Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

Social Media Monitoring

Friday, October 16th, 2009

I’ve heard a lot of people complaining that there is a lack of measurement and ROI tracking around the use of social media.

It’s not that hard to at least track the basics.   There are now a plethora of tools  for social media monitoring and you can get started by tracking trends and setting basic targets/KPI’s & benchmarks around these.

I have set up a social media dashboard or KPI report which helps me with tracking social media metrics for my blog and in a business context a set up like this can also help you to measure ROI on your time spent on participating in social media activities.

The below example is a very basic dashboard but it does let me attribute an increase in site traffic or other metrics back to social media campaigns/tweets/social media activity.  If you’re selling a product or service you can work out your average cost per acquisition from social media channels by working out your average conversion rate, average revenue per sale or lead and the cost of getting that lead i.e. the value of your time spent in social media, cost for creative and other associated costs.

Example: Social Media Measurement Dashboard & KPI’s
Note: This is sample data

Social Media Measurement Dashboard Example

Social Media Measurement Dashboard Example

Evaluating the quality of traffic received from different social media sites allows you to concentrate your time and efforts on the sites that are going to bring you the highest quality traffic.  I.e. if someone coming from Facebook spends roughly twice as long on your site or the average amount that a Facebook user purchases through your site is 20% more than a Twitter user then it would make sense to concentrate more time, effort and money on your Facebook presence.

Another useful metric is  the % age of new visitors from each traffic source.  I.e.  Is this site/portal mostly sending you repeat loyal customers that you could encourage to visit your site directly or are you attracting brand new visitors that have never heard of your site before.  Which type of user is more valuable for your business and how do you want to encourage them get to your site in the future?

Useful  Social Media & Traffic Monitoring Tools:

  • Google Analytics or other web analytics tools such as Omniture
  • Google Alerts - set up alerts for mentions of your brand or product across the web
  • Social Mention - the Social Media Search Engine
  • Twitter search/Twitter hashtag searches
  • Facebook - track new fans/friends and referrals
  • YouTube Analytics - if you’re tracking video
  • Google Trends for Websites and Insights for Search

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Posted in Social Media | 2 Comments »

New Zealand Social Marketing Survey Results

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

Last month I created a social marketing survey to get a feel for how people are currently using social media and marketing tools.

The survey produced some interesting stats on how individuals and companies are using social marketing in New Zealand.

Here are the results:

Social Network Popularity

Social Network Popularity

Use of Social Networking Sites

Use of Social Networking Sites

Do you have a blog?

Do you have a blog?

What blogging software do you use?

What blogging software do you use?

Twitter usage

Twitter usage

What Twitter app do you use?

What Twitter app do you use?

Company use of Twitter, Facebook & YouTube

Company use of Twitter, Facebook & YouTube

Social Bookmarking Services

Social Bookmarking Services

You can download a pdf of graphs here:  liv-large-social-marketing-survey

Thanks to everyone who participated.

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Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

Top 10 Social Media Predictions for 2009

Monday, January 19th, 2009

If you’re interested in Social Media and what will come in 2009 then Peter Kim has compiled thoughts from several well respected marketers into a great document you can read here.

If you don’t have the time to read the whole doc, here are my top 10 from the list that I hope will hold true in the coming year:

