Planning A Social Media Strategy For Facebook

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to be a part of the customer spotlight series from Demandforce and was interviewed byfrom Eric Ng, Demandforce’s Social Media Specialist. Below is part one of the actual interview that I had with Eric: - Betheny Green

Like Annie, I too am on the hunt to find small businesses that embrace and effectively utilize social media. Last week, I had the amazing opportunity to speak with Betheny Green, the Social Media Specialist at one of Demandforce’s customers in our dental vertical, Mortenson Family Dental, regarding the practice’s robust Facebook Page. This customer spotlight will be a three-part series that will touch on the entire process you should consider when using social media: planning, executing, and adapting.

For the first part in the series, Betheny spoke at length about her social media strategy for Mortenson Family Dental and how she set her goals:

What is your overall Social Media goal for Mortenson Family Dental?

For Mortenson Family Dental, my goal is to “humanize” our social media initiatives while staying true to our brand. I accomplish this by sticking to three principles – educate, inform, and entertain. Educating, informing, and entertaining our Facebook fans not only ensures that they continuously visit our Facebook Page, but engaging with them on a consistent basis also solidifies our sense and feeling of community. Ideally, I would like to make our Facebook Page a one-stop shop for our practices – a place where they can interact with the doctors, other patients, and ultimately schedule an appointment.

What is your overall Social Media strategy for Mortenson Family Dental?

It is impossible to achieve our goal and implement my three principles without engagement! Just posting on your Facebook Page is not enough – lead off each post with a question, respond to each comment, or throw a contest. Equally important is making sure you know your target audience. Your posts will be ineffective if it is not geared toward your Facebook fans. I work hard to understand our target markets needs and interests and then work harder to build a relationship between our brand and our fans/target market. Knowing your target market will get you into the mind of your audience, allowing you to connect with and get a response from the right person, while also making your Facebook Page lively and social.

Betheny’s focus on engagement, trust, and community are certainly characteristics of a successful social media campaign. Understanding your target demographic is a critical step during the planning and strategizing process of social media, and I really enjoyed talking to Betheny about all the things she considered before even starting her Facebook Page.

In the second section of the three-part series with Demandforce, I spoke with Eric about the results of my campaigns and the impact on my customers that her Facebook Page has made. Be sure to check out my next blog post!

www.demandforce.com

What Does Your Online Reputation Say About You?

The Internet has quickly become the ultimate background check that anyone can use to construct a picture of what you and/or your business represent. As a result, your business can be directly affected by your online image, which means it’s essential for you to not only know what your online reputation is, but also to control it.

The internet is a big place and keeping abreast of how you or your company is represented there is no easy task. Create, maintain, and monitor your online reputations to help ensure your virtual reputation is working for you, not against you.

Who Am I?

I was a late bloomer. All through my 20's I couldn't decide what I wanted to be when I "grew up", because I wanted to be everything and nothing at the same time. Then, social media exploded onto the web and I fell in love.

After years of changing majors and moving in an out of college, I started all over, buckled down and as a single mother of two children - working full time and attending school part time - I finished a dual bachelors in marketing and business management. It was the LONGEST five years of my life, and I celebrated hard when I got that treasured piece of paper that said I won.

I've created and managed a social media presence for several different industries across the web from real-estate agents to dental empires. Setting up and creating social media accounts is probably the easiest of tasks. Making it WORK - that is, creating and implementing a strategy - is where the hard work and dedication comes in. If you want to be successful in social media, prepare to invest a fair amount of time, typically four to six months, before you will start to see results.

Many potential clients erroneously think that social media is inexpensive and easy. Actually, social media, if done correctly, can be very time-consuming and expensive. Finding your audience, solving problems, deciding on content, creating a plan and scheduling content are just a few of the things to be considered before launching your social media presence.

Betheny Green
Reputation Equity Manager & Social Media Strategist