Social Media Tips | 60 Second Marketer

March 8th, 2011

Free E-Book: 99 Tools to Help You Make Money with Social Media

The biggest challenge most people have with social media is sorting through all the online tools that can help you run, launch and manage your campaigns.

After all, there are literally hundreds of different tools that can help you track and optimize your social media program. The problem is, you don’t have the time to hunt down all the different options.

Click here to download your free copy of "99 Tools to Help You Make Money with Social Media."

Well, good news. We’ve created an e-book that has done some of the hard work for you.

The free e-book is called “99 Tools to Help You Make Money with Social Media.” We spent hours and hours tracking down and analyzing nearly 100 different tools you can use to optimize your program.

If you’d like to download the free e-book, just click the image to the right or click here.

If you want to see samples of what’s included in the free e-book, read on:

Tools to Help You with Content Creation and Integration

Context Optional: Best for marketers with multiple team members, brands or geographies, this platform helps develop applications for Facebook and Twitter communities and monitor and analyze the conversations taking place on these platforms.
Crowd Factory’s Social Campaign: Think social networking is confined to Facebook and Twitter? Think again. Crowd Factory lets you embed social elements into any marketing experience including videos, emails, ads and more.
KickApps: This self-service site allows you to develop and manage social content such as branded communities, widgets, 3^rd party plug-ins and social applications.
North Social: Enhance your Facebook page by creating custom applications that allow your brand to do things such as integrate with Google Maps or Yelp, post HD videos, run sweepstakes, and more.
Involver Applications: The creator of the popular “Get Satisfaction” facebook app, Involver provides applications that allow you to easily add polls, RSS feeds, quizzes, music, contests and more to your Facebook or Twitter pages.
Sprout: Not to be confused with Sprout Social, this cloud based software company creates interactive ads and applications perfect for bringing social content to the web and mobile devices.
Lithium Community Platform: This software as a service company creates a social community right on your website that provides a place for your brand advocates to converse, tools to spread the word about your product through social channels and even generate ideas for innovation.

Click here to download the complete list of 99 tools.

Tools to Help You Monitor Brand Sentiment:

Alterian SM2: More in-depth than some other social media monitoring services, Alterian provides advanced user behavior statistics, demographics, location, positive or negative tone, and trending topics for your brand as seen across a host of social media outlets and websites.
PeopleBrowsr: Research.ly, and Analytic.ly are PeopleBrowsr’s main products, and offer sentiment monitoring, trend reporting and audience profiling. Their main claim to fame at the moment is their recent announcement that they provide 1000 days of Twitter history.
Social Mention: This free web-based application lets you search popular channels such as blogs and microblogs to find brand mentions and analyzes the sentiment towards your brand. You can also set up alerts so that you will be told any time someone mentions your brand.
BrandsEye: A slightly different type of social media listening tool, BrandsEye helps you manage your online reputation by finding all of your brand mentions, the reputation of their source, the sentiment and even flags mentions that you may require immediate attention.

Click here to download the complete list of 99 tools.

Tools to Help You with Tracking and Analytics:

Argyle Social: If you’re interested in monitoring trends and sentiment, this management tool may not be for you. In addition to aggregating your social media accounts, Argyle Social analyzes only hard numbers and direct outcomes of your campaigns.
Trendrr: This site peruses blogs, microblogs, search engines, social networks and even video to see what people are saying about your brand and provides numerical analysis to help you understand what it all means
Involver Audience Management Platform: In addition to providing a host of apps, Involver offers a dashboard that manages all of your social media applications, monitors communication, and provides analytics based on actionable measures so you can see the true ROI of your actions.
MediaVantage: Designed for PR gurus, this tool gives you instant access to TV, print, online and social media content that is relevant to your brand’s reputation, your industry, or your competition.
Objective Marketer: This site allows you to create the content and strategy and just steps in to objectively analyze how people have interacted with the content you have posted. By measuring clicks, views, likes and more, the Objective Marketer discovers trends and finds out what is working for your brand… and what’s not.

Click here to download the complete list of 99 tools.

