10 Ways NH Businesses Are Using Social Media Successfully and Strategically

by Lani & Allen Voivod

"So what's changed in the world of social media since we last met?"

That's the question John Herman poses to his Epping High School Media Literacy class every time they meet. It's also the question he posed to more than 75 attendees at July's NH Social Media Breakfast - where "social media experts and newbies alike come together to eat, meet, share, and learn" at venues across the state.

Herman says there's no shortage of answers - even on a daily basis. That's how fast the world of social media changes. Creators and founders of social media platforms get caught off-guard by the changes, too, including the variety of ways these tools are put to use in the business world.

Does the social media realm really deserve this kind of intense scrutiny for those of us living and working in the Granite State?

You be the judge.

What follows are 10 examples of how New Hampshire businesses and organizations of varying shapes, sizes, and industries use social media platforms to advance their objectives. While new national and international examples are cited in Herman's class (as well as everywhere you turn in mainstream traditional and online media), fellow business owners and passionate professionals are experimenting and succeeding right in our own backyard, and results are rolling in.

Here's the scoop:

1. Improve SEO. PaladinID in Laconia creates custom bar-coding and product identification solutions. Owner Dana Ritchie says that after just eight months of blogging, his website comes up on the first page of Google search results for his industry keywords - and often within the top 2-3 spots.

2. Extend reach. Artist Stacey Lucas of VeggieArtGirl.com opened up a new boutique in Holderness last month. She's active on social networks, and recently told us this story: "Someone from Florida found me on Twitter, saw my shop posting, was on vacation in NH, stopped into my little ol' boutique, and bought three of my custom signs. Ding! Crazy Twitter success!" Meanwhile, Facebook and Lucas' blog are helping promote workshops and events, and showcasing her work as well as her unique "swirly" personal brand and creative flair.

3. Recruit talent. Bedford-based Jittergram has used social media to find talented people to grow its mobile marketing business. Brookline's Frank Mulcahy, currently the New England Regional Sales Manager for Microsoft Advertising, was recruited by the Facebook team through his LinkedIn profile back in 2005. Epping High School's Herman teaches his students that what they include in their social networking profiles can open or close doors of opportunity for them as they prepare for college and the working world. The point: Who you are and how you present yourself online has become part and parcel of the employee screening process.

4. Expand networks. Leslie Sturgeon, founder of Women Inspiring Women (WIW) and the SBA's 2009 Women in Business Champion for NH, looks at social media very strategically. Not only is she using it to build her membership, event attendance, and revenue (WIW has grown to three chapters in 2009, each with monthly paid events), she's also expanding her mission, and vision - "bringing cool chicks together for empowerment, education, self-improvement, development and a whole lot of fun" - globally through Facebook and Twitter. What's more, Sturgeon is now using her ever-evolving professional and social networking skills to help the Newfound Region Chamber of Commerce build their membership and might.

5. Leverage resources. Like many companies, agencies, and organizations the world over, NH's Division of Economic Development had been posting a wealth of information in a newsroom on their website. Unfortunately, the massive amount of content wasn't getting indexed by search engines. Yikes! In addition, a good chunk of time was lost emailing this same information separately out to economic development practitioners, key business leaders, media, and more. By adding a blog to their site, their updates are now search-engine friendly, enhancing their Content Kingdom, automatically emailed to their constituents, and posted into their newly created presences on Facebook and Twitter. Eliminate redundancy, save resources, invite connections, spark conversations, and improve results? You bet.

6. Increase sales. We can speak to this one from personal experience. There are a few ways to increase sales, including: 1) Get new clients; 2) Sell more to existing clients; and 3) Increase the average price of your transactions. Thanks to social media, we've done all three this year - and we were able to double our hourly consulting rate and land five new and high-profile speaking engagements in five months to boot.

7. Build word-of-mouth. Squam Lakes Science Center in Holderness started their Facebook Fan Page in early May 2009. Two months later, more than 400 people have become Fans. One of the often-ignored secrets of successfully building a social media following is to promote your presence with your other marketing touches. The Science Center promoted their Facebook Fan page inside their print and email newsletters, and are now giving their most online-savvy constituents the tools and forums to be living testimonials and voluntary viral marketing folks for them.

8. Inform communities. PSNH was no stranger to social media, with content on both YouTube and Flickr. But when they used Twitter for emergency communication during the December 2008 ice storm, their social media profile skyrocketed. Nearly 2,000 people started following PSNH, and - more importantly - the following didn't drop off after the storm had passed. Now, PSNH is using their social outlets to talk about everything from wind farms to osprey hatchings, adding a new dimension to their brand and values.

