Dan Zarella at Hubspot hosted the World’s Largest Webinar on the “Secrets of Social Media Today.” Here are my notes from the presentations with live link examples:

Speakers: Dan Zarella, Russ Laraway, Scott Engelman, Jed Clevenger

Topic #1: How to Make Your Social Media Presence Awesome

• Twitter: Create a Twitter profile that attracts more followers
  • Use bio to be descriptive & reflective of why you should follow
  • Include a URL
  • Make it easy to be found
  • Use photos to draw in people visually
  • 75% access people by mobile, so don’t disregard mobile
  • Ex. @Bonobos
• Facebook: Build presence & make the right connections
  • Fill out complete and accurate info for a page
  • Great profile pictures
  • Use free tools: contact importer, friend invites
  • Test new types of content and explore page insights
  • Ex. SweetHaus
• LinkedIn: Create a company page that is informative & engaging
  • Write a compelling business description
  • Use an eye-catching image
  • Ex. Huge

Topic #2: Getting the Most Out of Your Posts & Audience

• Twitter: Get more engagements for your tweets
  • Give your followers what they want
  • 80% of content not focused on selling
  • Tweet about relevant industry topics
  • Use #Hashtags correctly – think of them like structured search.
  • Build communities around these.
• LinkedIn: use snackable content, taking audiences mind into consideration
  • Ex. SpringCM
• Facebook: Post engaging content and get in the right conversations.
  • ABE=Always be experimenting
  • Ex. Kay’s Designer

Topic #3: Don’t Waste Money; Advertise Smartly

• LinkedIn: use sponsored updates to amplify your message.
  • Get target content to an extended audience.
  • Get advertising to mobile, desktop and tablet audiences.
  • Ex. LinkedIn Talent Solutions
• Facebook: use direct response advertising for amazing audience targeting.
  • Can reach whoever matters to you.
  • Four pillars of Facebook ad strategy:
    1. Ad Formats: create newsfeed ads
    2. Targeting: target people not cookies. Four types:
       1. Interest & demographic
       2. Custom audiences
       3. Website custom audiences (been to your website)
       4. Look-like audience
    3. Conversion tracking: link off site to a website
    4. Measurement: manage campaign costs and optimize
  • Ex. Little Passports
• Twitter: Campaign copy should work for you.
  • Get more mileage out of your content.
  • Don’t distract with hashtags or mentions if you don’t need them.
  • Communicate a sense of urgency.
  • Deliver a compelling offer.
• Facebook: be human – talk to people the way you would talk to them in person. Go to http://www.facebook.com/sts for help.
  • Ex. Morgan Miller Plumbing
• Twitter: Ad Performance Tips
  • On twitter it all comes down to relevancy – people connected to what they are interested in.
  • Ex. @BuzzStream
• Facebook: Ad Performance Tips
  • Objective base create flow.
  • Power Editor is for scaling your ad creation.
  • Use targeting to make the ad relevant to the audience but not too narrow.
  • Use a clear call-to-action.
  • Refresh your ads every 2-4 weeks.
  • Ex. NatureBox
• LinkedIn: Making the most of your ad dollars
  • Use your most engaging organic post rates (shoot for something above 1%).
  • Always monitor CTR.
  • Test different bids with various audiences.
  • Keep your ROI in mind with each campaign.
  • Ex. Mutual Mobile

Topic #4: Social Media-Wide Best Practices

• Twitter: Ex. @Chegg
• Facebook:Be authentic and use relevant images.
  • Don’t use too much “me”-content.
  • Ex. Facebook for Business (the irony here)
• LinkedIn:
  • Consider images that are eye-catching.

Miscellaneous Questions

• Should I post the same thing on all three accounts?
  • Different networks and deserve to be utilized individually.
• Should I use “Follow Me” links on my website?
  • Use calls-to-action and spread your following around.

Final Thought

• Always be testing – marketing without data is like driving with your eyes closed.

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Overall the webinar was large, but also misleading. Unless you’re new to social media, none of the material mentioned was a “secret” of any kind. While the webinar was not a waste of time, three things could’ve been done to improve its quality:

1. Better sound. The mic was terrible and most that engaged using the hashtag #WLW14 mentioned this.
2. Better speakers. Aside from Zarella, Laraway was the only one who did not use notes.
3. A More Accurate Title or More Promising Material. Based on the content of the hour long webinar, it should’ve been titled “An Overview of Social Media Today.”