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Things to Consider When Measuring your Social Media ROI

If you think tracking the return on investment of your company’s social media is not necessary, then you might want to re-think your priorities. When tweaked and tracked properly, it could provide a powerful web presence to any start-up company and could help you keep up with large companies. Plus, it helps business owners to determine if their marketing strategies are working or not.

Web analytics

Web analytics is one of the most efficient ways of gauging your social media marketing ROI. Most business owners use Google Analytics to do this. By using this tool, you can easily determine the number of people who clicked on the link you shared on any social media channel. Most importantly, you’ll have a more accurate count on the number of people who visited your site through the link.

Engaging contents

Before focusing on the metrics, you’ll have to post meaningful and interesting contents through all your social channels on a regular basis. Also, take note of the kind of contents that your followers share, like and comment on the most.

Create posts that will capture the attention of your followers. This way, they’ll be interested to share your posts and could lead to a more solid fan base. Though there are no guarantees of turning these followers into paying customers, having numerous followers might actually help.

Frequency

While we fully understand the importance of keeping track of your social media ROI, knowing how often you should check on the metrics is also helpful. Experts suggest you keep track of your metrics at least once a week. This way, you’ll be able to understand the types of content which drives the most number of web visits. Most importantly, you can focus on determining which content turns into sales.

Mistakes

Obsessing over the number of likes and followers your company gets is one of the biggest mistakes most business owners commit.

Please bear in mind that these information could be used in improving your social media marketing campaign. So, dig deeper and focus on the metrics that could help you climb the ladder of success.

 

 

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Top 10 Benefits Of Advertising On Facebook

  1. Facebook is one of the most popular websites on the Internet. With approximately 250 million unique visitors each month, Facebook is the 2nd-most visited website on the Internet (behind Google). All those eyeballs mean plenty of exposure for your ads.
  2. Facebook offers targeted advertising. Facebook allows advertisers to target a specific group of people based on age, personal interests and more. Facebook can even comb through user profiles to place your ads only on pages that mention a specific keyword.
  3. You can increase customer loyalty through a Facebook fan page. Countless businesses have created Facebook fan pages that users can join. These pages allow your business to interact directly with your customers so that you can build loyalty and brand image.
  4. Offer special promotions through your Facebook fan page. Your fan page can also be used as a platform to promote new products or ad campaigns. Updates on new product launches keep your customers more informed and up-to-date on what products or services you offer.
  5. Facebook ads are more flexible than Google AdWords. Compared to Google AdWords, Facebook offers additional character length for ad descriptions. The ability to create image-based ads also adds flexibility.
  6. Facebook users offer heightened audience engagement. Facebook users visit the website not only to consume information, but also to create it. This results in a higher retention rate that improves ad visibility.
  7. Facebook facilitates multiple ad views. Your ad has a better chance of getting noticed or having a positive effect when seen multiple times. A high number of Facebook users visit the site several times a day.
  8. Choose between PPC and CPM pay structures. Facebook allows advertisers to purchase ad space on a click-based or impression-based fee structure. This allows you to tailor your ad campaign based on budget and other preferences.
  9. Advertising on Facebook can be inexpensive. Thanks to the targeted nature of Facebook advertising, your online campaign can reach your target market for a fairly affordable price. Range of packages for impression-based campaigns is also fairly large, allowing you to reach as many users as your budget allows.
  10. Ability to reach smart-phone users. Facebook is accessed via smart phones worldwide every single day. This fact means advertisers not only have the ability to reach computer and laptop users, but people out in the world as well.
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Facebook Timelines Teach U.S. History

Want to bone up on the history you forgot from high school, or maybe never learned? Spending some time on Facebook might be a valid option. Here is an article we wanted to share on a less traditional way to  use Facebook.

During the past year or so, a number of federal agencies have filled in the history on their Facebook timelines all the way back to their founding dates.

The White House made the first strike in the spring of 2012, filling out itsFacebook history all the way back to George Washington’s inauguration. Since then, other agencies have followed suit.

The State Department has taken the task most seriously, papering its timeline with articles from its Office of the Historian on diplomatic accomplishments, initiatives and ephemera.

State Department posts vary widely in subject matter, from the Berlin Crisisand the U.S. effort to reconstruct Japan after World War II to lesser-known stories such as a clandestine 1919 visit to Soviet Russia by William Christian Bullitt, an American attaché to the Paris Peace Conference following World War I. Bullitt hoped to broker an agreement with the ruling Bolsheviks to end that nation’s civil war and allow the WWI allies to halt their blockade of that nation.

