Social Media Archives - Page 4 of 26

March 13, 2015 by Mack Collier

Creating Content or Memories; Is Social Media Warping Our Priorities?

In 2008 I spoke at a small business conference and during the event for the first time I started tweeting takeaways from the sessions I attended. The attendees, many of who had no idea what Twitter was, were floored. They couldn’t believe that there was a conversation happening inside the session they were attending, yet there was an online conversation happening about that same session. They were hooked on Twitter, and I was hooked on live-tweeting conferences. I gained dozens of followers an hour. I looked forward to going to events just to live-tweet the sessions, cause I knew that if the session had a big name speaker, I could possibly gain 100 followers in an hour’s time. Just from tweeting key takeaways to people sitting at home on their coach.

But after attending a few events I began to realize that while I was expanding my Twitter network, I wasn’t expanding my learning because I wasn’t paying attention during the session. I told myself that my live-tweeting was a sort of digital note-taking, but the fact was, I wasn’t ‘present’ in that room and involved in the learning that was happening there. I was on Twitter.

In 2009 I attended SXSW and one of the sessions I couldn’t wait to attend was Kathy Sierra’s talk. As the talk was getting ready to start, I realized that I had to make a choice between live-tweeting the session, and actually paying attention. I knew that Kathy’s talk would be wonderful, but would demand my attention.

So I turned off my laptop, and pulled out my notebook. I took about 10 pages of notes and it was one of the most informative sessions I’ve ever attended at any event. From that point on, I stopped live-tweeting events and decided that it was more important to be present.

It seems that for many of social media’s heavy users, documenting the moment is more important than living the moment. Facebook and Twitter has created a culture of narcissism where creating content trumps creating memories. The allure of Likes and Favs is too great for many of us, and I’m just as guilty as anyone. Last year I was at an Alabama football game and Bama was about to score and I had my camera out trying to take a picture as they did, and I suddenly realized that I might get a picture of a touchdown, but in the process I will miss seeing it happen.

It’s important to document our experiences, but not if they get in the way of us having those experiences. It’s a fine line to walk between creating content and living life. How do you walk that line? BTW VentureBeat has a fascinating study on this topic.

Pic via Flickr user Andrew Vargas

February 24, 2015 by Mack Collier

It’s Not About Social Media ROI, It’s About Marketing ROI

Let’s say you are the CMO at your company, and the CEO is demanding that sales for Product A increase by 10% above your projections for the next fiscal year. He also says that you can only make one change to the marketing mix.

Would you:

A – Move billboard placements in Product A’s Top 10 markets from the interstate to downtown locations?

B – Launch a company blog designed to better explain the features, qualities and benefits of Product A?

C – Divert budget to more television ads designed to show why Product A is a better fit for customers than the competitor’s Product B?

D – Move all grocery end-cap displays in Wal-Mart up to the front registers?

In Marketing 101 class we learned about the AIDA model of consumer behavior.

A = Awareness

I = Interest

D = Desire

A = Action

Awareness leads to Interest leads to Desire leads to Action. Note that the purchasing happens at the Action portion of this model. So if we are looking at the individual components of a marketing plan, how do you define the ROI of tactics that comprise the Awareness portion of your plan? In theory, you cannot, because customers aren’t ready to buy at this stage of their purchase journey. This is why you create a comprehensive marketing plan that makes customers Aware of your product, that builds Interest in the product, then a Desire to Act.

When the smoke clears, you have a marketing plan that you can judge the ROI of. But it doesn’t make sense to judge the individual tactics of a comprehensive plan from a ROI perspective. No matter how much it wants to, your billboard on Highway 23 can’t close a sale for you. At best, it can make your customers Aware of your product and make them Interested and increase their Desire to buy, but it can’t convert on the Action of buying.

So what does that mean for you, the social media manager at your company that is trying to explain and perhaps even defend why your company should be using social media to connect with customers?

It starts with having an honest discussion about what social media can and cannot do for your business. First, social media has never worked well as a channel to facilitate direct sales. Social media works best as an interaction channel, as a way for people to engage each other and be social. Direct sales isn’t an activity that functions well in the middle of social conversations online anymore than pitching strangers chatting on the front porch on Sunday afternoon does.

So if social media works well as a channel for people to have interactions and discussions and to share content, then your business needs to find its value within those functions of the channel. You want to be aware of how your current and potential customers prefer to use these tools, and work within those constraints.

What type of interactions do they prefer? And with who? With your brand, or with fellow customers?

What type of content are they creating?

What type of content are they sharing?

