Social Media Metrics

Gauging social media marketing metrics primarily on the basis of the number of Facebook fans, Twitter followers, and Snapchat friends your company has is a big mistake!

The sole purpose of brands using social media is to be more human while building and nurturing communities. Brands can do this successfully by providing valuable and engaging content to their audiences. But the unfortunate truth is that some marketers are much more concerned with vanity metrics and less so with providing value- the qualitative social media marketing metric that matters.

Instead of the number Facebook fans, measure Facebook Insights

Forget the number of fans you have, dig deeper by using Facebook Insights to analyze the percentage of your fans who are engaging with your content. Measure your posts and page reach, then record likes, comments and shares as KPIs (key performance indicators). Next, analyze how you can improve those metrics and then continually revise your content strategy.

Instead of the number of Twitter followers, measure what your followers are talking about + who is engaging with your content

Similar to Facebook fans, quantifying Twitter followers will not provide an effective means of analyzing the success of your marketing efforts. Instead measure the engagement rate (%) of your tweet activity, link clicks and replies. And don't forget to set KPIs for retweets and favorites.

Instead of the number of blog post views, measure social shares, bounce rate and email opt-ins to your blog content

Your content promotion strategy most likely includes pushing your owned content out via all of your social media platforms, but you should be less concerned with the number of blog post views you are getting as a result. Instead, measure the shares your content receives. For example, are blog visitors pinning your images on Pinterest-- if not, you may need to optimize your blog to display a Pin-It button on all images. Are visitors subscribing to your content or just immediately leaving your blog after skimming through your post? In the case of the latter, maybe you should add a pop up email opt-in form to get the visitors' email address and in return provide valuable content regularly to keep them coming back.

Blog Comment: http://wheresweston.blogspot.com/2015/04/20th-classic-city-brew-fest-2015.html

Interesting read. I had not even heard about the beer fest and I'm a little sad that I missed out. I will be sure to be on the lookout for next year. 

Earn Your Armour

Under Armour is currently emphasizing its “Earn Your Armour” campaign using the hash-tag #EarnYourArmour in the majority of its posts across social media platforms. They are asking consumers to show them how they EARN their ARMOUR by posting a photo or video of them giving it all they've got. Each week Under Armour picks winners to receive an ARMOUR prize pack and a chance to be featured on Under Armour Record. The campaign has received a lot of great participation and feedback. Under Armour has even gotten some of its sponsored athletes

Under Armour Record

Under Armour has released the world's first ever social media network for athletes and fitness enthusiasts. I present Under Armour Record. UA Record allows these workout warriors to gather in a single place and interact with one another back and forth just as Facebook, Twitter, etc. Athletes and fitness people alike can share anything from workout regimes to diets. They can even promote any team or organization that they are affiliated with. It is a great way to allow consumers to create content for Under Armour.

Blog Post Comment: http://campusmotors.blog.com/2015/02/09/explore-the-world-with-land-rover/

Instagram Announces Clickable Carousel for Advertisers

Up until now, links on Instagram have not been clickable, save for the one on a user or brand’s profile page. This means that while brands could certainly advertise on the platform, the lack of a unique link on individual posts made the effectiveness of a campaign an unattainable data point.

On other social networks, primarily Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+, marketers have been able to use links to track referral traffic from specific marketing campaigns, using that data to measure market permeation of the brand message or even conversions, depending on the ad in question. Instagram’s ads, on the other hand, as Spector points out, have been used primarily for brand awareness and influence, rather than immediate site traffic or sales.

This is no longer the case.

Instagram will now allow advertisers to post clickable carousels, meaning a fashion brand can showcase a #TBT look, with clickable links to each of the products, for example. This move will likely generate increased revenue for the platform as brands increase marketing spend for Instagram, now armed with data-driven proof that the social network is producing sales.

“If a brand posts an image of a product, shoppers no longer have to physically type in the URL of the store to track it down -- only the most interested buyers would go to that trouble. With a direct link, brands with significant Instagram followers will see site traffic and conversion rates increase because they have given captivated fans a simple way to get to their product pages, making purchasing easy.”

Certainly while this is good news for brands looking to turn social followings into increased revenue, advertisers and marketers must tread carefully. Instagram built its popularity within four years, and the photo sharing app now has more than 300 million users. By refusing to render URLs as links, Instagram differentiated itself from Facebook and Pinterest, giving users a more cohesive in-app experience. This new announcement is a sharp pivot from the company’s startup strategy.