9. Ride waves. Who could have ever guessed an Amazon product review, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, could spawn a cult phenomenon? Yet that's exactly what happened with Three Wolf Moon, a T-shirt made and sold by Keene's The Mountain. One reviewer claimed the shirt had magical powers "with the ladies," and others followed suit in increasingly silly ways. These antics drove the T-shirt to the top of Amazon's apparel store and social bookmarking site Digg. The folks at The Mountain then rode the wave by concocting an equally absurd creation myth. Monks dyed the shirts, eagles dipped them in the Atlantic Ocean, and "Pegacorns (Unicorn-Pegasus Hybrids)" delivered them. The upshot? Sales at the rate of more than 100 per hour, according to a May 27<SUP>th</SUP> report from ABC News.

10. Spread inspiration. During the 2008 Democratic Primary, Manchester makeup artist Kriss Soterion made Hillary Clinton look so good, rumors started spreading about whether Clinton had undergone cosmetic surgery. Nope! The founder of Kriss Cosmetics, Soterion has used this opportunity to build a following on Facebook, blog for Yahoo!, and parlay her appearances on Inside Edition and Access Hollywood to turn makeup lessons into inspirational events and become a motivational speaker.

That's your ten ways right there, but we can't resist adding a bonus 11<SUP>th</SUP>. Because social networking is such a hot topic, the media is always on the lookout for interesting stories to share with their audience. This article, apart from being an educational resource for readers, is also a bona fide media opportunity.

And because the ten businesses and organizations highlighted above have been active on social media platforms - at all points on the learning curve - they put themselves in a position to receive greater exposure because of their efforts.

So that's the bonus 11<SUP>th</SUP> way NH businesses are using social media - to boost visibility. Sometimes, all you have to do to get added media attention and PR is to be in the game in the first place.

So tell us...

Has anything changed in YOUR world of social media since you started reading this article?

If any of the above 10 examples blow your mind, inspire action, or change your thinking about how fast you're going to adopt your own social media strategies and launch your own online empires, please chime in.

And by all means, if you've got your own questions, shoot them our way!         

Lani & Allen Voivod, co-owners and Content Lovers of Epiphanies, Inc. share powerful social marketing & success strategies with imperfect-preneurs, multi-million-dollar businesses, and mission-driven organizations through speaking, workshops, customized training programs, and consulting. Lani and Allen are "Expert Authors" on EzineArticles.com, have been quoted on Forbes.com, interviewed on Blog Talk Radio and NHPR, and recently designed and delivered the first-ever "A-Ha!" NH Social Media Business Summit, sponsored by PSNH in partnership with the state's Division of Economic Development and the "Stay, Work & Play" Initiative. Get their free Special Report, "37 Easy Ways to Boost Visibility, Revenue, and Results With Twitter," which reveals how to the leverage the power and potential of the world's fastest growing social network, at www.EpiphaniesInc.com/twitter.

ANSWER: One of the most challenging decisions professionals on Facebook face is how to manage the divide between business and personal connections. In fact, there probably isn't a clean "divide," per se. Some personal connections ought to know what's going on in your professional life.

That said, mixing personal and professional connections on Facebook does open the door to some image management questions. From wall posts to tagged photos and videos, your presence on Facebook can be formed not only by what you share, but by what others share about you. The good news? Facebook gives you the tools to control what others can see about you when they come to visit your public profile, in two different ways.

1. Case-by case deletion. Individual wall posts and comments that your Facebook Friends leave on your wall can be deleted at the click of a button. Comments on your own Wall posts have a "Delete" option when you roll your mouse over a post someone else has left on your Wall, the word "Remove" appears in the top right corner of the post.

2. Global settings control. Your Facebook Friends can be assigned to "lists" that can help you filter what updates you see from whom. These lists can also be used to control who is allowed to post to your Wall and make comments on your own Wall posts. On the Facebook menu at the top of the screen, under "Friends," click "All Friends." Once there, you'll see an option, right above your Friends' pictures, that says "Create New List." Click that, and assign the people to the list that you DO NOT WANT to be able to post on your Wall. (As you add new Friends over time, you'll have the ability to assign them to this list right when you're about to add them.)

Then, go to your Privacy Settings, and click "Profile." Once there, you'll see where to change the options for "Wall Posts." Select "Customize" in the drop-down, and where it says "Except these people," follow the directions, and voila!

One last note about this, though - when it comes to deciding who to screen out, we'd suggest you keep that list as small as possible. Whether its job leads, networking, partnerships, brainstorming, crowdsourcing, or just relationship-building, opportunities often come from unexpected directions. Don't limit the possibilities for pleasant and profitable surprises in your work and life.

Good luck growing your network, and thanks for asking the question!

