Tag Archives: social media

What A Good Social Media Marketer Already Knows

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There are few who are social marketers that actually love analytics. Likewise there are few who write marketing copy, status updates or builds communities using social networks that love statistics. We are social people who like being social. That’s what makes us good at social media. Social media professionals are far more expressive than analytical. However, our job as professionals demands that we be analytical as well.

 

Objectives & goals set us apart as professionals

 
The thing that separates us from the non-professionals is that we have objectives and goals and are held accountable for creating demonstrable results. We need an easy to use tool to help us to justify our time and marketing direction to our clients. We need a tool that helps us to course correct. It’s necessary to move towards our goals and objectives. SocialReport focused on finding solutions to reporting and analytics problems and helping people to succeed with their social marketing campaigns. We need a powerful but easy to use tool set to measure and monitor our online activity.

 

Social media is social. It’s about people. It’s about getting others to see a little bit of themselves in us. It’s about being friends. It’s about creating a community. It’s about converting followers into fans of our brand, product or service. It’s about being genuine and authentic. It’s a people business and as people, the majority of us are driven more by emotion than actual facts. Every good sales person knows this. How people feel about our brand is critical.

 

I can back this up by discussing more complex concepts such as cognitive linguistics, ambient awareness, managing and understanding different the types of personalities, individual communication strategies and behavioral science.

 

In the end, most of the time, people don’t know why they respond to things or what they are actually revealing through their responses. The truth is, it doesn’t really matter either. I just need to know how to create the right stimulus that people will respond to and how to create the right emotional attachments to the brand. I also want to write in a way that allows people to create mental anchors to the brand. But first, I have to give them a reason to listen and to care. That starts with me. I have to care first and I must be genuine about it.

 

Social media isn’t a megaphone

 

One-way marketing messages do not and will not work in “social” media. Conversation does. The only way to get around this, is to have an already established brand that has been running a successful traditional marketing campaign for a long number of years or a news service and even for many of those brands, they are successful in the social media space because they are responsive and conversational. There are a massive number of case studies to support this.

 

af•fin•i•ty [uh-fin-i-tee] noun

1. a natural liking for or attraction to a person, thing, idea, etc.

2. a person, thing, idea, etc., for which such a natural liking or attraction is felt.

3. relationship by marriage or by ties other than those of blood (distinguished from consanguinity).

4. inherent likeness or agreement; close resemblance or connection

 
In the end, social is a two-way and not a one-way communications device. Increasing engagement is directly proportional to increasing stimulus. What I am looking for is intensity of feeling towards the brand and increasing the intensity of conversation around the brand.

 

Be a good host

 

In many ways, services such as Twitter are like a talk show. We need to relate with our audience. That means breaking the fourth wall. Talking at people instead of talking with people is not social. It’s not networking. It’s advertising. Advertising is also good but that’s not the purpose of a Twitter account or even a Facebook page. They are PR tools and I’m acting as a spokesperson. I’m not giving a speech. I’m participating in a conversation around my brand and with my community.

 

Think about going to a party and not listening or responding to conversation. Imagine going to a party and just talking and talking and talking… Not a two-way dialog but just talking at people. Twitter and Facebook are the same way. My job is to gather a crowd. That means being witty, funny, engaging and interesting. It does not mean making pitch after pitch. That approach doesn’t work in real life. It doesn’t work online.

 

Try SocialReport for free for thirty days and see what the data tells you about your social media campaigns.

The Art of Social Media Monitoring

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Original article written by Sean Clark

This is the third in the series of “Practical Social Media”, looking in depth at how to set-up and run Social Media as part of your overall business strategy. If you have any areas you would like me to cover please let me know via the comments section below.

“Hi my name’s Chris, what do you do when you’re not hanging out with a bunch of Twitter geeks?”

And after Chris Brogan has used his favourite opening line to start a conversation at a local Social Networking meet-up he does as much as he can to keep the other guy talking so he can listen.

Two ears and one mouth, or what ever cliche you would like to use, listening is the key to getting people to trust you, like you and ultimately buy from you. Social Media is no different; before you go in shooting from the hip, peek around the saloon door first, see if you can catch the whispers in the room.

This is going to be a first real step into using Social Media as a business tool. Now it gets practical and monitor what’s going on in this space.

 

Have you done your homework?