The idea is that you want to use social media in a way to connect with your customers and create value for them. You create value for your customers by enhancing their experience via social media tools. By giving them the type of high-quality content they are looking for and need. By helping to facilitate the type of interactions they want and need (Hint: They don’t want to be sold to, they do want help dealing with a problem setting up your new laptop they just bought).

The best way to achieve your goals for social media is to help customers achieve their goals for social media. Understand why your customers are on social and you will understand how you can create value for them via these channels. That value will enhance your overall marketing results, which will lead to an increase in marketing ROI.

January 21, 2015 by Mack Collier

Using Twitter’s Analytics to Create More Engaging Content

So this year I’ve been spending a lot of time analyzing the analytics that Twitter provides me for my tweets. You can click on that link and find the analytics for your own account. It shows you the Impressions, Retweets, Favorites, and Link Clicks for your tweets. It’s also a great tool to help you understand how to create more engaging content.

One of the many things I like is that Twitter shows your monthly and daily totals for engagements, retweets, favorites, links clicked, etc. It’s a great way to see how your content does on average, but it also shows you how your content is trending from an engagement perspective. On the right is a snapshot of some of the information on my account as of this morning.

Another feature that I like is Twitter shows you how many ‘engagements’ each tweet is getting and the type of engagements. This is very helpful and can teach you a lot about what type of content drives engagement on Twitter.

Here’s a simple example: I went back and checked the tweets I had left this month. I was looking specifically for tweets where I included a link to a blog post I had written. Some of these tweets included a picture along with the link, some did not. I picked an equal number of each, and then figured out the average engagement rate for each. Here’s what I found:

Average engagement rate for all tweets – 1.2%

Average engagement rate for tweets with a link to a post I had written, without attaching a picture to the tweet – 1.0%.

Average engagement rate for tweets with a link to a post I had written, with a picture attached to the tweet – 1.6%

So that means that for my tweets, attaching a picture results in a 60% boost in engagement! It also shows that tweets with a picture are 33% more engaging than all tweets.

I love Twitter’s Analytics section because it can be a wonderful teaching tool for you. So much of content creation is simple trial and error. You need to repeatedly create content to learn how to become better at creating content. This can also be applied to sharing content on Twitter. Experimenting with different ways of sharing content can help you understand how to create more engaging tweets.

Here’s an example: Lets say you have a new blog post that you want to promote on Twitter. Here’s 4 ways you could promote that post:

1 – Share the headline and link

2 – Share the headline, a picture, and the link

3 – Share a quote from the post, and the link

4 – Share a quote from the post, a picture, and the link

You could share the link each of those 4 ways, then see which way drove the most engagement. Keep repeating this experiment with other posts and you may begin to realize the best way that you should craft a tweet in order to increase engagement.

Remember, it’s fine to get advice from ‘experts’, but the best way to learn is to do it yourself. Start playing with Twitter’s analytics for your account and see what you learn.

November 12, 2014 by Mack Collier

Good Content is the Best Commercial For Your Business

Recently I was talking to a friend about a situation that plays itself out in so many companies every single day. A ‘social media guy/girl’ pushes for their company to start using social media, in this case we’ll say it’s a blog. The company finally agrees, but never pays attention to the blog until one day the company realizes that the blog is driving traffic to the website and generating leads for the business.

Then suddenly The Monetization Police step in and start looking for ways to leverage the blog as a promotional channel for the company. The irony here is that good content is just about the best commercial possible for your business. When you take good content and try to change it to sell more stuff, it usually becomes bad content.

Instead of looking for ways to change good content into crappy content by adding a sales pitch, look for ways to leverage good content to extend interactions with your customers. Here’s some ideas:

1 – Ask for email newsletter signups. When you create valuable content, your customers will appreciate you letting them know that they can get MORE valuable content by signing up for your newsletter.

2 – Ask for the share. We all love to share great content, so ask your readers to tell their friends about your great content, to tweet it, post a review, whatever is applicable.

3 – Ask for the sale. Instead of changing your content into a commercial, try simple adding a relevant call-to-action at the end. For example, write an article telling customers how to build their own birdhouse, then add a code for 10% off the supplies when they place their next order.

The common thread here is that if you create valuable content for your readers, you have done them a favor. As such, you have earned the right to ask for something in return. Now the key is to make sure you never ask for more than you give, but understand that your customers appreciate good content, so they will be willing to help you in return.

Social media never has and never will work well as a direct-selling channel. It works far better as a channel to build relationships with customers. Once that relationship is built, then an environment exists where sales are possible. Create the valuable content first, then ask for the sale.

May 22, 2014 by Kerry O'Shea Gorgone

Should Your Company Have a Social Media Policy?

