Social Media Marketing: 5 Basic Building Blocks

Summary:This article is Part 1 of a 3 part series covering 5 basic social media marketing tools: websites, blogs, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. It is a "get started" guide designed for professionals event planners who are in the position of having to market themselves as independents for the first time.

With the number of layoffs in our industry during the past year, many event planners now need to market themselves for freelance opportunities or set up their own small businesses. If you're used to working for a big firm, there was likely an entire team to handle Internet marketing. Now that you are out on your own, it's important to master social media marketing basics as soon as possible. Yes there are successful independent event planners who don't have websites. Many of them have been around for years and have already built a client base. If you're just starting out on your own or if you want to take your marketing to the next level, you just can't afford to ignore social media.

Social media marketing isn't about the tools. Before determining which tools to use, it is important to have one's overall business, marketing and sales strategies in place. Only then can one determine which tools would be a good fit.

This post pre-supposes that you have have already devoted quality time to fine-tuning your overall business, marketing and sales strategy.  If you haven't designed your core marketing strategy, here is some assistance:

Taking the Plunge from Employee to Entrepreneur

Marketing Basics

Creating Your Social Media Plan

On a daily basis, I hear from so many people are totally overwhelmed by all of the tools to the point of inaction. My goal here is to cut through all the noise and confusion and focus on some of the most popular and easiest tools  to use to implement your social media marketing strategy. This article will show you how to implement your social media marketing strategy, step-by-step, and introduce you to the tools you need to get started. As time goes on, you can add to these basics.

Even if you've fine-tuned your overall marketing strategy and you are already using some of the basic social media marketing tools, a review from time to time is always helpful. Who knows, you may even pick up a new resource or two to beef up your strategy and add to your toolkit.

• Part 1: Websites, Blogs & LinkedIn
• Part 2: RSS Feeds & Other Preparations for Sharing Your Blog on Social Networking Sites
• Part 3: Sharing Your Blog on Twitter & Facebook & Other Social Networking Sites

The core building blocks for implementing a social media marketing strategy include:

1. Website - Part 1
2. Blog - Part 1
3. LinkedIn Profile - Part 1
4. Facebook Profile - Part 3
5. Twitter - Part 3

Let's start by focusing on websites, blogs, and LinkedIn.

Launching an Event Planning Website

Your website is the cornerstone of your social media marketing strategy. Your website should have information about your products, services, and policies as well as clear information about how to contact you. The role of all other components in your social media marketing plan is to provide helpful and useful content to encourage readers to visit your website. Websites can no longer be online brochures created just to pitch your products. Today's increasingly sophisticated customers need to quickly determine if you can help them resolve the very real and tangible problems with which they are grappling. Information needs to be clear and easy to find. The benefits of what you offer must be articlulated from a prospective client's point of view. Site visitors also appreciate helpful tips, tools and resources. So, give some careful thought about what you can provide that will be of value to prospective customers. We won't focus on the nuts and bolts of creating an event planning website, however, there are many places where you can find assistance. Many ISPs have webspaces and provide templates to help you get started. Consider hiring a professional web designer to create templates and a website that you update on a regular basis. You can also purchase templates to use yourself or for a professional designer to use to create your site at a fraction of their usual cost. Google "Web Design Templates" or "Front Page Templates" and you'll find many resources. Explore the first 6 results from each search to get an idea of what's available. These resources will give you some tips to get started:

Web Design Basics
For New Web Designers
Beginner's Web Design Tutorial

Creating an Event Planning Blog

Blogs are an important part of your social media marketing strategy. It is through your blog that you can highlight your expertise, provide content that is of value to prospective clients, and build relationships with them over time. Blogs can also help you stay in touch with existing and former clients and business associates. There are a number of options for creating blogs including Wordpress, Blogger, Squidoo, and Tumblr. When you each blog post, be sure to include a summary if your blogging application has this functionality. This will be important when you start to "feed" your blog entries to other websites. In part 2 of this series, we'll walk you through the process of creating an RSS feed to allow you to feed your blog to other social networking websites.

Getting Started on Posterous

Posterous is one of the easiest blog creation tools available . If you have always wanted to have a blog but you were intimidated by the steep learning curve required to master some blogging technology, you'll love Posterous. This blog has been created on Posterous. If you can use e-mail, you can create a blog on Posterous. You don't even have to set up an account. Just follow these simple steps:

1. Type the topic or headline for your blog entry into your e-mail's subject line.
2. After your topic or headline, type your tag to create the following format:

   Your Blog Title or Topic ((tags:Your Keywods))

3. Type the body of your blog post into your e-mail.

   If you know HTML and you want to add it, feel free, however, it's not required. You don't even have to format the links, just type them. Posterous will format them for you. If you want to add a video clip, just cut and paste the Youtube URL where you want the video to appear in your blog post. LinkedIn will do the rest.

4. Attach 1 photo
5. Send your e-mail to post@posterous.com

Poof, that's it. You'll receive a confirmation e-mail and a link where you can see your blog. When you want to add another post, just repeat these steps. Send it from the same e-mail you used create your first blog entry. Posterous will update your blog.

