Linda Coles - Learn Marketing with Social Media in 7 Days: Master Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter for Business

Linda Coles

First published in 2011 by Wrightbooks an imprint of John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd 42 McDougall St, Milton Qld 4064

Ofce also in Melbourne

Typeset in 11.3pt/14pt Berkeley LT Book

Linda Coles 2011

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Author: Coles, Linda.

Title: Learn marketing with social media in 7 days / Linda Coles.

ISBN: 9780730377665 (pbk.)

Notes: Includes index.

Subjects: Social media. Internet marketing.

Dewey Number: 658.872

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All inquiries should be made to the publisher at the address above.

Cover design by Xou Creative

Printed in China by Printplus Limited

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Disclaimer

The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only, and neither purports nor intends to be advice. Readers should not act on the basis of any matter in this publication without considering (and if appropriate, taking) professional advice with due regard to their own particular circumstances. The author and publisher expressly disclaim all and any liability to any person, whether a purchaser of this publication or not, in respect of anything and of the consequences of anything done or omitted to be done by any such person in reliance, whether whole or partial, upon the whole or any part of the contents of this publication.

Get a wriggle on!

This book is dedicated to the nicest man in the world, who happens to be my best friend too. The threat of no birthday present or card if I didnt get a wriggle on was the push I needed to get the book finished. It just shows what you can achieve if you suddenly become accountable to someone! Thank you my friend.

About the author

Linda Coles is a speaker, trainer and consultant on building relationships online and has over 20 years business experience spanning the UK and Australasia. Her passion for educating businesses on social media has led to her Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) of educating 10 000 businesses on the topic by 2020. By buying this book, you are helping Linda get one step closer to that goal.

A writer for and others, Lindas work is easy to understand and packed full of light bulb moments.

She is also a runner, a foodie and, after her last meeting with the tarmac, a sometimes cyclist.

Connect with Linda on:

Twitter: @bluebanana20

Facebook:

LinkedIn:

YouTube:

Website:

Blog: .

Acknowledgements

Writing a book is great fun and hard work and so I would like to give thanks to all of those people who contributed their stories and opinions to this book.

Kevin Knebl (author and speaker), Misha Wilkinson (Mishas Vineyard Wines), Stephen Lynch (RESULTS.com), Julian Smith (MYOB), Hannah Samuel (author and speaker), Jayson Bryant at , Jane Kennelly (Frog Recruitment) and anyone else that I may have missed.

Without your help, this book would not be as informative as it is now.

Introduction

Its not what you know,

Its not who you know,

Its who knows you...

Anonymous

Social media might have some scary connotations for you, but it really need not be like that. If you act online as you do in the flesh, and dont try to be something you are not, its really very easy.

Who should read this book?

Marketing with social media is something that all brands, both big and small, should now be adding into their marketing mix to make sure they are communicating in the same places as their prospects and customers are hanging out. You may think that marketing with social media does not concern you, but you would be wrong. If your customers expect you to use the relevant sites and you dont have a presence there, they may just look elsewhere, at your competition.

In this book, we will be working through:

Facebook: your coffee shop of connections networking site. Visit .

LinkedIn: a business-to-business-only networking site worldwide. Visit .

Twitter: a microblogging site used for networking and listening. Visit .

YouTube: a video marketing site. Visit .

One of the most common questions I am asked is, How long is this going to take me? My answer to that is simple: when you have your LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook pages all up and running, you have a plan and you have read this book, you need to spend only 30 minutes per day when you first start out 10 minutes on each of the three platforms. Thats just 30 minutes per day on marketing your business and communicating with your prospects and clients.

What will I learn?

By the end of seven days not only will you have a greater understanding of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube, but you will know more about getting your website to work for you, how to behave online and how to promote your efforts. You will also have created a simple social media plan and a content plan to keep you on track. Also in the book, you will find heaps of easy-to-understand how tos as well as stories about how other companies both large and small are using social media and getting results.

Once you have read the book and completed the activities, you will be well on your way to creating your very own successful social media presence.

Enjoy! Then make it happen.

Opening story

On a very wet and rainy Friday morning in June, one of those torrential downpour types of days, the traffic on the motorway was at a standstill: we were going nowhere. I had been on the motorway for nearly two hours on what should have been a 60-minute journey, and it was obvious I was going to be late for my appointment.

I made the call to my first appointment and postponed it for another day, then got off the motorway. As I now had a little time to spare before my next appointment, I grabbed a coffee and picked up a Business Today magazine from the bookshop. On the front cover was the country manager for Microsoft New Zealand, Kevin Ackhurst, and I knew I had to act. I had had an idea a couple of weeks previously, but had not done anything about it; now there he was looking at me from the magazine rack it was an omen, surely.

I wondered if he was on LinkedIn and could I contact him through there?

Of course he was most businesspeople are. And to my delight, I discovered he was in one of the groups I was in, which meant I could send him a message directly without knowing his email address.

I wrote a quick note to him with my idea, and sent it off. To my surprise, he responded within a couple of hours to say he liked my idea and was passing my details on to the team and they would be in touch.

True to their word, they did get in touch to organise a meeting, and we are in discussions as I write this book. Woohoo! Im talking to Microsoft!

Do you think that if I had simply picked up the telephone, fought my way past the gatekeeper, introduced myself and hopefully managed to explain my idea to such a senior person, I would have gotten that far?