Category: Strategy At Work

An ROI Community Case Study

LinkedIn offers a few tools to help you build a strong online presence for your initiative: a Company Page and a group. Both offer ways to connect with your audience in a professional setting; however, there are key differences between the two. By evaluating your goals and mapping your audience, you can effectively decide whether to create a LinkedIn group, Company Page, or both! Together with ROI Community, we map the differences between LinkedIn groups and Company Pages, and their benefits.

Create a LinkedIn Company Page

WHY? A LinkedIn Company Page gives an organization the opportunity to reach a new and large audience.

1. Tell the world about your work. Start by writing a compelling “About Us” section that highlights:

• Your organization’s “Why?”
• The services your organization offers
• Your organization’s values
• Anything else you feel is important for others to know about your organization, its mission and its work

BOMAH Tip: Don’t forget to include a link to your website !

2. Ask your employees to connect with your Page. This allows visitors to your Page to connect with them and learn more about your organization.

3.  Ask partner organizations to write reviews on your Page. These testimonials will highlight your success stories! Don’t forget that you can feature these snapshots of your great work on your website and other social media channels, too.
   
4. Publish content on your Page. When selecting which content to post, keep in mind that LinkedIn is a professional network. Post frequent content about any work with influencers and networking opportunities, as well as informational posts about your organization’s initiatives . Remember that the content posted on your Company Page creates an incentive for others to follow it!

BOMAH Tip: When framing your posts on LinkedIn, it’s best to keep the tone professional. Save your hashtags for Twitter and Instagram!

In summary: A LinkedIn Company Page helps you attract a new and large audience by providing you with a platform to promote your organization. In order to ensure your Page is effective, make sure to post relevant, branded content at least three times a week. Additionally, to increase engagement, share content from your Company Page to your group and other social channels.   

Create a LinkedIn Group

A LinkedIn group can help you build brand awareness, position your organization as a leader in your field, generate interest in your organization and build a community. If run effectively, you can convert group members into active followers of your organization’s Company Page.

Recently, LinkedIn modified its group settings to improve the quality of content being shared. Now, all LinkedIn groups are private, and group managers can no longer view posts before they are posted. This will improve conversations between members, but entails more work to monitor the group. Additionally, although LinkedIn’s new algorithm is set to monitor spam, it’s still suggested to keep an eye on your group. Make sure that all posts are relevant and appropriate. Encourage users to engage in specific conversations, and work together to build a strong community.

• Craft a group title and profile. Make sure to use keywords about your organization’s initiatives to attract members to join your group.

BOMAH Tip: Direct group members to your content – include links to your Company Page, social media channels and website in your group profile!

• Create group rules. What is this group for? What is inappropriate group behavior? Be sure to monitor posts in your group to make certain that your members are following the guidelines.
   

• Set the tone. Encourage members to work together and create a mutually beneficial environment.
  

• Appoint a leader. Choose a member of your team to lead the LinkedIn group. This individual should:
  

1. Post questions, discussions and interesting content on a weekly basis.
2. Tell your community’s stories, and urge members to tell their stories as well.
3. Engage with group members by commenting and liking discussions.
4. Encourage contribution of members by posting thoughtful questions and requests for feedback.
5. Motivate members to post about their ventures, and encourage networking among them.
6. Monitor the group, and ensure all activity is representative of your goals and your image.

BOMAH TIP: We recommend choosing at least two members of your team to manage your LinkedIn group! Choose people that will be attentive to the content in your group, and ensure that they monitor the group frequently.

5. Post all job opportunities on your group. LinkedIn is the main network for professionals to explore potential job opportunities! Even if you have other methods of hiring, it cannot hurt to post on LinkedIn.

In summary: A LinkedIn group helps you build a strong community for your organization, and monitor that community so that it evolves continuously with your members’ dynamic interests.  

LinkedIn groups and Company Pages offer different values to your online presence – by examining your goals and mapping your audience, evaluate whether a group, Company Page, or both will be most effective for your brand!