Here’s the table of contents from this free e-book:

The Social Media ROI Cycle explained
Tools to Help You Manage Your Twitter Account
Tools to Help you Manage Facebook
Tools to Help you Manage Your Websites and Blogs
Tools to Help You Manage Multiple Social Channels
Content Creation and Integration Tools
Qualitative Social Media Monitoring Tools
Quantitative Social Media Monitoring Tools
Comprehensive Social Media Monitoring Tools
Tools to Help You Reverse Append Email Addresses to Find Out More About the Contacts in Your Database

We’ve put a lot of time and energy into this free e-book, so you can spend your time doing more important things. Download it today and, before long, you’ll be super-charging your social media campaigns.

P.S. If you’re interested in receiving more tools and tips like the ones above, you can have the 60 Second Marketer blog delivered to your in box each morning by clicking here. Or, you can sign up for our free weekly e-newsletter by clicking here.

Posted by Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer of the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine of BKV Digital and Direct Response. Jamie is also the co-author of How to Make Money with Social Media.

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Tags: 60 Second Marketer 99 tools to help you make money with social media BKV fee tips on social media free ebook on social media Jamie Turner social media ebook Social Media Techniques Social Media Tips Social media tools

July 28th, 2010

Why Your First Social Media Campaign May Have Failed.

This excerpt is just a short sample of some of the content in “How to Make Money with Social Media,” by Jamie Turner and Dr. Reshma Shah. To download a free chapter, click Free Chapter. Or, better still, buy a copy right now on Amazon (affiliate link).

You were probably pretty fired-up when social media first started came along. It was an exciting new approach, there was a lot of buzz about it and everybody was eager to see if social media was going to be like paid search. You remember paid search — in the early years, it was so successful that it was the equivalent of printing money. Today, it’s a solid, viable medium, but in those early years, it was super hot.

And that’s what social media is today. Super hot. But somewhere along the way, there have been a lot of people who have stumbled. They’ve launched a campaign, sometimes with great fanfare, and failed miserably.

Our point is this – if you’re a company that sells paper or pet supplies or, God forbid, industrial widgets (apologies to the industrial widget makers out there), you’re going to have to reach out to the consumer and get them engaged with your social media campaign.

How can you do this? By creating a campaign that gives the consumer something of value that they don’t currently have. This can be give-aways and other special promotions that are relatively traditional. Or, it can be information that the visitor finds useful. Better still, it could be a tool that keeps the visitor coming back for more.

One of the best and smartest versions of these tools is what a company out of Boston called Hubspot has created. They realized that one of the best ways to create inbound traffic to their website was to create a tool people couldn’t do without. So they created an SEO analysis tool called WebsiteGrader and put it up on their website.

How to Make Money with Social Media is available at fine bookstores around the globe. Click the image above to order on Amazon.

What’s an SEO analysis tool? It’s a sophisticated program that analyzes how Google, Yahoo or Bing see your site. The real stroke of genius was that the folks at Hubspot decided to include WebsiteGrader on their website. By sharing their tool with other people, they created inbound traffic, which ultimately converts to customers.

“A great way to get more customers using social media is not just to engage, but educate,” says Hubspot Chief Technology Officer and Founder Dharmesh Shah. “We believe in this passionately at HubSpot and it has worked miracles for us. We’ve learned that more people you make smarter by educating them, the more leads and customers you get.”

How successful has Hubspot’s WebsiteGrader been? So far, it’s generated grades on more than 2 million URLs. So on more than 2 million occasions, potential customers for Hubspot have visited, engaged and interacted with one of the tools it has on their site. That kind of traffic is mind-boggling, especially if you’re a company with only a few hundred employees.

Check out MyStarbucksIdea.com or WebsiteGrader.com next time you’re at a computer. You’ll get a clear sense of what they’re doing to engage people – and keep them engaged – with their companies.

Which brings us back to one of the key things a lot of folks are asking themselves right now, “If social media is such a powerful tool, then how come my first campaign failed?”

