Social Media & ROI

I’ve been reading a lot lately about people questioning or waiting to see what the “ROI on Social Media is” and if it can actually help a company’s ‘bottom-line’ before they go ahead and start using and investing time in it.

Let me ask you this- Can you measure the return-on-investment on a relationship?

Times are changing from the day of the “ME” organization where companies can dictate how things should be to “Customer-Centric” organizations where the voice of the customer is equally as important. Today as consumers, we have all the tools in our hand to voice our opinions about what we feel, think, want and demand from companies. Slowly a new economy is emerging.
The new economy is all about real-ationships. People want to do business with people they know or have been referred to by people they know and trust. The currency in this new economy is trust.

So how does social media build relationships? On it’s own it doesn’t. But it provides a whole new way to find and foster relationships with people in your backyard that you may have never had the opportunity to meet.

Like any relationship, there is effort and time to be invested. You have to connect, engage, interact with people and put yourself out there to be found. Remember it is called ‘social’ media, the platform may be different but the same rules apply. If you were meeting face to face, you wouldn’t just broadcast your business or details, you would introduce yourself, listen, talk and connect on some level. Same goes for tools like Twitter.

Going back to my initial question-my answer is that you can’t measure the ROI on a relationship because a relationship is not finite and will continue to grow as long as you invest it, and you will continue to reap the benefits beyond this quarter, next quarter or the last quarter. The conversations about your brand will continue to happen whether or not you choose to participate, so why not at least listen to what’s being said? Or use the medium as way to position yourself as a thought leader or network with other like-minded individuals. The possibilities are endless.

So don’t wait for the reports, the analysts or the predictions-dive in and build those relationships!

Where’d I go?

I must say I’ve been delinquent in my posting lately (tsk tsk) but not without reason!
I’ve been taking my social networking offline a bit these days and networking locally in Montreal with a lot of the great people I’ve met online in the ‘real world’.

Lots of great things to report, I’ll be back soon =)

3 ways to use Hashtags!

So what’s the deal with these funky messages and # in all of them?

Yes, those new to Twitter can find it a bit daunting and almost feel like they are looking at code when coming across tweets like this:

@sands: looking forward to @garyvee at indigo tonight #montreal #crushit

1-Hashtags allow people to find you
As I mentioned in the previous post, people are listening on specific keywords and doing searches on particular words. Since you can specify #tags in your searches, this allows people to find you and for you to get found.

2- Real time Search
At any given time, you can click on a hashtag and see how many other people are using that same tag and allow you to find other twitterer’s that may be of interest.

3- Hashtags give your tweets context

For example, if I had tweeted the above post:
@sands looking forward to meeting @garyvee tonight in montreal

I wouldn’t necessarily be found as easily by other people who were interested in all things montreal (unless using the near: in their search).
#crushit is a better example. For a lot of online events/conferences, events will use certain hashtags so that other people interested in these tweets can easily find them based on the hash.

Sound like a lot to get your head around? Just start by observing and slowly start adding them to your tweets.

Nothing beats practice!!

Five ways to find Tweeple to follow

So you’ve taken the plunge and created a Twitter account and you’re thinking, “Ok, now what? How do I get other people to know I’m here and how do I find interesting/relevant people to follow?”
You could start by doing an address book import to see if any of your contacts (Gmail, Yahoo, AOL) are already using Twitter but chances are you are looking to connect with people you don’t yet know. You could also use Twitter’s Find On Twitter feature but this is only really useful if you know the twitter handle of the user/organization/company you are looking for.

Here are some tools to find followers and get found:
Twitter Search Use Twitter’s built in Advanced Search to find other users by keywords, location etc. For example, if I was interested in looking for other people in Montreal I could enter ‘Montreal’ in the ‘near’ field and the result would be something like this: Search Results. Clearly, the more search terms you enter will result in a more specific list of Twitter users.