With over 22,000 attendees, the Web Summit in Dublin brings together the best and brightest in the international tech community – but with so many people attending and so much digital chatter, it can be hard to cut through the noise and make your voice heard. Attendees range from newer startups, such as HearMeOut, and Zoliro, to big names, like Microsoft, Forbes, and Coca Cola; making it an incredible opportunity to network, influence and engage – if you have the right strategy.

Last year, we collaborated with Breezometer – an air-pollution monitoring app that has since been selected as one of most promising startups of 2015 – and implemented our BOMAH storytelling technique for reaching reach new and larger audiences, which helped ensure that Breezometer stood out among the other Web Summit attendees. We also spoke with Kathy Cohen, Content & Communities Manager at Zoliro, who also implemented some great techniques during the summit.

Here are seven strategies to help you stand out on social media and bring attention to your ideas, your business, and your services.

Before

It starts before the event even begins:

1. Map your audience

To get yourself noticed, first make twitter lists of journalists, investors, and businesses you could potentially partner with. Kathy recommends spending some time researching key individuals you are particularly interested in. These people get bombarded by pre-event requests, so showing that you are actually interested in what they have done, or taking the time to personally connect with them on LinkedIn or mention them in a blog post, makes a huge difference.

2. Engage them in advance

Then, try to get yourself followed by, and to engage with, thought leaders and news outlets – especially local ones. For example, we connected with Simon Cocking, Senior Editor at Irish Tech News, and author of the book ‘How to Crack WebSummit 2015’.

BOMAH CEO Itzik Yarkoni was also added to a Twitter list of WebSummit influencers – proving that you can be an influencer at an event without actually attending

Remember to thank people for every mention and positive feedback:

Not only is this good manners, it actually gets you further exposure by exposing you to additional fans and followers:

During

3. Post Unique Content

During the summit, share personal stories and live updates from the event itself. It is the human story and personal perspective that will allow you to stand out. People want to hear other people, not just get fed facts and figures.  Connect with your audience through your content, and give people who didn’t attend the conference an inside perspective. Here is a photo of a Zoliro rep together with the editor of Event Industry News, which got them further engagement and offered a personal glimpse into the event.

4. Tag others

Engage and tag yourself with thought leaders who you have met or listened to during the event. You will then gain exposure to people who follow them. Kathy implemented this strategy in a very consistent way by Tweeting to all the speakers she planned on hearing and telling them she looked forward to their talk. Each Tweet got some form of response, and was a great way to build connections.

5. Use Hashtags

Tag your uploads with the relevant hashtags, including, of course, #WebSummit. This will help your content reach a larger audience. Engaging with the event hashtag will help you reach all the Web Summit attendees, as well as outside media, and influencers that are not in attendance. Even better, Web Summit Bot is automatically retweeting the most successful posts using the hashtag, so using the hashtag will increase your posts’ reach.

6. Sponsor Your Best Posts

At the end each day, boost the posts with the highest organic reach. If your direct audience found the posts engaging, a broader targeted audience will create an even higher impact for your post. Take the members of your Twitter lists and compile them into a concise, targeted audience for Facebook Ads.

After

7. Follow up with the people you’ve met

It doesn’t end when the event goes home, the initial meeting is just the beginning! Stay in touch, follow, and engage with individuals who you connected with through social, email, or even in person. Kathy plans on creating memes based on the statements of some of the speakers – and then tagging them in the post when they share it online. This, together with conventional thank you messages, is a great way to develop personal connections and leave a great impression.

Follow these strategies and you will find yourself with increased engagement, impact and opportunities by the end of WebSummit 2015. Zoliro’s techniques were so successful that they had three whole days of meetings lined up following the event!

Now, more than ever, people crave human connection. And what better way to do this than by using one of the oldest forms of communication, the story?

But when we talk about stories, we just don’t mean the original inspiration that sparked your venture, or the early years when you used to eat ramen noodles while working on the floor of you parents basement.

That’s important, and it offers your audience a human glimpse into your world.

But when we talk about stories, we are referring to much more. To us, a story is the root motivation that lies behind what you do. It’s the reason you do what you do, and it’s the unique way that you do it. The way people think about you, and the way you describe what you do to people, is your story.

And you will now learn to tell it.Continue Reading…

We have identified four key components that will help you share your story with the world. The first one is Why.

