Blogging Archives - Page 25 of 38

February 2, 2011 by Mack Collier

Interested in finding Social Media ROI? Get better metrics.

The above is from slide 20 of the Altimeter Group’s deck on Social Business Forecast 2011. The previous slide said that the top thing that corporate social media strategists are focused on in 2011 is creating ROI measurements.

In order to do that, you need to be measuring the right metrics. Look at the above slide and note that the most popular metrics that corp social media strategists are tracking are ones associated with engagement. Now if your goal for using social media is to build engagement, then that’s fine. But if your goal is to generate sales, then measuring your number of Twitter followers is a terribly weak metric to measure.

If you want to improve your ability to measure the value of your social media efforts then start measuring metrics associated with the action you want people to take.

For example, if you want to use your blog as a tool to generate sales, then you need to focus on metrics that are tied to product sales, or interest. Such as, signups for a product demo, number of times you are contacted for more information about a product, downloads of brochures etc associated with the product, referrals from the blog to a specific product page. Or….actual sales generated on the blog.

All of those metrics are tied to the action you want the user to take, buying a product. They all indicate someone that is interested in the product and that indicates a potential customer.

On the flipside, if you are using your blog to generate sales, why measure traffic? Traffic is almost meaningless, you need to measure what people do AFTER they arrive on your blog.

Here’s some examples of picking better metrics:

Notice as you go down that list of metrics, you are getting closer to your actual goal of generating sales. That’s what you need to be striving to do. A lot of the chatter we’ve heard over the past couple of years is about the inability to accurately measure the ROI of social media. A good deal of that isn’t due to deficiencies in the tools, but rather in the measurement process.

Put your metrics on trial, and make sure that you are measuring what you should be.

BTW need help designing a better measurement program for your social media efforts? Check out my social media training options.

February 1, 2011 by Mack Collier

3 Reasons Why Social Media Training is Critical for Companies in 2011

The above is a graph from EMarketer listing the top areas that corporate social media strategists will be investing in 2011. Note that the most important investment area for these strategists, behind only measuring SM ROI, was internal education and training. I think there are 3 reasons why social media training is so critical for companies, especially larger ones, in 2011.

1 – Social media for companies has evolved, teams are now in place. Larger companies are no longer experimenting with social media, they’ve now committed and staffs have been hired. It’s very important for companies to invest in training these teams and not only that, but that they get the same training. And that open interaction and collaboration is facilitated. In many cases, the people that spearheaded a company’s social media efforts a couple of years ago, are now training all areas of the company on using these same tools.

2 – Social media training is cost-efficient. I’ve seen this far too often over the past 2-3 years. A company sends an employee to a social media conference, then that person takes copious notes all day in every session, then goes back to her office and tries to explain to her team what she learned. So the end result is the company paid $1,500-$2,000 to send one person to a conference, and all they get is a notepad full of hastily scribbled notes that no one can really explain.

This is exactly why last year I shifted the focus of my consulting to providing on-site social media training for companies. I realized that for about the same amount that a company could send an employee or 2 to a social media conference, I could give them on-site social media training for an entire day, to their entire team. This is a huge cost-savings to the company, and helps the entire team be more efficient in its social media efforts, meaning the investment in social media training easily pays for itself several times over. Please check out my Social Media Training and Workshops page to see exactly how this service works.

3 – Social media training helps get everyone on the same page. Instead of having ‘the blogging guy’ and ‘the Facebook gal’, your entire team can be up to speed on how your company is using these tools, and more importantly, what you are trying to accomplish. That means that the efforts of the individuals will be more effective, and as a result, the output of the entire team will increase dramatically.

So if your company now has an organized social media team, there’s three reasons why I think it’s critical for you to invest in social media training in 2011. If your company has started a social media training program, either internally, or by bringing in external consultants or agencies, how has that worked for you?

And if your company would like to hire me to either provide on-site social media training to your team, and/or to help your company organize an internal social media training program for your employees, please email me.

January 31, 2011 by Mack Collier

Three smart ways you can use #Blogchat to be a better blogger

If you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t checked out #Blogchat yet, then you are missing an amazing tool to help you become a better blogger. The chat happens on Twitter every Sunday nite at 8pm Central, and you can learn more about it here.

