Brand Promotion & Reputation Management Presentation

I was recently asked to be part of a panel discussing social media to a group of business owners at a South Missouri Business Expo, but found out later that I had a scheduling conflict so I had to decline.  I was really looking forward to this engagement, as was my wife who says I never take her anywhere!  In addition to being a panelist for an open Q&A session, I was also asked to do a breakout session of my choosing regarding social media.

The topic of my breakout session was going to be Brand Promotion and Reputation Management using Social Media.  I figured for the sake of archiving my thoughts and providing my readers with some original content that I would share my thoughts and presentation here…  I realize that this presentation casts a pretty large, or broad net, but it was my intention to give more of an overview and drill down some key techniques for brand and reputation management as well as product promotion.  Here are the slides from the presentation:

Here is kind of an overview of my notes regarding the presentation:

Defining Social Media by Conversation Types

Given the fact that most business owners are not as familiar with social media as those of us inside the industry or that follow it closely, my first few minutes were going to be spent defining social media.  I broke this out into the following areas based on conversation types:

• Long Conversation Networks (Facebook, MySpace)
• Short Conversation Networks (Twitter)
• Other Conversations & User Generated Content (Blogs, Message Boards, Website Reviews)

Making the Plunge into Social Media

This section of my presentation is dedicated to more or less coaching business owners to get involved, and what kind of presence they need to have.  I used a couple of corporate examples in my presentation as to how social media is being used.  Since I haven’t gotten permission from these corporations to include them in my presentation, I won’t mention them here.  I also go over, in very basic terms the types of social presence that I feel are necessities.

• Facebook Presence (Long Conversations)
• Twitter Presence (Short Conversations)
• Google Eyes (Blogs, Message Boards, Website Reviews)

Twitter and Facebook Best Practices

Once I have covered the high points of creating a presence on both Facebook and Twitter I then go into the third portion of my presentation which deals specifically with the management of these tools.  I seperate Facebook and Twitter and cover the following areas…

• Facebook: Promoting Your Brand, Products, etc.
• Facebook: Establishing a Fan Base / Membership
• Facebook: Communicating with, and Keeping Your Fan Base Interested
• Facebook: Protecting Your Brand (Fast Service + Fast Resolutions = Happy People)
• Twitter: Finding Followers
• Twitter: Promoting Your Brand, Products, etc.
• Twitter: Communicating w/ Your Followers. and keeping them interested…
• Twitter: Protecting Your Brand (Fast Service + Fast Resolutions = Happy People)

Being Socially Proactive: Where to Look for Trouble…

In this section of my presentation I more or less define the customer experience and show how they can best locate negative customer experiences that might have already occurred.  I do a Twitter search for a couple of popular brands or products and point out a few negative experiences that should be addressed.

In this section I also demonstrate how to setup and manage a discussion forum inside Facebook, and emphasize how advantageous it is to manage a discussion inside of Facebook as opposed to the “open web” where there is little power to correct or remove negative comments.

I also demonstrate how a simple Google search can yield a lot of information about a brand or product and enlighten the group on how critical this mass compilation of user generated content on blogs, message boards, and review websites, can be when a person is looking to make a purchase.  I also cover how to best counter this information and leave a good impression of your product.

A New Level of Dedication Required…

In closing, I go over the differences between managing a website and managing a social presence.  I also make mention of the fact that several large corporations are hiring “social media specialists” in addition to their in-house IT people who manage websites.  I stress the differences between the two web presences and emphasize the importance of being punctual in returning dialogue with potential customers as well as providing support to your existing client base.

I also emphasize the fact that content has an extremely long lifetime and that brand management is a lifelong process that requires a lot of dedication and skill.  At this point of the presentation I was going to open up for questions that the group might have…

Do You Need a Speaker?

Since I am not a full-time speaker and actually do this sort of thing for a living on a daily basis for my clients at Pleth, I feel that I can provide a lot of “real world information” to your panel discussions.  If you are interested in having me as a speaker, or part of your panel, please feel free to contact me by email: [email protected] or by telephone: 501-206-1664.