By now, most companies use social media as part of their marketing mix, but only 63% have implemented a social media policy according to a 2014 study from Protiviti.

Jay Shepherd has suggested that organizations adopt a very simple, two-word policy relating to employee blogging (which he’s since extended to social media): “Be professional.”

I might double this in size and suggest “don’t be a moron,” although the results should be largely the same.

If you hire the right people (professional non-morons), their use of social media should not expose you to an inordinate amount of risk. In some instances, having a policy could cause problems you didn’t have before.

For instance, most employees are “at-will,” meaning they can be fired at any time for almost any legal, non-discriminatory reason. However, if you adopt a social media policy, then use that as the basis for firing someone, that employee might appeal their termination to the National Labor Relations Board.

Depending on the nature of their social media offense, they might be able to have their termination declared illegal. Posts complaining about working conditions, for instance, are protected according to the NLRB.

You now have a problem you didn’t have before, and even if you ultimately win the argument, you will lose money and time in the process.

If you do elect to formalize a social media policy, there are examples from which you could draw. (See 5 Great Corporate Social Media Policy Examples.)

Here are some provisions you’ll want to include.

What “social media” means.
Everyone has a slightly different idea of what is or isn’t covered. Most people would assume the policy covers Twitter and Facebook, but what else? Pinterest, for example, is a “taste graph,” technically speaking, and not a social network, but clearly it has social elements. Does your policy apply to Pinterest? Online forums? Comments on third-party sites or blogs? Define what’s included, but try and leave room for the evolution of new social networks and platforms. You don’t want to edit the policy every time a start-up gets funded!

A caution against sharing confidential information.
Explain what kinds of company information are confidential and should not be shared via social media, email, or other channels (client data, upcoming plans, trade secrets, other intellectual property, etc.). Take care not to be too broad in your phrasing: if your policy might apply to employees discussing working conditions or wages among themselves, it’s very likely that the NLRB would not enforce it.

A statement against speaking as the company’s official representative (unless you are the company’s official representative)
If your company is large, name the point-person (or position title) responsible for fielding certain kinds of inquiries.For instance, media inquiries should be directed to the Director of Public Relations, customer service inquiries should be directed to any member of the Customer Service department, employment inquiries go to the Human Resources Coordinator, etc.

However you want the workflow to go, specify it in your policy. Explain the protocol for crisis communications, as well. Otherwise, loyal employees might make well-intentioned posts that reveal information before the company’s ready, or else misstate the situation because you don’t yet have all the facts.

Specify who is authorized to speak on behalf of the company during a crisis situation, and consider assigning someone different for each type of crisis (your CFO for a financial issue, CMO for a social media gaffe, CEO for a general organizational crisis, etc.).

No anonymous posting
It’s natural for employees to feel protective of your brand: ideally, they are your biggest fans. However, employees posting anonymously in response to negative reviews or comments about your company will ultimately do more harm than good, because the identity of the commenter always comes to light sooner or later.

Let your employees know that if they speak publicly about your brand, they must use their own identity and disclose their relationship with your company.

State who owns your brand’s social channels
This should be an easy one. If someone at your company creates an official presence online, anywhere other than your site, the company owns it. Specify that any profiles or pages created by employees in their official capacity on behalf of the company are company-owned.

Require all online accounts be opened using a company email address (ideally, Facebook@YourCompany.com) or something similar, so you can easily reset the passwords and restrict access if an employee leaves the company.

Clearly explain the consequences of violating the policy
This is the “or what?” If you tell employees they can’t do something, they need to know what happens if they do it.Typically, you’d want to extend the penalties for “real world” offenses to social media, as well. If calling another employee a “whore” offline would result in firing, the same should be true for an online posting.

Explain which person or department is in charge of enforcing the policy, and what procedures you will have in place for appealing decisions.

Overall, the benefits of implementing a social media policy outweigh the risks, because they help to clarify what’s expected of everyone involved.

Do consider the appeal of a four-word policy, though: most of the time, “don’t be a moron” just about covers it.

March 27, 2014 by Mack Collier

The Social Media Free Ride is About to End

About six months ago Popular Science made a pretty significant move on its website that a lot of people missed. It turned off comments on its articles. A few days ago, Copyblogger followed suit, and suddenly everyone paid attention.

This is just the start. Other sites with sizable audiences will likely do the same in short order. Some sites will nix comments simply because they see other influential sites doing it. Earlier this week I wrote about how Facebook is putting the squeeze on brands and attempting to push a ‘pay for play’ model where brands will have to pay to get visibility for its content that had previously been free.