The importance of Why

We have coached multiple business, startups, and non-profits to make them more engaging and human, and to reach a broader, interested audience.

During our initial meetings the first question we inevitably ask is “Why do you do what you do?”

We are often surprised at how difficult it is for most people to articulate the answer to that question. It’s not that they don’t have an answer, it’s that the answer is intuitive, and they have never felt the need to put it into words.

When creating a business or any new venture, the immediately obvious questions that are usually asked are What and How. What services will your business provide? How will you distinguish yourself from the competition.

Your Why, the motivation behind your entire project, is never directly addressed. And as your business grows and progresses, and the daily tasks and challenges pile up, it becomes very easy to let your Why get buried under a mountain of Whats and Hows.

Finding your Why

The paradox of Why, is that as much as it is easy to neglect, it is actually the most crucial aspect of your business.

Your why is what allows you to stand out, it’s the reason you get up in the morning, and it’s the way to connect with your audience. As human beings, we share many of the same drives and values – when you share your why, it can connect quickly and deeply with others who resonate with it.

When applying your why to your storytelling strategy, there are two simple steps to take. The first one is to find your why. Take a few minutes to write down the answers to the following questions:

1. What drove you to start you venture?
2. What needs or issues did you see in the world that inspired you to take action?
3. What core values inspired your initiative? What ideals are you passionate about?

These questions are simple. But the answers can sometimes be difficult to find. Putting them on paper can be a valuable exercise for defining your mission and connecting to your core audience.

Repeat your Why to everyone you meet, whether it’s your first meeting with your potential client, or your daily catchup meeting with your staff. You can never overstate your mission.

From our experience, finding your Why is best way to stay motivated, to inspire your staff, to connect with your customers and engage with your followers. Through common ground and shared human experience, you can forge deep relationships that are far more powerful than those created by slick taglines or catchy slogans.

Take the time to find you Why. Your What and How will thank you.

Facebook offers several code snippets that you can install on your site which will greatly increase the effectiveness of your present and future ad campaigns.

Unfortunately, they are not very clear about finding these codes, and it takes a lot of snooping around to even find them. Furthermore, I wasn’t able to find an article online that aggregates all these resources into one place.

Below, I have outlined the main pixels you should consider installing in your site, as well as descriptions on where to find them. I recommend installing all of them at once, to fully optimize your site for Facebook ads.

1. Custom audience “Remarketing” Pixel

Facebook allows you to keep track of people who visit your site, and then target them later on with ads that are custom designed for them. For example, you can directly refer to your website in the ad, in a way that you couldn’t if you were target the general population.

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Facebook has become such an integral part of modern society that it’s hard to remember that the company is little over a decade old. Its unexpected, swift takeover has transformed the way people interact and share information and lead to the creation of many other popular social networks including Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Google+.

When it comes to marketing, it helps to understand what the appeal of social media is, which makes the process of marketing very different than the more conventional methods.

It used to be that if you wanted to share your company’s message, you booked a spot on TV or radio and your audience sat and listened.

Today, your target market has the control. With the help of their thumbs, they will decide whether they like what you have to say, or whether they prefer to move on to the next post – that picture of a wedding dress, that #HilariousHashtag, or what your kitten ate for breakfast.

What people are ultimately looking for is to connect. They want to touch their screens and reach something bigger to hear and be heard.

The blessing and the curse:

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Brought to you by two Israeli Startups: BOMAH & SwanScreen

If no one tweets about it – did it really happen?  Thanks to today’s technology-driven world, it’s crucial for any event, from a small gathering to a 5-day conference, to have social media presence plan included in your overall marketing strategy. With the limitless reach of our worldwide web, it’s even recommended to have a team dedicated to creating, executing and monitoring your social media strategy. We paired up with SwanScreen and headed to the ROI Summit to test our ideas for event promotion. Lucky for all of us it was a great success!

To achieve your goals, you should have an event marketing strategy for before, during, and after the event! Here are few tips to ensure your event experience is a social success – both online and off.

Before the event

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I got off the plane at Ben Gurion Airport and I thought to myself, what am I doing here? After hours of inching along in traffic from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, I finally arrived to the stone-floored Aish dorms situated in the heart of the Old City. I set my things down in the musty dormitory room, took a tour of the premises, and was positive the crusaders lived in better accommodations, over 900 years ago.