As I was watching the tweets stream by (literally) last nite, I was noticing a few different ways that people were using #Blogchat. Here’s a few ways I picked up on:

1 – By being helpful. Note Mitch’s tweet above. He was using #Blogchat as a way to answer everyone’s questions on blog design and setup. This is a great way to help establish his expertise and credibility with potential clients. And notice DJ was doing the same thing when it came to questions about email marketing:

Both DJ and Mitch were using #Blogchat to be helpful, which helps gain them Twitter followers, and gives them more exposure to potential clients, and blog readers.

2 – By asking for advice. This is a great way to use #Blogchat, there’s SO many smart people there, it’s a perfect opportunity to get advice from dozens of people at once. Here’s some examples I spotted:

The great thing about #Blogchat is that there are so many people there that you can almost always find someone that’s already encountered and solved the same problem or issue you are having.

3 – By crowdsourcing posts. Every week, @Allison_Boyer scans #Blogchat and takes a relevant tweet or two and uses it to write a post each week for BlogWorld’s blog.

So there’s some ideas for how #Blogchat can help your blogging efforts. If you are a #Blogchat regular, how has it helped your blogging efforts?

January 30, 2011 by Mack Collier

Use Google Reader’s Shared Items for post ideas

Veteran blog readers have probably already discovered that Google Reader is a great way to keep up with the blogs you are subscribed to. But one of the features I get a ton of value from is the Shared Items from my friends. Think of it this way: Everyone else is subscribed to dozens of blogs and as they are going through their feeds, they are picking out the most interesting and valuable posts, and sharing them with their followers. Which means I am exposed to a lot of great blogs and sites that I might otherwise never find.

And of course, this gives me a great idea for post ideas, because in viewing my friend’s shared items, I can see which topics and ideas are important to them. Which gives me an idea of what I should be writing about.

And here’s another great tip: You can set up Google Reader to let you send interesting posts you find in Google Reader (Either your subscribed feeds or Shared Items from friends) directly to Facebook and Twitter.

First, click on Settings in the top right corner of the screen, then Reader Settings.

Next, click on Send To, the last option on the right. You’ll be given a list of several services that you can send your posts to, including Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg, Friendfeed, etc. Click the services you want to share posts with, and that’s it!

Then when you see a post in Google Reader that you want to share, click the Send To option, and a small dropdown menu will let you click the service you want to send the post to!

So if you are using Google Reader, check out the Shared Items section, it’s a great source of inspiration and a wonderful way to discover interesting new sites and blogs!

BTW, if you want to see all the posts and articles I have shared in Google Reader (over 300), then click my Google Profile.

January 28, 2011 by Mack Collier

CMOs look to find revenue growth from Social Media in 2011

Ian Greenleigh, who heads up Social Media at Bazaarvoice, gave me a heads-up on a new report that the company has published on how CMOs use and view social media heading into 2011. Long-time readers here will remember that I interviewed Ian here a few months ago. You can receive a free copy of the report here.

Here are a few of the key takeaways I had from the report:

40% of CMOs surveyed said they were able to tie some of their company’s revenue back to their social media efforts in 2010 (I am surprised the percentage is that high)
Site Traffic is the most popular metric used by CMOs to track the success of their social media efforts, followed closely by Page Views and number of Fans/Followers
Of the ‘Big Three’ Social Media tools (Blogs, Facebook, Twitter) CMOs feel they get the highest return on their investment for company blogs, followed by Facebook and then Twitter

At the heart of this report, I think it verifies that as companies are becoming more familiar with using social media and how these sites and tools function, they are getting a better idea of how to measure the effectiveness of their efforts. The fact that most CMOs look to Site Traffic and Pageviews to gauge the effectiveness of their social media efforts suggests that when they launch their efforts (a blog, for example) that they are assuming that the same/similar metrics that they use to judge if their website is working, will work for social media. I also think this is partly why CMOs feel that they have a better handle on the value created by blogs, simply because companies have been using blogs as a tool to connect with customers for longer than they have Facebook and Twitter, for example. As the knowledge of the tool/site increases, so does the efficiency in which the company uses that tool/site.

Of course, traffic and page views aren’t worth very much unless that traffic performs certain action(s) on the site. I believe companies are starting to realize this, and THAT is why you will begin to see companies being able to quantify real ROI from their social media efforts. I also think the report addresses this, as the 2nd most popular metric that CMOs are expecting to use to gauge their social media efforts in 2011, is conversion.

So thanks to Ian and the folks at Bazaarvoice for creating this report, and you can download your free copy here. Also, on February the 2nd (Next Wednesday), Bazaarvoice will have a free webinar where they will do a deep-dive into the findings of this report, with several top CMOs.

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