Most of the companies consider the use of social media as a nuisance or time waster. Like LinkedIn and Facebook, Twitter is another social media tool with strong potential for business ROI.
Twitter is all the more better social medium for IT professionals and other businesspeople.
a) It has got a real business use. Businesspeople use Twitter to talk about professional topics. It not like people are just updating their routine activities, meaningful discourse happens on Twitter mostly every hour of every day.
b) Unlike Facebook or LinkedIn, on Twitter you follow people according to the interesting things they share in their tweets; even people you don’t know at all. Unless and until someone has protected his tweets, you can follow anyone. To spread your word, you need followers on Twitter and can be benefited by just listening others too.
c) Its key benefits are news, unique perspectives and stellar information. It is an excellent environment for following trends, gathering information, gauging buzz and researching topics of interest. Spend a couple of hours to search smart people on Twitter, and you'll likely learn things you might not learn any other way.
d) Twitter can be used for building your personal or company brand, enhancing your business relationships, interacting with customers, doing market research or selling. This powerful one-to-many tool reaches very influential, engaged audience.
e) It gives you an option to “unfollow” someone if you no longer find his tweets beneficial for you, without letting him know about this.
Smart Tweeting: Follow only people you're genuinely interested in.
With a tool like TweetDeck, create multiple groups for people who are generally focused on a specific topic. You can also follow hash tags or Twitter searches to see tweets on specific topics.
Mirage in Social Media
Let’s have a quick look at the biggest mistakes taken by many of the small as well as big firms while they run social media marketing or online marketing campaigns to increase awareness of their brand.
a) Inconsistent brand identities: Due to miscommunication or absence of communication at all, between the different departments in large companies, the end users hardly gets the information they are looking. This fragments your company’s audience.
b) Failing to engage: You should respond back via social media to your fans/customers positively, reply back to their wall posts, comment on their blog; just to know about their expectations and their view point about your brand.
c) Conclude campaigns: Traditional marketing has definite plans i.e. preset budget, with set beginning, and a set end too. But social media is an ongoing process that never ends. You can use campaigns within your social media program, but they are just a small part of the bigger picture.
d) Failing to appreciate fans: Instead of reaching out existing fans, you look around for more fans. It would be better to appreciate the existing ones who can bring in even more automatically.
e) Attempting to control the conversation: Companies should not fear for negative impressions in the market. If negative is being already talked about without your involvement, respond accordingly to those conversations.
f) Giving up before attaining success: Social media campaigns are sort of ongoing processes, not very short term campaigns. Some companies try social media in small amounts then claim no or little ROI. Because of their short term involvement, they hardly reach their target audience, not even able to devise strategies meeting realistic business goals.
a) Inconsistent brand identities: Due to miscommunication or absence of communication at all, between the different departments in large companies, the end users hardly gets the information they are looking. This fragments your company’s audience.
b) Failing to engage: You should respond back via social media to your fans/customers positively, reply back to their wall posts, comment on their blog; just to know about their expectations and their view point about your brand.
c) Conclude campaigns: Traditional marketing has definite plans i.e. preset budget, with set beginning, and a set end too. But social media is an ongoing process that never ends. You can use campaigns within your social media program, but they are just a small part of the bigger picture.
d) Failing to appreciate fans: Instead of reaching out existing fans, you look around for more fans. It would be better to appreciate the existing ones who can bring in even more automatically.
e) Attempting to control the conversation: Companies should not fear for negative impressions in the market. If negative is being already talked about without your involvement, respond accordingly to those conversations.
f) Giving up before attaining success: Social media campaigns are sort of ongoing processes, not very short term campaigns. Some companies try social media in small amounts then claim no or little ROI. Because of their short term involvement, they hardly reach their target audience, not even able to devise strategies meeting realistic business goals.
Points to Ponder for Email Advertising
Email advertising is one of the online marketing campaigns that would surely help your online business to grow and to globalize your brand. Today MNC’s are also using this to promote their upcoming products and services.
