Social Media and Social Networking « Social Media Dynamics

Archive for the ‘Social Media and Social Networking’ Category

Intuit’s social media campaign drives conversion on par with its transaction sites

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

By Jan Carroza

This is worth repeating.

Intuit drives conversion with social media on par with its transaction sites.

If anyone continues to doubt the influence of social media on sales, this is the time to acknowledge the value. Oh, and remember, BTW, it’s still basically free. Unlike traditional or pay-per-click advertising, for the most part, the only real cost is the time of staff or an outsourced team to create, manage and monitor the messages.

How did they do this? Kira Wampler, Principal of Ant’s Eye View and formerly of Intuit, described the process at the August Social Media Breakfast Seattle meeting, saying that it all started by word of mouth. Once they had a track record, they demonstrated it to develop partnerships that took it all further.

What was the compelling word of mouth message? Helpful engagement.

Identify the Pain Points of your Prospects

Intuit asked businesses to describe their biggest challenge and how they solved it. As the program grew to over 1.2 million visits and 2000 stories, they partnered with bloggers. Leads were more valuable than the average.

Responding to a common desire for businesses to be noticed, Intuit built a program called Love A Local Business, to award small business grants. They also employ a widget to extend their message across retail sites increasing traffic 360%. A whopping 40% of traffic votes…

Reputation Management Is So Worthwhile

Incredibly, they found they could reduce the negative messages. When they started into a new venue, such as Facebook, they typically found that negative messaging made up 65% to total sentiment. With careful attention to their audience, they reduced negative sentiment by 30%.

Two great suggestions Kira had for the audience:

Make sure all your social media URLs are entered into your website analytics. Analysis from this data will help you share your interpretations with your management and drive the next decisions for your efforts.
Survey your customers to see where in the purchasing process they might use social media. Are they reading online reviews? Encourage them to post one for you.

Time Management is Possible

One of the biggest objections I’ve heard to getting into is how much time it can take. At Intuit, the management takes about 4 hours a week by one employee. They prioritized social media starting with the most impactful, Amazon’s reviews. Once your social media sites and management tools are all set up, the day-to-day can be very productive for a focused individual.

How do you make social media management work? Find the right response to your target’s pain points, be helpful, track your messages in a focused manner and you too might see social media success that matches or beats your paid advertising campaign.

You can watch the entire talk at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/8840696.

Tags: Amazon, Ant’s Eye View, Intuit, Love A Local Business, reputation management, Social Media Breakfast Seattle, social media management, web analytics
Posted in Articles, Blogging, Facebook, Local business, Social Media and Social Networking | No Comments »

Twitter’s New Recommendation Engine: Like It?

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

By Jan Carroza

I’ve seen some folks around Twitter complain about the nuisance of seeing the new recommendations it has started to make. Personally, I rather like it. What’s more, it’s actually given a big bounce to some of our Twitter accounts.

If you haven’t noticed it yet, Twitter provides a block of two suggestions on your Twitter Home page:

I can click on mikewhitmore to see what his conversations are like and if I would be interested in having a conversation with him. It turns out that we share an interest in Social Media Club’s Breakfast meetings in Seattle and he’s very engaged with his followers.

When I click on View All, I see these recommendations. I’m not likely to follow Bill Gates expecting to engage in a conversation with him. I might be interested in following his conversations to see what might be educational or entertaining. The fact that Twitter suggests Gates who is not likely to follow me back or want to talk with me might be the reason many aren’t happy with this new feature. Understandably. It also takes up key real estate above features you might use a lot like Lists (where I do put online magazines that I follow, for instance).

One feature I do like is to see who among my contacts follows this person which may well carry a lot of weight with me.

What it doesn’t do, unfortunately, is show me who might already be in one of my lists, a method I use to follow more than the 10% above my number of followers that I am allowed.

Lists also let me build channels of discussions, like members of the #SMBSea Social Media Club Breakfast group with 59 of my favorites: http://twitter.com/#/list/Social_Dynamics/smbseattle.

