sink or swim: a social media article ebook

Asking Smarter QuestionsSocial Media Article Series

July - August 2012AskingSmarterQuestions.com

http://askingsmarterquestions.com

Table of ContentsSink or Swim Article Series

SinkorSwim.AskingSmarterQuestions.com

Part 5

Part 4

Part 3

Part 2

Part 1

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Social Intelligence Research: Dive Head First into Data

Staying Afloat in a Sea of Options: Social Media Platforms

Gold Medal Goals: Don’t Settle for Silver

Game Time: Put Your Social Strategy into Play

Don’t Get Burned: Know What Your Customers Are Saying

Don’t Put Your Head in the Sand: Measurement is Key

Bathing Suit or Swimsuit? Test Your Social Messaging

Stay Studious: Ongoing Social Optimization

PrefaceSink or Swim: Let’s Talk Social

http://sinkorswim.askingsmarterquestions.com

3SinkorSwim.AskingSmarterQuestions.com

Welcome to our Social Media Series: Sink or SwimBy Steve Parker, Jr.

PrefaceSocial Media: the new darling of the Internet industry, of many industries. Some will have you

believe it is a fad, others the proverbial silver bullet. The reality, which everyone seems to

be overcomplicating, is that it is simply about relationships. In this series we take you from

social conversation listening, to platform selection, to sharing your message. We take you

from strategy to measurement of social and teach you how to determine an actual ROI from

your effort. We also take you from testing messages to optimizing your communications on a

continual and methodical basis based on data rather than faith.

Now I’ll admit that doesn’t sound too “relational,” but the reality is that we all do these things in

order to have solid relationships. In fact, in really good relationships these listening, platforms,

strategies, measurement, testing and optimization efforts are so commonplace that they are

just an everyday occurrence we do not notice. In bad relationships, these processes are absent

or difficult.

Social media is not unnavigable; in fact, with the right tools and measurement, it can be easily

measured to an exact return on investment. You may say, “I don’t measure my relationships to

an ROI.” But sure you do! Where you fail is honesty. The fact of the matter is we all measure

our relationships; when we have a bad one it feels like a struggle, when we have a good one

it seems so simple. And I can tell you from where I sit, most brands are failing at measuring

relationships, hence they are failing at this big thing called Social Media.

Establishing Meaningful RelationshipsSo, let’s talk about relationships since that’s what social is really about at its core. Man was

not meant to be alone, and since the beginning of time, humankind has craved connections;

connections at home, with family, friends and co-workers. However, with the advent of Social

Media, connections have become more about quantity than quality. How many friends do you

have? Honestly, how many do you know well and spend time with? Not many. What we all

struggle with is how to make relationships more meaningful. If you recall the ending of the

movie The Social Network, you may remember Mark Zuckerberg sending a friend request

to his old girlfriend and then hitting refresh on his computer screen over and over again just

hoping to establish one relationship – not many – just one. Meanwhile he has 15 million

people subscribed to his Facebook feed. But it is deep relationships that matter; we all want

relationships to be meaningful; for a brand that would mean a consumer who trusts you and

buys from you. Yet most in the industry are focused on quantity, not quality, and that is a major

failure.



Welcome to our Social Media Series: Sink or SwimBy Steve Parker, Jr.

Preface (cont.)Highlights from First ClassRelationships are about being honest. Clearly it is hard for a brand to be honest at all times

and even if they were, consumers are oftentimes distrustful. That’s a tough one for most of

us; don’t pretend that you are honest in your relationships all the time every day. To prove that

you are not, go look at your Facebook timeline. How many of your posts are honest about your

day, your life, your experiences? Very few. In fact most of us just show highlights of our life

(generally the pretty parts). Fishing with the kids, drinks with the wife, vacation with the family,

the first class seat on the airplane. In other words, “here are the nice parts of my life, but not

the other ones.” So as human beings we have begun to compartmentalize our lives and limit

the vision others have of us - and brands are not immune to this.

Last ThoughtsPerhaps the real value in life, in Social Media, and for the individual and the brand, would be

to build mutual relationships that matter—that mean something. Perhaps we should all be

creating smaller groups of relationships. Perhaps, much like with people, the purpose for the

brand in social should be connecting – and not just with people who buy their product - but

those that buy their product and share another interesting attribute or two (geography, hobbies,

etc.). Then you will have begun to build something together that is strong, that creates change,

that is actually meaningful.

I hope you find this series meaningful, full of vision, strategy and tactics that will help you

achieve what could be.