 

In my previous post I talked about using Social Media to solve business problems; what are the ones you are trying to solve? If it is reaching a wider audience to increase sales then you want to find key influencers within your marketplace. If you are trying to establish yourself as an expert in a particular sector, to gain trust and in turn increase sales then you will be looking to help people with Social Media.

For both of these goals we use the same tools, but in slightly different ways. The first thing we try to determine is if there is an opportunity for us within Social Media for our particular business.

 

Let’s get set-up


We’re going to start with Twitter, not just because it’s my favourite tool, butbecause I think it is the easiest tool from which to see possible opportunities. It’s real-time nature means that even in the narrowest niche you are likely to see some action. There are more advanced Social Media monitoring tools which I will cover later in the series.

For the examples in this exercise I am going to be running two imaginary, but related businesses, to demonstrate how to use Twitter differently dependant on your objectives. In the first instance I am going to be a running shoe manufacturer or brand, in the second I am going to be a running shoe retailer.

We need to identify some keywords pertinent to our industry. Very much like you would when trying to optimise a web site for the search engines. In fact if you have a commercial web site you may have already done this, and can draw from that previous research. For others just select some basic words that would be used when discussing your product or service, these will help demonstrate the principles here.

For my test, example words might be: jogging, running, 10k, 5k, 5 mile, 10 mile, marathon, half-marathon, trainers, running shoes.

If you haven’t already go to Twitter.com and create yourself an account. The purpose of this account will be to listen in on conversations. We are not going to interact, therefore you don’t need to worry about user-names and profiles, feel free to make them up. You can also use an existing account if you wish, we won’t be following anyone just yet.

 

Finding influential people in your market

 

In the first trial we will be looking for influencers. The basis for this being that as a manufacturer I want to find people who may write or promote my product or brand for me.

We need to create a Twitter list to store people we may discover:

In Twitter, click on “Profile”, then “lists”, then “create a list”. Give your list a name, I will call mine “Key Influencers”, you can give it a description if you wish and make the list private if you don’t want anyone else to see it.

In the search box at the top of the page on Twitter enter your first keyword and hit return.

 

If you click on the screenshot to the left you can see the results for my search on the word “Marathon”. There are some unrelated Tweets in the results as you would expect, but amongst them are people Tweeting about Marathon running, potentially key people that may be of interest.

You can save this search by clicking the button on the top right, making it easier to return to at a later date.

 

For now scroll through the list of Tweets, click on the names of people of interest. In my example it would be people mentioning marathons in relation to running. A panel with their details will slide out; to the right of the green follow button is a silhouette of a head and shoulders, click on this, then click add to list and select your “Key Influencers” list, see screenshot below and to the left again.

 

There is no need to Follow these people at this stage if you don’t want to, you’ll be able to see all of their Tweets just by viewing the “Key Influencer”list.

Perform this search with your other keywords and repeat the process for 5-10 minutes a day for the next couple of weeks. We’ll come back and analyse the results in a future post.

 

 

Can I help you sir?

 

In the second version of our business scenario I am a retailer. This time I am looking to see if there is enough discussion around my market sector so that I stand a chance of getting myself noticed as an expert in the marketplace. Brands or manufacturers can also use this in addition to the “Key Influencer” search.

This time create a list based on the instructions above but name it “Questions”.

Using your keywords do a search on Twitter again but append a question mark, for example “running shoes ?” – without the quotes.

 

Now we have a list of people asking questions about running shoes. Add these people to your list, you can follow these people later if appropriate, but make sure to save the search.

Also, keep a list of the questions being asked as they will prove valuable in the later stages of our Social Media Strategy. Repeat this process for all of your keywords and spend the next couple of weeks checking out the results on a daily basis.

There are various ways to perform this analysis, and some of this can be done using more advanced Social Media tools or third party web sites. The aim here is to get you exposed to Twitter with a specific goal in mind, and for you to experience the potentially rich information that lays not far from the surface of Social Media.

If you have any suggestions or questions please get in touch via the comments below. Otherwise see what you can unearth for your market sector and I will be back shortly with the next step in Practical Social Media.

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Respond, Decode with the Right Data

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For social media professionals, our job is to be responsive-able. We have to respond and do so appropriately in real time. We are responsive-able professionals. We have to be able to decode digital text and to be able to perceive the underlying feelings/emotion. Our job is to be ever presently mindful of the human condition and the emotions which drive people to react or respond.

