Social Media Kung-Fu – Part 1: Starting your Story

Social Media Kung-Fu

#smkf @daveohoots

Part 1: Starting your Story

Most tech companies start with 2 peeps (tech + biz)

Gotta fill in til you add 3rd leg to tripod (marketing/community/etc)

Don’t wait to start marketing til you have a product – build culture and posse

Cheap and cheerful – avoid ads and trade shows, yes to speaking and media

Grassroots FTW

Checklist:

⃤ Decide who you are – name, description, NOT mission statement – what your company and product names? Are they easy to say and spell? If not, refresh.

⃤ What’s your vocab? Establish your voice and words

⃤ 3 words description (later you’ll do 25 words and 100 words)

⃤ Listen to your (growing) audience use the words they use (Like HootSuite for bands…)

⃤ Document it all (not fancy) if it’s not on the internet, didn’t happen – rock the blog, flickr, youtube, twitter – photo ops! get in front of camera

⃤ Build a posse (Twitter lists and small tasks acknowledged with thanks)

⃤ Make friends with media (build email list too, get to know their specific interests) offer to give quote comments for almost anything (CBC)

⃤ Media Kit – make it easy to cover your story! includes:

  • brand conventions (spellings, nomenclature)
  • wordmark, logos, screenshots
  • media contact (you not an agency)
  • exec headshots & bio
  • links to releases (more about media announcements in future session)

⃤ Make an auto-magic media feed to amplify coverage
Social BM > RSS. HS > Twitter etc. e.g. @hootwatch @endlessgoodness @truenorthmedia