I have three questions for you, and while I would certainly appreciate answers to all three, I will understand if you choose to take your pick of them.

Question: When creating a company blog with the intention of making your business more noticeable to search-engines, what information should one take care to include?

Answer: This is more of a search engine optimization related question than a social media question, so though we can give you a top-level recommendation, we'd definitely suggest you consult with an SEO specialist for more information. That said...

1. Talk to the person or team who will be installing and designing your blog, and ask them what steps they'll take to ensure your blog is as search engine friendly as possible. Some things to keep in mind are the "title tag" in the header of the website code, the keywords and description in the metatags (less relevant because spammers overload metatags on their own sites with keywords, which Google caught on to and reduced their importance from an SEO standpoint, but still necessary), and the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for the blog, which creates the template for each post. (E.g., will the elements in the style sheet help, hurt, or even affect your SEO?)

2. Brainstorm a list of about 50 keywords and phrases you want to be known and found for in your business. You can use the Google Keyword tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal to help see what's relevant and come up with ideas you might not have thought of. (It's designed to help people with their Google pay-per-click ad campaigns, but it's just as helpful for organic SEO purposes.)

These keywords and phrases should be used in the titles of your posts, and throughout the body copy of your posts - naturally and judiciously, so it doesn't impede the conversational flow of your writing and doesn't look spammy to search engines.

3. Target blog-specific search engines. There are a number of blog-specific search engine services, and they can all be notified automagically every time you update your blog. That's called "pinging." When search engines know you're posting regularly on a blog, they come back more frequently, and assign you greater authority in their search results because you're active.

WordPress has a default set of services to ping built in - we can't speak for the Six Apart brands or Google's blogger, but if they don't, you can go to http://pingomatic.com/ and do it a bit manually. Also, "claim" your blog on http://www.technorati.com/, the premier blog search engine. Once your blog is live, set up a free account at Technorati, and you can fill in additional details that'll help Technorati (and other search engines) find you for the reasons you want to be found.

Thanks again for this question, and feel free to contact a search-engine specific professional for more details. The Lakes Region's own Link Moser of Windhill Design posted this SEO resource on his blog recently, and is a great place to start. (Plus, when we searched "SEO NH" in Google, his site was on Page 1, which is always a good sign.)

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Question: With all of the new social media opportunities that businesses might rush to utilize and explore, have you seen a drop-off in any social networking practices that were previously popular but still maintain value?

Answer: Social networking offers exciting opportunities for businesses to connect with their Ideal Audiences. And the one thing we can say for certain is that the adoption of social media tools, tactics, and platforms is rising at a torrid pace. Social media is here to stay, without question.

What IS questionable, though, is which social networks will have "staying power" - which ones will still be around 5-10 years or more. That's like trying to predict tectonic plate movement or what a cloud will do next, virtually impossible. From business models to faddish behavior, elements that we as users can't always see coming can determine the direction and fate of these platforms. Friendster, one of the earlier social networks, experienced rapid adoption in niches, but never really caught on in the mainstream.

Personally, neither of us has ever received an invite from someone to connect with them on Friendster...yet they claim to have more than 100 million members, and according to Alexa.com, they're the 93rd most popular website online, with users spending an average of 19.3 minutes per day on the site - about the same as MySpace, at 19.0 minutes per user per day.

MySpace has lost a lot of its sheen in the wake of Facebook's rise to dominance - its member growth has flattened, but it's still the 11th most popular site online according to Alexa. So MySpace and Friendster are two examples of platforms whose popularity has dropped over time, but still retain some value. For businesses, the question on whether to get involved in one of these (or any other platform decreasing in popularity) is a simple two-parter:

• 1. Is my Ideal Audience there now?
• 2. Will they be soon?

Regardless of the answer, we still recommend using a blog as the hub of your social media success, so if you're in a social network that dies entirely, not all of your efforts are lost.

Also, how we use these platforms is evolving constantly. New tools that extend the usefulness of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are being developed, and even the founders of these social networks have been surprised by the uses to which they've been put over the years.

Twitter offers a fantastic example of this. On first blush, you might think the primary way to update your Twitter account is to log in at http://twitter.com/, and use the update field under the "What are you doing?" prompt. In reality, the lion's share - over 60%, by some accounts - of Twitter users create their accounts, and rarely show up to the site again! Instead, they use...

• o Desktop applications. Tweetdeck and Seesmic are just two of the programs you can download for free to manage your Twitter account, with more helpful options for seeing all types of Twitter activity at a glance. (They can help you manage multiple accounts, actually, as well as your Facebook profile.)

• o Mobile applications. Blackberry and iPhone users download apps to their phones to participate on Twitter. Non-smart-phone users can send text messages to update their account, and receive/respond to direct messages as well.