It’s a great question. So we did an analysis of the most common mistakes people make when they run a social media campaign and came up with the list below. Take a spin through it and put a check by the ones that apply to you. Don’t be surprised if you have more than one checkmark – the idea is to figure out where you’re coming up short so you can focus on fixing the problem areas:

___ You didn’t measure the results of your campaign: Interestingly, this is an all-too-common problem. We’ll discuss ways you can measure the results of your next campaign in an upcoming chapter.

___ You didn’t set clear objectives: Some companies create a Facebook page or a YouTube channel before thinking through their objectives. Is it to build awareness? To drive traffic to a landing page on your site? To give people a channel to make comments and record their frustrations?

___ You thought social media was only about Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or YouTube: Of course, social media is about having many conversations across as many platforms as you can manage. The more opportunities you provide customers to engage with you, the more successful your campaign.

___ You didn’t know how to set up a landing page: One of basic models of social media success look like this: prospect à social media channel à landing page on website à new customer. If you don’t have a landing page on your website designed to convert prospects to customers, then you won’t be able to track your ROI. No ROI, no social media campaign. (Or, rather, no effective social media campaign.)

___ You didn’t re-market to customer prospects: Most prospects who visit your landing page won’t become customers. In fact, the vast majority won’t. But that doesn’t mean they’re never going to buy. It just means they weren’t going to buy at that time. Keep ‘em in your pipeline – you’ll get them someday, if you re-market to them.

___ You didn’t know how to turn a social media campaign into a sales and marketing campaign: Social media isn’t just about building awareness. It’s about turning prospects into customers. Don’t be shy about nudging prospects along the sales funnel. They expect it, to a certain degree.

___ You sat on the sidelines: True story – we were in contact with a creative director at a major advertising agency a while back who said, “this whole internet thing is just a flash in the pan and I can’t wait for it to blow over.” We’re serious. He said that. Our point? You don’t want to be that guy.

___ You downplayed the importance of social media: Some people don’t sit on the sidelines as much as they participate without passion. That’s almost as bad as sitting on the sidelines. You don’t want to be that guy, either.

___ You thought you could do social media in 10 minutes a day: Social media is a little like a marriage – you won’t have a successful marriage if you plan on spending just 10 minutes a day having a dialog with your spouse. The same holds true for a successful social media campaign.

___ You thought social media was like traditional marketing: There are a lot of similarities between social media and traditional media. But there are a lot of differences, too. Your job is to embrace those differences. Don’t be scared. Social media won’t hurt you.

We could go on and on about some of the ways your social media campaign might have failed in the past, but we won’t. Our job here is to show you ways to succeed with social media, not how to fail.

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Tags: Social media best practices Social media mistakes Social Media Tips

July 7th, 2010

My Social Media Secret Weapon: NutshellMail

As you might imagine, I spend a good amount of time on social media networks. It’s part of my job. Not only am I trying to build awareness for the 60 Second Marketer community, but I’m also trying to connect with client prospects for BKV Digital and Direct Response.

(Okay, to be honest, there is a third reason I spend a lot of time on social media networks – I’m trying to build early demand for my book, “How to Make Money with Social Media” which, oh by the way, will be published by the Financial Times Press this fall.)

NutshellMail is a social media aggregator that makes staying in touch with your social relationships easy.

The problem I face — and I bet you face the same problem, too — is that I can’t spend an inordinate amount of time flip-flopping between Twitter and LinkedIn and Facebook and YouTube and the blog. Trying to manage that many different outlets can be time-consuming and confusing all at once.

My Social Media Secret Weapon: NutshellMail

A few weeks ago, I received an email from Constant Contact. Those of you who receive our free weekly eNewsletter are familiar with Constant Contact because it’s the platform we use to send out free tips, tools and techniques to our community. (What? You’re not a subscriber to our free eNewsletter? C’mon, get with the program!)

Anyway, the email from Constant Contact introduced me to a new tool they offer called NutshellMail. NutshellMail aggregates all the activity from your social networks and drops them into a single email delivered to your in-box. To be honest, my initial reaction was, “Oh, gosh. One more broadcast email. Enough already!”

Despite my reservations, I decided to give NutshellMail a try. I was reluctant, mind you. What’s more, the first few emails I got I kind of ignored.

