Measure Your Social Media Campaigns

Let’s say you work at a large consumer products company and are about to launch a new diaper brand. To accompany the big advertising and marketing push, you want to sponsor a one-hour Twitter party where parents and caregivers can discuss raising children, focused on issues around diapering and potty training. You’ve picked out a unique hashtag, contracted with an influential Twitterer who will pose questions and lead the conversation. You’re ready to go. But now you need to make sure you’re measuring this conversation so you can learn – and later tell your boss – how effective the chat was. Before you using social media for marketing jump into measuring every single tweet, photo and Facebook comment posted about your brand, first think about your goals with social media. What are you trying to accomplish or gain through these social channels? And which channels are most relevant to those goals? The first step in your measurement plan should be to generate a list of what you’re trying to achieve from your social media efforts. Social media can serve a variety of purposes, from broadcasting news and information, to answering customer questions and engaging with a community. What is your company trying to accomplish? You’ve probably already started interacting on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram, depending on the type of information and the format of the content you’re sharing. You’ve probably social media marketing strategies also considered the audience you want to reach and the tools they’re using. So the next step is to think about what you want your audience to do with your content on these channels. Are you trying to get them to read, share, reply, click, purchase, engage? List out all your business goals for social media.

Secrets to Becoming a Social Media Guru

I was fortunate to attend two master classes on social media in the past month. One by Alex Pirouz of Linkfluencer, who focuses on effectively using LinkedIn, and another by Jeff Sheehan, who has amassed a Twitter following of over 300,000 and is one of the top marketers on Twitter. Before you venture onto any social media platform, develop a master plan about why you are there in the first place. What is your end goal for using that platform? I connect with many people on LinkedIn and Twitter because I always need guests for my radio show and I love to have experts like Alex or Jeff to reach out to when I decide social media marketing manager to cover a topic for my column. Is your goal to drive additional business, be seen as a thought leader, promote your product line or build your funnel? The clearer you are on your outcome, the greater your chance of success. In order to grow your connections, you must strategically reach out and make the right connections. Remember that it's not about "numbers", it's about quality of connections and depth of relationship. Jeff points out if your company sells a niche product or service, the connections you need to make on social media channels will also be narrow. Alex encourages individuals using LinkedIn to reaching your target market rather then connecting with everyone and anyone. Look back at your outcome for using LinkedIn or Twitter in the first place and create an ideal client avatar in order to reach that outcome. It’s not all about posting, tweeting, sharing and liking. Each of the social media platforms includes features that allow you to be more effective with your marketing with social media time and marketing. On Twitter, you can organize your followers into "Lists". LinkedIn allows you to "Tag" your contacts and both platforms have robust search features that allow you to narrow the content and connections you view to those most relevant to your research or needs. While these features will not replace your current contact management system, they do provide a powerful way to gather new intelligence and ultimately improve your sales and marketing effectiveness.

Social Media Steps Up Battle Against Militant Propaganda

Facebook, Google and Twitter are stepping up efforts to combat online propaganda and recruiting by Islamic militants, but the Internet companies are doing it quietly to avoid the perception that they are helping the authorities police the Web. On Friday, Facebook Inc said it took down a profile that the company believed belonged to San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik, who with her husband is accused of killing 14 people in a mass shooting that the FBI is investigating as an "act of terrorism." Just a day earlier, the French prime minister and European Commission officials met separately with Facebook, Google, Twitter and other companies to demand faster action on what the commission called "online terrorism incitement and hate speech." The Internet companies described their policies as social media marketing software straightforward: they ban certain types of content in accordance with their own terms of service, and require court orders to remove or block anything beyond that. Anyone can report, or flag, content for review and possible removal. But the truth is far more subtle and complicated. According to former employees, Facebook, Google and Twitter all worry that if they are public about their true level of cooperation with Western law enforcement agencies, they will face endless demands for similar action from countries around the world. They also fret about being perceived by consumers as being tools of the government. Worse, if the companies spell out exactly how their screening works, they run the risk that technologically savvy militants will learn more about how to beat their systems. "If they knew what magic sauce went into pushing content into the newsfeed, spammers or whomever would take advantage of that," said a security expert who had worked at both Facebook and Twitter, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. One of the most significant yet least understood aspects of the propaganda issue is the range how to use social media for marketing of ways in which social media companies deal with government officials. Facebook, Google and Twitter say they do not treat government complaints differently from citizen complaints, unless the government obtains a court order. The trio are among a growing number that publish regular transparency reports summarizing the number of formal requests from officials about content on their sites.