At the first stage of your campaign, generally you do not care much about the email content, also about the frequency of sending out your messages. Many a times the result is: users consider your mail as spam. So, to keep your users abides to your content provide them with the stuff that they can leverage in their real life too.
In order to make your email advertising campaign a success, try to make sure that your recipients continue to subscribe to your mailing list. According to surveys conducted for this, it generally takes three emails before a user considers buying your product or using your services. In case your content of email seems to be promotional in nature to your user, they will simply unsubscribe and your email will be seen in their trash or just not more than a spam.
Make the content of your email so rich that it engages your readers. Subtly keep on telling them the benefits that they can reap if they use your product or services. Moreover, try to make it sure that your message is delivered across within the first few sentences of your email.
After this, comes the subject line, which is generally left unseen which is of utmost significance. In online marketing, make a crisp subject line (like about 60 characters or less) but substantial. You need to make short subject lines to prevent eye fatigue. However, make it interesting and compelling so that recipients of your email gets encouraged continuing reading your message.
Lastly, give your email content a professional look which although sounds informal. Typical business tone on net gets frowned upon easily. Use simple words and sentences that can be understood by majority of people. However, don’t forget the rules of good business letter writing. This means you need to spell check carefully, punctuations and grammar of your emails before sending them.
You can follow these small but utmost important rules to make an impressive and eye catchy email.
At the first stage of your campaign, generally you do not care much about the email content, also about the frequency of sending out your messages. Many a times the result is: users consider your mail as spam. So, to keep your users abides to your content provide them with the stuff that they can leverage in their real life too.
In order to make your email advertising campaign a success, try to make sure that your recipients continue to subscribe to your mailing list. According to surveys conducted for this, it generally takes three emails before a user considers buying your product or using your services. In case your content of email seems to be promotional in nature to your user, they will simply unsubscribe and your email will be seen in their trash or just not more than a spam.
Make the content of your email so rich that it engages your readers. Subtly keep on telling them the benefits that they can reap if they use your product or services. Moreover, try to make it sure that your message is delivered across within the first few sentences of your email.
After this, comes the subject line, which is generally left unseen which is of utmost significance. In online marketing, make a crisp subject line (like about 60 characters or less) but substantial. You need to make short subject lines to prevent eye fatigue. However, make it interesting and compelling so that recipients of your email gets encouraged continuing reading your message.
Lastly, give your email content a professional look which although sounds informal. Typical business tone on net gets frowned upon easily. Use simple words and sentences that can be understood by majority of people. However, don’t forget the rules of good business letter writing. This means you need to spell check carefully, punctuations and grammar of your emails before sending them.
You can follow these small but utmost important rules to make an impressive and eye catchy email.
Google Mobile
If you want to access Gmail on your phone then it’s not necessary to have fancy mobile devices. The access is although easy if your iPhone has touchscreen or there's a downloadable application built especially for your BlackBerry, but today Gmail access is available on almost all mobile devices. You just need to have data plan on your phone, and then you can get the mail from Google.
At present there are two ways to check your messages while you are mobile:
a) Visit gmail.com from your mobile browser
The simplest way to access Gmail from your phone is to go to gmail.com in the mobile browser of your device. A version of Gmail built especially for small screens opens up, where messages are grouped into conversations, you can search through your mail, or can even categorize important messages with stars. On the devices like iPhone and Android, some additional features are offered like they have the ability to add and remove labels and basic offline support.
b) Use built in email application in your phone
Numerous mobile devices are there in which there is pre-installed native mail applications. It has an easy and straight-forward set up to access Gmail and to make it simpler, a wizard is also there for help. If you have an iPhone or any Windows Mobile device, you can have Gmail using Google Sync. Otherwise, you can set the things step-by-step directions for specific devices. Depending on your phone, you may notice some missing features such as search, conversations, and stars. In addition, such type of applications tends to start up quickly and even work when you are offline.