Steve Parker, Jr.



““

Social Intelligence Research: Dive Head First into DataBy Steve Parker, Jr.

Part 1Data can tell you everything you need to know – you just have to know how to mine it and

properly analyze it in order to use it strategically. Take social conversations, for example.

Whether you’re just now jumping on board the social train or you’re just in need of a fresh,

more strategic and effective approach, you can’t hope to have any kind of success without first

taking a look at the existing data across the social sphere.

The social phenomenon has taken the world by storm. Although social communication has

existed since cavemen were grunting and drawing symbols on cave walls, this online shift in

the past 15 years has completely changed the way we communicate and share information.

Now, through online social networking sites and forums, people from all four corners of the

world can quickly and easily connect and share information with each other. Sometimes this

communication takes the form of sharing photos and recipes on Pinterest, staying in touch

with friends and family through Facebook, or creating a network of professional contacts via

LinkedIn. Oftentimes, however, the conversation relates to something much nearer and dearer

to a marketer’s heart: your brand.

The Power of Social ConversationsYes, people are talking about your business. They’re sharing information and experiences with

friends and strangers alike, providing open and honest reviews on your brand, product, service

or competitor. People, by their very nature, are opinionated – and many of them want their

opinions to be heard. The result? The social universe has become somewhat of a free, limitless

and unsolicited consumer response survey. Your customers are happily telling you what they

like, what they don’t like, what they want and don’t want. Ignoring consumer conversations

or only listening to them in part is like being handed a free winning lottery ticket and swatting

it away. It’s powerful, incredibly insightful information that could not only help you form your

social strategy, but also help you make business-changing decisions across every facet of your

company. So don’t let it go to waste – use social communication as a listening post, helping

guide your social strategy.

Social Intelligence ResearchSo what exactly is social intelligence research? Social intelligence research entails using online

tools to aggregate and analyze conversations taking place across the social web. You not only

monitor conversations in real time, but also analyze consumer perceptions to uncover your

company’s strengths and weaknesses – whether they are related to your brand, competitors,

products, services, sponsorships, events and so on. These insights act as a guiding light,

affecting the way you approach each phase of your brand’s social strategy development

process.

“Ignoring consumer conversations is like being handed a free winning lottery ticket and swatting it away”



Part 1 (cont.)There are five phases of the social strategy framework, the first of which is initial social

intelligence research. Performing this step first is crucial, as it sets the tone for each of the

next phases. Gathering social intelligence allows you to develop and implement a customer-

centric strategy by listening to what is already being said. It draws attention to holes in your

current marketing strategy and reveals opportunities for your brand to take advantage of

different audiences and trends within those audiences. The mining of social data also allows

you to set baselines for brand conversation volume and sentiment, aiding in measurement

down the road (but more on that later in this series).

Getting StartedTo begin, use an advanced social monitoring tool to dive into the archives of the social net,

scouring the Internet and going beyond Facebook and Twitter to the thousands of one-off

forums and blogs across the web where a significant portion of social conversations actually

take place. Through conversational aggregation and analysis, find out what consumers have

been saying about your brand historically. By digging deeper into these conversations, you can

uncover unknown trends and themes regarding topics of interest to your brand. You can also

discover what your audience is asking to know more about. And you’re able to actually listen to

consumers as they honestly and willingly tell you what interests them, as well as their opinions

regarding what your brand is currently doing.

Mining these kinds of insights will help lay a path for your social strategy. The trends that

are uncovered can lay the foundation for the kind of content you should provide through the

various social platforms. To help decide which platforms you should consider joining, look at

the sources of social conversations about your brand and your industry. If your target audience

has a much bigger presence on Pinterest but hardly any on Twitter, maybe you should focus

more of your time and energy on Pinterest.

From what platforms to join and content to provide to the best times to post updates, social

intelligence research can provide you with countless insights that are crucial to building a

successful social strategy.

Social Intelligence Research: Dive Head First into DataBy Steve Parker, Jr.

“““The trends that are uncovered can lay the foundation for the kinds of content you should provide”



Staying Afloat in a Sea of Options: Social Media PlatformsBy Jeff Adelson-Yan

Part 2It seems like there is a new social media platform every day that marketers deem “the next big

thing.” Start-ups in Silicon Valley are banking on the fact that social media marketing will not

always belong to Facebook and Twitter. Though these two platforms have the largest volume of

daily active users, with 526 million and 140 million respectively (Q1 2012 figures), there are

ample branding opportunities on other social networking platforms. In this post, we’re going

to break down the big fish, the smaller fish and how to decide which platforms your business

should be on.