  1. Dwindling budgets will suddenly make low cost social media look like the pretty girl at the ball. - Ann Handley.
  2. In 2009 marketers will find their accidental spokespeople (employees & customers) and give them ways to amplify their voices. - Rohit Bhargava
  3. Live conversations with consumers, empathetically executed, can have far bigger payout and viral word of mouth impact than most social media tools. - Pete Blackshaw.
  4. We’ll need to do more dot-connecting between existing processes and social media output.  We’ll see a flatlining of references to “my Twitter programme” and more references to my offline/online “conversational ecosystem”. - Pete Blackshaw.
  5. Organisations will allow the most passionate individual within an organisation from any division to lead social media efforts. - Rohit Bhargava.
    A great example of this that I recently found was the Mars Phoenix Lander Twitter case.
  6. Twitter will continue to achieve legitimacy. Brands will adopt Twitter for everything from media/influencer outreach to customer service to crisis communications. But more than any push-channel, Twitter will give customers, advocates and critics unprecedented access to corporate personnel and vice versa. - Scott Monty.
  7. One at a time, big companies will have their “Dell Moment” and wake up to the power of investing in earning great word of mouth with one-on-one attention to the community. - Andy Sernovitz.
  8. Location awareness will be the mobile utility of the year as more and more  consumers use their GPS-enabled phones & mobile social software to find great stuff to see, do and buy wherever they may be at any given time. - Greg Verdino.
  9. Just when you thought search was saturating or mainstreaming, we think there’s going to be an explosive new functionality which make search even more valuable. - Joseph Jaffe.
  10. Shopping goes social. Using Facebook Connect & Open Social Platform, shoppers will be able to see what friends are recommending, buying and rating integrated into the shopping experience. - Charlene LI.

Another common theme throughout the document is the rise of mobile social software (mososo) and geo location based tools/applications.  This is where I think things will get really interesting.

Looks like another exciting year ahead for digital marketers!  I’m keen to hear your thoughts on the above predictions and whether you think they’ll ring true in 2009.  Also any other predictions you have to add to the list?

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Posted in Social Media | 3 Comments »

A Great Example of Social Media Marketing by Air New Zealand

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

Air New Zealand have launched another great online execution.  This time they’ve used social media marketing to connect and interact with Kiwi travelers at getamongstit.co.nz.

The site encourages users to join and upload travel videos and photos in order to enter a competition.  Key to this idea is the combination of several key social marketing concepts including user generated content, member profiles, a comment system and voting for your favourites .  Of course they’re also encouraging users to share their videos and status in the competition on MySpace, Facebook and other social networking sites.

They’re also trying to tap into New Zealander’s regional pride by encouraging members to support their nearest town.

Apart from collecting a member database they also seem to be promoting their Grabaseat site as a sort of secondary message. Displaying current flight deals on the home page and using Grabaseat logo lock ups and material throughout the site.

Getamongstit.co.nz

Getamongstit.co.nz

Overall I think it’s a pretty good execution.  The site looks a little cluttered but it fits in with the user generated content look and feel and sets the scene for the participation message.   They’ve also hidden away the social networking site widgets under a ‘badges‘ label in the site footer which I think is a bit of a missed opportunity as I doubt the average person is going to realise where that click is going to take them.

getamongstitbadges1

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Posted in Social Media | 3 Comments »

Promoting Charities & Causes on Facebook

Sunday, August 17th, 2008

Following on from my last post A Guide to Advertising on Facebook, I wanted to delve a little further into using Facebook to promote charities and causes.

Last week I heard from some experienced cause marketers who have tried it out for themselves.

Let’s hear it from the experts!

Tim Fullerton the Online Communications Manager at Oxfam America admitted that Facebook is becoming more important in promoting Oxfam.  They particularly see it as a vehicle to help them reach out & interact with a younger and wider audience than traditional media allows.

Oxfam know that their supporters generally have like minded friends and family, so once they
add their fan page on Facebook, it advertises Oxfam to anyone they’re connected to.

Oxfam's Facebook Page

Oxfam's Facebook Page

I also spoke to Joe Thomas at Kiva.org.  Their business model is solely based online so I was interested to find out how their Facebook presence meshed into their overall communications plan.

Joe shared his experience and said that he has found Facebook extremely useful for promoting Kiva.  While setting up each group , page and cause profile took a lot of effort, he continuously invited users to the group and eventually it went viral and began to grow on its own.

Kiva's Facebook Page

Kiva's Facebook Page

Content is key

Tim says that they are seeing a steady growth to their fan base which he believes is attributed to the fact that they update their content several times a week.  His team generally spend an hour or two each week on updating Facebook. This includes posting all of their action alerts, interesting articles about their work, and opportunities for people to volunteer.

Kiva staff typically spend 5-15 hours per week updating their content.