My friends that I study with pray together while I play the guitar. The bond we have developed is indescribable.

It’s been 3 months since I arrived in Israel to study at Aish HaTorah and work at an internship. Jinternship found me a position working at the Society For The Protection of Nature, where I would be traveling around Jerusalem and the West Bank to take surveys of gardens. You’d think coming from the Garden State I’d be a natural, but dodging traffic to count olive trees wasn’t exactly the internship experience I was looking for.  The next internship thankfully was a winner. I stumbled upon BOMAH-Brand Of Milk And Honey. A young Israeli named Itzik runs and founded the social media branding firm. He studied at Sapir College in Sderot, which at the time was under tremendous rocket attack from Gaza. He reported what was going on in Sderot via his Facebook and Twitter account and was able to get the word out when major news channels didn’t care about rockets hitting Sderot or Israel. It continues to impress me that Itzik was able to find a way of using the tragedy at Sderot to build himself a career.

Itzik and I on our way to give a presentation to one of BOMAH’s clients

This internship has been a win-win because I bettered my social media skills, while contributing to an organization that supports and fights for Israel. I was able to share the truth about the IDF and respond to enemies of Israel by a few clicks at a laptop. My Zionist beliefs have been strengthened during the war in Israel this summer, called ‘Operation Protective Edge,’ and my commitment to stand up for Israel in any arena that may exist has been vitalized.

Vacationing in Israel and donating to Jewish organizations are very helpful, no doubt. But moving to Israel and contributing to its society is the strongest act of Zionism in a world that needs Zionist leaders.  Anyone looking for a positive internship experience in social media, I highly recommend visiting BOMAH. Thank you Itzik Yarkoni and Rachel Jetter for your guidance and help during my time working here.

As a member of American, white, upper-middle class privileged society, I have engaged in many trips of what we call “voluntourism” – short-term opportunities where I paid to volunteer in a developing country or with disadvantaged communities overseas. I took pride in how I chose to spend my school breaks, how I challenged myself to immerse in and understand a culture not my own.  In order to remember the people I worked with and the relationships I built, I naturally took pictures on my I-phone and of course, I posted them to Facebook.

I recently read #InstagrammingAfrica: The Narcissism of Global Volunteerism and it made me look at these pictures on Facebook a little differently. I now saw myself purposefully posed in the center of a group of people, that I wouldn’t see or talk to again. I thought about the language barrier and the structured timeframe to get to know one another – how much change did I bring to this community. As I went back to my trendy classes, college parties, and JCrew outlets, was the trip really “life changing” for me? I couldn’t help thinking after posting these pictures on my Facebook and receiving many “likes” and comments with words of admiration, was I narcissistic? A fraud? Did I simply go on the trip for a picture and for all of the “likes” I would receive after it I made it my default?

Okay, maybe each experience wasn’t as life changing as my pictures pronounced and the poses in the picture were intentional, but these relationships, although fleeting, did form! And even if I didn’t enable permanent change within these communities, I still exposed them to other ways of life and broadened their knowledge. What I most disagree with from the article is the assumption that by posting these pictures on Facebook, I am narcissistic just looking for attention and admiration.

While my pictures may not represent all aspects of my experience, my posed pictures still captured a moment of reality and they reveal a lot about my character, my interests, and what I can offer to the world. To a friend, I have interesting and have unique stories to add to any dinner conversation. To my family, I am brave, curious, and someone my grandma can brag about to her friends at her weekly bridge game. To a future employer who will no doubt Google search my name before an interview, I am someone who steps out of her comfort zone, who is sensitive to others and willing to learn, who is adaptable and can offer a unique perspective to any brainstorming session.

The pictures we post on Facebook and Instagram are out there for the world to see and we wouldn’t post them if they didn’t reflect who we are or at least who we want to be.

So friends, family, colleagues, future employers – check out my pictures, check out my story, check out who I am and get a preview of the person I’m on my way to becoming.