The first myth we need to dispel is that your business should be on every single available

social platform. In fact, Levelwing often recommends choosing only a few because it is

important to have the time to manage and create fresh content instead of just being on them

for the sake of mere presence. It is important that you do a little research and figure out the

functionalities and audience demographics before launching into full-fledge campaigns.

FacebookMost notably, and first in the social media game, is Facebook. Facebook is great because

it reaches a large audience; practically everyone in the United States in on Facebook. In

fact, unless you’re marketing to China (the country uses other social media networks), it’s

the largest social networking audience you can reach. With Facebook, you have two large-

scale marketing options: paid and non-paid. Paid ads generate Facebook’s revenue and are

constantly changing and being tested (and arguably) improved. Though they do not offer

as much flexibility as Google ads visually, they do have decent targeting options like age,

gender, sexual orientation, location, family status, broad or precise interests and more. The

effectiveness of Facebook advertising has been questioned, but with the right optimization, we

have found pretty good results if the proper measurement is put into place.

Non-paid Facebook is essentially brand page management, or cultivating an online community.

Brand pages are gaining more and more flexibility and optimization on Facebook. Timeline,

which has been available to brands for just under a year now, has created more opportunities

for pages to be branded micro-sites. With the multitude of Facebook applications that can be

created, additionally, it is becoming more of an interactive tool for fans now more than ever.

TwitterTwitter has also tried to leverage paid and non-paid with varying degrees of success. Non-

paid consists of brand page management. Options include branding opportunities with the

background and hashtags, tweeting content with photo and video attachments and more.

Twitter has a slightly smaller audience, but the life of a tweet is significantly shorter than a

“““ It seems like there is a new social media platform every day that marketers deem the Next Big Thing”




Part 2 (cont.)Facebook post. Therefore, it is more “socially acceptable” to tweet multiple times a day. On

Facebook, it’s best to keep to one update a day or perhaps even every other day. Since Twitter

feeds move faster, it is recommended that tweets go out every few hours to stay up to date in

the conversation and to stay in front of your audience.

Hashtags are another great piece of Twitter marketing that many often forget about. Hashtags

are essentially an easy way to search Twitter for others discussing the same subject. For

instance, if your brand is in the automotive industry, using hashtags like #cars, #automotive,

#tires, #tuneup or #engine could help people find your tweet and information quicker (without

following you). Additionally, Public tweets can also be indexed in search engines, so it’s

important to maintain a professional but engaging voice; you never know who is reading your

brand’s tweet. As social integration into search becomes more of a reality, it is important to

keep your Twitter content fresh. So who is on Twitter? The highest-represented demographic,

according to Pew Research Center, is 18-29 year olds. 15% of Internet users are active on

Twitter, with 8% logging on every day. Minorities also have a high Twitter usage percentage—

over 28% of Black, Non-Hispanic Internet users utilize Twitter.

Twitter offers a few options for brands that want to engage in paid advertisements. A promoted

tweet (which appears at the top of a News Feed) is the easiest placement to purchase

(and usually the more inexpensive). Promoted trends are considerably more expensive (the

minimum is somewhere between $100-150k) and are only promoted for a 24 hour period.

More Twitter advertisement opportunities are said to be rolling out soon, so this might be

something to keep your eye on—especially if you’re targeted demographic is young.

YouTubeYouTube is often forgotten as a social platform, but it is astounding the amount of sharing

that happens on this channel. For instance, 72 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every

single minute. Beyond the branding opportunities with channels (customizable skins, tabs

and landing pages, etc.), YouTube offers several paid options, including Promoted Videos and

advertisements (before video, during video, banner ads, etc.). Targeting is especially great for

YouTube ads because the user is already committed to watching a video involving the industry,

brand or product. In other words, you know that your ad is showing to a captivated audience—

not just appearing in the right hand column to be potentially ignored. YouTube is careful to not

bombard the user with cumbersome ads, however, as the company does not want to interfere

with the user experience too much.

LinkedInLinkedIn is a Facebook for business professionals and with about 48 million active users

(though we’re not positive on the daily amount), it definitely has great brand awareness

“““72 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every single minute”




Part 2 (cont.)potential. LinkedIn offers the same non-paid options as Facebook, but with a little less

flexibility. It is possible to create multiple tabs to use as landing pages, but the possibilities

for customization and branding are fewer. LinkedIn is comprised of professionals looking for

business opportunities, job postings and information about companies. It is a great place to

explore if your company is a B2B. Paid advertisements are very similar to Facebooks with

targeting that includes job title—especially helpful when marketing B2B.