I’ve noticed a unusual bounce of new followers for some Twitter accounts and since all other variables are the same, I have to assume that followers of our followers are responding to Twitter recommending us based on our followers having influence. This is a great thing! I’m even discovering well-known companies and organizations that have been hard to search for in Twitter because of the restrictive nature of the 15 character Twitter handle.

Previously you had to go to a different site like Mr Tweet (currently unavailable due to this new Twitter feature and relaunching in September). Other methods to find interesting people to follow, like peering into your favorites list of followers, while worthwhile, are very time-consuming. All in all, it’s one quick way to find new people who can enhance your life, educate, share and help you.

Tags: Mr. Tweet, Seattle Social Media Club, Social Media Breakfast, Twitter followers, Twitter recommendations
Posted in Social Media and Social Networking, Technical, Technology, Twitter | No Comments »

Auto Blogging Through Content Generator Tools

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Are your blog posts being picked up and re-posted on sites that have little or nothing to do with your company or service? This could be the work of auto blogging software, “clipping” services and/or plug-ins.

As an example, let’s say you blog about technology; specifically apple products. These tools search blog posts for keywords you selected and add it to your website seamlessly.

What are the benefits?

Fresh content

Low cost

More visitors

Save time

What are the risks?

Poorly written content

Content that does not match your values or message

Overwhelming amount of content – some of the products or services mention 10,000 pages.

Too many voices creating a lack of continuity

If you decide to use auto blogging methods, give some thought to:

What is on your website and blog becomes your voice and your message.

Automated means just that, automated. No proofing for spelling and grammar errors.

Make sure you agree with the content, specifically the premise, conclusions and recommendations.

Fresh content may not attract the right visitors.

You should read each and every post word by word and decide whether it stays or goes.

Some of these services offer free demos and that would be a good place to start. In looking at 3 different services, several were a flat rate one-time-only cost and one was a monthly fee. The prices for the services I found offering the flat rate varied from $67.00 to $165.00.

Blogging on a regular basis can become tiresome and downright tedious at times. Other times you may have bloggers block. When I am at this point, I go out and see what others in my area of interest are writing about. I learn, I laugh, I fume, I learn more. That is the part of blogging that I want to do personally.

Next up, discussion from the blog writer’s perspective regarding being auto-blogged.

CMP.ly/0

I have not received any compensation for writing this content and I have no material connection to the brands, topics and/or products that are mentioned herein.

Tags: auto blogging, auto blogging software, blog content, Blogging
Posted in Articles, Social Media and Social Networking, Twitter | No Comments »

How is your company using social media?

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

By Karen Miller

Like most people, when I saw the Wheat Thins TV ad where they delivered a year’s worth of Wheat Thins to a consumer, I was amused and intrigued by what they were doing. Of course, I went to their website, Facebook page and Twitter to see what was happening. And, they were listening to their fans and communicating with them!

Over and over it has been said that social media is all about communicating. Companies like Wheat Thins are using social media to their advantage. They are giving out coupons on Facebook, delivering Wheat Thins to those on Twitter and making product announcements on both. But this is only one example of a company using social media to their advantage.

Staples, Chase, Pepsi all have some interesting campaigns using social media that involve interaction with their consumers. The Pepsi Refresh campaign has used social media to donate millions of dollars to local and national charities. Instead of advertising on the Super Bowl this year, they are using social media sites to give away those advertising dollars to the charities. They are gaining product recognition and building brand loyalty as well as being “socially responsible.”

Chase did a similar campaign for Community Giving and Staples engages their consumers by asking questions, talking about donating to schools, showing sale items, etc. The key is engaging and communicating. Make sure you are doing both with your social media but most importantly take time to listen to your consumers.

How is your company using social media to their advantage? And what companies do you think are uniquely using social media?

