May
03
2010

How to Find Your Customers Online

Creating a successful Internet strategy requires understanding who your customers are and what benefits you are providing (why they should buy your product).  Once you have a solid understanding of specifically who you’re selling to (and everyone is way too broad to help you target effectively), you can start to look for your customers online.  Here are some ways to find them:
[Read more...]

Apr
21
2010

Consumer Insights & Analysis Tools and Techniques

Ken Burbary gave a great presentation at FutureMidwest on some tools and techniques he uses to gather consumer insights for clients.  I took a ton of notes during his presentation and was happy to find out he posted the slide deck so we can all benefit.  Great tools. Take a look:

Apr
05
2010

5 Quick Ways to Monitor What’s Being Said About You

As we’re all aware, the power of social media is the ability to have conversations.  Half of a conversation is listening.  And you need to be a good listener to have good conversations.  Monitoring what’s being said about you on social media will help you have better conversations.  Here are some easy ways to monitor what’s being said about you: [Read more...]

Mar
29
2010

Connecting the Dots Between Twitter and The Sale #smcd

I gave a talk last week at Social Media Club Detroit (smcd) on some ways to measure how all those tweets, shares posts and comments relate to achieving business goals. While measurement of social media is evolving, some companies have had success in connecting the dots between their social media and business strategies.  I discussed what these companies did as well as how business ROI can be measured and achieved with social media.

Notes from the event can be found here (thanks Nikki!). Special thanks to Portage Media Jeremiah Staes for recording and production of the video. And a thank you to the Social Media Club Detroit for putting on the event and the Detroit Public Library for hosting. If you get a chance to go downtown to the library, I highly recommend it. The building is absolutely beautiful inside and would be a great place to host an event, meeting or group.

For more information on creating a social media strategy and on social media measurement, please consider attending our upcoming online webinars (just need a web browser and an internet connection):

Mar
01
2010

Ask Sazbean: Do Twitter Giveaways Work?

Kevin from KidsDesk.net asks: Do Twitter Giveaways work?  While it’s hard to get actual numbers from Twitter giveaways and contests, they do seem to work for most of the businesses that use them.  Here are some guidelines and tips to avoid breaking Twitter’s terms of service and to make the giveaway work…
[Read more...]

Feb
26
2010

Understanding Facebook Page Insights

Facebook provides some pretty interesting statistics for business pages.  You’ve probably seen a little box on your page (viewable only by page admins) titled Insights with a number (and some stars) for Post Quality, the number of Interactions this week and the most active country.  Cool.  But what does it all mean?
[Read more...]

Feb
22
2010

7 Basic Twitter Statistics

You’ve got a Twitter account and you’re tweeting and retweeting like a maniac.  How can you measure how well you’re doing?  Well first of all, what’s your goal for using Twitter? Increase sales? Collect leads? Knowing your goal is the first step for figuring out what you need to measure.  Once you have that, here are some basic measurements you may want to use to see how well you’re doing:
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Feb
18
2010

Ask Sazbean – How do I use HootSuite to feed my blog into Twitter?

AskSazbeanlogo200Amy from FinishedBasementsPlus asked how to have her blog feed into Twitter using HootSuite. While Amy may be a client, this is a pretty commonly asked question, so I thought I’d share with everyone. In order to use HootSuite to feed your blog into Twitter, you’ll need a few things first: 1) A blog with a feed (which I suggest sending through Feedburner) 2) A Twitter account and 3) a HootSuite account.

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Feb
17
2010

1 Quick Way to Reach Google’s Front Page

This is a guest post by Vincent Roman, friendly web developer & programmer at VincentRoman.com.

If someone told you that you could get great placement in Google, really quickly, with no expenditure, would you beleive them? To hazard a guess, probably not, but then I don’t blame you, however, the reality is yes! “How so?” I hear you ask. Well the answer is simple: Google Local Business Center.

[Read more...]

Feb
05
2010

5 tips for success with Local Listings

This is a guest post by Emily Thompson, Online Marketing Coordinator for Kutenda.

Local search has quickly become one of the most cost-effective opportunities for businesses to connect with local prospects. Not only are you getting found by locals searching for YOUR products or services, but statistics show nearly 82 percent of local searches online result in further action: a phone call, site view, in store visit or immediate purchase.* (Source: TMP/comScore, October 2008)

Wondering how to tackle Local Search for your business?

[Read more...]