Social Rules! For Entrepreneurs and Small Business: A Common Sense Guide to Social Media Marketing Copyright © 2012 Paul Slack. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher. ® Published by Wheatmark 1760 East River Road, Suite 145, Tucson, Arizona 85718 U.S.A. www.wheatmark.com ISBN: 978-1-60494-798-4 LCCN: 2012935992 I dedicate this book to the man behind the curtain, Marc Sparks. Without his dedication to faith, passion, tenacity, focus, monetization, and an outrageous sense of urgency, this book would have never happened. TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword by Darren Hardy Acknowledgement Introduction PART 1: NEW RULES OF MARKETING Chapter 1 The Rules Have Changed Chapter 2 What Is Social Media Marketing? Chapter 3 Additional Benefits To Social Media Marketing Chapter 4 Social Media Marketing=Search Engine Optimization 2.0 Chapter 5 Social Media Strategy Chapter 6 Rules of Engagement PART 2: THE TACTICAL WHEEL Chapter 7 Listening Chapter 8 Building Community Chapter 9 Broadcasting Chapter 10 Developing Content Chapter 11 Conversion PART 3: SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS Chapter 12 Facebook Chapter 13 Twitter Chapter 14 LinkedIn Chapter 15 YouTube Chapter 16 Blogs Chapter 17 Measuring Results Chapter 18 Tying It All Together Reference SEO Tactics – The Secret Sauce Appendix FOREWORD “Social Media Expert” Google it. More than 1 million pages come up in 0.42 seconds. Search “social media” on Amazon.com. You’ll get a list of 172,339 recommended books. Perplexing isn’t it? Who do you believe? Who is legitimate? What’s the truth? What works in the real world of business? As Publisher and Editorial Director of SUCCESS magazine it is my job to investigate, vet and filter the pretenders from the genuine thought leaders in a variety of personal and professional success categories. I am writing this foreword because Paul Slack is the real deal and Social Rules! is a legitimate guidebook to finally help you discern and leverage this important marketing and communication platform referred to as “social media” (359 million pages on Google by the way). Small strategic disciplines, executed every day, over time compound into extraordinary results. For true success, there’s no magic bullet, no shortcut or quick fix. In my book, The Compound Effect, I demonstrate how small, seemingly insignificant changes can create huge differences in outcomes. The same is true for social media marketing. Signing up for a service to get 10,000 followers on Twitter will not create raving fans. Placing an ad on Facebook will not generate great wealth. Desire and motivation is not enough to succeed—particularly in social media. It takes the right tools and the right strategies to reap lasting and meaningful results. Paul Slack does an exceptional job of teaching the key strategic steps you can implement over time to create a significant and quantifiable revenue results. You’ll learn the most effective strategies to maximize your efforts and connect the dots between social media tactics and real business growth. Paul and I share the belief that consistency is the ultimate key to success. Social Rules! will give you the plan to make the right moves, in the right ways in the right places consistently. You will develop successful habits and gradually your efforts will be compounded. What once looked like an impossible goal (doubling or even tripling your revenues) will be achieved one consistent step at a time. It’s what I call “Harnessing the Power of Big Mo.” By using Paul’s insights and applying steady effort you will benefit from the power of momentum. The Tactical Wheel Paul developed is one of the most clearly explained methods I’ve seen for developing strategic choices, habits and gaining “mo” with social media marketing. If you want success, go about helping others obtain it. Using social media marketing for the sole purpose of pushing your own products will not bring you success; adding value to others with integrity will. Paul provides the blueprint for remarkable content to educate and inform your customer. You will build solid relationships with your clients that will lead to optimal professional and personal success for everyone. In the long run, what your customers learn from you through social media will be a much more powerful marketing strategy than any ad space you can purchase. Measure your tangible results. It’s true a new blog or post on Facebook may not immediately bring people to your bricks-and-mortar business, or have your online shopping cart working overtime. Nonetheless, there are ways to measure the effects of your efforts. Paul shows you how to track and monitor your results so you can recognize the origin