This week in the blogosphere we’ve found several articles worth examining. The following posts discuss a variety of topics, including:
- It’s not only possible to measure your social media marketing ROI—your traditional, online marketing metrics can easily be applied.
- While it’s easy to feel swamped by your business’ Twitter data, focusing on the right target keywords and following trends can help you to effectively sift through it.
- Despite some contrary viewpoints, Facebook is still experiencing rapid growth in terms of their user base.
Online Media Tracking Methodology for Social Media
ClickZ | Harry Gold | 5-25-10
The author of this post rejects the notion that measuring social media marketing ROI is an impossible task. Instead, he asserts that while social media marketing may take longer to develop and the effects may not be immediately recognized, the ROI of your efforts can be tracked just as they are through online media and paid search. Businesses don’t have to start from scratch in developing these tactics, but can instead utilize many of the same metrics already in place, such as leads, clicks, cost-per-lead and cost-per-click.
- Businesses can and should measure transactions and ROI from all of their online marketing efforts, including social media.
- In order to effectively measure social media ROI, companies should keep these metrics categories in mind: Transactions and ROI, Social Stats, Buzz and Sentiment.
Twitter power: Learning from ourselves, in real time
USA Today | Marco R. della Cava | 5-25-10
This article expresses that while Twitter’s rise in popularity is hardly surprising, it’s shocking that the social network has caught up to Google and Facebook so quickly. The social media site has proved itself to be quite a precise measure of mass culture, providing a way for the public to look back on particular events and gather an accurate sense of what the individual (and the masses) thought about a given issue. The company recently stated that they hope to start turning a profit soon (especially with the growth of their staff) and that certain approaches like “Promoted Tweets” will help to generate this income. One disadvantage of Twitter, however, is information overload. As Danah Boyd, a social networking specialist at Microsoft Research poignantly stated, “It’s easy to drown in the data.”
- One would think that because it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the data this might push people away from using Twitter, yet the user base continues to grow daily.
- This illustrates how widespread Twitter is in the social media space, and appears to be creating a need for the development of additional applications that will help businesses filter their data, as well as approach those results in a way that’s actionable.
- Twitter is becoming more and more of a broadcast platform rather than a discussion platform, and it’s getting more difficult to break through the noise. The most effective way to break through is with the right keywords and by following trends.
What backlash? Facebook is growing like mad
Fortune Tech | Jessi Hempel | 5-17-10
This article discusses how despite claims from some media reports that Facebook is coming to an end, the social networking site is seeing the same number of account deactivations that they’ve seen since the beginning, and their user count is still growing. Many people have complained over their perceived invasion of privacy and maintain that the site’s privacy policy is too convoluted for the average user. Facebook has succeeded because they’ve taken these risks in sharing users’ private data, though. They’ve acted first, and then addressed the public’s reaction. Despite initial backlash of the Facebook newsfeed, for example, “Now the idea of aggregating social behaviors in a stream like the news feed has become the new way in which social information is organized and digested,” says the article’s author.
- Facebook’s user base is continuing to grow.
- The social network has educated their audience over time in terms of privacy settings, which is an ongoing strategy for Facebook. They tend to act first, gather feedback and then act upon that feedback (i.e. newsfeed, pages). Over time, their users have adjusted rather than deactivated.
Facebook Case Study: From 517 to 33,000 fans in two weeks (plus media coverage)
MarketingExperiments | Daniel Burstein | 5-26-10
This blogger examines a Facebook case study taken from MarketingSherpa’s upcoming book, Social Marketing ROAD Map Handbook: A method for mapping an effective social media strategy. The case study is based on a two-week social media campaign led by the nonprofit group, California State Parks Foundation (CSPF) and their agency, after discovering that hundreds of parks were in danger of shutting down due to considerable state budget cuts. CSPF’s Facebook fan base climbed from 500 to 33,000 in two weeks. Much of their success evolved from the optimization of the foundation’s Facebook brand page, direct mail, e-mail and telemarketing.
- Setting a time limit for your social media campaign can actually precipitate action in some cases
- The public tends to respond favorably to instant gratification for their efforts (i.e. visible, increasing numbers of supporters)
- Varied social media campaigns are the most effective. Make sure that in addition to social networks like Facebook and Twitter, you concentrate efforts on telemarketing, e-mail and direct mail
- Monitor your efforts by tracking clicks and conversions.
- While this article is more B2C focused it clearly illustrates that businesses need to organize social media campaigns around events, which in turn makes it easier to create large spikes in traffic.
- It’s easier to use Facebook for short-term campaigns rather than long-term campaigns.
- Don’t neglect your other channels. Remember that marketing is a mix; you can’t just concentrate on one facet.
17 Crucial Things You Must Know for Social Media Success
Market It Write | Randy Duermyer | 5-28-2010
After attending the 2010 Social Media Success Summit, this author compiled a list of what he considered to be the best 17 tips offered by presenters.
- Social media has created an online, public conversation among customers.
- It’s important to know when to engage in the dialogue and when to listen.
- Social Media should be used as a long-term approach to interacting with customers, rather than a short-term campaign.
- If you’re going to attempt social media marketing, you should know why you’re using it as a strategy and ensure that your employees are well-versed.
- It’s essential that you employ social media optimization for each of your social networks, as well as your blog.
- While not yet fully developed, mobile marketing has already become incorporated into social media.
- Keep your content fresh by using several different mediums: posts and discussions on your social networks, videos, blog posts and podcasts.
Now That You’re a Social Media Wiz…
After reading this update, we hope that you have found these tips helpful and that you’re able to incorporate them into your own social media marketing techniques. Interested in getting this summary each week, or learning more about Optify? Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or subscribe to our RSS feed. You have probably gathered from the summaries above that there’s some debate as to whether Facebook should be used as a short-term or a long-term social media campaign strategy. What are your thoughts? We’d love to hear from you.