At present there are two ways to check your messages while you are mobile:
a) Visit gmail.com from your mobile browser
The simplest way to access Gmail from your phone is to go to gmail.com in the mobile browser of your device. A version of Gmail built especially for small screens opens up, where messages are grouped into conversations, you can search through your mail, or can even categorize important messages with stars. On the devices like iPhone and Android, some additional features are offered like they have the ability to add and remove labels and basic offline support.
b) Use built in email application in your phone
Numerous mobile devices are there in which there is pre-installed native mail applications. It has an easy and straight-forward set up to access Gmail and to make it simpler, a wizard is also there for help. If you have an iPhone or any Windows Mobile device, you can have Gmail using Google Sync. Otherwise, you can set the things step-by-step directions for specific devices. Depending on your phone, you may notice some missing features such as search, conversations, and stars. In addition, such type of applications tends to start up quickly and even work when you are offline.
Dilemma between Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups
Facebook gives an option to connect with your friends, favorite artists and businesses, but by adding Pages to your personal profile, you can show your friends what you care about and recommend; add pictures, and also have walls that fans can post on. It has an option to have applications as well.
Groups are little bit different than Pages. Create a group and add information about the type of group. You can even set join permissions so that it’s either open to anyone or closed. There is an administrator to manage the group, approve applicants or invite others to join this group.
Because of its privacy settings, groups are similar to clubs in the offline world. Admin can invite members to join via Facebook email, and any public group can be reached via Facebook search.
Facebook Page or Facebook Group
Corporate vs. Personal:
Facebook Groups are made for more personal interaction due to security features and size limitations. Groups are directly connected to administrators. On the other hand, Facebook Pages do not showcase the names of admin, and are considered as a person, just like a corporate entity.
The social networking website, Facebook, considers groups as an extension to your personal actions. When you share something as group admin, it is attached to your personal profile. Whereas, Pages can create content that comes from the Page itself.
Email vs. Updates:
Groups have a limitation to send email blasts only under 5,000 members. Whereas Page admin can send updates to fans through page that appears in the “Updates” section of fans’ inboxes. There is no limit to the number of fans of the Page.
User Control:
Due to permission settings option available in groups, it offers more control over who gets to participate. Admin has rights to restrict access to a group. In case of a Page, the restrictions can be posed by certain ages and locations only. This makes groups just like a private club.
Applications:
Pages can be more personalized by hosting applications and show more content. No such option is available in case of Groups.
Promotions:
One can purchase Ads to promote either groups or pages. But Pages can take benefit from fan connection between a Page and a specific user.
Overall, Groups are great to organize on personal level and for smaller scale interactions. Pages are better for businesses, brands, movies, bands, or celebrities to interact with fans or customers without connecting them to a personal account.
Groups are little bit different than Pages. Create a group and add information about the type of group. You can even set join permissions so that it’s either open to anyone or closed. There is an administrator to manage the group, approve applicants or invite others to join this group.
Because of its privacy settings, groups are similar to clubs in the offline world. Admin can invite members to join via Facebook email, and any public group can be reached via Facebook search.
Facebook Page or Facebook Group
Corporate vs. Personal:
Facebook Groups are made for more personal interaction due to security features and size limitations. Groups are directly connected to administrators. On the other hand, Facebook Pages do not showcase the names of admin, and are considered as a person, just like a corporate entity.
The social networking website, Facebook, considers groups as an extension to your personal actions. When you share something as group admin, it is attached to your personal profile. Whereas, Pages can create content that comes from the Page itself.
Email vs. Updates:
Groups have a limitation to send email blasts only under 5,000 members. Whereas Page admin can send updates to fans through page that appears in the “Updates” section of fans’ inboxes. There is no limit to the number of fans of the Page.
User Control:
Due to permission settings option available in groups, it offers more control over who gets to participate. Admin has rights to restrict access to a group. In case of a Page, the restrictions can be posed by certain ages and locations only. This makes groups just like a private club.
Applications:
Pages can be more personalized by hosting applications and show more content. No such option is available in case of Groups.
Promotions:
One can purchase Ads to promote either groups or pages. But Pages can take benefit from fan connection between a Page and a specific user.
