The academic honors society Beta Gamma Sigma presented a Business Tips for Social Media workshop on Tuesday.

Stephanie Hynes, Texas Wesleyan’s director of digital marketing and strategy, told students how to use Facebook as part of a businesses’ marketing strategy.

Many executives may second-guess social media because they believe it is bad or something new, Hynes said. Yet it is extremely effective and personalized, and provides immediate access to an audience.

Hynes considers Facebook one of the most effective ways to spend money and reach your audience.

“With over two billion users, I can guarantee that your audience is probably on there [Facebook],” Hynes said.  

When beginning to use a social media, the first step is to set your goal, Hynes said. Ask yourself what the organization is trying to do.

Once a goal is set, social media gives marketers the opportunity to present their brand as credible and an authority to their audience, Hynes said.

Many people may not know that there are two types of posts on Facebook, organic and paid, Hynes said. Organic posts are unpaid and have natural visibility. According to Facebook’s research, only 10 percent of an organization’s followers will view the post. 

Paid posts have paid visibility, she said, and allow an organization to target a certain audience. These paid Facebook ads drive results and turn audience members into prospects. By paying to be viewed, organizations can monitor engagement and see how many likes and shares the post received and the amount of time a follower spent on their page or ad.

Hynes recommends that every ad or post on Facebook to be linked to an optimized landing page, where viewers may share their information with the organization.

In the end, the organization must always have a call to action with every post or ad. This way the viewer may engage with the organization and help them accomplish their overall goal, Hynes said.

Dr. Sarah Roche, co-sponsor of Beta Gamma Sigma, hopes the workshops may provide students with material not covered in the classroom.

“Dr. Jeon and I have been sponsors for Beta Gamma Sigma for about one year,” Roche said. “When we took over there was no activities, no meetings or anything. The dean [Dr. Hector Quintanilla] wanted us to do something active.

The organization chose to create workshops to excite and educate students.

“We came up with the workshops because we think it is a fun way to expose our students to things they may not be getting in the classroom, but also be broad in the terms of our audience because we don’t just have finance students, just management students, or just marketing,” Roche said. “To be honest, we get most of our ideas from our officers or our members. Our job is just to make that happen as the faculty sponsors.”

Treasure Ford, senior marketing major and Beta Gamma Sigma president, enjoyed creating and attending the workshop.

“Everybody [Beta Gamma Sigma’s five officers] puts in what they want to learn about and what they want to hear about and we kind of had a consensus on everybody needs to know about social media for business, so we thought this was a good idea,” Ford said.

Ford said she hopes to pursue digital marketing as a career, and believes that knowing about Google Ad Words certification will help.

“I didn’t know Facebook had a certification, so I am definitely going to look into those two things for sure,” Ford said. “So, that is what I am going to be taking away.”

Angela Nguyen, a senior business management major, plans to continue to attend the Beta Gamma Sigma workshops.

“I’m taking digital marketing right now and at work today one of my coworkers, he’s on the marketing side of it, he was mentioning Facebook,” Nguyen said. “So, it kind of just happened at the right time and at the right place, so I was like, let me go check it out and see what really goes into it.

Nguyen hopes to later attend the LinkedIn and resume building workshop, which will be presented later this semester.

“I mean they’re both good.” Nguyen said. “I already have some resumes built up because of Career Services, but I mean it wouldn’t hurt to get some extra information.”