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Evaluating Your Social Strategy With Forrester’s POST

Monday, September 24th, 2012

Did you have a clear set of objectives before you started working on your small business social strategy? Probably not.

If you were an early adopter, you jumped right in. You found some things that worked and some that didn’t and adjusted accordingly.

Even if you were a little more cautious getting started (or are just getting started now) chances are you had some broad ideas of how you might best use social media, but you probably didn’t have specific objectives. At least, that seems to be the majority experience of the folks I talk to.

As social tools continue to become a part of our personal and business lives we continue to evaluate how they can help us accomplish our goals. We care less about social being cool; we care more about how it can help us be effective.

Several years ago, Josh Bernoff and the folks at Forrester were trying to help businesses figure out how to “do social the right way”. They created an acronym called POST which stands for People, Objectives, Strategy, and Technology. The POST method provides a common sense method for evaluating your current social strategy and identifying areas you can improve. Here is a quick overview of the POST method:

People - Don’t start a social strategy until you know what your audience need to know and where they turn for answers.

Objectives – Do you want to listen to your customers, or to talk with them? Decide on your objective before you decide on a technology.

Strategy - What will be different after you’re done?

Technology – comes last. Once you know your people, objectives, and strategy, then you can decide.

If you are unhappy with the results you have received to date from your social strategy, use the POST method to evaluate your current strategy and correct your course. You can learn more about the POST method on Forrester’s blog and from the book Groundswell.

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Categories : Marketing, social media marketing

Tags : social media

Social Media Conversion Tracking – What Small Businesses Need to Know

By Bill Brelsford · Comments (0)

Thursday, August 23rd, 2012

Small business owners using (or planning to use) social media channels for marketing need to be able to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns using those channels. Tools like Google Analytics can give you some insight into your social media campaigns performance but it is important to understand the role social media plays in your marketing hourglass and how that can influence what you see in your analytics reports.

Tracking conversions in social media is different than tracking conversions in most online marketing. One reason is that, as my friends at Argyle explain, social media tends to be intent generating while other online marketing activities tend to be intent harvesting. Here is the example they give:

Search conversions usually happen at the bottom of the (traditional sales) funnel:

A person searches for product or service.
They click on a natural or paid link
They buy a product, sign up for an initial consultation, etc.

Social conversions usually begin much earlier in the funnel:

A person sees one of your posts re-tweeted from someone they follow.
They click your link to an external website, thinks it’s pretty interesting then wonders who originally tweeted it. They read about your company and think “Hm!”
Although person didn’t need your product earlier, they later have a need it fills.
They don’t remember your URL, so they search for you.
Person clicks on a natural or paid link.
They buy a product, sign up for an initial consultation, etc.

In the cases above, Google Analytics will count both conversions as coming from paid or natural search (the click on the link), because the click that led directly to a purchase was from these sources. The contribution from social media channels outlined in the second scenario are ignored.

As a small business owner you want to make sure that you’re using a conversion tracking tool that’s specifically built with your needs in mind. In some cases, using the information from Google Analytics provides may be “good enough”. Either way, it’s important to know what you are measuring and why so you can use the information to make better business decisions.

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Categories : Small Business Marketing, social media marketing

Tags : analytics, social media marketing

4 Social Media Metrics Small Businesses Should Track

By Bill Brelsford · Comments (0)

Wednesday, August 15th, 2012

How’s social media working for your small business? How do you track what’s working and what’s isn’t? There are lots of things you could track, but which social media metrics will give you actionable information that will help you grow your business? Here are a few ideas to help get you started.

Most small business start of their social media measurement efforts by tracking audience size, i.e., Twitter followers, Facebook likes, LinkedIn connections, etc. Audience size can help you see if you are trending in the right direction, but by itself it doesn’t provide you with very much insight.

To add some context to audience size, many small businesses find it helpful to measure the level of engagement with their audience. Two common social media metrics that measure engagement are Click Rate and Interaction Rate.