But then, for some reason, I took a deep dive into one of the emails. My thought process went something like this: “Oh, look. Nutshell Mail is letting me know that Davis Tucker just got a promotion and updated his LinkedIn profile to let everyone else know. I’ll have to congratulate him via email, given that he’s a potential client. And look at this – 7 people re-tweeted my blog post yesterday. I’ll have to send them a direct message thanking them. And look here – someone asked a question on my Facebook fan page that I should respond to. And what’s this? Here’s another…”

Imagine being able to have all your social media connections dropped into your email inbox every morning and not having to switch applications and poke around different websites to find out what’s going on.

Marvelous.

Does NutshellMail Replace Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook?

NutshellMail isn’t a replacement for your social media channels – it’s really an aggregator that saves you time and improves your ability to connect with others. Oh, sure, I still use Twitter and I still go to LinkedIn and other social media platforms to check in on things. But if you’re looking for a great way to catch-up with people and stay current on what’s happening in your social media-sphere, then Nutshell Mail is what you’re looking for.

Check it out for yourself. You can visit their page on the Constant Contact website by clicking Nutshellmail.

Posted by Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer, the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine of BKV Digital and Direct Response. You can download a free chapter from Jamie’s soon-to-be-published book by clicking, “How to Make Money with Social Media.”

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Tags: Social Media Techniques Social Media Tips Social media tools ways to get more efficient with social media

December 29th, 2009

What Walmart Knows About Social Media

Walmart has learned a lot about social media in the last year. Walmart’s John Andrews, senior manager of emerging media, said in early 2009, “With social media is it about a true authentic connection with an audience,” he said. “It’s a way to engage people and it’s an augment for your product. ”

What has Walmart learned about social media? Find out in this post.

1. Use the right writers: After having a false start at using blogs written by a public relations firm (a little distanced from Walmart’s consumers), Walmart turned to its customers for its current success in social media. They hired 11 moms to write blogs about saving money. And moms know how to engage the audience Walmart wants to reach.

2. Welcome feedback: Walmart uses social media with a ratings and review section on its web site. This made Walmart officials a little nervous at first. After all, negative ratings affect business. Said Andrews, “Well, it’s better that you know about it. If you are willing to help solve the problem it becomes an asset in your favor. ”

3. Use mobile technology: Users who sign up for it can get information on sales from text messages.

4. Read the results accurately: Then an interesting thing happened this November. Seems Walmart announced they were starting to sell caskets. (http://bit.ly/WalMartCasket if you’re in the market.) Now, problem was, the idea of Walmart selling such a macabre item as a casket gave the funny guys out there on the web something funny to write about, and seeing an opportunity, they began using social media sites to give reviews of said caskets. These entertaining reviews caught on, and pretty soon, lots of funny people were writing funny reviews.

Can you imagine the analyst looking at the rise in social media numbers, but not looking at the comments themselves? At first glance, the numbers look pretty good. Increases in comments, lots of interest, lots of buzz. But once you delve a little further into it, the good buzz was based on good, clean fun, NOT on good, clean caskets.

What’s a marketing professional to do?

Here’s what the blog at Advertising Age had to say about it:

The example, funny as it is, serves as a reminder that your approach to social media monitoring should follow a similar approach to what SEM/SEO experts do. Use filtering to your advantage. Leverage tag clouds to determine what words are the strongest within a web page of content. If something looks fishy, dive deeper in your analysis. Also, if positive reviews don’t match the number of sales, that too should raise a red flag.

So take a hint from Walmart and there’ll be no grave mistakes.

Social Media, Walmart | 6 Comments »

Tags: Social Media Tips Walmart social media Walmart's social media strategy

December 3rd, 2009

Top Search Terms Tell All: Youâ€™d Better Be Using Social Networking for Marketing

In case you are still skeptical whether social networking sites are really catching on or not, check out the top search terms from the month ending 11/28/09, provided by Experian Hitwise. Note that these are the top terms from All Categories, including the Shopping and Classified category during the holiday shopping rush during Thanksgiving week.Â Seven of the top 10 are social networking sites. That’s amazing. Only two are classified ads sites, and one is a search engine. Craigslist, which ranked number 4 in the Overall Search Terms, was the top search in the Shopping and Classifieds category. This tells us social networking sites were searched more than retailers in the last month.