For brands looking to utilize the new advertising offerings, Spector has a few best practices to help maintain a loyal Instagram following without pushing products too heavily:

• Use clickable carousels for marketing campaigns only: Not every post needs to be an ad. Follow a 70:30 ratio for lifestyle versus advertising content on the platform
• Put your product in context: A beautiful, high res image of your product on a white background is nice, but if you put that product in context -- say, sunglasses on a smiling woman on a beautiful beach with her friends, fans are more likely to relate with or aspire to that image.
• Don't overdo the branding: Let your fans connect the dots with how that product will fit into their lives and they'll be more likely to want to buy.

Blog Post Comment : http://ugacollegetrends2015.blogspot.com/2015/03/it-was-good-while-it-lasted.html

I went to Miami for the break and enjoyed every bit of it. I too did not wish to return back to class. I am looking forward to finishing the remainder of the semester because I am graduating. 

Black and Blue Or White and Gold?

On February 26, This dress took over the lives of millions! It became a featured story on major news channels such as ESPN, CNN, and even NBC News. A nationwide debate was created as to the what the colors of this dress are. A Tumblr user posted a picture of the dress asking readers to state what color combination they saw: black and blue or white and gold. What would happen next, no one could have imagined. No one could come to an agreement. Here are some interesting statistics following the chaos, of what I believe to be a white and gold dress:

#TheDress was mentioned 11 million times on Twitter

The Dress Debate was mentioned at a rate of 5.7K TPM, with celebrities such as Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and Anna Kendrick chiming in; garnering up to 192K retweets in total

28 MILLION (and rapidly increasing at each refresh) people have viewed BuzzFeed's article on The Dress

A record-breaking 670,000 web visitors were on BuzzFeed's website at the same time
500,000 of these web visitors were on mobile devices (quick reminder to make your website responsive!)

16 million people shared The Dress article in the first five hours, which is 10  million more than the article that previously held the "most shares in least time" spot

Three-fourths of all countries have smaller populations than the amount of people who tweeted about The Dress. COUNTRIES.

#WhiteAndGold received more votes than the Governor of Iowa in the most recent election. More people voted in a "What color is this dress?" poll than in an actual election.

It was a fun debate and it showcased the power of social media and the velocity of how fast things can spread in today's time.

Blog Post Comment: http://bmacieblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/post-6-georgia-basketball.html

This could be potentially one of the biggest upsets in college basketball in quite some time. The Dawgs have a team capable of winning, but how many truly believe that they will outside of Dawg Nation. Social media will without a doubt be all over this one, especially if UGA makes it interesting.

Blogging When You Are to Busy to Blog

I figured I would use this blog to possibly help some of my classmates who may be struggling with blogging simply because of their hectic schedules. Blogging with purpose can be time consuming for some but there are ways around that. The answer is working smarter and not harder. Here are a couple of tips to help make blogging more manageable even with strict time constraints:

Micro-content can be your savior: We live in a day and age where most do no wish to read long and overly informative pieces. They wish to get the important aspects and for bloggers to get pretty much right down to the point.  Anything from info-graphics to short videos to captioned photos, these somewhat seemingly small clumps of information are easy to prepare and just as easy for your readers to enjoy. Likewise, they are every bit as engaging and as effective as that 500-word blog post you never have time to write.

Curating your content rather than creating it can also be a viable option. Think about it. How many times are we really the creators of content never been introduced before? You can find relevant content about what you wanted to blog about. You can then blend up the information you found, organize it and present it with your very take and insights on the matter. Content curating is a great way to help you increase your knowledge of the industry or subject matter, establish your credibility and trust with your audiences and build audience loyalty while at the same time delighting them with content that is entertaining or useful.

Blog Comment #5: http://sarahcthoughts.tumblr.com/post/111201777348/brewery-tour-weekend

That was a really great idea. It would have been a nice experience. Next year I may have to check that out. Sounds like a really great time. I love beer too by-the-way!

Interpreting Social Customer Data

In any instance where the objective is to learn something, actually listening is the first step. No on ever learned anything new by doing all of the talking. The same applies to companies and brands when they are using social media to learn more about their consumers needs and wants. Some important questions companies should ask themselves to assess what customer data is important are:

What kind of issues are my customers struggling with and talking about online?

When are people talking about me?

Who is complaining about what?

Constant monitoring of a company's social media presence will reveal the answers to these questions, but interpreting and understanding what it all means is something different altogether.