The Defense Department’s page is less ambitious but still well stocked with notable moments from Pentagon history, such as President Truman’s 1952 establishment of the National Security Agency inside DOD and Eisenhower’s1958 founding of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency known as DARPA.

The Agriculture Department’s page is built more around interesting photosfrom department history than around major policies.

The Labor, Treasury and Justice departments have filled out their agencies’ backstories more sparsely. However, their timelines still share some great facts, such as a 1976 musical commissioned by the Labor Department andthe day the Bureau of Public Debt got its first computer.

As an added bonus, you can also decide which attorney general had the most awesome portrait and spot the occasional silly typo.

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New LinkedIn Showcase Pages Reach Just the Right Users

LinkedIn replaced its news aggregator LinkedIn Today last week in order to get the right content in front of the right users.

The company took that mantra a step further on Tuesday, unveiling Showcase Pages for companies that will, in theory, allow them to share content to a more focused and interested audience.

Here is a great article that explains  Showcase Pages and what a great tool it can be for businesses looking to grow their audiences.

Showcase Pages work like less-robust Company Pages, giving major corporations like Microsoft the ability to create pages for niche divisions or business units, such as Microsoft Office or Xbox. Showcase Pages will be followable, meaning Microsoft can share Xbox content with LinkedIn users who have shown interest in the product, rather than every user who simply follows Microsoft.

LinkedIn hopes that brands will start focusing their content to specific audiences. Companies can operate up to 10 Showcase Pages, but LinkedIn says it will work with larger companies that have the need (and manpower) to operate more.

Showcase Pages aren’t Company Pages, and they don’t have all the same features. For example, Showcase Pages won’t have a tab for Careers or Products & Services, and they aren’t for recruiting, says a LinkedIn spokesperson.

Showcase Pages are also different from Groups on LinkedIn. (Xbox and Microsoft Office groups already exist.) The difference is that companies control the content of a Showcase Page, while an administrator controls the Group.

The other major difference is that companies can advertise on Showcase Pages.

Companies can purchase Follower Ads aimed at increasing the Showcase Page’s total follower total, as well as Sponsored Updates that will put the page’s posts and content in front of others who aren’t following the page.

LinkedIn has about 3 million Company Pages on the site, but isn’t saying how many Showcase Pages it expects to add. It seems likely that an abundance of new pages will increase the number of ads on the site, simply because there will now be more business units and brands looking to spread their news.

Showcase Pages weren’t the only changes for LinkedIn on Tuesday. The company also announced Talent Updates, a feature that lets LinkedIn Recruiters post content to their company page directly from their recruiter dashboard. Previously, recruiters needed to log out of their recruiter dashboard, and log in as the page administrator to post. (Or ask the administrator to post on their behalf.)

This is a behind-the-scenes change that shouldn’t impact users — they’ll still see content the same way they always have on a company’s page. It simply makes it easier for those operating LinkedIn pages to internally manage the content they choose to share.

(http://mashable.com/2013/11/19/linkedin-showcase-pages/)
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5 THINGS YOU NEED TO DO WITH GOOGLE+ NOW

If you haven’t already heard, Google+ is become a force to be reckoned with on the web. It’s still too early to predict if it’s a “Facebook killer”, but it’s already obvious that Google+ has caused a major shakeup of the social aspect of the web. It will affect you; I’d like to explain what Google+ is, how it will affect you, and the five things you need to do with Google+ now.

What Is Google+?

Google Plus is essentially a way to connect your entire Google experience with the people you know. Think of it as a very Google-centric version of Facebook. In fact, you will find it very similar to Facebook – except all the features, and their connection to your browsing experience, are amplified.

The most noticeable example of this is the +1 button. This works similarly to the Facebook Like button in that it functions as an upvote for pages you like. Site owners can install code for +1 on their site in order to allow people to vote, and when you vote for something using the +1 button, it shows up in your activity stream. The button also shows up directly in search results (if you’re logged in).

What are Some of the Main Features of Google+?

Instead of having “friends” a la Facebook, you have “circles” in Google Plus. These are groupings such as “Work”, “Friends”, “Acquaintances”, etc. that allow you categorize your connections with people. It gives you a bit more flexibility than the Facebook “friend” – especially since Google Plus allows you to make your own types of circles. This is a major difference with Facebook – and Google Plus has the advantage.