For the past two months Onward Israel participants from Hillels and cities all over the United States have been living and interning in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. Working in Israel during Operation Protective Edge and hearing sirens throughout the country was an especially impactful experience, and we at BOMAH have had the privilege of working with the selected Social Media Fellows from each group to help them share their personal stories and experiences.

As a result from participating in BOMAH workshops and consultations, the Fellows perfected our storytelling strategy and were able to put the reality into words, which at times was much different that what the media portrayed. By writing more impactful posts they were able to comfort their family, friends, and communities at home with their truths, while reaching and engaging new audiences.

Our work with the Onward Israel participants began at the beginning of May when the Fellows had an initial group conference call with Itzik Yarkoni, BOMAH’s Founder, discussing the logistics of the program and explaining the social media tool kit provided. Each Social Media Fellow also received personal consulting about fulfilling their summer goals and how to share their stories through the social media medium of their choice: blog, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube etc.

Once in Israel, the Fellows attended BOMAH social media workshops throughout the summer. They learned about our storytelling strategy in depth, how to effectively share posts on their Facebook pages, and practiced their public speaking skills in order to prepare to give presentations about their time in Israel on their college campuses.

As most of the fellows’ programs are coming to an end this week, we are proud of what they have accomplished this summer and look forward to reading their stories in the future.

Interested in seeing more from the Onward Israel Social Media Fellows? See their posts featured from our Facebook page!

“Thanks to social media workshops and individual consultations, I’ve learned how to turn a good blog into a great blog. I’ve learned how to make my stories both innovative and interactive. Thanks to the Jewish Agency and Itzik Yarkoni, I’ve been able to share my Israel Experience with more than a thousand people in a dozen different countries.”

-Daniel, Cleveland Onward Israel
Intern at The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University

Read his blog here.

“With the increasing attacks on Israel I quickly learned the importance of sharing my experiences of living in Israel with my family and friends back home. Attending BOMAH’s social media workshops and having personal consultations with Itzik allowed me to organize my ideas and learn how to effectively and efficiently share my stories.”

-Allison, Hillel Onward Israel
Intern at BOMAH

Read her blog here.

“I think the social media consulting has been very helpful in generating inspiration and ideas. First of all, Itzik shares his knowledge with us, offering us important tools for making our posts more “viral”. Second of all, getting to see all of the other social media fellows’ work is inspiring and motivating.”

-Leah, Pittsburgh Onward Israel
Intern at BlogsRelease

Read her blog here.

“Social media is overwhelming, and I admit I never was able to utilize social media outlets to their fullest potential. The tips from training sessions also helped me create more intriguing blog posts that captured my audience’s attention. Since our final social media training, I have used Itzik’s suggestions for promoting my blog on Facebook and my views have more than doubled!”

-Shoshana, Boston Onward Israel
Intern at Tevel b’Tzedek

Read her blog here.

“Itzik pushed me to think more critically about social media and the ways I craft my own personal story. From him, I learned how to make my blog more visually interesting for my readers and expand my audience. I appreciate all his help, especially since I don’t have much experience blogging. Without his guidance, I wouldn’t have been able to share all of the incredible Israeli dishes that I’ve sampled during my time here and my love of food.”

-Ryan, Hillel Onward Israel
Intern at the Ethiopian National Project

Read his blog here.

“I think the social media consulting was great.  It gave great tips and tricks on explaining what we need to do to have a better social media following while still getting our story across.  It wasn’t too lengthy which was also nice because my attention tends to stray if a presentation is too long. Thank you!”

-Lisa, Pittsburgh Onward Israel
Intern at Ananey Communications

Read her blog here.

“I learned a lot of social media techniques from Itzik. He taught us how to reach our audience greatly through what time of the day to post and how to post a Facebook status that pulls the reader in, wanting more.”

-Camille, Boston Onward Israel
Intern at Finn Partners

Read her blog here.

“I have learned a lot in our sessions this summer. I think it is good to have the workshops where everyone can share what has and has not worked for them and build off of each other. I think the most important think that I have learned from you is to make sure that I am telling my story in my posts. I think that is what made my blog so successful, because people enjoyed reading my story.”

-Abby, Cincinnati Onward Israel
Intern at Batsheva Dance Company

Read her blog here.