Google+Google+ is Google’s venture into social media—after the death of Google Buzz and

Wave. After gaining some heavy momentum during its launch, Google+ has leveled off in

engagement. In fact, a study concluded recently that only 30% of Google+ accounts that have

made a public post will ever make another public post again. This is measured against the

social network “norm” of 70%. While 170 million users sounds promising, we wonder if people

are actually interested in cultivating communities on the platform.

So why are we including it in the list, then? Well, Google+ is still on the radar for a number

of reasons—most of them being its parent company. Google has plans to firmly entrench

Google+ posts and stories into search engine results pages. We have seen this most recently

with the integration of Google Local and Google+. Whether or not your brand wants to be on

this platform could be irrelevant. To be shown in the results, you might have to adopt. To what

extent Google will integrate Google+ remains to be seen, but we advise doing your homework

about the platform anyway. Demographics skew male and popular stories often include

technology and media.

PinterestPinterest has become the favorite of most women in America at this point and has taken on

some serious growth spurts in the last year. Though its audience is mostly women, Pinterest

has a lot of functionalities that make it perfect for marketing. Firstly, it has a lot of engagement.

Secondly, it sends a lot of referring traffic (more than Facebook). Thirdly, it’s all visual, which

is great for brands with the power to create enticing creative. Though Pinterest is trying to

fight the inevitable marketer takeover, it also has a reputation for coolness that is not to be

disturbed. When creating a Pinterest account, brands must understand that it is not about

selling, selling, selling. Instead, it is about sharing ideas with the audience and cultivating a

community. Even moreso than other platforms, it’s important to stay away from self-serving

content. Incorporating a product every now and then is fine as long as the user is gleaning

useful information (Do-It-Yourself is a big subject here) and does not feel bombarded by sales

tactics and images. Currently, Pinterest does not have any paid options for advertising. A few

smart brands got in on the ground level—like Dwell Magazine, West Elm and Real Simple—

but there is still plenty of opportunity to go around. A quick tip: before signing up for Pinterest,

“““Google has plans to firmly entrench Google+ posts and stories into search engine results pages”




Part 2 (cont.)make sure your website has “pinnable” content. It’s easy—just try to pin an image from your

website. If your website’s images are not pinnable, then it might not be the best

platform for your brand.

InstagramInstagram is a newcomer to social media. This start-up is currently not even drawing a profit

it’s so new. Instagram is very interesting, however, because it is a feed for photos. These

photos can be uploaded and manipulated with various filters to make them more visually

appealing. You can follow someone or a brand on Pinterest much like on Twitter. You receive

all updates. Instagram is currently broadening functionality with hashtags as well. It is also

very easy to share Instagram photos on Twitter or Facebook, which makes the platforms

compatible. Brands that belong on Instagram could be anything from art galleries (post photos

of new exhibits) to tourist destination visitors’ bureaus (post photos fun activities) to fashion

designers (new collections, inspiration, models, raw materials, etc.). Inherently visual brands

can take advantage of this platform better than others.

It’s important to stay abreast of the latest and greatest social networking platforms and the

audiences they target. For instance, currently, there is a lot of discussion surrounding video-

based social networks like Viddy and Social Cam. Brands have already begun leveraging these

tools to expand their social media presence. While it is important to stay informed, it is even

more important to decide what is best for your brand. As mentioned before, being everywhere

isn’t necessarily the best answer. Devoting time and money to one or two platforms and

assessing the benefits is always the best way to begin. “

““ Being everywhere isn’t necessarily the best answer”



“

Gold Medal Goals: Don’t Settle for SilverBy Steve Parker, Jr.

Part 3With the Summer Olympics fast approaching, we were in the spirit of going for gold (USA! USA! USA!). In respect to social media strategy, it’s important that you set your goals high. Many companies decide to setup Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts because they’ve been told by someone that it’s the thing to do. They end up feeling disappointed that their social handles aren’t generating likes, clicks or leads. But first setting goals and implementing a specific strategy for each platform is paramount. Therefore, I’m going to discuss how to go about setting the right goals for the various social platforms and the steps necessary to achieve those goals. First, you need to ask yourself these questions.