• o Web-based services. In a similar way to using Tweetdeck or Seesmic, you can create an account at CoTweet.com and manage your Twitter account in an email-style interface. Or you can pre-load tweets to be posted at a later date through SocialOomph.com (formerly TweetLater.com).

In this instance, Twitter's website still does maintain value. It has to exist for all these other tools to work, of course. But whether it's this or any other social media tool, you get the value from finding the easiest way for YOU to use it - how it's most efficient, and what's the most fun. Don't overlook the importance of the fun factor, either. If it's not fun for you, you'll resist doing it, and that lack of passion will shine through on the steadily rarer occasions when you do use the tools.

We hope this gives you a good handle on the question, and happy socializing!

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Question: Referring back to point 9 in your "Ask the Expert" article and the success of the cult-phenomenon t-shirt, it would seem that the addition of a unique personality plus a hint of fiction to a company's image can be a powerful tool. How can businesses which serve other professionals utilize the same tools without crossing the line into entertainment? 

Answer:

"That may work for him/her/them, but it won't work for me/us."

You've probably heard (or said) variations on this phrase your whole life. From school to sports to business and everything in between, there's an unfortunate tendency in us humans to discount what other people are doing and stay in our own comfort zones, regardless of the result.

There's a common myth that, when it comes to marketing, what works in the Business-to-Consumer (B2C) world doesn't work in the Business-to-Business (B2B) world, and vice versa. It can range from the tools themselves to the techniques employed with them. And we're here to tell you - don't believe the hype.

The fact is, when it comes to social media, businesses that sell to other professionals can use the same tools as businesses selling to end users. Use YouTube for compelling case study presentations, like Google does. Use Twitter for lead generation, like Forrester Research. Use Facebook Fan Pages to share links, events, and photos (of products, conferences, and people) like EFI Digital Print Technology.

And as far as crossing the line into entertainment, businesses selling to other professionals have been crossing that line successfully for years. Serena Software's business is in creating application life cycle development solutions. In their words, "these tools are visual, do not require coding and can be used to customize and extend SOA interfaces exposed by IT and online service providers." Sounds serious, right?

Yet they produced a YouTube video entitled "Just @#$% It" about adding functionality into SalesForce.com and other common business systems. The bleeped word was "MASH" - as in creating business software mashups. And yet the script of the video and the performances themselves are clearly intended to serve the usage of the "F" word, in its multiple meanings. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLTs6jlbkjE for a master class in serious entertainment.)

How did it work out for them? 1.18 million video views in the first week, plus it tripled their website traffic, and they saw a spike in downloads of their free product. A roaring success, according to Michael Parker, their Senior Director of Global Marketing. Fittingly, you can watch a video case study about it on YouTube for the full details - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKLL47C1Iz8.

Inc. Magazines annual "500" issue featured bios of CEOs rendered in comic book format. IBM eBusiness commercials lampooned cart-before-the-horse IT practices ("Okay, I've got some great ideas for our website. We could have the spinning logo...or the flaming logo," complete with sound effects). When it comes to crossing the line into entertainment, not only is it okay, it's something you should strongly consider.

One of the definitions of "entertain" is "to keep, hold, or maintain in the mind." Entertainment is critical in branding and storytelling, two business concepts that are ever more crucial in a recessionary environment, in a commoditized market, in a technical industry. How does a company stand out with these macroeconomic forces allied against it?

It's not about being frivolous. It's about being more than just a product or service. It's about being a company that extends and deepens its connection with its Ideal Audience, to engage and inspire, to create a deeper loyalty and an unmatched affinity. Stonyfield Yogurt's CE-Yo Gary Hirshberg will be the first to tell you that when they started blogging back in 2004, they were one of the first companies to do it, and only two posts the whole time had to do with yogurt.

Instead, his Chief Blogger Chris Halvorson (of Halvorson New Media) started leading conversations about things in which their customers were interested - personal health, organic farming, environmental impact. The result of their blogging? Hirshberg told Business Week magazine that "what I know in my gut from 22 years of doing this [the Stonyfield yogurt business] is that we have an emotional connection with customers. That helps explain why we're growing at four times category rate in some markets and three times the category rate nationally."

We'd like to close this one out with a quote from one of our fave social media experts, Chris Brogan: "Never get hung up on the B2B/B2C thing. Instead, focus on the ways you want to use these tools to reach a business objective. When you try to exclude a tool because it's not the tried and true, you're voting for fax machines and telegraphs."

Entertain, inform, inspire. That's our motto, and we're sticking to it. (And thank you for giving us the chance to share our thoughts on this topic!)