It’s important to measure your social media efforts so you can find out what’s working and how they’re helping you reach your business goal. If Twitter is part of your social media strategy, then there are a number of tools which can give you some Twitter statistics and measurement. Take a look to see if any of these can help you measure success in your social media strategy:
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Sep
13
2010
How-To: Setup Monitoring in HootSuite
A vitally important part of achieving success with social media is responding when someone does reach out to you. When you’re just starting with social media, this may seem like a pipe dream, but if you’re not watching for responses, you may miss them when they happen. As your social media presence grows, it’s equally crucial to monitor for mentions and responses so they do not become lost. I use HootSuite as my main Twitter application, which not only has monitoring, but also stats and scheduling. Here’s how to setup HootSuite to monitor Twitter for mentions, responses and keywords…
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Sep
08
2010
Social Media in an Hour a Day
You’re busy. You’re trying to run your business and you probably are wearing multiple-hats — marketing, accounting, sales, operations, etc. You want to use social media, but you don’t have a lot of time to spare. While social media can take a lot of time, you can get quite a bit out of it just by devoting an hour a day. Here’s how…
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Sep
02
2010
8 Ways to Increase Social Media Interaction
If you’re just getting started with social media, it can be very frustrating if you’re not getting a lot of interaction. You may feel like you’re putting a lot of effort into creating great content and no one is responding. Unfortunately there isn’t a magic wand that can make you instantly Internet popular, but here are some tips for improving your interaction and getting on the right path.
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Aug
26
2010
Is Social Media a Waste of Time?
Ahh, social media. The golden ticket to increased profits and a life time of wealth. All you have to do is setup a Twitter and Facebook profile and start sending updates and magically people will start following and responding to you.
If you believe this, you’ve been lead down the wrong path. While social media may cost less than other marketing methods, it still requires planning, time and patience. If you just jump in without knowing what you’re doing and what you’re trying to accomplish, you may not get the results you expected, leading you to believe it’s all a huge waste of time.
Aug
24
2010
Social Media Must Align with Customer Service for Success
You may be doing a great job with social media for your company — creating great content, having conversations and really engaging with your customers. But, if your customer service doesn’t align with the expectations set by your social media interactions, your success will only be short term. Eventually customers will experience your customer service and if it doesn’t align with expectations built by social media, all your hard work will be for naught.
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Jul
27
2009
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Social Media Empowerment
Many companies are excited about the idea of using social media to connect directly to their customers; to be able to send them messages directly. This used to be available only through direct mail, email or phone calls, but now companies can message customers on a variety of social media. The problem is, that most of these companies don’t fully understand the power of social media, or that it has empowered their customers and given them control over the brand.
Feb
17
2009
Don't forget the Relationship in CRM
Does your company have CRM (Customer Relationship Management)? CRM used to be about a business process of managing a relationship with a customer, but now it often just applies to a piece of software that stores customer names and some information about them. During this recession, there is an opportunity to actually form relationships with your customers. As Lee Odden from Online Marketing Blog says:
As companies decide where to invest their limited marketing resources, there is a distinct opportunity to focus on investing in relationships: with their customers, prospects, employees and business partners.
So instead of using your CRM to blast out targeted email campaigns, use CRM to form long-lasting relationships with your customers. Reach out to them and see if you can help. Companies and people who connect with their customers will be remembered much more than companies that just sent out lots of advertising. Best of all, building relationships is easy on the wallet – just takes a bit of your time.
(photo by “Solar ikon” @ Flickr CC)
Technorati tags: business, business strategy, crm, customer relationship management, customers, marketing, marketing strategy, online marketing, internet marketing
Oct
15
2008
Tips for Creating a Memorable Brand
When customers see your logo or hear your name, what do they think and feel? If there isn’t any emotion or attachment to your brand, you’re missing out on an opportunity to connect on an emotional level with your customers. Here’s some tips on how to create a memorable brand:
- Figure out what traits you want your brand to be known for.
- Create unique images, sounds, looks, etc. that represent your brand traits.
- Be consistent.
- Provide excellent customer experiences.
- Deal fairly with others.
- Handle failures transparently.
- Connect with your customers.
- Listen to your customers.
- Be true to yourself.
- Have fun.
What’s worked for your brand? Have ideas to add to the list? Please share in the comments below.
(photo by OiMax @ Flickr CC)
Technorati Tags: branding, brand, brand management, social media, social media strategy, internet marketing, online marketing
Sep
29
2008
Your customers want your brand as a friend
Cone, Omnicom Group’s strategy arm, released some data from a recent survey measuring brand trust. This research claims that 93% of the 1092 Americans surveyed thought that companies should have a corporate presence on social media. It went further, citing 85% of those surveyed being open to interaction with companies within social media. The demographic breakdown favored young males and weathly individuals, which can be a sweetspot for some marketed brands.
While networks like Facebook and Myspace may be old news for well polished marketing firms representing highly branded labels, this study is suggesting that the time may be right for more conservative consumer industries to follow suit. If your company is consumer driven, tending towards younger male Americans or the affluent population, Cone is recommending you look at social media for your next marketing campaign.
It should be said that the study is a bit self serving, as Cone is a ‘strategy and communications agency’ with a presumed stake in the growth on online Brand Marketing. That doesn’t make the results any less intriguing. One of the best pull quotes I saw was this response from the surveyor to the question of what should Companies be doing in social networks:
Companies should use social networks to solve my problems (43%)
People, it can be really simple. Find out what the top ten customer questions are for sales, the top ten service calls for your product, wrap them up and build them into an interactive Facebook app. Don’t just spit out one line information or a support number either, if the solution could be automated for the customer, take the added steps to do it.
Your customers don’t want you to be their Best Friend Forever. But even one answer to a ‘Hey, can you help me with this’ will make you 10x more valuable than a crate of flying sheep.
photo attributed to b_d_solis @ Flickr CC
Technorati Tags: brand, branding, social media, social media strategy, internet marketing, online marketing
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