Another useful feature of Google Plus is it’s “Sparks” feature, which is similar to an alert feed. Not everything in sparks has necessarily been shared before in Google+, and it’s a good way to keep up with topics of interest to you.

A feature of interest to people who use instant messaging or Skype is the “Hangouts” feature, which is similar to Skype. Hangouts are virtual chat rooms that you can setup and participate in voice (using Google Voice) or text chat sessions. This can be very useful for business use.

How Does Google+ Affect the Rest of the Web?

Google+ is bound to affect the search ranking calculations, if it’s not doing so already. Twitter and Facebook shares, along with other socially-connected sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon already play a part in the ranking algorithm – and Google is sure to use +1 votes in a similar fashion. Aside from that, +1 votes already affect personalized search results. Expect to see different results delivered to you depending on what you’ve voted for in the past!

Google+ has well over 10 million users, and that number will only grow exponentially as more and more people adopt Google+ as just another aspect of the Google services most web users depend on in some way. Expect Google+ to become a vital part of social traffic – and get used to seeing the +1 button all over the web.

OK, OK…But What Should I Do Now?

There are 5 things you should do now – now that Google+ is beginning to influence the web.

  1. Grow your following, and don’t be afraid to add people.
  2. Treat it like Twitter: follow, follow, follow.
  3. Ask for shares and +1 on your posts.
  4. Add a +1 button to your site – either directly or by using one of the many social plugins.
  5. Share good content with your circles – because content is still king

(http://www.searchdiscovery.com/blog/5-things-you-should-be-doing-on-google-plus/)

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Tweet Science– One Reason Twitter’s Confident About Its Ad Possibilities

At Boundless, we know that Twitter is a powerful tool to help businesses grow and share information about it’s products and services. But lately, one of the big questions facing social media giant Twitter ahead of its New York Stock Exchange debut this week is how much money it could actually make for investors.

Here is an interesting article we found and wanted to share.

“We have incurred significant operating losses in the past, and we may not be able to achieve or subsequently maintain profitability,”the company writes, in its business prospectus.

Twitter expects revenue growth, but that it will be slow. We’ve written before on how it’s planning on cornering mobile advertising as its main revenue booster. These user numbers a new Pew/Knight study out this week help its argument.

Even though Facebook dwarfs Twitter in the number of users (Facebook’s at more than one billion to Twitter’s 200 million), the study shows those who consume news on Twitter are younger, better educated and more mobile than Facebook news consumers. That’s a huge selling point for Twitter in its bid to lure advertisers.

“Mobile devices are a key point of access for these Twitter news consumers. The vast majority, 85%, get news (of any kind) at least sometimes on mobile devices. That outpaces Facebook news consumers by 20 percentage points; 64% of Facebook news consumers use mobile devices for news. The same is true of 40% of all U.S. adults overall, according to the survey.

Twitter news consumers stand out for being younger and more educated than both the population overall and Facebook news consumers.

Close to half, 45%, of Twitter news consumers are 18-29 years old. That is more than twice that of the population overall (21%) and also outpaces young adults’ representation among Facebook news consumers, where 34% are 18-29 years old. Further, just 2% of Twitter news consumers are 65 or older, compared with 18% of the total population and 7% of Facebook news consumers.”

The study is based on survey data and a multi-year data analysis of tweets around news events.

That this group relies on Twitter as a “second screen” during major news events means Twitter can promise advertisers an “in” to target certain groups at moments they’re paying attention. The mobile-first behavior also plays well into the company’s revenue plan, as it recently acquired MoPub, the world’s largest mobile ad exchange, as a way to sell mobile ads that target their dedicated users based on data that Twitter has collected from them.

 

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/11/05/243221309/one-reason-twitters-confident-about-its-ad-possibilities

For more on Twitter’s business prospects, check out Joe Hagan’s piece from New York Magazine,

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What’s Next for Content Marketing and SEO?

What’s Next for Content Marketing and SEO?

Increased focus on content will provide new challenges as more businesses invest in the area. Competition for those lucrative top spots in organic search results, is likely to increase further as more and more businesses adopt a content focused strategy. More competition in paid search too, means that budgets will need to increase in order to support the higher bids necessary to maintain visibility.