1. What platforms should my brand be on?We recently assessed the most popular social platforms in our article entitled “Staying Afloat in a Sea of Options.” Review that article and come right back.

2. What is my strategy for each platform?Because of the differences in the social platforms (demographics, types of messaging, acceptable amount of engagement), it is important to implement separate strategies for all the platforms on which your brand is seen, but also ensure that they all have a singular voice and work together to paint a broader picture of your brand.

3. What actions will I consider a key performance indicator (KPI)?If your goal is to get your Facebook page more likes and your Twitter handle more followers, why? What does a like and a follow mean to you? How is it furthering your business? If the number of likes or follows isn’t that important to your brand, what kinds of actions do you want users to take and how can you develop a social strategy that will get them to do those actions?

4. How will I measure my brand’s social initiatives?This is a gray area for many companies, as they have been told that social media simply cannot be measured. However, there are plenty of ways to measure efforts on social media–including direct attribution of leads and sales. If you are not planning on measuring beyond number of likes and follows, you will probably be disappointed in your social media efforts. Understanding how social media works and how it can positively influence your business is fundamental to your success… and the only way to understand it is to measure and optimize.

5. What is my brand’s voice and who do I want to manage that voice?You can choose to be your brand’s voice. You can hire an intern. You can hire an agency. You can outsource. There are plenty of options for social communication.

““There are plenty of ways to measure efforts on social media including direct attribution of leads and sales”



“Gold Medal Goals: Don’t Settle for SilverBy Steve Parker, Jr.

Part 3 (cont.)However, which one strikes a balance between cost and time efficient and also accurate? Representation of your brand can make or break social media initiatives. Do you plan to offer customer service? Introduce new products? Manage your online reputation? These all require different strategies and people to implement those strategies. Choose wisely and implement clear rules of engagement with customers/clients to be sure the brand is accurately and professionally represented.

Now that you’ve answered those questions, you need to set your goals. Goals should be slightly more easily achievable than dreams. For instance, your goal should not be to simply “increase engagement on Facebook.” That’s too easy. It should have hard numbers attached to it so that your social strategist(s) are held accountable. Perhaps you want to generate leads from Facebook and Twitter. A goal could be to get your cost per lead down to an ideal amount. Not sure what that amount is? Look to your paid search information and research average costs per click/action on the different social media platforms. This will give you a better idea of how to manage your expectations while still remaining hungry.

Goals for YouTube could include not just video views, but a specific number of click-throughs to a branded website. Track what your customers are doing once they get there. Find out if your YouTube videos intrigue people enough to find out more and if they purchase a product, fill out a lead form or sign up for a newsletter once they do. Goals for Twitter do not have to be relegated to followers. Measure clicks and optimize messaging every month to target the audience that will be most lucrative.

Not settling for silver means thinking beyond the pale and coming up with ways to measure your social media efforts in a way that will help you to fully comprehend what it means for your business. Even if your business is not inherently social, there is a way to make it work for you. It’s where your customers live online and where they want to interact with brands. Creating a unique experience for them while maintaining a good bottom line for your brand is the ultimate gold medal goal.

““Implement clear rules of engagement with customers to be sure the brand is accurately and professionally represented”



Game Time: Put Your Social Strategy into PlayBy Jeff Adelson-Yan

Part 4The Olympic Games are like your social strategy: a lot of time, energy and dedication go into planning to ensure your top performance on game day. But in the end, the true test of how well you’ve prepared comes down to putting your strategy into play.

By this time, you’ve done your initial social intelligence research to listen to what is already being said about your brand across the social sphere. You’ve done your homework by looking into the available social platforms and have determined which make the most sense for your brand. And you’ve developed your goals, asking yourself all of the relevant questions about what you truly hope to gain from your social presence.

In other words, you have your battle plan – it’s time to deploy the troops! Get active in the social space and begin engaging with your audience by launching the executions you originally outlined.

PlatformsNow that you know which platforms you want to be on, you need to create accounts within each before you can get the social communication ball rolling. This sounds simple enough, but you have to think about creative branding on each of the platforms. And while the branding may be slightly different from platform to platform due to design restraints, they should be cohesive. This means a similar company description and profile, logo and branded skin (where possible on sites that allow for customized profile designs, like Twitter skins, YouTube designs and Facebook Timeline photos and tabs). Within each of your social profiles, you should include a link back to your website and possibly even link to your other social profiles.