All of these moves are a sign that the social media industry is maturing. Blogs that started out as a 1-person show have grown into publishing empires with entire staffs churning out content every day. Facebook went public last year, Twitter recently did as well. New shareholders mean new demands for new revenue streams.

So what happens next? How about paying for blog content? Did you just faint? It would not surprise me at all to begin to see popular sites go to a subscription-based model.

Here’s the thing, there is far more content out there than any of us can consume, and more being added every day. And a lot of it is very bad. Since there is so much less useful content available, it increases the demand for good content. In some cases, that demand is high enough for the content from some creators that there’s an opportunity for them to sell their content.

Paying for content results in better content. If a blogger suddenly starts charging for her content, she can then afford to spend more time on content creation. Which will likely improve the quality of that content.

And no, I have zero interest in charging for my content, at least not now. But I know a lot of bloggers/writers/publishers that would love to. Bold moves like turning off comments or charging for content rarely happen because no one wants to be the first one to make such a potentially unpopular move. Which is exactly why I think you’ll soon see more sites dropping comments. It’s a big story because Copyblogger is the ‘first’, but that makes it much easier for the second and then third sites to follow suit.

The dominoes are about to topple it seems. 2014 looks to be a very interesting year.

March 18, 2014 by Kerry O'Shea Gorgone

Your Brand’s Legal (and Practical) Options for Addressing Negative Comments

Sooner or later, your brand will receive a negative comment or bad review. Some posts will come from actual customers, others from competitors hoping to poach your customers.

Still others will come from trolls: people who have never bought from you, will never buy from you, and seemingly have nothing better to do than make your brand manager’s life difficult.

Regardless of who made the post, your reaction is likely to be the same: a deep longing for the post to disappear. But it won’t.

Here are your options for addressing damaging comments online, from least feasible (a lawsuit) to least palatable (taking the high road).

When can you sue?
People and brands alike must suffer a certain number of “slings and arrows.” Just because someone thinks your service is slow or your fries are soggy doesn’t give rise to a legal cause of action.

Once the comments move from obnoxious to defamatory, however, suing might become an option. Laws vary from state to state, but in most jurisdictions, defamation requires a false statement of fact (as opposed to an opinion), publication (communication of the false statement to at least one other person), negligence (if the defamatory matter is of public concern), and damage to the brand’s reputation.

Think “this finance company steals money from client accounts” as opposed to “this finance company sucks.”

You could issue a cease and desist letter to the person who posted the comments, but be aware that many such letters wind up featured on the person’s blog, or on third-party sites like Techdirt.

Ultimately, if the false statements really are damaging to your brand, you might have to bring suit, but you’ll want to carefully consider the implications before you do.

In the United States, the plaintiff must prove that the statements were false (as opposed to the burden being on the defendant to prove that they were true). In some jurisdictions, companies must meet the same standards as a public figure or celebrity in order to recover damages, and show that the person making the statement did so with “actual malice,” knowing it was false or exhibiting a “reckless disregard” for the truth.

In addition to the costs inherent in litigation, you could easily find your company cast as the bully in a David vs. Goliath type conflict, as we saw in the case of a Missouri bar owner who received a cease and desist letter from Starbucks.

Instead of suing, what should you do?
Respond. More than 1/3 of people who mention a brand on a social network expect a reply in 30 minutes or less (like a pizza delivery)!

As quickly as possible, post a reply to the comment on the same site where it was made. If the comments are in a Facebook post, reply on Facebook. If it was a Yelp review, reply on Yelp.

If the comments are on someone’s blog, contact the publisher directly, or post a comment on that site, but keep a screen shot in case they delete it.

Bear in mind that some people who post negative comments about your brand have a legitimate grievance. You will provide a better response if you write your reply with his in mind.

Brands do have some options when it comes to addressing defamatory statements. If the comments are posted to a third-party site like Yelp, you can contact the site to request that they be removed.

Be prepared to explain precisely how the comments posted violate the site’s terms of service. To report a defamatory review on Yelp, for instance, you’d select “Questionable Content” or “Legal Inquiries” from the drop-down menu provided and report the objectionable post as violating Yelp’s terms of service, section 6(a)(I) on content guidelines.

Be sure to give specifics about what the commenter said, and emphasize that it is both false and damaging.

Google has a form users can complete to request that information be removed. Facebook and Twitter provide options for reporting abusive posts, pages, accounts, etc. If the damaging review is posted on a blog, you can request the hosting company to remove a defamatory post.

In most instances, the costs of bringing a lawsuit will outweigh the benefit, and might even bring more attention to the negative comments about your brand. When defending your brand against online comments, consult with an attorney in your jurisdiction.

