 558

Spacing Out with Twitter 560

Checking in on Twitter 560

Searching real space with Twitter 560

Finding Your Business on Facebook 561

Geotagging on Facebook 561

Getting close with places nearby 561

Checking in on Facebook 561

Making a Facebook offer they can’t refuse 562

Making Real Connections in Meetup 564

Making Deals on Social Media 565

Offering savings, gaining customers 566

Making an attractive offer 567

Setting Terms for Your Coupon Campaign 568

The depth of the discount 568

The scope of the deal 569

Grappling with the gotchas 569

Measuring success 570

Further leveraging your deal 571

More upsides and downsides 572

Digging into Groupon 573

Diversifying Your Daily Deals 574

Chapter 3: Profiting from Mid-Size Social Media Channels 575

Deciding Whether to Invest Your Time 575

Entertaining Your Audience with Streaming Content 576

Turning Up New Prospects with Tumblr 578

Setting up an account 579

Advertising on Tumblr 579

Promoting Video with Vimeo 580

Signing up for a Vimeo Business account 581

Advertising on Vimeo 582

Chapter 4: Integrating Social Media 583

Thinking Strategically about Social Media Integration 584

Integrating Social Media with E-Newsletters 585

Gaining more subscribers 587

Finding more followers and connections 587

Finding and sharing content 588

Integrating Social Media with Press Releases 589

Setting up an online newsroom 590

Cultivating influencers 590

Distributing your news 591

Emphasizing content 593

Pressing for attention 594

Measuring results 594

Integrating Social Media with Your Website 595

Coupons, discounts, and freebies 596

Contests and games 597

Microsites 598

Private membership sites 598

Community forums 598

Chapter 5: Advertising on Social Media 601

Integrating Social Media with Paid Advertising 601

Advertising on social media sites 602

Maximizing your advertising dollars 603

Engagement ads 604

Advertising on Facebook and Instagram 605

Getting started 605

Boosting or promoting a post 608

Paying for your Facebook ads 608

Advertising on Twitter 609

Promoting your tweets 609

Followers campaign 609

Promoting a trend 610

Engaging your Twitter audience 610

Creating an ad on Twitter 611

Dealing with Twitter cards 613

Advertising on LinkedIn 614

Targeting Your LinkedIn Ads 617

Advertising on Pinterest 618

Advertising on YouTube 620

Advertising on Snapchat 622

Advertising on TikTok 624

Interfacing with Influencers 626

Book 9: Measuring Results and Building On Success 629

Chapter 1: Delving into Data 631

Planning a Measurement Strategy 632

Monitoring versus measuring 633

Deciding what to measure 634

Establishing responsibility for analytics 635

Selecting Analytics Packages 637

Reviewing analytical options for social media 639

Selecting a URL-shortening tool for statistics 640

Getting Started with Google Analytics 641

Integrating Google’s Social Media Analytics 643

Chapter 2: Analyzing Content-Sharing Metrics 645

Measuring the Effectiveness of Content Sharing

with Standard Analytics 645

Maximizing website stats 646

Tracking comments 648

Evaluating Blog-Specific Metrics 649

Visualizing Video Success 651

Understanding Podcast Metrics 653

Measuring Your Results from Pinterest 654

Finding out about your Pinterest audience 656

Third-party Pinterest analytics 657

Comparing Hard and Soft Costs versus Income 658

Chapter 3: Analyzing Twitter Metrics 659

Tracking Website Referrals with Google Analytics 660

Tracking Shortened Links 661

Using Twitter Analytics 661

Using TweetDeck 662

Using Third-Party Twitter Analytics Applications 663

Tracking Account Activity with the Notifications Tab 664

Monitoring mentions 665

Checking your retweet ranking 665

Gleaning meaning from direct messages 666

Using the Hashtag as a Measurement Mechanism 666

Calculating the Twitter Follower-to-Following Ratio 667

Chapter 4: Analyzing Facebook Metrics 669

Monitoring Facebook Interaction with Insights 669

Using Page Insights 670

Accessing Insights 670

Exporting Insights 671

Exploring the Insights Overview and Detail Pages 671

Actions on Page detail page 673

Total Views detail page 674

Reach detail page 674

Post Engagement detail page 675

Chapter 5: Measuring Other Social Media Networks 677

Plugging into Social Media 677

Measuring LinkedIn Success 678

Visitors 679

Updates 680

Followers 682

Exploring Instagram Insights 684

Overview 684

Content You Shared 685

Chapter 6: Comparing Metrics from Different

Marketing Techniques 687

Establishing Key Performance Indicators 688

Overcoming measurement challenges 688

Using A/B testing 689

Comparing Metrics across Social Media 690

Tagging links 693

Analyzing the clickstream 695

Tracking your own outbound links 696

Integrating Social Media with Web Metrics 696

Using Advertising Metrics to Compare Social Media with Other Types of Marketing 699

Obtaining metrics for paid advertising 699

Applying advertising metrics to social media 701

Juxtaposing Social Media Metrics with Other Online Marketing 702

Contrasting Word-of-Web with Word-of-Mouth 703

Chapter 7: Making Decisions by the Numbers 707

Using Metrics to Make Decisions 707

Knowing When to Hold and When to Fold 708

Diagnosing Problems with Social Media Campaigns 713

Fixing Problems 714

Your social presence can’t be found 715

Inappropriate match between channel and audience 715

Poor content 715

Lack of audience engagement 716

The four Ps of marketing 717

Adjusting to Reality 719

Index 721