A cost effective channel

“It’s a great way to get in front of new people without spending a lot of
time or money” Tim Fullerton, Oxfam.

There’s no doubt that it has been effective for Kiva, they have now raised $12,988 through Facebook viral marketing!

It looks like Social Networks are a great place for Causes and Charities to promote themselves.  This makes sense as people are usually very passionate about the causes that they support and are therefore more than happy to promote them to their friends.

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A Guide to Advertising on Facebook

Sunday, August 10th, 2008

The popularity of Facebook is undeniable. The site recently surpassed MySpace and boasts over 90 million members.

Over three and half years Facebook has grown from a small Harvard based college site to become the world’s largest social network.

So, what does this mean for marketers?

If you want to target broad reach online users then you need to be where the people are and it looks like the people are on Facebook.  According to Hitwise, the average Facebook session time is over 20mins and the fastest growing demographic are users over 25 years of age.

Facebook advertising options

In November 2007 Facebook launched Facebook Ads which encompasses both Social Ads campaigns and Facebook Pages.

With Social Ads there are a plethora of options,  you can target by age, gender, location or interest. You can buy ads CPM or CPC and all ads are content integrated.

With Facebook Insights you can track performance metrics for all Social Ads or Facebook Pages campaigns and see who is interacting with your brand.  Insights can even show you the viral distribution rate of newsfeed stories about your business or brand.

Facebook Social Ads Example

Facebook Social Ads Example

Facebook Pages

The best thing about Facebook Pages is that they’re free!  Anyone can quickly and easily set one up.

Facebook Pages, Ferrari

Facebook Pages, Ferrari

If you search for your brand on the site you may find fan pages that have already been created by users for your business - Facebook Pages gives you a legitimate way to interact with these fans through the site.

Things to think about if you’re considering using Facebook Pages:

The successful management of a business Facebook Page can be very time consuming!  This means…

  • You need to have a content plan in action to ensure that you’re uploading fresh content to your Facebook Page regularly.
  • You will likely need to dedicate a team member to manage your day to day Facebook presence.
  • To harness the power of Facebook you should have a clear understanding of how your presence integrates into the rest of your marketing efforts.  Including how it fits into your overall communications plan and PR disaster recovery plan.  Your Facebook Page needs to be considered an important vehicle in communicating with your customers.

Facebook Beacon

I think Facebook Beacon is the most powerful tool that Facebook can offer.  Beacon allows Facebook users to share their actions on other websites with their Facebook friends.

Here’s an example of how it works.

Recently I saved a recipe to my recipe box on Epicurious and a box popped up to tell me that Epicurious was sending this information to my Facebook profile and also gave me a ‘no thanks’ option to opt out.

Epicurios using Facebook Beacon

Epicurios using Facebook Beacon

Next time I logged in to Facebook there was also an alert to let me know that Epicurious was sending info to my profile and giving me useful options such as ‘Remove’, ‘Okay’ and ‘Always publish stories sent to my profile from this site’.   Being upfront and telling users exactly what is happening is of utmost importance in any online transaction like this and I think Beacon does this very well.

Facebook Beacon Alert

Facebook Beacon Alert

So as the example above shows, all of my friends now know that I like to use Epicurious AND that Epicurious has Cajun Chicken recipes AND they can probably deduct that this is a food related recipe site AND that the site allows you to save recipes to a queue.  If any of my friends are wondering what to have for dinner tonight, they may just pop along to Epicurious and take a look…

This is simple old fashioned word of mouth promotion at its best.

Note: There is some controversy surrounding privacy and the use of Facebook Beacon.

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Posted in Social Media | 3 Comments »

Facebook Redesign Looming

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

Facebook have announced that they’ll be launching their much awaited site redesign next week.  They’ve had page previews up on the site for a few weeks but it will still be interesting to see user’s reactions once it goes live.

You can view some page mock ups of how it will look here.   I wonder what that lovely large blank space on the left is for….    They already offer some pretty neat contextual ad units.  I’m looking forward to seeing how they will monetize this extra space.

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Posted in Online advertising | 1 Comment »