Developing Your Wordpress Blog

This inexpensive, video based course will l take you, step-by-step, through the proceess of developing a Wordpress blog.

Wordpress Foundations Course

Getting Started on Blogger

Developing Your LinkedIn Profile

The purpose of your LinkedIn profile is to connect with present and former business colleagues and develop a network of new connections. To do this, it is important to clearly paint of picture of your career history, education, core skills, and services.

How to set up Your LinkedIn Profile

If you don't have a LinkedIn profile, this video will help you set up your LinkedIn account and create a detailed profile.

Building your Network on LinkedIn

Once you have created your profile, the next step is to build your network. The following tutorial provides step-by-step instructions for connecting with former colleagues and classmates, finding and joining LinkedIn groups, and participating in discussions. All LinkedIn groups have Group Owners and many have Group Managers to assist them in managing each community. Every LinkedIn group is different. Before you post anything, it is important to be clear about what the community you have joined expects. Take the time to read the Group Profile and locate and thoroughly read welcome threads or posting guidelines.

Many groups are now sending out welcome letters. Do take the time to review the important information provided. Contrary to the advice on this video, it's not a good idea to start discussions just to introduce yourself to the group. Group members prefer to get to know you through the quality of your contributions. Go ahead. Add job postings. Share articles. Respond to questions. Participate in discussions and start discussions of your own. Just ensure that all of your contributions truly add value.

How to Feed Your Blog into LinkedIn

You can feed content from your Wordpress or Blogger blog directly into your LinkedIn profile. To do this, on your Home Page, click on either the "Applications" link (towards the bottom of the menu on the left side of your screen) or the "Add an Application" link in the lower right corner. This will take you to a page listing "Featured Applications".

1. Click on the link for the site on which your blog is listed.
2. In the space provided, enter the URL for the blog you want to feature.

The summaries for your blog entries will begin to appear on your LinkedIn profile. Every time you update your blog, the entries which appear will be updated. If your blog is on another website, use "Network Status" on your profile to notify the members of your network about your updates. To shrink your blog URL so that it can fit in "Network Status", use a website such as:

http://www.tinyurl.com

It will also be important to shrink your blog URL to share it on Twitter and other social media websites. In Part 2, when we discuss RSS feeds, we'll show you how to use Twitter and Facebook to automatically notify your network about your blog updates.

Listing your Events in LinkedIn

The LinkedIn "Events" module is one of the best kept secrets on LinkedIn. It's a gold mine for Event Planners. The "Events" module makes it possible for you to list full details about your events including date, title, location, price, website link, and a full description. When members from your area log on to LinkedIn, they will be able to see local events, including yours. On your Home page, you can activate the LinkedIn Events module by clicking on either the "Applications" link (towards the bottom of the menu on the left side of your screen) or the "Add an Application" link in the lower right corner. Select Events from the page of applications presented.

LinkedIn Groups for Event Planners

As highlighted in the second video, LinkedIn groups have discussions, job postings, and news. Each LinkedIn group has a Group Owner and many have Group Managers and Moderators. Every group is different so be sure to carefully review the information contained in the group profile, and any welcome letters or posting guidelines threads. The "Featured Discussions" posts at the top of the list of discusions after clicking on the "Discussions" tab and annoucements sent out by group owners are also extremely important.

LinkedIn has a number of groups for event planners, managers, meeting planners, and other industry professionals. LinkedIn's first group for event planners and one of the most rapidly growing groups is Event Planning & Management.

On Twitter, this group has started highlighting hot discussion topics using the hash tag #linkevents. 

In addition to the main group, Event Planning and Management has 4 sub-groups for members:

• Conferences, Seminars, Webinars, & Virtual Learning for Event Planners and Managers (The newest - Includes an Event Planning Blogs Directory where members can list their blogs.)
• Networking Events for Event Planners and Managers
• Social Media for Event Planning & Management (Includes a discussion thread called "Connect with @" where you can list your Twitter and other social media IDs)
• Careers in Event Planning and Management

Like many groups on LinkedIn,  Event Planning & Management strives to foster a spam-free and non-promotional environment. It has introduced a crowdsourcing approach to group management in which members collectively determine which content is of value and identify the spam to be deleted. Some groups have moderation to control spam and others have no spam control processes in place.

To find other LinkedIn groups for event planners:

1. Go to the upper right corner of your Home page.
2. In the drop down menu select "Search Groups".
3. Type "Event Planning" in the field provided.
4. Click on the blue "Search" button. You'll see a list of groups for event planners.
5. Click on the titles of the groups that interest you and read the full profile.
6. Click on the join button to apply to join a group.

Some groups have open membership while others have an approval process for membership.

Next Steps

Twitter is no longer just for consumers and Facebook is not for teenagers and university students anymore. Businesses are now using both of these sites very effectively. I'll continue this discussion in another Event Coup. In the meantime, follow these simple steps and you'll be up and running in no time.

Photo Credit: Damien Basile