Social Content CalendarBy this point, you should have your social activity or content calendar developed and ready to go. This is basically an editorial calendar that allows you to lay out what content you plan to publish and when. Using a social content calendar makes your life easier. It provides the “big picture” view of your content from the various platforms and accounts, making content management more efficient and allowing you to balance the type of content you share. While you can use any format you want, simply using an Excel spreadsheet or Google Document often makes the most sense.

“““Within each of your social profiles you should include a link back to your website”




Part 4 (cont.)Update & MonitorThere are countless tools available for monitoring and managing your social presence. By now, you should have decided which tools you plan to use. Hootsuite and TweetDeck, for example, are dashboards that allow you to schedule and monitor your social content for multiple accounts within multiple platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and more. In addition, Hootsuite allows you to set up streams to easily monitor conversations while organizing them by account, content or platform.

Track, Measure, Analyze & RefineDuring the deployment phase, you should also begin measuring, evaluating and refining. In fact, you will want to start measuring the moment you start engaging. Measurement of your pre-defined KPIs will allow you to assign value to executions, platforms and audiences. This is the time to find out what is working and adjust your social activity schedule to capitalize on these trends. Adjust strategy and activity schedule as needed since social is a dynamic space and brands need to be prepared to evolve along with the consumer’s ever-changing mindset.

ToolsNot to sound like a broken record, but if you can’t track something, it’s probably not worth doing. That said, there are numerous ways to track, measure and analyze the effectiveness of your social presence, allowing you to optimize, adjust your strategy and better allocate resources. And as with most other tools in the digital world, there are both basic and advanced options available.

The basic tools are great for what we call “convenience metrics.” These are the metrics that are typically easy to track, but probably don’t provide a whole lot of insight into how your campaigns are performing in terms of your most important, bottom-line goals, but that isn’t to say you should totally disregard them. For example, tools like Hootsuite and various URL shorteners, such as ow.ly and bitly, allow you to see which updates received the most clicks. This can be helpful in determining the best time of day to post updates, the best days of the week, the type of messaging that results in higher engagement, etc.

“““If you can’t track something, it’s probably not worth doing”



However, you want to get to the heart of it all. Maybe people are clicking on your content, but is it driving them to your website? And once they land on your website, what are they doing? How does your brand’s Twitter account stack up to its Facebook account in terms of lead generation and other KPIs (key performance indicators)? This is the kind of deeper level insight you can gain through more advanced tools, such as Google Analytics or – even more advanced – Omniture, Adobe’s Digital Marketing Suite.

If you’ve successfully followed all of the steps above and in the previous parts of the “Sink or Swim” series, it’s now game time. You’re finally ready to put your social strategy into play. But never forget the crucial, ongoing elements to any successful social strategy: continuously measure, analyze and refine. After all, just like an Olympian, the hard work doesn’t stop on day one of the games.


Part 4 (cont.)

“““successful social strategy: continuously measure, analyze and refine”



Don’t Get Burned: Know What Your Customers Are SayingBy Steve Parker, Jr.

Part 5We’ve all seen it happen in social media. A brand makes a statement or change to a policy

and suddenly–a viral onslaught of disapproval. It can begin anywhere online with just one

disgruntled customer. It’s important to monitor conversation about your brand so that if there is

ever a problem, you can tackle it head-on. Now you may be thinking, “how do I know what my

customers are saying online?” And that’s a valid question. After all, you might not be getting

everything you need just from a quick Twitter search (you’re doing that, right?). But social plays

a big part in finding out how customers feel about your services/products, customer service,

policies and more. First, we’ll discuss tools that can help you and secondly, we’ll discuss

tactics for online reputation management.

Tools:1. Set up a Google alert. Any time someone mentions your brand (and it’s crawled by the

search engine), it will show up in your alert. You can choose to get these alerts in real time or

just once a day/week.

2. Look into social media management tools. These tools (like Hootsuite or Sprout Social) can

help you monitor and better understand what people are saying about you via the

social platforms.

3. Paid options (which will be discussed in more detail later in the series) like Radian 6 can

also bring new depth to your understanding of customer conversation… as long as you can

aggregate it properly.

Tactics:You’ve found what your customers are saying; now what?

1. Every complaint is an opportunity. What is this person really upset about? Is it something

you can fix? How might you be able to turn a bad situation into a beneficial one? Chobani’s

Facebook page is full of love from fans, but also occasionally gets peppered with complaints

about a bad yogurt. What does Chobani do? Send the customer in question a shout-out and a

coupon. It instantly turns the customer from unhappy to happy, maybe even brand advocate.