Ultimately, the best protection against negative comments is a healthy dose of goodwill. Invest time now—before a crisis hits—cultivating a closer relationship with fans of your brand, so they can be your first line of defense if the trolls attack.

Connect with your fans now, before you need them to rally to your brand’s defense: you’ll be glad you did!

Pic via Flickr user DonkeyHotey

February 27, 2014 by Mack Collier

How to Better Track the Ability of Your Marketing Efforts to Drive Sales

Yesterday’s post from Kerry on a Ford Blogger Outreach program she’s involved with led to a fascinating discussion in the comments on tracking the effectiveness of marketing channels in driving sales. Thanks to Jerome, Hugh and Kevin for chiming in with their thoughts. The point was made that it would be difficult to track actual sales that resulted from the blogger outreach, then again it would likely be even moreso with offline marketing channels such as television or billboard advertising.

So then the question becomes how does a brand do two things:

1 – Better track actual sales generated from marketing efforts. In other words, how can brands better understand which marketing touch point ultimately converted into a sale.

2 – Give its customers the tools they need to help convert those sales. And which customers should have these tools?

First, let’s talk tracking. If your marketing efforts have an online element, there’s really no excuse not to at least attempt to track online conversations generated, if not actual sales. Typically this is done with coding, like a coupon or sales code for tracking purchases or now hashtags are being used more frequently to track online conversations. The great thing about hashtags is they can be used in print and television advertising as well. It’s a bit more difficult on radio, other than ‘Like us on Facebook!’ or ‘Tell ’em Jim sent you!’.

It’s imperative to think backwards and ask yourself ‘If this marketing campaign generates sales, how would we be able to track that?’ Other than measuring metrics and looking for clues, think about how you can give customers ways to signal to you that they are either driving sales via word of mouth, or that they interacted with your marketing and decided to purchase. This approach still isn’t perfect or foolproof (for example if a customer had 4 different encounters with you marketing via different channels, it’s difficult to determine which channel by itself truly generated the purchase, if any). But it gives you a headstart.

Now as for giving customers the tools they need to help convert sales. This is important because it’s critical to distinguish between giving referral tools to everyone (such as ‘Refer 5 friends and win a $50 gift card!) versus giving tools to only certain customers.

For example, yesterday Kerry talked about the blogger outreach she’s doing with Ford. And let’s say when she picked up the C-Max, Ford gave her some advice/training on how she could tell others about the car, if she wanted to. Maybe use this particular hashtag on Twitter, maybe give them this code for an extended test drive, etc.

But what if Kerry got the C-Max and then hated it? And here’s Ford, that had given her the tools and ability to tell other customers about her experience with the C-Max, without considering that Kerry might hate it!

On the other hand, what if Ford gives Kerry the C-Max, then a few days later they follow up with her to see how her experience is going. Kerry communicates to Ford that she’s in love with the car and has already been telling others about it. At that point, Ford gives Kerry the tools they want her to have to attempt to refer sales to them, etc. Ford waits until Kerry has identified to the brand that she is pleased with the C-Max. It’s a bit more work, but from Ford’s end it pays to sort of qualify Kerry as being excited about the C-Max, then giving her the tools and ability to share her excitement with other customers! For example in Kerry’s example she’s already proactively created her own hashtag to help Ford track conversations she is generating about her experience, she’s also reached out to Ford to see if they could transfer the car to other friends locally and let them drive it for a period.

So with the tracking it pays to first think about what actions you want your marketing efforts to result in. It could be sales, or perhaps another action that your brand has tracked in the past as being an indicator of a future sale. For example Ford might want to track test drives that bloggers in its outreach program generate because it has found that in X% of the test drives, a purchase is made. So Ford may want to track test drives (it also gives them a way to track the conversion rate from test drive referrals from bloggers vs the larger customer base to see if there’s a noticeable difference).

Figuring out what action to track also needs to consider the audience for your message. For example, if the marketing effort is aimed at a wide audience, like a television spot, something like a hashtag makes more sense because it can help you track activities toward the bottom of the sales funnel, where you’re in the awareness stage versus action. But with a more precise effort like a blogger outreach, it makes sense to track actions closer to an end sale since the people involved would be able to have more individual contact with potential customers, plus they would likely have a closer relationship with them.

As always, the more planning you invest, the better results you’ll see.

The question I’d like to pose is, should your strategy for what to track vary according to the marketing channel used? For example, if you run a television spot should you focus on trying to track increased conversation (hashtags) or should a sale be the goal (call now!). Do certain channels lend themselves to different outcomes and different tracking strategies? What do you think?

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