What does it mean?

1. Social networking is hot: Even when shoppers in the US are going hog-wild looking for â€œBlack Fridayâ€ shopping deals on the internet, social networking site searches still outranked searches for â€œblack Friday,â€ â€œAmazon,â€ and the ubiquitous â€œWal-Mart.â€

2. Is there a place for your products on eBay? It would appear the internet savvy shopper is doing their business on-line with craigslist and eBay.

3. Your business better be using social networking: If youâ€™re not on Facebook or MySpace, you might be missing opportunities to market.

It will be interesting to see how this seasonâ€™s searches change by the end of December, especially in light of â€œBlack Monday,â€ when American shoppers took to the internet following Thanksgiving week. Weâ€™ll keep you informed.

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Thanks to Experian Hitwise for permission to reprint their statistics.

Facebook, Social Marketing, Social Media, Walmart | 2 Comments »

Tags: Facebook search terms Social Media Tips Social Networking

November 16th, 2009

Be a Social Media Whiz: Secrets of a Successful Online Campaign

Yes, you can be a whiz at using social media successfully.

Hereâ€™s the secret: You wouldnâ€™t start a new billboard campaign without careful planning, would you? Of course not. Yet many companies seem to jump right in to a social media campaign without giving this type of marketing the careful consideration that other types get. Why? It is a new medium to many, and weâ€™re still learning the ropes. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and others can be very effective – if done with a little planning.

Hereâ€™s a 10 point road map to help you plan to make the most effective use of a social media campaign, taken from a recent webinar presented by Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer of the 60 Second Marketer. Already using social media? Review to see if thereâ€™s a new idea for you.

1. Competitive Assessment: What are your competitors doing in this space already? What can you borrow from them?

2. Internal Situation Analysis: How much awareness is there of social media within your company? Is there an understanding that it can be measured and create a positive ROI?

3. Major Objectives: What are you trying to accomplish with your social media campaign?

4. Consumer Thought Process: What is the typical sales cycle for your product? How much trust do you need to build before you can make a sale? (Hint: The more expensive the product, the more trust needs to be built.)

5. Key Strategies: What approach are you going to take in order to have a successful program?

6. Brand Essence: What is your brand essence and how are you going to communicate that using social media?

7. Positioning: How is your brand currently positioned in the marketplace? Where do you want it to be positioned as a result of your social media campaign?

8. Essential Message: What is the essential take-away you want consumers and prospects to have after engaging with your brand via social media?

9. Tactical Plan Overview: Which social media platforms are you going to use for your program? Which tools are you going to use to measure the success of your program?

10. Executional Roadmap: What are your SMART Goals for this plan? How are you going to be held accountable for them?

Careful planning will make the time spent well worth it, and make you look like the whiz that you are. Just donâ€™t forget to have fun and be creative with your campaign. You may be the next trend setter, with competitors following your example!

Facebook, LinkedIn, Marketing Techniques, Social Media, Twitter | 5 Comments »

Tags: Facebook How to Use Twitter LinkedIn Marketing tips Social Media Social Media Techniques Social Media Tips Twitter

October 21st, 2009

How to Launch a Product the Microsoft Way

Windows 7, the new operating system for Windows-based PCs, is being released this Thursday, October 22. The world is getting excited, given the good reviews and buzz circulating about the upgrade, especially given the poor performance of Windows Vista, the prior release.

How does Microsoft launch a product this important? CNET news posted an interview with Tami Reller, head of Microsoft Windows 7 Marketing. Letâ€™s examine some of the key marketing strategies she shared. Your company may not have the resources available to you that MS has, but that doesnâ€™t mean you canâ€™t glean an idea or two and apply them to your business.