2. Every accolade is a chance to promote. Some brands will ignore a fan that celebrates them.

But why not promote that compliment by using it in a Facebook ad campaign or [at least]

re-tweeting? Word of mouth works both ways and can often lead to positive brand awareness.

3. Listen and refine. Listening to social conversation can often give your brand insight on how

to improve customer satisfaction. It could be something small like offering free coffee in a

waiting room. It could also be something big like product refinement or development. No longer

do we have to wait for test groups. People are volunteering their opinions and information

about your brand right now in online public forums. Shouldn’t you be listening?

“““Every

complaint is an opportunity”



Don’t Put Your Head in the Sand: Measurement is KeyBy Jeff Adelson-Yan

Part 6For our sixth installment of the “Sink or Swim” series, we will discuss the importance of measurement. It is often thought (and spoken aloud) that social media marketers can’t always assign ROI or a dollar amount to social media efforts. It is likened to billboards or TV advertisements, wherein the value is implicit.

That is simply not the case.There are many ways in which your social media efforts can be measured. To begin, let’s start with the goals associated with your social strategy. These will help you measure what is important. If your goal is “brand awareness,” for instance, it is wise to look at metrics like “People Talking About This,” or the number of people generating stories about your brand (likes, follows, comments, shares, etc.). If your goal is sales-driven, it is wise to look at metrics on your website and referring traffic from social platforms.

Most brands obviously monitor their increase in likes on Facebook, follows on Twitter and all the other minutia that these platforms throw at you to make you feel good. In Hootsuite, you can check your clicks in their “Quick Analytics” tab using your ow.ly links. But have you thought about appending code to each individual tweet and tracking with Google Analytics or a paid platform like Marin or Omniture? The options for tracking are nearly endless and can go as granular as you like. In fact, there are ways to follow someone around on your site to see their paths. What pages did the user scope out? How long were they there? Think about how valuable this information can be to your social strategy and your new business team.

Here are some examples of conclusions you can draw from taking the time (& money) to measure your social media efforts:1) How do people engage with your brand on different platforms? Perhaps people are more likely to click on a philanthropic message on Facebook, whereas they’re looking for deals on Twitter.

2) What is user behavior like once they reach the brand website? How are your call-to-actions in social messaging affecting (or not affecting) this?

3) How much money is it making your business to be social? And yes, this can be an estimate or concrete dollar amount, depending on the amount of technology you want.

Too many agencies send brands in the direction of social media because it is fun and easy; perhaps even because they think they will be held less accountable for hard ROI numbers. But if you’re not measuring your social efforts, why do them at all?

“““ The options for tracking are nearly endless and can go as granular as you like”



Bathing Suit or Swimsuit? Test your Social MessagingBy Steve Parker, Jr.

Part 7If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a million times. Test, test, test! Message testing is often associated with paid search, but it belongs in your social media strategy as well. While we recommend trying differing copy at various times and days of the week to analyze trends in engagement, it is equally as important to test what types of copy resonate best with your audience.

First, find the best words.You can use the Google Keyword Tool to search for competitive keywords and search volumes for each. Below is an example of keyword variations you might use in social messaging in order to garner better engagement:

With the integration of social and search becoming more prevalent with each passing day, it is important to note that it is entirely possible for your social messaging to end up on a SERP. This means that you want your messaging to correlate with the highest volume of relevant search queries–or, perhaps for a more targeted post, a long-tail version of these keywords.

You can also do a quick search on hashtags.org to see if the hashtags in your social messages are being used frequently. As an example, “#swimsuit” was used four times in the last hour, whereas “#bathingsuit” was used once in the last five hours. This is a quick way to get a top-line feel for what language social users are typing in most.

Second, find the best times.Obviously bathing suit and swimsuit season is nearly over with the coming of fall, but for less seasonally-dependent messages, it is important to test various timing. There are a plethora of studies that indicate different times of best engagement (even broken down by industry), but it is smartest to test it for yourself. You might find that your audience engages most in the mornings and not at 6pm.

“““Engagement is the first step in analyzing social data but by no means the last”



Try first using your best judgment. Think of when you are on social media most (what times of the day and what days). Do not schedule an important message to go out at 4:45pm on a Friday because most people are shutting down both their computers and their brains. When is the best time for a message to reach you on the weekends? Test various times and keep a record of engagement levels as they fluctuate. If there are not specific times that perform wildly better than others; that’s OK. Perhaps you can at least rule out low engagement times.