Overall, Groups are great to organize on personal level and for smaller scale interactions. Pages are better for businesses, brands, movies, bands, or celebrities to interact with fans or customers without connecting them to a personal account.
Marketers Overlook Customer Feedback from Social Media
According to one Social Media Survey, marketers do not make changes to their products taking into consideration their consumer feedback. They know well that one of the most common business uses of social media is tracking and monitoring feedback.
Still 70% of marketers do not make change to a product or their marketing efforts based on customer feedback came from social media sites.
Marketers’ needs to analyze where their social media campaign is lagging and what all is missing on a key opportunity to improve and shape their products and programs based on what their consumers need and want. They should consider Customer Feedback significantly.
Amongst the topmost business uses of social media, managing and monitoring customer feedback is the foremost one. Besides which you have to understand the consumer and competitors landscape. This would help to reach out key influencers.
Regarding social media, lack of time and resources are the biggest obstacles to incorporate social media into marketing campaigns successfully. Half of them lag due to lack of knowledge and expertise, and many are still not convinced with its value or ROI. The majority is even not equipped to handle global as well as local social media campaigns.
If the company is having no social media presence, consumers will create one for them. These results indicate that many of the companies are not engaging in social media to drive business results and maintain relationships with customers.
Regarding the employee use of social media, employees are the best brand ambassadors a company can have. In case a specific approach is not followed, companies miss out on leveraging the largest and most knowledgeable fan base of their brand or products.
The senior marketing managers, according to the survey, do not follow specific approach regarding employee use of social media in order to share messages on behalf of the company or its brands as of now. Most of them are not using any of the common social media tools in their marketing efforts. Many amongst them have no budgets dedicated to social media programs.
The points pondered above needs to be looked at precisely. You must react and analyze as per the customer feedback and use them for further progress and popularize your brand name leveraging the social media in an appropriate manner.
Still 70% of marketers do not make change to a product or their marketing efforts based on customer feedback came from social media sites.
Marketers’ needs to analyze where their social media campaign is lagging and what all is missing on a key opportunity to improve and shape their products and programs based on what their consumers need and want. They should consider Customer Feedback significantly.
Amongst the topmost business uses of social media, managing and monitoring customer feedback is the foremost one. Besides which you have to understand the consumer and competitors landscape. This would help to reach out key influencers.
Regarding social media, lack of time and resources are the biggest obstacles to incorporate social media into marketing campaigns successfully. Half of them lag due to lack of knowledge and expertise, and many are still not convinced with its value or ROI. The majority is even not equipped to handle global as well as local social media campaigns.
If the company is having no social media presence, consumers will create one for them. These results indicate that many of the companies are not engaging in social media to drive business results and maintain relationships with customers.
Regarding the employee use of social media, employees are the best brand ambassadors a company can have. In case a specific approach is not followed, companies miss out on leveraging the largest and most knowledgeable fan base of their brand or products.
The senior marketing managers, according to the survey, do not follow specific approach regarding employee use of social media in order to share messages on behalf of the company or its brands as of now. Most of them are not using any of the common social media tools in their marketing efforts. Many amongst them have no budgets dedicated to social media programs.
The points pondered above needs to be looked at precisely. You must react and analyze as per the customer feedback and use them for further progress and popularize your brand name leveraging the social media in an appropriate manner.
Biggest Cybercrime Till Date
FBI charged nearly 100 people in the U.S. and Egypt as part of one of the largest cyber fraud phishing investigations ever.
The people charged in this phishing targeted U.S. banks and victimized hundreds of account holders by stealing their financial info and used it to transfer approx. $1.5 million to fake accounts under their control.
More than 50 people in California, Nevada, and North Carolina, nearly 50 Egyptian people have been charged with crimes including conspiracy to commit bank fraud, computer fraud, money cleaning and exacerbated identity theft.
The Director of FBI says that FBI is both law enforcement and national security agency to address every angle of a cyber case. It’s is critical also, because what may start as criminal investigation may lead to national security threat. When FBI begins with a cyber investigation, they do not know whether they are dealing with a spy, company insider, or an organized criminal group.
