Leveraging Social Media : Actions You Can Take Today to Grow Your Site Audience

1. Leveraging Social Media : Actions You Can TakeToday to Grow Your Site Audience Linda Fisk Senior Vice President, Internet Marketing

2. Agenda • A little bit of background • Progress to date • Actions you can take TODAY to drive audience – at little or no cost! • Use the network effects of the Internet to achieve your marketing objective • Encourage people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily • Target audiences in their favorite places.

3. First, A Little Bit of Background

4. Social Media Marketing Introduction The internet: Is changing Is growing up Users: Want to participate Want to share Companies: Should be aware Should use the possibilities

5. Consuming Information Differently • Teens watch 60% less TV and spend 600% more time online (Arthur W. Page) • 22.4 million people access news daily from a mobile device (Cellular News) • YouTube is third largest search engine • 3.5 billion shared each week on Facebook • Facebook has 350 million users • 3.1 million Wikipedia entries Not just consuming - creating & interacting

6. What is Social Media? An ongoing conversation that’s happening RIGHT NOW • A dialogue - not a monologue • A promotional channel for our brands • A steady stream of information for: • Research • Feedback • Building Relationships

7. What is Social Media? Web 1.0 Web 2.0

8. Social Media Marketing Why Social Media Marketing?

9. Did You Know? 5 of the top 10 fastest-growing websites are user-generated content sites. There are over 500 social networking websites with 1.46B users worldwide. 67% of businesses say that the best source for advice on products and services are their consumers. 45% of adult Internet users have created content online. There are approximately 1.2 million new blog posts every day. 69% of buyers use social media to assist them in decision making. 9

10. Trends in Social Media Consumer Use and Perceptions • Social networks are more popular than email2 • 36% of online users think more positively about companies that blog1 • 17% feel more positively about companies on social nets • 20% want more communication from brands6 • 69% of online users read blogsand write product reviews1 • 19% read RSS feeds and tag internet content1 Corporate Response 48% of marketing/PR professionals increased social media spend in 20093 • 85% of businesses participating in social media are blogging1 • 77% of Fortune 500 use some sort of social media tool5 • 44% report social media as “very important” to business/marketing strategy5 1 Forrester Research, 2008 2Nielsen Online, 2009 3CareerBuilder Internal statistics, June 2009 4Society for New Communications Research, July 2008 5University of Mass., Dartmouth, Financial Institution, Inc., Dec 2008 6Anderson Analytics, 7/09

11. Who Is Using Social Media? • Use by Age Group • 76% of 15-24 year olds • 68% of 25-34 year olds • 65% of 35-44 year olds • 64% of 45-55 year olds • 60% of 55 and over • Social Media is a Global Phenomenon: • 73% of all Internet users have at least one social media account • 71% of social media users are in N.A. Source: Forrester Research, 2008

12. Reaching a Critical Target Audience • 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations • Only 14% trust advertisements • By 2010, Generation Y will outnumber Baby Boomers • $350 billion in spending power • 16 – 19 hours online each week • 96% of them have joined social networks • Median age: • MySpace – 26 • Twitter – 31 • Facebook – 33 • LinkedIn - 39 Source: 2009 Consumer 2.0, Pew Internet Research

13. The World of Social Media Subject to Change!

15. Examples of Social Media Blogs: “Web logs” like Gizmodo and Tech Crunch Social bookmarking: Users recommend headlines and stories to one another (Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon) Media sharing: Flickr, YouTube Instant messaging: Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk Forums: Websites for open discussions about specific topics. (Something Awful, Digital Spy) Social networks: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Ning Micro-Blogging: Twitter Wikis:Wikipedia, WikiHow 15

16. Which Matter and Who’s Using Them? Percentage of Worldwide Internet Users Age Source: Graph 1: Facebook statistics, July 2009; MySpace and LinkedIn: comScore data, July 2009; Twitter: Mashable and comScore data, July 2009. Graph 2: Nielsen Online, 2009

17. What Can Social Media Do For Me? • Helps manage our company’s / brand's reputation. • Builds brand awareness and helps improve how people view our brands. • Gets us closer to our customers and helps us learn about their needs then respond, discuss, converse, and debate. • Offers creative and effective ways to gain insight not previously easily available. • Features new and inexpensive ways to support and engage our clients. • Typically less expensive than traditional advertising. 17

18. Why Participate in Social Media? • It Promotes Credibility: • Brands are defined by the experiences and opinions of consumers, not necessarily what the brand seeks to convey • 43% of online persons trust information posted by people they know over other sources • Buy-in from brand evangelists who can passionately endorse a message within their networks can prove extremely influential • It Generates Valuable Consumer Feedback: • Social networks provide the opportunity to interact with consumers, asking and answer questions • It’s Expected: • People demand authenticity and responsiveness from brands 1 Forrester Research, 2008, image source: http://www.biojobblog.com/

19. Leveraging the Power of Social Media • Connecting professionally • Sharing information • Conducting business • Posting videos/photos • Sourcing leads • Using as a CRM tool • Publishing blogs • Writing reviews • Answering polls/surveys • Researching information

20. Social Media: Mainstream Adoption 20

21. Measuring Social ROI • Starbucks Free Pastry Day exceeded expectations and Via sampling helped prevent negative perception of instant coffee (source: Brandweek http://bit.ly/SCXS5) • Dell posts Twitter-exclusive deals on @DellOutlet, earning 2 million over two years, 1 million from the last 6 months alone (source: Reuters http://bit.ly/luT9y) • United and JetBlue offer Twitter-exclusive ticket deals (source: USA Today http://bit.ly/HKcDG) • Viral wedding video to Chris Brown’s “Forever” increased purchases by 2.5x, #4 on iTunes and #3 on Amazon (source: Google blog http://bit.ly/3FCRBG) • Online Blendtec sales increased five-fold over company's old revenue record prior to YouTube “Will it Blend” videos (source: Information Week http://bit.ly/ipHzJ)