Tags: advertising, Chase, Facebook, Nabisco, Pepsi, social media, Staples, Super Bowl, Twitter, Wheat Thins
Posted in Articles, Blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn, Social Media and Social Networking, Twitter | No Comments »

Social Media Coverage of Texas Rangers Auction – Live Blogs and Tweets

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

By Sharon Hill

Starting at 9:30 on August 4^th, I peek in to see the news on the Texas Rangers Baseball Auction. In case you are not a baseball fan, this is the first major league baseball team to be auctioned since 1933. We are talking about a $500,000,000+ auction!

Watching the Live Blog from a Courtroom in Fort Worth at CBS11’ site. Technology is provided by CoveritLive.

Plenty of up-to-the-minute tweets too. Yahoo’s twitter updates provide a great feed of the current tweets:

CBS11 has a live blog which allows for comments and polls. Funniest comment from Let’s the Games Begin: “Will they sing the National Anthem before the proceedings begin? After that, will someone in the courtroom please yell out “PLAY BALL!”

Another one talks about making a bobblehead of the judge. (Bobbleheads are considered to be prized possessions by many.)

At 4PM CBS11 posted: CBS 11 News: 7600 readers total today. 3000 active right now. Woo-Hoo!

CBS 11 Newsroom: @EFW, we’re feeling the same things a lot of you are– anxious, a little tense, excited, and tired. But running this blog has been a blast all day long. We live for this breaking news stuff, but talking to all of you like this adds another dimension to it. It’s cool! And we will use this system a lot more often in the future.

The next morning it was announced that The Nolan Ryan/Chuck Greenburg Group won the bid and now own the Texas Rangers.

Well after midnight, Mark Cuban (Dallas Mavericks Owner who conceded) tweeted to his social networking followers the following tip of the cap to Greenberg, Ryan and fans in the Dallas-Fort Worth area: “Congrats Chuck and Nolan. Go Rangers!”

Isn’t technology fun?

@social_dynamics

Tags: live blog, live blogging, major league baseball, Tweeting, Twitter
Posted in Blogging, Social Media and Social Networking, Technology, Twitter | No Comments »

Beyond the Big 4 – Flickr Digg Delicious

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

By the Social Media Dynamics Team

What Flickr, Digg and Delicious can do for your business

After you’ve developed your routine on the Big 4 social media programs of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs, moving beyond to Flickr, Digg and Delicious offers important benefits:

Increased web presence
Increased search engine optimization, backlinks, Google “juice”
Increased community, relationships, new audiences
Sources of creative ideas

Flickr, Digg and Delicious each offer all of these benefits. In general, every link to your site and every additional web presence you create increases the opportunity for greater returns in new audience and higher site rankings.

Each offers you a Profile section to share information publicly about your business, website, events, charities, teams and locations.

Each offers community and group participation to develop and engage in relationships with members. Be sure to “lurk” in all sites to get comfortable with what is said. Monitor conversations. Then join in and leave comments, being sure to leave your contact information in the signature you leave on your post. Let the listening you do suggest new ideas for what more you can provide your audience in terms of education, reputation management, information and entertainment.

Flickr is image and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community owned by Yahoo! Popular as a website for users to share personal photographs, Flickr is widely used by bloggers to host images used in blogs and social media. As of October 2009, it claims to host more than 4 billion images.[1]

Posting images of new products, locations, community activities, and industry events helps a business get better ranking due to Google’s affinity for indexing images and video. Join Flickr groups to engage like-minded visitors and share images. All images help: logos, photos, headshots, product and store shots, portfolio graphics and stills and video from events. The benefits can include the viral nature of your new audience sharing your images with others, increasing your prospects and community.

Look for images that you might like to get permission to use in your blog posts and the like. Note copyrights and give attribution where required. Make sure to “tag” images with great keywords and captions to make them easy to be found with search terms.

Digg is a social news website, letting people vote stories up or down, called digging and burying, respectively. The website traffic ranked 100th by Alexa.com as of April 2, 2010.