As social media reaches full maturity, so the techniques being used to
build and grow communities will need to be revised and sharpened in
order to rise above the hubbub

When it comes to social media, in order to rise above the high level of noise generated by increased adoption, boosting visibility will become even more crucial. Paid advertising, for example promoted posts and Facebook ads, will become increasingly necessary in order to reach customers. This means that companies who choose not to invest in this area and SMEs who simply don’t have the resources, will gradually loose out to competitors with deeper pockets.

Branding will become ever more important as businesses need to stand out from the competition. Smaller businesses whose activities are not currently strategically driven, will need to up their game in terms of both understanding and conveying their USPs and they will also need to get smart about how they measure their success and how they devise actionable insights.

If small businesses can remain both creative and agile, they will be able to grow their communities and more importantly, they’ll be able to leverage the power of those communities to their advantage. I’m pretty certain then that in 2014 we will see more investment into not just content marketing and relationship building, but into branding too.

Whilst opportunities will continue exist for those of us not lucky enough to have an internationally recognizable brand or large budgets, It’s not going to be easy. As 2014 progresses, small businesses will learn that investing in content marketing and developing their brand isn’t optional, it’s something they have to do in order to maintain their online visibility.

Marketing Insights for 2014

  1. Greater competition as the volume of content being published and promoted online continues to increase, making paid search more necessary
  2. Increased need to differentiate, making branding all important
  3. Increasingly necessary to pay for social media advertising alongside existing organic activities
  4. Social media continues to be an important communications with Increased adoption of Pinterest, particularly for online retailers and increased business adoption of  YouTube
  5. Responsive design will become even more widespread as the use of mobile devices for browsing the internet continues to increase
  6. Greater use of location based marketing, primarily Google Places/Google+ local
  7. Smarter metrics necessary in order to obtain clearer insights and more accurately measure ROI
  8. Strategically driven activities will become ever more widespread as social media reaches maturity
  9. Creativity, agility and innovation will become more important in helping marketers to grab and hold the attention of their audiences
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Instagram Video: What You Need to Know

Instagram has rolled out its brand new video sharing feature, the next logical step for the photo sharing service. Some moments,need more than a static image to come to life. Here is what the company had to say about it’s latest feature:

“We’re thrilled to introduce Video on Instagram and bring you another way to share your stories. When you go to take a photo on Instagram, you’ll now see a movie camera icon. Tap it to enter video mode, where you can take up to fifteen seconds of video through the Instagram camera.

You’ll also find that we’ve added thirteen filters built specifically for video so you can keep sharing beautiful content on Instagram. When you post a video, you’ll also be able to select your favorite scene from what you’ve recorded as your cover image so your videos are beautiful even when they’re not playing.

We’re excited to see what the community will bring to video, whether it’s your local cafe showing you just how they made your latte art this morning or an Instagrammer on the other side of the world taking you on a tour of their city, a mother sharing her joys in parenting as her children laugh and play or your favorite athlete taking you behind the scenes.

So what does this mean for your content? Nothing’s different from photos. We’re still committed to making sure you have control over all of your content. Only the people who you let see your photos will be able to see your videos. And as with photos, you own your videos. You can learn more about Video on Instagram—including our new Cinema feature—by visiting the Instagram Help Center.”

What do you think? How could companies use this new feature to attract new customers?

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What’s your priority on Facebook? The biggest mistake companies can make.

What’s your priority on Facebook? Think about your personal use of Facebook for a moment. Now ask yourself this question: When was the last time you opened up Facebook to: Make a purchase or a donation? Find out the latest news from a brand? Connect with your friends? If you’re like most people, you’ve never done No. 1 or No. 2, and you always do No. 3.

(Source: http://www.socialbrite.org/2013/10/02/the-one-simple-facebook-mistake-most-nonprofits-make/)

So Facebook is about friends connecting with friends, as shown above in this graph from the Atlantic. The biggest mistake that companies make is forgetting that for most, Facebook is all about connecting with friends . So the next time you make a Facebook post or launch a Facebook campaign, think about how you can make it about your community rather than about you.

 

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Twitter Tip: Shorten All Links With Bit.ly (And Nothing Else)

This chart says it all:

If you’re using anything other than bit.ly to shorten your links – certainly if you’re using TinyURL – you’re actually hurting your brand. For a long time Bit.ly was Twitter’s URL shortener of choice and that recommendation, plus the stats and convenience that bit.ly provides, make it nothing less than essential for those looking to get their content re-shared. And while the bit.ly interface isn’t quite as slick as it used to be, it’s still the only URL shortener you should be using.

Tip: the bit.ly sidebar is super-convenient.

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