WeFollow is Twitter directory where you can list yourself as well as search other users to follow. So for example, if I wanted to list myself so other people interested in social media would find me I could enter the following tags: #socialmedia #entrepreneur #networking, for example. You can also list yourself under multiple hashtags and also browse followers by city. Listing oneself here also helps being found as many users set up alerts on certain hashtags and are notified when certain keywords are used.

Mr.Tweet is particularly useful once you have started following people. Mr.Tweet will analyze your followers and provide recommendations on other people you may want to follow. It has an easy to use interface that allows you to quickly read the bio of the suggested people and then decide whether you want to start following that particular user. Mr.Tweet will periodically send you a Direct Message with more suggestions.

TwellowHood: Think of it as a yellow pages for Twitter where you can list your Twitter profile in various categories and add more detailed bio information and search for other users using the Twitter finder. For example, I’ve listed myself in Montreal under Media-Social media.

LocalTweeps Allows you to find exactly that-local tweeters in your city/neighbourhood. You can search by city/zip and keyword and find local events.

Just remember, Twitter is not a popularity contest and don’t get caught up with the numbers. Write interesting tweets, provide context and the followers will come.

Have you come across any other interesting tools? I’d love to hear about them!

Twitter for your business

Twitter for Business?
A lot of my friends don’t seem to quite understand why I would be twittering for business purposes and what benefit it could possibly bring.
Why would anyone care about- “What you are doing?”, they ask.
They continue to look at me with blank stares when I tell them we are using it to interact with our customers, generate interest in our product, learn about what’s going on in different areas and build our brand awareness.

Most people don’t understand how a tool like Twitter could help their business grow and rather uses like this come to mind:

Rather than just broadcasting details about your life, Twitter is a way to connect with other like-minded individuals; people who may be interested in your products or services or even find out what your competitors are up to.

All that in 140 characters you ask?

Sure it may sound like a daunting task but there are techniques that you can use that will make it easier, which I’ve discussed here.

For example, if you are running a Yoga studio, you could provide tips on yoga poses, health tips and mantras, interspersed with information/promotions you are running at your studio. If you have blog, you could provide more details about what you are tweeting in your posts; Twitter would then be another way to drive traffic to your blog/site.

Have you thought about using Twitter for your business? What are the challenges you’ve faced?

How to measure social media success

So there is A LOT of talk about social media these days.

In fact, the other day even my parents asked me what the deal with Twitter was and my mom is a housewife who hasn’t yet embraced email *but* will pay her bills online. Go figure!

More and more statistics are showing that a social media strategy is required as part of your marketing tool box. But how do we measure success? Is success the number of followers you have on Twitter or the number of friends you have on Facebook?
Just recently, I experienced several great examples of the power and reach of Social Media.
Last Tuesday, I responded to this tweet:

Private Six Pixels book launch in Mtl tonight. I have 15 special invites. Want one? Email:

by @mitchjoel whose blog Six Pixels of Separation I follow. Now normally, I would have thought to myself, “What are the chances, I’m sure others will beat me to it” but I figured what do I have to lose? So I gave it a shot and got myself an invite to the private book launch of his new book “Six Pixels of Separation”.

Opportunity.

Social media allows us to connect with those that we normally could not. Sure, you may not always get noticed but it definitely levels the playing ground.

Another example, GaryVee, well known for his Wine Library TV, recently ran a contest for the most creative picture taken with the New York Times featuring him and the winner would have the chance to dine with him in NYC. Local Montrealer, @tamyemmapepin managed to capture his attention with her motivation and creativity with this dress made out of the New York Times.

At the end of the day, it’s about connecting, interacting, engaging and real-ationships. We can’t measure success simply by the count at the end of the day but more by the interactions and opportunities that have come out of it.

Thoughts?

3 Ways to not use Twitter

1- Blatantly Self-Promote:
Nobody likes a self-promoter. Twitter and social media in general is about building relationships first : engaging with the people who are interested in your brand, subject matter and business, second.

2- Be fake.
Be genuine. Most of the people you interact with online with you might not actually meet, therefore in order to have meaningful online relationships you really need to be yourself. This will attract more followers and raise your credibility as a veritable source.

3-Bombard your followers: Think: Twitter spam!