Digg likes postings of recent news including articles, fresh news events and new products and services, helping to gain short-term traffic surges while stories are current. Again the viral nature of sharing comes into play in terms of getting in front of more and more new audience members. You begin to see the value and importance of strong content and creative that’s interesting and compelling enough to share.

Delicious is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks that is owned by Yahoo. By the end of 2008, the service claimed more than 5.3 million users and 180 million unique URLs bookmarked URLs.

I’ve seen suggestions to submit every page of your site to Delicious. Certainly submit articles, site sections, and blog posts that you think offer great content value. Take advantage to develop your Profile, add photos and even a blog if you like. Explore the applications available to see what might be helpful.

Yahoo’s ownership of both Flickr and Delicious certainly helps get pages indexed faster. The intertwining of these services with your Yahoo and My Yahoo account increases the exposure of graphics, profile and contacts.

Many of these services let you tie back to your Twitter, Facebook, blog and other social media activities to share in their venues. So share away, develop new audiences, explore and benefit from your expanding social media universe.

[1] Source for all definitions: Wikipedia

Get Blog Subscribers by Email – the Easy Way

Friday, June 4th, 2010

By Jan Carroza

If you are doing your blog in WordPress, here’s an easy way to offer your blog posts to your readers automatically and one that they might prefer: email.

Denise Wakeman, author of Build a Better Blog, took a survey and learned that half of us still prefer to sign up for blog posts by email. The other half like to use Readers like Google to receive favorite feeds.

Those choosing blogs for business choose to receive email 12 times more often than by RSS feed, according to Hubspot (http://j.mp/b1nuij).

Check your Wordpress theme to locate this widget. Here’s what it looks like in your widget choices:

Here’s how it will look on your site in one of your columns:

Review your email subscribers and download your list in a .CSV format. You will also have control to remove subscribers from your list. Look under your Blog Stats navigation tab.

You have the flexibility to modify the copy used in the Sign Up box:

Read the entire document at: http://en.support.wordpress.com/blog-subscriptions.

Enjoy the easy way to connect with more of your audience while letting them have it their way!

@social_dynamics

Tags: blog subscription by email, Business Blogs, Denise Wakeman, Hubspot, RSS, widget, WordPress
Posted in Articles, Blogging, Email, Local business, Social Media and Social Networking, Technical | No Comments »

Permanent Record

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

By Sharon Hill

Most of us know what a Permanent Record is regarding school transcripts. Has the internet and social media become the business version of a Permanent Record?

Recently I was looking up a business and came across a complaint – from March 2007. In addition, a client has a posting on a complaint site that goes back to August 2008.

Some of the sites allow for a rebuttal. Satisfied customers may also write in about their experiences. Unfortunately, the complaint is what shows up in the search engines synopsis, not the positive responses or a rebuttal.

Many of these complaint sites are legally protected by Communications Decency Act of 1996 which in summary states: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

One such site in order to keep a working history of the individual or company, does not allow the author to remove the original complaint. I would assume the author could write another post if the issue was resolved. Of course, just because an issue is resolved doesn’t mean it never happened.

These types of sites provide the framework and platform for folks to let others know of their dissatisfaction. In other cases, folks may just want to vent and can be somewhat over-the-top.

I have used these types of sites myself when checking out a company and I have thought about writing up a company or two as well. Knowing that my comments are going to become a Permanent Record causes me to pause, as it should. What if the employee/owner was just having a bad day? What kind of business is it and does it lend itself to more complaints and dissatisfaction? Were my expectations in line with the cost of the service?

Make no mistake rude is rude and misrepresenting information, especially for personal gain, is just wrong. Back in the day complaints were made face-to-face or in written form. Most knew that without a name the complaint had little impact on the business. The internet allows for anonymous (first name, user name only, screen name) complaints with no requirement that it be a fair representation of the issue.

More on this subject regarding social media sites next time.

@social_dynamics

Tags: business complaints, complaint sites, Internet, social media
Posted in Articles, Blogging, Local business, Social Media and Social Networking, Websites | No Comments »

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