Quick tip: Try Hootsuite’s Auto Schedule for a few weeks to see if engagement increases. If you have several Twitter handles or Facebook pages, try using auto schedule for just one of them. Schedule the others as you normally would.

Third, analyze your data.All of this testing is designed to get you to an end goal – a greater ROI for social messaging. Once you have tested social messaging, you can use the data you have collected to optimize for the greatest level of engagement.

Here is an example of what I mean: After testing “bathing suit” versus “swimsuit,” Client X observed that social messaging with the word “swimsuit” got 64% more likes and 25% more comments. It’s safe to say Client X can take “bathing suit” out of its social media messaging mix. Next Client X saw that posts containing swimsuit did best at 2pm in conjunction with a photo of a travel destination. Therefore, Client X now has an optimal time to capture the community’s attention. How can Client X best capitalize on this? Perhaps it’s with a series of photos, asking the community for user-generated content or announcing a contest. The possibilities are endless.

Engagement is the first step in analyzing social data but by no means the last. Next comes measuring your key performance indicators, whether it is click-throughs, sign-ups or lead generation. If you do not yet know what your social KPIs should be, read this. If you have no idea how to measure a social KPI, read this.

Remember: Testing is essential for any social media campaign–paid or unpaid. The less influencing variables in your test, the better your insight into performance will be.

Bathing Suit or Swimsuit? Test your Social MessagingBy Steve Parker, Jr.

Part 7 (cont.)

“““ All of this testing is designed to get you to an end goal – a greater ROI for social messaging”



We all know that familiar feeling; summer is ending and it’s time to put on your Keds and go back to school. You’ve spent the summer doing awesome, social things and now you’re wondering where you’ll go from here. But believe us – there’s nothing worse than forgetting about your social strategy once you’ve begun. That’s why we’ve written this final piece of the Sink or Swim series about ongoing social optimization. To be truly successful in social media marketing, you have to be the 3 Cs: creative, careful and… consistent. Consistency is a huge part of being successful because you have to give your customers an idea of what to expect from your brand. Consistency means having:

A clear, unified voice; Regular and reliable updates

Therefore, you can’t start your social strategy hot and heavy and then cool off. In fact, if you feel that time management is going to be an issue going in, then starting with two updates a week on Facebook and two tweets a day on Twitter might be enough. If you begin with an update on Facebook every day, five tweets a day every week and pinning fresh content on Pinterest every day, it’s important that you keep this up.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you are keeping up with your content and maintaining a great consistency, but you’re still lacking in engagement. This is when ongoing social optimization comes in. We have already gone through virtually every step of optimization, but let’s recap the most important information to keep it fresh in your mind:

1. Keep up with new social media platforms. In order to assess if they are right for your brand, do some research about the demographics and different mediums used (is it predominantly aggregated content? video?).

2. Keep your finger on the pulse of what your customers are saying. Use social media monitoring tools (free or otherwise) in order to find out what your online reputation is. You cannot change perception until you are made fully aware.

3. Test messaging, photos and various kinds of content for both paid and non-paid social media content. Compile your data at the end of every week/month/campaign and analyze to see what performed well, what created the most KPI completions and what needs improvement (or scrapping).

Stay Studious: Ongoing Social OptimizationBy Steve Parker, Jr.

Part 8

“““To be truly successful in social media marketing, you have to be the 3 Cs: creative, careful and consistent”



Stay Studious: Ongoing Social OptimizationBy Steve Parker, Jr.

Part 8 (cont.)4. Align your social strategy with your overall business goals. Put a plan into place that helps you achieve these goals and set yourself up for success. Tracking capabilities exist on almost every facet of social media and can be assigned ROI. Do not settle for a social media expert/guru/ninja that tells you otherwise.

5. Capture all the data available in order to make better decisions about your targeting, messaging and social media goals, as so much of social media is dependent on outside factors.

Most importantly, remember to stay flexible. Social media is ever-changing and so too should be your strategy. So jump on in–it’s time to sink or swim. “““Social media is ever-changing

and so too should be your strategy”



Like what you read and want to learn more?

ASQ Contributors Steve Parker, Jr. and Jeff Adelson-Yan are also the Managing Partners and Co-Founders of Levelwing. Levelwing creates data-driven business intelligence and digital marketing solutions, mining and analyzing data to help businesses operate with greater clarity and profitability.

Find out how you can benefit from Levelwing’s services by visiting:www.levelwing.com/services


http://www.levelwing.com/services

http://levelwing.com/services

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