Social Media Foundations:

Social Media Channel Management

Study Guide
Section Overview
Social media offers you dozens of channels including Facebook, Twitter, and
YouTube. It’s important to find the specific channels that work for your company.
Since every social media channel is different, each one requires a tailored
approach that leverages its opportunities and unique characteristics.
In this lesson, you have an opportunity to discover the channels that are
important and popular in the social media landscape and to learn the basics of
creating valuable interactions through them.

Objectives and Learning Outcomes

After completing this lesson, you should be able to:
● Discuss how social networks work for marketing purposes
● Explain the benefits of communicating through microblogs
● Create a strategy for your brand’s widespread presence through video
sharing sites
● Outline the benefits of image sharing sites
● Explain how social media services function as marketing platforms

Key Takeaways:
Social Networking
● Social networking is the practice of growing the number of personal and
business contacts by making connections via social media sites.
● Benefits of social networking
o Customer support
o Real-time engagement
o Brand awareness
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 o Website traffic
o Demand in products and services
o Sales

Facebook
● Facebook is a social networking platform designed to share all kinds of
content including articles, ads, live videos, and memes.
● Three Ps in Facebook Marketing Strategy
o Personal
o Purpose
o Promotion
● Facebook Posts
o Personal posts
o Engaging posts
o Storytelling posts
o Motivational posts
o Video posts
o Humorous posts
o Purposeful posts
● Two ways to engage on Facebook
o Facebook Page, which is like a personal profile for your business
o Facebook Groups, which bring people together around a topic they
share an interest in
● Facebook Live is the in-app streaming function. You can repurpose the
broadcasts for other platforms.
● Facebook shops allow you to add a shop section to your Facebook page for
customers to buy your products directly from Facebook.
● Facebook Community is an ideal forum to bring like-minded professionals
together around a topic or theme.

LinkedIn
● It was launched in 2003 as world’s largest B2B social networking site and is
a great platform to access job opportunities

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 o Mission: “Connect the world's professionals to make them more
productive and successful.”
o Vision: “Create economic opportunity for every professional.”
● LinkedIn Newsfeed allows you to learn about the people in your network
and the companies you are following.
● Post content via a company page once or twice a day for five days per
week. It is effective for two-way engagement with your followers.
● Showcase pages are designed to spotlight specific elements and help
followers find the information they are interested in.
● LinkedIn’s advertising platform enables organizations to target key
audiences with engaging content.
● LinkedIn rolls out Native Video, offering users the ability to record and
upload video right from their mobile device.

Microblogging
● Microblogging is a combination of blogging and instant messaging that
allows users to create short messages.

Twitter
● Twitter is an online microblogging platform that enables you to post short
updates with images and videos.
● It was launched in 2006 and has more than 330 million monthly active users
around the world.
● Twitter users broadcast messages and engage with other Twitter users by:
o Asking and responding to questions
o Sharing interesting links
o Monitoring what people say about them
● Twitter users have established their own language to make the most out of
the imposed character limit on each tweet.
o Use @ symbol and a username to mention a person or business in a
tweet
o Retweet messages to rebroadcast a tweet to all your followers
o Use a heart symbol if you like a tweet and want to save it for later

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 o Send a follower a direct message to have private conversations
o Spread and organize information with the help of hashtags
● Twitter informs you about the content and hashtags that are trending in
your location.

YouTube
● YouTube was launched on February 14th, 2005, and is the third most
visited website in the world.
o YouTube’s mission is to give everyone a voice and show them the
world.
● YouTube is a free video-hosting website where members can host and
serve video content.
● Prolific video creators known as YouTubers post videos on a daily basis.
● Marketing parameters
o Create a concise title and description.
o Add tags to your videos to help people find them when using search
engines and YouTube’s search.
o Select or create a thumbnail image for your video.
● YouTube Cards are preformatted notifications that appear on desktop and
mobile.
● YouTube End Screens show during the last 5–20 seconds of a video.
● YouTube Video Ad Campaigns
o Consider creating a video campaign around your product or service.
o Pay to target your ideal customers via location, demographics, and
interests.
o Target your video ads to specific topics on YouTube and the Display
Network.
o Show your video ads based on keywords.
o Promote your new video content on the social media channels you
are active on.
● YouTube Analytics helps you determine how well your channel and your
videos are performing.

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Instagram
● Instagram is a hugely visual platform, allowing users to upload inspirational
images and videos.
● Companies use Instagram business accounts to pay for their content to
appear in their ideal audience’s newsfeed.
● Instagram users scroll through photo and video content from other users in
the main newsfeed.
● Use a unique strategy for your Instagram account and avoid reusing
content from other social networks.
● Instagram users can use up to 30 hashtags per post.

Pinterest
● Pinterest allows businesses to promote their brands and products by
posting attractive and compelling images.
● Pinterest describes itself as “the world's catalogue of ideas.”
● Activities in Pinterest include:
o Creating "boards" on a particular topic or theme
o Saving or pinning images or videos to those boards
● The more repins and click-throughs your pins generate, the higher they
appear in Pinterest search results and the more attention they get.

Check-in Services
● Location-based services and business ratings apps are mainly geared
toward consumers and small businesses.
● Yelp is an online business directory where enterprises can get listed and
found online.
● Swarm is a mobile app that allows users to:
o Share their locations with their friends
o Create a record of their experiences in their personal lifelog
o Check in to a given location and see who is nearby

Aggregation Services

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 ● An aggregation service is an application that collects content from different
online sources and populates the results in one hub/dashboard.
● Feedly integrates with most social media apps, so sharing interesting things
you find is simple.
● Reddit is a social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion
website.

Review Sites
● Consumers seek online business reviews to help with their buying
decisions.
● Angie's List is a household name for providing consumers with honest,
accurate information about local businesses.
● Glassdoor is a way for current and past employees to rate the companies
for which they work.
● TripAdvisor is a travel and restaurant review website that helps travelers
take decisions by providing them with the wisdom of the crowds.

Publishing Sites
● Tumblr
o You can reblog a Tumblr post that was published on another user's
Tumblelog.
o You can like other people's content rather than publish comments as
you would on a traditional blog post.
● LinkedIn
o It offers its registered members the opportunity to write long-form
content.
o It builds relationship with your connections by providing value
through your content.