In this case (Operation Phish Phry), money seems to be the main motive. But you never know-sometimes initially things look like an ordinary phishing scam which may be an attempt by a terrorist group to raise funding for an operation.
But, cyber crime hardly hits a normal person unless and until it hits him individually. In any case, every personal, academic, corporate, and government network plays major role in national security.
The people charged in this phishing targeted U.S. banks and victimized hundreds of account holders by stealing their financial info and used it to transfer approx. $1.5 million to fake accounts under their control.
More than 50 people in California, Nevada, and North Carolina, nearly 50 Egyptian people have been charged with crimes including conspiracy to commit bank fraud, computer fraud, money cleaning and exacerbated identity theft.
The Director of FBI says that FBI is both law enforcement and national security agency to address every angle of a cyber case. It’s is critical also, because what may start as criminal investigation may lead to national security threat. When FBI begins with a cyber investigation, they do not know whether they are dealing with a spy, company insider, or an organized criminal group.
In this case (Operation Phish Phry), money seems to be the main motive. But you never know-sometimes initially things look like an ordinary phishing scam which may be an attempt by a terrorist group to raise funding for an operation.
But, cyber crime hardly hits a normal person unless and until it hits him individually. In any case, every personal, academic, corporate, and government network plays major role in national security.
New Business Perspective of Social Media
Today, social media helps to advance a new era in business transparency and participation, creating new challenges and opportunities. An individual expects more reliable and straight relationship with the companies to do business.
Companies use social media and other means to showcase their human aspect, accept transparency, and formulate new relationships with their consumers. The question arises “what can businesses do to transform and achieve success in this new era?”
The comprehensive transitions that social media is causing in business are:
• To build connections, reveal fewer “official assertions” and more personal ones to your consumers and target audience.
• Prefer small campaigns instead of trusting big ones; establish genuine, reliable and valuable relationships because people share experiences via social web.
• Trust relationships that your employees build on the behalf of your company, yielding success in the long run.
• Instead of communicating through your means, allow your customer to do so via their chosen means i.e. through social web.
With the advancement of social media, companies are expected to be more transparent and personal. In such a scenario, social sites such as Twitter and Facebook offer this type of medium. Businesses must adapt to social media to build personal relationships. Instead of spending high on advertisements, elevate the quality of interactions with customers.
Companies use social media and other means to showcase their human aspect, accept transparency, and formulate new relationships with their consumers. The question arises “what can businesses do to transform and achieve success in this new era?”
The comprehensive transitions that social media is causing in business are:
• To build connections, reveal fewer “official assertions” and more personal ones to your consumers and target audience.
• Prefer small campaigns instead of trusting big ones; establish genuine, reliable and valuable relationships because people share experiences via social web.
• Trust relationships that your employees build on the behalf of your company, yielding success in the long run.
• Instead of communicating through your means, allow your customer to do so via their chosen means i.e. through social web.
With the advancement of social media, companies are expected to be more transparent and personal. In such a scenario, social sites such as Twitter and Facebook offer this type of medium. Businesses must adapt to social media to build personal relationships. Instead of spending high on advertisements, elevate the quality of interactions with customers.
Get Credible Feedback Through Social Media
One of the most effective uses of social media for business is being able to monitor your brand. The services of social media channels used for searching like Twitter and Facebook eases to keep a close eye when someone talks about your company.
In order to get proactive feedback about your business, new product ideas, marketing campaigns, or other issues relating to your company, you could ask your connections in your social network. Besides this, there are numerous statistical procedures to gather feedback that can help you to take substantial decisions.
Let’s have a look at some of those beneficial way outs:
Add a survey to your website
In websites, you are quite familiar with feedback forms. Today, you have an option to create them and have organized feedback without acquiring any programming know-how. WuFoo is a service that strives to be the easiest way to collect information over the internet. It helps you to create virtually any type of form – open-ended questions, polls with radio buttons, multiple choice. You can then embed it on your website without writing a single line of code.