22. Social Media: A Few Tips and Caveats • Any one campaign is not indefinitely sustainable • What’s “in” one day is “out” the next • This goes both for topics and web hangouts • Take the time to insert your message in several locations. Timeliness and location are everything. • Social media is the inexact science of placing the right message in the right location at the right time. 22

23. Ways to Use Social Media • Listening – Use for research to better understand our customers and perceptions about our brands • Talking – Use to spread messages about our brands to advocates, influencers and potential clients • Energizing – Super charge the power of our brand advocates’ word of mouth. • Supporting – Help our alumni support each other, connect with each other and serve as brand advocates. • Embracing – Integrating your customers insights and perspectives into how our business works.

24. Ways to Use Social Media • Foster business – Nurture leads long-term with targeted, qualified prospects /referrers • Asking permission – Use for building a strong permission marketing asset like newsletters and email campaigns • Attracting – Attract leads at a more significant scale once our brands 'tips' in the social web • Cross-linking – Maximize the social and SEO synergy, consistently attract organic, editorially endorsed links

25. Review of Our Progress to Date

26. Social Media Planning • Audience – Who are you trying to attract when you use social media? • Objectives – What do you want to achieve with social media usage? • Strategies – How are you going to use your social media channels? • Budget – How much time and resources will you be able to commit to the initiatives that you enact? • Integration – What do you currently do to market your services, and how can you leverage the power of social media to make it happen? • Measurement – How will you know you are successful or not, and what will you do if you are/aren’t?

27. Audience for Social Media If you don’t know who you are targeting, then you are sure to miss them

28. Our Key Audiences • Potential clients • Alumni of our programs • Referral sources • Influencers in our industry

29. Objectives for Social Media Strengthen Alumni Relations Positively Engage Influencers Lead Generation for Prospective Clients Align with overall business objectives Match audiences with strategies

30. Objectives for Social Media • To raise awareness and increase the volume of conversation about our brands across the web • To build relationships with individuals who consider themselves advocates of our brands • To develop relationships with potential clients who may be unfamiliar with the brand • To directly increase inquiries and admissions through online channels

31. LISTEN

32. Conversations are happening, whether we participate or not

33. Listening to the Conversation • Monitoring Conversations • Key industry influencers • Competitors • Industry news sources • Blog comments • Video posts • Alumni Groups

34. Benefits of Listening First! • Find key audiences from listening • Chart out their presence in social media • Market Segmentation - age, gender, family, geography, income • Geographic - region, population, climate • Psychographic - activities, interests, opinions, attitudes • Behavioral- brand loyalty, benefits sought, readiness to admit/refer • Continue to gather customer information

35. LEARN

36. Learn • Where do our key audiences congregate? • What do they think of our brands? • What are they looking for? • How do they like to interact? • How much time do they spent interacting? • How willing are they to share openly? • Do they want exposure? • Do they want to shape the industry, help others struggling with issues, or influence the next generation?

37. Becoming Familiar with Platforms What is Feasible with Each? Selecting the Right Tool Align Tactics with Objectives

38. Learn How to Connect the Dots S T R A T E G Y Alumni Relations Potential Clients Engage Influencers

39. It’s no longer about controlling information. Create, nurture, respond

40. Join the Conversation • When people trust our content, they’ll trust our services • Write about what we know, and offer insights • Offering links to resources we find • Build reciprocal relationships with influential bloggers

41. Tell your story, then let people interact with and share it

42. Joining the Conversation Comment on external blogs 3 times /week Update 10 internal blogs 3 /week

43. Social Media - Next Steps Listen: Map the Landscape Engage: Meet Them on Their Turf Measure: Test, Then Invest Conversation Mining Enterprise Generated Content - Company Websites Main Stream Media - Blogs - Forums Consumer Generated Content - Social Media - Blogs - Texting Data Analytics Track Traffic Track Conversions Track Sentiment Track Volume of Conversation Other Variables Engage the Consumer Blogs Micro-Blogs Widgets Wikis Social Networks Videos/Photos Social Bookmarking

44. Actions You Can Take Today!

45. Action 1: Get Drudged • The Drudge Report is still one of the best places to get noticed on the Web: • Over 28 million visitors in a 24-hour period • Over 800 million visitors in 1 month • About 7 billion visitors in the past year • E-mail links to your website stories to: drudge@drudgereport.com 45

46. Action 2: Get Buzzed • Yahoo’s Buzz program • Send your web articles to Buzz. Stories with the highest Buzz scores may get published on the Yahoo! home page. • If your story reaches that level, you’ll introduce hundreds of thousands of first-time visitors to your site. 46

47. Action 3: Get on Fark 47

48. Action 4: Work Your Alumni Sites • This is viral marketing at its core – using your dedicated social networking site to grow your brand’s visibility. • Tease content on your site. Provide links so visitors end up on your site. • Spend at least a few minutes each day updating your site and reaching out to alumni. 48

49. Action 5: Blog Away (with your links!) • Take 15 minutes each day to visit one of our internal blogs – and post content, comments and links. • Post a comment on and internal blog with a link to your story. 49

50. Action 6: Distribute Your Content • Get Winked, Dugg, Redd, StumbledUpon 50