1) Think Global

Worldwide Launch Events: In Japan, Britain and New York.
â€œLots of Coverageâ€: Without giving specifics, Reller stated that there will be TV interviews, and perhaps late-night TV appearances. â€œYou’ll certainly see a lot of coverage from us that day, but no commitments on the exact venue.â€

2) Think Local

Local Launch parties: Even you can host a launch party at your house, just like Microsoftâ€™s employees do. You can set up your PCâ€™s, or see the new features, give out prizes, or whatever theme you like.Â http://houseparty.com/windows7usa

3) Find Symbolic Things to Do to Promote Your Launch

Open the Market: Microsoft will ring the opening bell on Nasdaq on Thursday.
Close the Market: Microsoft will join with its computer maker partners to end the day’s trading.

4) Employ Social Marketing

Facebook Windows 7 page: Microsoft is leveraging its Facebook page by including several interesting features, such as a â€œWindows 7 Personality quiz.â€ I was â€œhighly defined.â€ http://www.facebook.com/Microsoft.Windows.7
Twitter â€œWindows 7 Sweepstakesâ€: Prizes for answering challenges from this Twitter page, plus the latest news on Windows 7. http://twitter.com/mswindows

5) Have a Spokesperson

A cute spokeswoman girl: Kylie the youngâ€™un demonstrates Windows 7. See her on TV, or on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssOq02DTTMU&feature=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6adgIJE8YQ&feature=channel

6) Make an Offer They Canâ€™t Refuse

Worldwide Discounts: â€œPart of October 22 is going to be all about some screaming deals,â€ says Reller.

7) Create Strong Product Enthusiasm

Leverage Early Product Reviews: With early releases and trials, Microsoft has found â€œend-user acceptance and enthusiasm for a product matter. And that’s why we’ve put so much emphasis on the last year, in making sure that we had strong, strong engagement from users broadly across many demographics.â€ In fact, a senior IT administrator I know speaks well of Windows 7. He supports it, saying it is more stable, has a quicker install, runs everything that Vista will run, and provides a windows XP mode, among other features.

8) Start Something Unexpected

1^st retail store, ever, to open: The opening of the very first Microsoft retail store in Arizona coincides with the Windows 7 release.

Granted, Microsoft is a huge company with huge dollars to spend on marketing. But that doesnâ€™t mean you canâ€™t think huge within the budget you have. By using these techniques, even a small budget can get big results.

Advertising, Microsoft | 5 Comments »

Tags: Launch a product Marketing tips Microsoft Social Media Tips

October 15th, 2009

6 Tips for Leveraging a Social Media Campaign

Looking for ways to leverage your social media campaigns? Priscilla of Boston, a bridal retail business, has a new twist. Here is the news from DMNews on how Pricillaâ€™s is getting their bridal customers involved and excited about their product -Â as well as having customers further expand the social media campaign.

Weâ€™ve divided the story from DMNews into steps you can take with your business.

1. Run a Campaign That Invites User Action: Bridal retailerÂ is running a social media campaign with the Brickfish social networking Web site. The effort, which launched October 12, runs through November 16 and is called “How does Priscilla of Boston inspire you?”

2. Have a Clear Goal in Mind: Priscilla’s goal is to build awareness of its line of wedding gowns to young women that are members of the social network. The company’s customer demographic is women from their teens to their 30s.

3. Involve Your Customersâ€™ Creativity: Users can enter contests and communicate about various retailers and brands on the social network. This initiative calls young women to create photo collages of gowns that inspire them, along with stories about why they do, for the Priscilla of Boston Web site.

4. Offer a Prize: The grand prize winner will receive a trip to New York to attend the Priscilla of Boston April Runway Show. The runner-up will win a free bridal accessory.

5. Encourage Spreading the Word: The â€œMost Viralâ€ winner, who shares her entry with the highest number of other consumers, will win a dress.

6. Offer More Free Prizes: Priscilla of Boston is also calling consumers to listen to its bridal show on October 17 on www.brides.com/pob. The show calls listeners to enter a drawing to win additional prizes.

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September 21st, 2009

Company has Balls, Doubles Twitter Followers

Apparently, the best way to increase your company’s Twitter followership is to have balls. Beach balls, that is. Severa Corporation found a unique way to lure their website visitors to their Twitter site and sign on as followers. Beach balls in hand, here’s what they did.

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By Zaki Usman, Marketing Director, Severa Corp.