Through your WuFoo account, you can get real-time customizable reports on the results, filter data using easy to understand rules as well as append poll questions on the fly. It offers a free edition that includes up to 3 different forms and 100 responses plus subscription plans for users that need more forms or more responses.
Add a poll to your Facebook fan page
For brand awareness, you should create your fan page on Facebook. Then can add applications to it to engage your fans and gather feedback. Involver is a video marketing platform designed for social networks. For instance, it offers a Facebook polling application that will ask your Facebook fans a question, also lets them to share their vote with friends, which can further help to attract additional fans to your Facebook page. The key benefit of Involver platform includes syndication, engagement and analytics.
Poll your Twitter followers
Once you have a feedback form through an app like WuFoo you could simply share a link to it with your Twitter followers. Besides, there are feedback applications designed specifically for Twitter.
PollDaddy, like WuFoo, has an app built specifically for Twitter. You can create online surveys and poll widget for your website and social network. Set up your question, login with your Twitter username and password, and PollDaddy will automatically tweet your question to followers.
Post a YouTube video
Whenever you post a video to market your brand, you receive text messages in response. But now, You Tube has given you the flexibility to post “video responses” also, so that users who see your video can post a response in the same way they’d post a text comment.
LinkedIn Answers
For professionals, LinkedIn is an excellent place to get feedback for your business. Using LinkedIn Answers product, you can pose a question to your connections and get feedback. Additionally, replying and participating in Q & A from other users is a great way to build new connections on the site.
All these scenarios showcase how social web can help to get feedback and conduct market research efficiently at minimal costs.
In order to get proactive feedback about your business, new product ideas, marketing campaigns, or other issues relating to your company, you could ask your connections in your social network. Besides this, there are numerous statistical procedures to gather feedback that can help you to take substantial decisions.
Let’s have a look at some of those beneficial way outs:
Add a survey to your website
In websites, you are quite familiar with feedback forms. Today, you have an option to create them and have organized feedback without acquiring any programming know-how. WuFoo is a service that strives to be the easiest way to collect information over the internet. It helps you to create virtually any type of form – open-ended questions, polls with radio buttons, multiple choice. You can then embed it on your website without writing a single line of code.
Through your WuFoo account, you can get real-time customizable reports on the results, filter data using easy to understand rules as well as append poll questions on the fly. It offers a free edition that includes up to 3 different forms and 100 responses plus subscription plans for users that need more forms or more responses.
Add a poll to your Facebook fan page
For brand awareness, you should create your fan page on Facebook. Then can add applications to it to engage your fans and gather feedback. Involver is a video marketing platform designed for social networks. For instance, it offers a Facebook polling application that will ask your Facebook fans a question, also lets them to share their vote with friends, which can further help to attract additional fans to your Facebook page. The key benefit of Involver platform includes syndication, engagement and analytics.
Poll your Twitter followers
Once you have a feedback form through an app like WuFoo you could simply share a link to it with your Twitter followers. Besides, there are feedback applications designed specifically for Twitter.
PollDaddy, like WuFoo, has an app built specifically for Twitter. You can create online surveys and poll widget for your website and social network. Set up your question, login with your Twitter username and password, and PollDaddy will automatically tweet your question to followers.
Post a YouTube video
Whenever you post a video to market your brand, you receive text messages in response. But now, You Tube has given you the flexibility to post “video responses” also, so that users who see your video can post a response in the same way they’d post a text comment.
LinkedIn Answers
For professionals, LinkedIn is an excellent place to get feedback for your business. Using LinkedIn Answers product, you can pose a question to your connections and get feedback. Additionally, replying and participating in Q & A from other users is a great way to build new connections on the site.
All these scenarios showcase how social web can help to get feedback and conduct market research efficiently at minimal costs.
How to Evaluate Social Media Campaigns
Today every company is facing an issue that how should they measure the success of social media campaigns. The marketing professionals keep on explaining that social media is important and beneficial for the company.
Considering these issues, I have collated some information that could help to explain how to evaluate social media and why a company should invest time as well as money into it.
Initially, follow some requisite steps before implementing any measurement tool or strategy.
• Specify the mission and target speculating the achievements.