Click rate is simply the number of clicks your posts/updates receive divided by your audience. Click rate can help you determine how useful your audience finds the information you are sharing.

You can also measure your Interaction Rate (Interactions / Audience). While click rate measures clicks on links that you share, interaction rate measures all interactions i.e., re-tweets, replies, shares, likes, comments, etc.

Small business marketers often use social media to promote their marketing content. If you use social media this way, you may also want to measure clicks per post and interactions per post. Use these metrics to identify content that resonates with your audience and create more content like it.

Of course, when looking at these metrics you need to consider who your audience is, what you are sharing, and the fit between the two. Having high engagement rates on content that is of little interest to your ideal customers is unlikely to help you meet your business goals.

One last quick note – when discussing metrics, small business owners often ask me what the “ideal” number is they should be shooting for as a goal. I don’t believe there is a set of benchmarks for small business social media marketing to date. Even if benchmarks did exist, I believe small business marketers should focus on the trends, and what they can learn from them, in their metrics rather than trying to target a specific number.

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Categories : Marketing, social media marketing

Tags : social media marketing

How Much Does Social Media Cost?

By Bill Brelsford · Comments (1)

Thursday, August 9th, 2012

[Note - this post appeared in yesterday's newsletter as the main article. I don't usually repeat my newsletter articles here, but several people told me they found it helpful, so I thought I would share it with those who read my blog too]

Social media provides a lot of opportunities for small business marketers.

But let’s face it, none of us have the time and budget to do all of the things we would like to do, never mind all of the things the experts say we “need” to do. We have to prioritize and make choices. In order to make choices, we need know what things cost.

We don’t have to be accurate to the penny at this stage but we do want to make sure 1) we are comparing apples to apples and 2) we are not leaving out significant costs.

To meet these goals, make sure you consider these 5 areas when putting your numbers together:

1. Building and Programming
What do you need to build? Does your marketing campaign require a landing page or a Facebook tab? Do you need an autoresponder or other follow up mechanism? What do you need to build or buy to implement your plan?

2. Content Creation
Content plays a major role in today’s small business marketing (both online and offline). When creating your campaign budgets ask how much content needs to be created. Will the content need to be updated? If so, how often? Who will create and update the content? Do you have staff with the skills and time needed or is this something that makes sense to outsource?

3. Monitoring and Engaging
Social media is about conversations and your company needs to participate in those conversations. Consider how often the conversations on your different channels (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) need to be monitored for questions and comments. How often do they need to be updated? How often do you need to check for and delete spam? Who will perform these tasks?

4. Measuring Results
One of the advantages of online marketing is it gives us the ability to measure results. Measuring results, however, takes resources. Tools for monitoring and gathering analytics range from free (i.e. Google Analytics) to hundreds or thousands of dollars per month (i.e. Radian6). Don’t forget the cost of reviewing, reporting, analyzing the data collected as well as determining action plans based on the data collected.

5. Training and Support
What skills and knowledge to you and your staff need to possess or improve in order to make your social media marketing efforts successful?

I hope you find these questions helpful when creating budgets or discussing pricing with your solution providers.

P.S. – these same questions apply to your other marketing campaigns (not just social) as well.

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Categories : Marketing, social media marketing

Creating Social Media Strategies That Drive Business Results

By Bill Brelsford · Comments (0)

Monday, August 6th, 2012

Do you have a social media strategy for your business?

As small business owners are becoming more comfortable with social media, many want to know how to create strategies and plans to use social media tools to drive business results.

Many small business owners, and many of the consultants they hire, jump right to tactics without taking the overall business and marketing strategy into account.

Selecting tools that make publishing easier (i.e. Hootsuite and TweetDeck) and creating a schedule of who will post what, when, are important parts of your execution plan. However, the execution plan is not the same as a strategy. If the tactics you are executing are not rooted in a strategy, then these tools will only help you fail more efficiently.

Before you jump into selecting your tools and creating your publishing calendar, take a few minutes to consider these 3 questions:

1. What do you want to gain from your social media plan?

Have you defined what success will look like for your social media plan? Having a clearly defined business goal, whether it is building a community, driving traffic to your offline store, or enhancing your customer service, is the first step the first step to creating a successful social media plan.