You don’t want to be known as a Twitter spammer do you 😉
If you are constantly pushing out new content and new links you may overwhelm your followers. Sometimes less is more and if you are constantly tweeting you actually may be overlooked. Tweet value and your followers will seek you out.

*Bonus*: Follow people and offer them to see nude, X-rated pictures of yourself. You know who you are people!

I’m sure there are lots more but these are my top 3. Please share yours!

Revealed: Why Twitter is changing customer support

I had a real life twitter experience at work today. We’ve been implementing the strategy discussed in this blog over the last few months and we are starting to see the positive and ‘negative’ sides.

Positive?
We have set up alerts as discussed in the post Three Ways to Monitor Your Brand and we are alerted anytime our company, products or competitors are mentioned in the Twittersphere. This is great when positive things are mentioned but perceived as not so great when negative feedback is received, as I witnessed today.

We were alerted to a customer tweeting negative remarks about our product and their present experience with the software. Our Director of Customer Support was not pleased with the comments as the tone of the tweets were quite vulgar and so he didn’t want to engage in any dialogue with the customer. This is exactly when you want to reach out to show that you are listening and willing to help out. This is what will set you apart since more and more customers are fed up of companies that ‘don’t want to listen’ and that are hiding behind corporate walls. Twitter empowers everyone and levels the playing field, whether you are a large corporation or small enterprise. In the past, when you had beef with something you could tell a few of your friends or coworkers and vent your frustration about a particular company/product/service. Now, with sites like Twitter, everyone has the ability to be heard and has equal opportunity to make or break a product. ‘Word of Mouth Marketing’ quickly becomes ‘World’ of mouth marketing.

There is no negative to this story. Had we not been there and listening we would be oblivious to what customers are saying about our product, both good and bad. By listening and engaging, and reaching out to our existing and potential customers, we can only make our product and service better.

It may take our Director some time to get his head around social media and its impact on customer support but I’m sure in due time he’ll have something to tweet about. 😉

Have you had a similar experience?

Three ways to monitor your brand

Once you’ve set up the various social media you want to work with, you will want to be able to find out when people are talking about your brand.

Here’s a list of the tools that I like to use and have setup to send me alerts when the various brands I work with are mentioned:

Tweetbeep: Monitor how your brand is being discussed in the twittersphere. You can set up alerts to be notified every time your product, brand or you are being mentioned. I have set Tweetbeep to give me daily updates on my brand, as well as those of my competitors!

SocialMention: performs real time searches of the ‘universe’ for any mention of your brand/keywords/competitors, in blogs, news, microblogs, forums etc and provides a rating for the returned search. Alerts can also be setup to return results on a daily basis.

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. I use Google Alerts to provide me industry news and a way to keep up to date on subject matter that I am interested or related to my industry/business/brand.

I find setting up these alerts saves countless time and energy by bringing the information to me in a timely, convenient manner. It was also surprising to see how many sites I may have overlooked or were under the radar but meaningful discussion about my brand were happening and allowed me to join in on the conversation or monitor what was being said.

Questions?

Bite Sized Social Media Tip: Aggregators

Twitter, Facebook, Blogging, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, Dugg?? It can be quite intimidating!

For the newbie and even the seasoned social media maven, it can be quite overwhelming to try to create and use all these accounts on a daily basis. Not to mention remember all those passwords 🙂

Why not just stick to Twitter or Facebook?

Well, part of your audience may only be Facebook or some may only read your blog. Some may only be active on Twitter while others may not even know Twitter exists! You want to be able to reach out to them where they are hanging out online.

Social Media Aggregators allow you to push out and manage your networks from one place and only require one login.. Once you set up your account and add all the social networks you want to participate in, you can then decide which networks you want to post content to, and duplicate the content across several networks without having to log in to each one. My current aggregator of choice is Ping.fm which I’ve set up to update my Facebook Fan Page status as well as my Twitter status.

I would highly recommend you explore aggregators as you build your social media strategy because it will help automate the process and save you time, energy and effort.

Comments?