• Determine the target audiences and make out what propels them the most.
• Define qualitative as well as quantitative metrics to be used.
• Determine the measurement tools to be used.
• Analyze the results.
Qualitative approach is followed when you want to determine corporate reputation, conversations or customer relationships. Quantitative approach is followed if the goal is to measure the traffic, sales or SEO ranking. In order to measure how effective you social media campaign is, the company must observe, listen and engage.
Variety of tools are available in measuring different objectives.
Del.ic.ious-determine the number of times people bookmark your content.
Google Analytics-track traffic levels, its increase, traffic sources, trafficked key terms or phrases.
Feedburner-keep measuring number of RSS and email subscribers.
Blog Comments-gauge the amount, quality and influence of comments.
Twitter Search-analyze the trend your company is being mentioned in searches. Use Tweetbeep to get these alerts.
Google Alert-measure the daily, weekly and monthly trend of a particular keyword.
Tweetburner-track the number of clicks on the links that you send out via twitter, also how active your twitter followers are with your content.
Yahoo Site Explorer-measure the amount of incoming links you receive over time.
HowSociable-measure the visibility of the brand on the web.
Technorati-search for blogs based on tags.
Alexa-estimate reach, rank and page views.
Google Insights-compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories and time frames.
Bit.ly-measure number of clicks, countries clicked from and conversations around the site.
Adonomics-track the results with the help of graphs.
Evaluate traffic, interactions, search marketing, customer engagement, sales, retention and profits in order to measure the effectiveness of your efforts.
Measuring and monitoring your social media campaign is an ongoing process. The process has many benefits like low cost per customer acquisition, low cost of sales marketing and even lowers the cost of market research too.
The objective of a social media campaign is to participate in the conversation, to enhance your relationships with your target audiences, and become the trusted member of the community surrounding your brand. If you follow these steps and continue to monitor the conversation, you can clearly communicate the success of your campaign.
Considering these issues, I have collated some information that could help to explain how to evaluate social media and why a company should invest time as well as money into it.
Initially, follow some requisite steps before implementing any measurement tool or strategy.
• Specify the mission and target speculating the achievements.
• Determine the target audiences and make out what propels them the most.
• Define qualitative as well as quantitative metrics to be used.
• Determine the measurement tools to be used.
• Analyze the results.
Qualitative approach is followed when you want to determine corporate reputation, conversations or customer relationships. Quantitative approach is followed if the goal is to measure the traffic, sales or SEO ranking. In order to measure how effective you social media campaign is, the company must observe, listen and engage.
Variety of tools are available in measuring different objectives.
Del.ic.ious-determine the number of times people bookmark your content.
Google Analytics-track traffic levels, its increase, traffic sources, trafficked key terms or phrases.
Feedburner-keep measuring number of RSS and email subscribers.
Blog Comments-gauge the amount, quality and influence of comments.
Twitter Search-analyze the trend your company is being mentioned in searches. Use Tweetbeep to get these alerts.
Google Alert-measure the daily, weekly and monthly trend of a particular keyword.
Tweetburner-track the number of clicks on the links that you send out via twitter, also how active your twitter followers are with your content.
Yahoo Site Explorer-measure the amount of incoming links you receive over time.
HowSociable-measure the visibility of the brand on the web.
Technorati-search for blogs based on tags.
Alexa-estimate reach, rank and page views.
Google Insights-compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories and time frames.
Bit.ly-measure number of clicks, countries clicked from and conversations around the site.
Adonomics-track the results with the help of graphs.
Evaluate traffic, interactions, search marketing, customer engagement, sales, retention and profits in order to measure the effectiveness of your efforts.
Measuring and monitoring your social media campaign is an ongoing process. The process has many benefits like low cost per customer acquisition, low cost of sales marketing and even lowers the cost of market research too.
The objective of a social media campaign is to participate in the conversation, to enhance your relationships with your target audiences, and become the trusted member of the community surrounding your brand. If you follow these steps and continue to monitor the conversation, you can clearly communicate the success of your campaign.
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