2. What do you do or offer that people will want to talk about?

People will talk about and share things for their own reasons, not for yours. Do you know what your audience wants to talk about? Sometimes, they may want to talk about the features of the products and services that you offer; more often they want to talk about the benefits those product, services, or just knowing you, bring to their lives. If you want to be part of the conversation, talk about the things that interest your ideal customers.

3. How do you make money and how can social impact that?

Do you make money by selling products online? Do you have brick and mortar stores? Do you sell directly or through affiliates? Are you a consultant looking for long term engagements? The answers to these questions will make a difference in how you use social media in your business.

If you want to create a social media plan that drives business results, start by asking and answering these 3 questions.

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Categories : Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media marketing

Tags : Marketing Strategy, social media, social media marketing

Finding Customers Online by Listening for Intent

By Bill Brelsford · Comments (1)

Wednesday, July 18th, 2012

For small business owners, social media presents a familiar good news, bad news situation.

The good news is social media gives us access to thousands (millions) of conversations going on in the marketplace.

The bad news is social media gives us access to thousands (millions) of conversations going on in the marketplace.

Small business owners don’t have time to sift through thousands of conversations hoping to find the few that will help them make a sale. Without tools and techniques to filter out irrelevant conversations, most small business marketers will typically:

Budget a block of time to “do social media”. Typically this just limits the amount of time that is wasted rather than improving results.
Try to outsource it (just get it off my plate). Outsourcing can work, but only if owners and employees stay actively involved in the process.
Abandon social media because it’s “not right for their business”

Many small business marketers try to filter out noise and find relevant conversations online by creating listening stations. Listening stations are essentially queries that send you a notification whenever they find a new result. Google Alerts is a common starting point for creating a listening station.

Typically you are listening for a particular set of keywords used by your prospects. Ideally, you will have surveyed your customers to learn how the phrases they use when describing the problem you solve and searching for solutions.

For example, if I am an attorney specializing in estate planning, I may want to listen for conversations containing keywords and phrases like:

Wills, inheritance, probate
Trusts, living trusts, irrevocable trust
Estate planning
death taxes
life insurance

The problem you will run into when you do this is you will be inundated with conversations that are not relevant to your goals. How can you sort through the massive amounts of conversations taking place online to find relevant conversations without having it become a full time job?

A common recommendation you will hear is that you need to refine the keyword phrases you listen for to be more specific. While this may be true, I believe you also listen for other words/phrases that will help you determine the intent of the conversation.

For purposes of this post, I’m going to oversimplify things by narrowing down intent into 3 categories:

People looking for help
People promoting products and services
Other

Most small business owners want to listen to conversations looking for people in category #1. The problem they run into is they get swamped with messages from people in category #2.

I suggest (as always <g>) that you apply the skills that make you successful in “live” networking events in your online networking activities. Here is what I mean by that.

Whenever you attend a local chamber meeting, or other networking event, you meet both people looking for help and people wanting to sell. When you have conversations, you use your listening skills to determine the intent of the people you talk to. Even if you are there to just help (i.e. not sell) you must determine the intent or needs of individuals before you can help them.

How do we listen for intent online? By listening for the words and phrases your prospects use to express they are looking for help or are in the research stage of their buying cycle.

When you conduct keyword research, you try to determine how your prospects express the solutions you provide. You also need to understand:

what events trigger a prospect to look for your solutions and
how they typically start their research – what questions do they ask and where do they turn for answers.

You may find that your prospects use words and phrases like:

help
who would you recommend…
what is your experience…
do you have any tips…
where can I find…
who do you know…
do you have an opinion about…
what do you think about this vs. that?

Once you find the phrases that your ideal prospects use to express intent, combine them with your targeted keyword phrases to create listening station queries that deliver relevant results.

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Categories : Small Business Marketing, social media marketing, Technology

Tags : listening station, social media