Before the start of summer, I had ordered over 300 branded beach balls to be used for some promotional offer with Severa Corp. While I was sweating out the heat wave with my colleagues in Severa’s Headquarters in Eastern Finland, a light bulb went off — “Hey, how about we use those beach balls to get more Twitter followers?” We got busy to launch “Follow us on Twitter and win a beach ball campaign.”

We had some inspiring results.

Doubled Follower Count:

By the ninth day after the program was launched, we doubled our Follower count from 4,700 to 9,400.

We have increased the following:

Meaningful conversations through direct messages
Frequency of our ReTweets
Higher website traffic referred from Twitter

And not only that, we started getting genuine followers who contribute to our social network.

Increased Relevant Traffic:

In fact, here are some of our website traffic stats on unique visitors that were referred from Twitter:

	Avg from June 1to June 28 (before the beach ball campaign)	Avg from June 29 to July 8 (during the beach ball campaign)
Avg Time on Site	approx. 3 minutes	approx. 5 minutes
Bounce Rate	40%	48%
Goal Conversion Rate	6%	8

In the first week, we had more Twitter traffic than in the last 2 months. With this increase, we also had a slight raise in bounced traffic which is understandable since we get more “passer bys.”

Raised Conversion Rate:

What’s most interesting is that, people who do stay, end up on our site for 5 minutes (2 minutes longer than before.) This means they are genuinely interested in our offering and that also explains why our conversion rates are higher now as well.

Over all, the Beach ball for Twitter follow has been a successful campaign thanks to my marketing team. Within 9 days we doubled our follower count, we increased relevant traffic and we raised our conversion rate. This really was a good idea to kick start our summer!

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If you want, you can follow Serva on Twitter, too. Perhaps you’ll win a beach ball. Also, visit ShoutEx Marketing Blog and Serva.

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Tags: Social Media Tips Twitter

August 19th, 2009

4 Steps to Using Social Networking to Nurture Sales

By Amy Fox

Sales representatives and business owners know what itâ€™s like to go to networking meetings, make cold calls, and knock on doors to find new business leads. While these traditional methods can produce results, online social networking offers an additional strategy for nurturing sales and growing your business. In fact, these days, if youâ€™re not using social networking tools, youâ€™re missing out on a wealth of untapped opportunities that your competitors are taking advantage of. But you wonâ€™t get much out of social networking if youâ€™re not using it strategically and integrating these tools into your day-to-day selling efforts. Here is some crucial advice about rethinking social networking and four key steps for using it to cultivate sales: be willing to try something new, digitize your contacts, earn conversations, and maximize your time spent on social networking.

Where are your sales @?

1) Try Something New: The first step is to change your thinking and your behavior. This means being willing and fully committed to trying new techniques that you likely havenâ€™t used before. Youâ€™ll get the best results if you completely integrate your new social networking habits into your day-to-day business â€“ it wonâ€™t do much good if you use it only once to fill out your profile. Invest at least one hour a week in finding new ways to meet and engage with people on a social networking site such as LinkedIn.

2) Digitize Your Contacts: A lot of people have a substantial collection of business cards and only work from that rolodex to nurture sales. But utilizing only these first-level connections limits you to a one-dimensional pool of contacts. Now is the time to connect your rolodex to your computer and digitize those contacts! Take advantage of the power of social networking by building a community online. Search for people you know in LinkedIn and/or Twitter, then request to connect to them. Once you’ve connected to all the people you know, leverage those first-level connections and let them work for you â€“ see who theyâ€™re connected to and use those connections to get into an account and build relationships.

When finding others to connect to, try to balance quality and quantity â€“ you canâ€™t (and shouldnâ€™t) connect to everyone in the world. To be successful, you need to feel comfortable communicating with second and third-level connections. If your first-level connections arenâ€™t solid, your second and third-level contacts wonâ€™t be as powerful or prosperous.

3. Earn Conversations: Connecting to others online doesnâ€™t mean much without the actual sales conversation â€“ and you still have to earn this. But when you use social networking the right way, itâ€™s easier to earn the right for a sales conversation because you can leverage your existing contacts. Ask first-level connections to make introductions with prospects and to provide you with information about them. Then use this advantage, as well as information from the prospectâ€™s profile, to start building a relationship. Youâ€™ll end up having warmer, friendlier calls which will condense your sales cycle. This saves you time and increases your chances of success because youâ€™re not starting at ground zero.

