Marketing

Sarah Worsham / Apr 20, 2009

Tr.im – Twitter Stats You Need

In my effort to find or create the perfect Twitter utility, I’ve been experimenting with various url shorteners to see what kind of statistics they can give me. Today I started playing with Tr.im and, so far, I’m pretty happy with the results. One of my requirements is that it work with Twitterfeed, which I use to send RSS feeds directly to my Twitter account. What I’m looking for in terms of statistics is how many clicks each url gets, and then an overview of clicks for all links.

Tr.im isn’t quite my perfect Twitter stats service, but it’s the best I’ve seen so far (other than getting some 503, service unavailable errors, which may be related to Twitter issues). I’m able to see the clicks on up to 15 tweets – or tr.immed urls, as they call them – from the dashboard, along with aggregated country information for those tweets.

The exciting part is when you drill down into one of your tweets. From the summary you can see the breakdown of humans vs. bots for the clicks (at least in their estimate), along with more detailed information about each of the human visitors, including location, operating system, client/web browser, and how long ago they clicked. On the timelines page, you can get a visual representation of when clicks happened for the first 72 hours (or at least you should, but it wasn’t working for me). Referrers will give you known websites that are referring to the url. Agents shows a breakdown of visitor browsers and operating systems (platforms) and the locations page will give you a breakdown of click location, similar to the summary (although now it includes bots).

Tr.im, which is part of the Nambu network (a twitter client, currently for Mac and iphone), also offers some additional features, including a Firefox extention, a Mac dashboard widget, bookmarklets, and ubiquity scripts. For Mac users, the dashboard widget is a really nice addition which frees up a tab in your web browser. I’ve only been using Tr.im for a few hours, so we’ll see how it handles my tweets throughout the day – and whether something better catches my eye.

Technorati tags: social media, twitter, business, trim, marketing

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Sarah Worsham / Apr 17, 2009

Social Media Use Case: LEPFA – Lansing Entertainment & Public Facilities Authority

The Lansing Entertainment & Public Facilities Authority (LEPFA) manages the Lansing Center, Oldsmobile Park, Lansing City Market, as well as other local/regional events. LEPFA works to enhance local and regional economic growth by providing safe environments and developing strong relationships with clients, sponsors and businsses. Public outreach and marketing is important to LEPFA to gain awareness for its venues, events, and supporting businesses.

While many people recognize the venues and events managed by LEPFA, most people are not aware of the existance of LEPFA. When Amanda Snook, Marketing Manager, came to LEPFA, there was no social media use at all. Now, LEPFA is utilizing Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr to reach out to the community.

My goal is to get people not only KNOWING about the things that LEPFA does and the places we manage, but to get them talking to their friends about Thirsty Thursday at Olds Park. Maybe they will share with their coworkers about the great conference they went to at the Lansing Center. For me, it’s a new way to meet people, to get feedback about our properties and events and to encourage name building of the LEPFA brand. – Amanda Snook, Marketing Manager, LEPFA

Amanda is also trying to give the authority a face. To show people that LEPFA is run by people, individuals who care, not a bureaucracy. That caring face comes through on LEPFA’s twitter account, run by Amanda. She has conversations, promotes other businesses, helps people, and generally has a friendly, optimistic personality. She wants people to see LEPFA events as a family-friendy with a large economic impact on the region.

Connections and conversations are also important in LEPFA’s social media use. LEPFA uses a Facebook group to connect with people in the region. While LEPFA post news and information about their events and venues, group members can also post links and have discussions with the Authority and each other.

Social media, for us, allows interactivity between what LEPFA does and what people want. It’s an instantaneous way for me to know what we are doing right, what we are doing wrong, who is hearing our message and which people are the champions of our town. – Amanda Snook, Marketing Manager, LEPFA

Amanda has recently started using Flickr to post and share photos of the area and hopes to eventually use YouTube to post tours of facilities and event coverage. By using social media, Amanda has raised awareness of LEPFA and the venues and events they manage, as well as given people a individual that they can connect and interact with to make LEPFA’s services better for all involved.

Is your Michigan business using social media effectively? Send us an email and tell us about it.

Technorati tags: social media, strategy, social media strategy, business, marketing strategy, marketing

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Sarah Worsham / Apr 16, 2009

Personal vs. Business Branding

There’s been much to do lately about the effect of personal branding on businesses and the importance of personal branding for small and medium businesses. I think both personal and business branding are important – and they certainly have an effect on each other. How much will depend on the influence and reputation of the brands.

Now, I’m not against personal branding, as I said it may offer some people that ability to create the best job going, but a business is an asset, something that gets more valuable over time and, here’s the biggie, can be sold. It is very difficult to sell a personal brand. Some of biggest personal brands you could name on twitter right now would be worth very little without the person behind the avatar. – John Jantsch – Business Isn’t Personal – Duct Tape Marketing

Businesses certainly can benefit from having a bit of personality. Customers want to have experiences, not just purchase products, and they want to interact with brands and businesses. As Scotty Monty, who works for Ford, said:

It’s a lot more difficult to screw a brand when there’s a real person that you know that’s associated with the brand.

Some of the most popular business brands today have strong personal brands behind them. Apple, for instance, is undeniably tied to the personal brand of Steve Jobs. But a personal brand is not the same as a business brand. While Steve Jobs may work for Apple, there is more to his personal brand than just a CEO. Apple is more than just Steve Jobs (at least, so the investers hope).

In an era when transparency is much easier, it is important to be aware of the effects of personal brands on business brands, and vice versa. What you say and do as a person is linked to your business, even if you’re building separate brands. What a company does while you own it can also be tied to your personal brand. Instead of a black and white division – there are many shades of grey.

(photo by Mister Wilson @ Flickr CC)

Technorati tags: brand, branding, branding strategy, business, marketing strategy, marketing

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