 

Identifying Personalities & Motivations Requires Social Analytics

 

We used to have to do this effectively with very little data. We couldn’t rely on our eyes or our ears as our social streams grew.  Anyone who has managed a social account, has honed the craft of identifying myriad personalities and motivations with precision. Having a series of tools at hand, that can help us track trending topics, search streams, set-up goals and get our arms around the vast information load is an invaluable addition.

In other words, we become masters of being responsive-able. That is our craft. We connect with strangers daily in a very human way.  We try to contribute a perspective that is genuinely reflective of the brand’s personality without sacrificing the quality of the conversation. To do that, finding the right people who can benefit from our brand or service is crucial. Knowing what was said and when before jumping into the Twitter or Facebook pool is a requirement. Most importantly; reflect, think, execute, and brand. But do it with the right data and facts so it’s real, unique and measurable to your bottom line.

Have you wanted to know what people are saying in your Twitter Stream about an industry or brand?  Try SocialReport for free for thirty days and see what the data tells you about your social media campaigns.

Clicks, Cakes, and the Limits of Social Media ‘Science’

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Written  by Tom Webster on August 22, 2011

There is an apocryphal story in the annals of market research that I particularly love about cake mix (“apocryphal,” by the way, is Greek for “a pile of crap,” so this probably isn’t true – but I’ll tell the story anyway.) The story goes that back in the 50′s, Betty Crocker had developed its first completely one-box cake mix – just add water and bake. After some initial buzz, sales began to disappoint, so the Betty Crocker executives did a series of focus groups to suss out the problem.

Imagine tackling this problem today, using social media monitoring, or tracking clickstream behavior. Betty Crocker might observe fewer clicks to their recipe page, or perhaps fewer positive mentions. Coupon activity from register scans might decline. Positive sentiment for Duncan Hines might increase. We might learn that the best time to tweet about cakes is 10:00 am on a Sunday. Maybe we’d record an increase in the number of tweets about the poor quality of Betty Crocker’s mix.

We could take all of this online behavior – all of these tweets and clicks – and determine a few things. Some of our conclusions would be correct, while others would be off the mark. Mining this information is crucial to the lifeblood of the organization – don’t get me wrong. But bits and bytes will only ever tell you the “what.” They rarely give you the straight story on the why.

One thing I’ve learned in about 20 years of doing qualitative research – people are not as expressive about products and services as we’d like them to be. Often, we cannot clearly articulate what makes us uncomfortable, or dissatisfied, with a given product, so we fall back on the easy answers. “It doesn’t taste right.” “It costs too much.” “I don’t have enough time.” These are the first things I hear in any focus group, before Stockholm Syndrome really sets in. This is when the experienced qualitative researcher reaches into their bag of tricks, and helps the respondents along – and uncovers the real reasons behind these perceptions of quality, value and importance. These data, of course, are anecdotal until you can test these assumptions, and social media is providing us with more and more tools to do just that. But social media often gives us the easy answers – not the true answers.

Back to Betty Crocker. Unable to mine Twitter, our 1950′s executives did a series of focus groups with housewives that had tried, and ultimately rejected their cake mix. Much to their surprise, they realized that these ladies thought the cakes tasted just fine, and were pretty good values. Instead, the insight they developed over time was that the cake mixes were a little too easy. In postwar America, as their husbands worked long days, these stay-at-home moms were a little embarrassed about the fact that all they had to do to have a delicious cake on the table for their men to enjoy after work was just add water and stir. In short, they felt guilty.

This is why you now have to add an egg, or perhaps a little oil, to a cake mix. Certainly these ingredients could be incorporated into the package – we do have a little history of food science in this country. But adding these one or two ingredients made it feel like baking again, and not just assembling. These women didn’t just want cakes – they wanted to feel good.

The numbers only give you half the story – and I say this as someone who makes his living telling the stories of numbers. The operative word there, of course, is story. It’s easy to be seduced by social media data, especially by those who loudly proclaim that they have the numbers on their side. Numbers aren’t on anyone’s side. I’ve had a lifelong battle with them, trust me. Adding insights to data is more than just putting flesh on the bones of an otherwise solid skeleton. Often, you don’t know what you think you know merely by dredging tweets.

No, data without insights is just ignorance.

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