1. Listen First Before Replying: Develop an understanding of your brand’s reputation, who your customers are, and when your community is most actively talking about you.
2. Structure Incoming Questions: Divide the incoming questions in logical categories by adding tags to individual social media messages in order to identify the most important pain points about your product (complaints, questions, positive buzz, etc.). 
3. Create Reports and Bring Your Management Up to Date: Create reports for your management to inform them about the bigger picture and acquaint them with the general sentiment of your incoming messages, your community’s demographics, when your community is active, your community’s tone of voice, etc. This usually is a true eye-opener: this type of information opens up new perspective, which is incredibly useful to starting creating or adjusting your social media strategy.

Blog Comment #4 http://sarahcthoughts.tumblr.com/post/110540865033/what-kind-of-wing-nut-are-you 

Awesome idea! I am huge fan of Amicis, and usually go every Wednesday when they have their wings special. I mat indeed enter the contest this week! 

Google Plus is a Plus for Business

Google Plus is a social media initiative that can be used to do a lot of different things. One of its many capabilities is its ability to help businesses.Google Plus can be used to build company identities.

• Build Presence:
• Add people to your circles
• Share your content
• Engage in communities
• Engage in hangouts
• Connect with Target Customers: 
• Keyword Search
• Community Involvement
• Establish Industry Expertise: You can establish your industry expertise by sharing relevant content and sharing resources. Write content that is important to your customers. Keep them updated with new information, tips, tricks, how-tos, tutorials, and ideas that will be helpful to them. You can also follow experts from your business niche, network and engage with them.
• Show up in Google.com Search: There are ways you can increase your search results and have higher rankings using Google+:
• Optimize Google+ profile and business page
• Connect Google+ to your company website
• Connect to peers: Google+ is a great way to connect and share with your peers; family, friends, teachers, classmates, etc. The more peers you follow, they are going to follow you back, which is an excellent way to get your rankings in search results higher.

Blog Comment 3: http://jarednewberg.blogspot.com/2015/02/johnny-rehab.html

We all know that Johnny Manziel hasn't exemplified the best character in the world, but this is a great first step in the right direction for him. His journey to becoming a better person and teammate will require him to do some deep soul searching and figure out what is truly important to him. He has all the talent in the world, but as we have seen, all the talent in the world doesn't amount to anything without character.

YouTube for Business!

We all know the kind of reach that Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can give a company when trying to connect and get closer to its customers, but how about YouTube? Companies are now starting to use the video centered social platform in order to reach its target audiences. YouTube has become increasingly popular in recent years with billions of people visiting the site on a regular basis. I personally visit YouTube about once a day. However, using YouTube will only be advantageous to a company when equipped with the proper knowledge and tools. Here are some tools that will help companies off to a good start should they choose to create a YouTube channel:

1. Choose keywords and phrases carefully: 
2. Know your competitors
3. Don't forget meta tags, video description, and title
4. Use closed captioning
5. Use calls-to-action
6. Embed videos on company website

These steps can help a company create and share successful videos to get its promotions and messages out to more of its customers and potential customers. 

Blog Comment: http://cosmiccolumn.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-fight-for-space.html

Space exploration is something that should never fall to far behind in importance. The earth's resources are declining and the earth itself will not be here forever. It is important for the future to continue to forge ahead and explore what is beyond planet Earth. NASA needs help to do this. They need support and they have mine. 

Lamborghini's Newest Product

One of Lamborghini's newest products is shiny, rare, expensive, and it isn't a car! The 88 Tauri is a new smart phone technology created by the luxury automakers of Tonino Lamborghini. It will cost an astounding $6,000! Without a doubt the price is mostly attributed to the brand name and decal, however it does possess some very premium features. Those features include an ostentatious case that opens just as a Lamborghini hood, a set of expensive headphones. The phone is suited in nine different colors of calfskin leather over three treatments of stainless steel. These include black, silver, and genuine gold-plate. The glass on the phone is the very same glass used in Lamborghini vehicles. It is shatter and scratch proof.

Only 1,947 models will be available for sale in honor of the 1947 founding of Lamborghini. It is pretty cool to see a company such as Lamborghini step out of its comfort zone and attempt to enter in a completely different market. The design of the phone is something different from other smartphones that are currently available. The invention of the phone could further the idea of outfitting phones to increase the customer value of smartphones.

Comments to http://thedigitalgetdown.blogspot.com/2015/01/justin-timberlakes-social-sweepstakes.html#comment-form 

Very creative idea! It is a great way to interact with your fans and followers. It is great promotion and publicity! Fantastic idea and should pay dividends for quite some time.