Keep in mind that your conversations will be much more productive if you’ve seen each other’s profiles first. Make sure your profile is complete and that your Web site links work â€“ people are much more reluctant today to talk on the phone with you if your credibility doesn’t check out online.

4. Maximize Your Time: The time you spend on social networking for business development will vary depending on your role and responsibilities. Sales representatives, marketing professionals, recruiters, and business owners will likely spend more time prospecting, sharing and gathering information, monitoring their brand, and marketing their products and services online than other professionals. But no matter your role, devote time to social networking on a regular basis, and make it a focused effort.

A good strategy is to set specific goals or outcomes in order to keep focused. Make a decision to spend a minimum of 30 minutes to an hour every day or every week on online social networking activities. During this regularly scheduled time, concentrate on updating your profile(s), looking through the Companies tab in LinkedIn, finding connections to leverage, browsing group discussions for potential leads or to start a discussion, and exploring the Answers tab in LinkedIn to answer or ask appropriate questions in your field or target area. Whatever you do, make a committed, consistent effort to use this time productively. Youâ€™ll get as much out of it as you put in.

Selling isnâ€™t easy, especially in a challenging economy. To be successful, sales professionals and business owners need to be able to use social networking tools effectively. Decide today to make a commitment to nurture this opportunity â€“ just as you would with face-to-face and traditional prospecting methods. Cultivate the process through digital efforts by keeping your profile updated, using the search functions available to you, and monitoring and participating in groups. If you devote yourself to social networking wholeheartedly, youâ€™ll quickly begin to see positive outcomes and increased results.

To learn how to maximize your sales with LinkedIn, check out the Social Networking for Business Development course at www.SellMoreStore.com.

About the Author: Amy Fox, 35, is a mother of three boys ages 1 to 4 and CEO of Accelerated Business Results. The native of Greenfield, MA, started Cincinnati-based ABR in 2001.Â She is also co-founder with Kendra Ramirez of SellMoreStore.com.Â Contact Amy at sales@acceleratedbr.com. Visit www.sellmorestore.com to learn more.

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Tags: Marketing tips Social Media Tips Social Networking

June 11th, 2009

5 Tips on How to Use Social Networking Tools Without Forgetting the Relationship

Social networking offers endless potential for companies to promote and build their business online. But savvy businesses should remember “social” is just as important as “networking” when it comes to using tools like Twitter and LinkedIn, marketing expert and entrepreneur Drew Gerber says.

“While the new social networking tools are a powerful way to reach a lot of people, what really makes a difference is the personalized touch,” says Gerber, CEO of Blue Kangaroo and creator of PitchRate.com.

It’s a little like that bestselling book by Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, according to Gerber. “To be successful with social networking, you have to play well with others.”

Here are 5 tips on how to use social networking tools without forgetting the relationship aspect:

1. Â Share your goodies: To be successful with social networking, remember to provide valuable information that people can use. Provide 12 things of value for every one thing you are getting back.

2. Â Take interest in others: Engage with people online just as you would if you were building a business relationship one on one. If someone comes in and all they want to do is promote, promote, promote themselves, it doesn’t go anywhere.

3. Â Be polite: People have a tendency to say things online they would not say face to face. Avoid that pitfall, and don’t say anything you wouldn’t want your parents to read.

4. Â Make sure everyone is included: If you are participating in an online discussion, let other people have a chance to share their ideas and perspectives and wait your turn.

5. Â Have fun and be creative: Think of ways you can share information about your product, your business or yourself that are fun and make people want to follow you.

These tips work because social networking is all about building community, Gerber says. “Just like the community you live in offline, the people that have a say are the people who are engaging and really provide value for the community,” he adds.

To learn more visit: www.PitchRate.com.

For articles or interviews, send requests to Jennifer@publicityresults.com or 239-573-0088.

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Tags: Social media mistakes Social Media Tips Social Networking

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