Measuring Social Media and ROI Through Google Analytics and Other Tools

Using social media to drive traffic and product for a brand is the ultimate goal that many companies keep at the forefront of their business plans. This cannot be done, however, unless the Return On Investment or ROI is measured accurately so that you will be able to see just how much value your social media engagement has. As of recently, Google Analytics has released a set of Social reports that greatly help with this challenge. This new lead in measuring social media via Google Analytics legitimizes the idea that social media does indeed have a strong effect on ROI. This along with other strategic tactics can be used to best measure your ROI and lead to the most success for your company if done correctly.

Measuring the value that comes from social media both on and offline has always been a difficult task. Google Analytics, however, has fixed this problem with its newly released Social reports that will measure social media and combine both business metrics and social metrics. The Social reports will give you an analysis of the conversion value that your social networks produce and the monetary value that they bring to your business. When you publish content to social media outlets, Google Analytics will be able to tell you which articles are receiving the most engagement and the most buzz. According to, Phil Mui, the Group Product Manager for Google Analytics, these new Social reports will help businesses to do the following:

▪       Identify the full value of traffic coming from social sites and measure how they lead to direct conversions or assist in future conversions

▪       Understand social activities happening both on and off of your site to help you optimize user engagement and increase social key performance indicators (KPIs)

▪       Make better, more efficient data-driven decisions in your social media marketing programs

Along with the groundbreaking Social reports from Google Analytics, there are also other techniques to bolster your ROI measuring in terms of social media. Hal Thomas, a content manager at BFG Communications, reveals a few approaches of measuring ROI that will help take your social media value to the next level. His first approach is to consider social media a vehicle not the destination. Social Media should be used as a way of getting to success. Marketers need to capitalize on customers via social media and they need “to take their fans and turn them from passive fans to transacting customers,” Thomas advises. This way, the ROI can be measured based on specific activities within social media, not just by the general use of it.

The next approach Thomas discusses is to apply what you can learn from each segment of your social media outlet.  Sometimes, according to Thomas, comparing interaction levels can work better than comparing straight numbers. Look to see which types of posts followers respond to the most positively and in the highest volumes. Categorize these types of posts and increase them as necessary.

His third approach is to measure metrics of all media venues. When measuring the success of social media, first figure out exactly how social media is being used within the company and then measure the success from particular metrics that are relevant to whichever social media outlet your organization is using. For example, Koka Sexton, Director of Social Strategy at InsideView, uses these Twitter metrics to easily track the successful performance of a company’s Twitter use. After tracking the information correctly, these analytics will better help you understand how to optimize your social media use:

▪   Clicks: How many times are your updates getting clicked through.

▪   Updates made: How many updates are you sharing.

▪   Retweets/shares on Facebook: How many times has your content been shared online.

▪   Unique mentions: How many NEW people have mentioned you online.

▪   Influential mentions: How many people of influence have shared your content to their networks.

The point of measuring ROI in terms of social media, according to Eric Wheeler, CEO at 33Across Inc., is ”about understanding the social influence of your own loyal consumers. What are these people interested in, what are they actually buying, and how can they be turned into a word-of-mouth marketing powerhouse?” If your company is already using some form of social media then the next step is to utilize the Social reports from Google Analytics. It is only a little bit of an extra effort to utilize the right tools to measure success and inevitably bring about more success.

Source: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2012/03/capturing-value-of-social-media-using.html

http://mashable.com/2011/11/15/social-media-roi-measure/

Why The Facebook Timeline Will Better Your Brand

The Facebook Timeline, launched in December of 2011, has a taken a unique and different approach to the standard social network format that we’ve grown to love for so many years. The new Timeline feature implemented by Facebook allows users to more easily access past events, photos and conversations since the day a profile was created. And beginning March 30, all brand pages will be converted to the Timeline format as well.  The Timeline features multiple new ways for brands to interact directly with users, and this direct conversation with the consumer not only allows brand pages to become more creative, but it also presents numerous new opportunities to monetize the ever-expanding social media boom.

Brand pages that utilize the new Timeline format have the ability to implement a cover photo above their profile. A brand can select any image for the banner at the top of the profile page (there are a few basic guidelines that Facebook requires you follow). A major headline for the brand is now prominent to all viewers immediately upon loading the page. The ability to customize and update the cover photo is perfect for promoting a new product or announcing an upcoming campaign in a very “stand-out” way while still keeping some consistency with the brand’s profile picture.

Brand content on the Timeline now supersedes the more conversational wall setup on the traditional pages already in place. This design allows for easier navigation of brand photos, videos, stories, and consumer interactions. The newly designed “About” section for brand pages on Timeline also helps users with a streamlined layout and a more prominent location on the page.

Timeline has allowed for a more engaging and direct experience between users and page owners. Not only this, but it also maintains its chronological format that enables historic moments and important items to be appropriately intertwined in the overall theme of the brand and its value system.

Source: http://mashable.com/2011/09/29/facebook-timeline-brands/

When Fashion Meets Pinterest

People say Pinterest is the best for tracking all of your ideas for event planning, cooking, and making crafts. Fashion, however, is at the new forefront of Pinterest. Both fashionistas and fashion brands alike can use Pinterest to their advantage to create passion, luxe, and inspiration through the creative world of style.

For the fashion lover who is also internet savvy, Pinterest is the perfect social media outlet to organize a wardrobe by season, color, or designer. You can find pictures of all your favorite clothes online and pin them directly from the site or you can take your own pictures and upload them. Each pin board acts as your own desired category where you can collect all your loved pieces. You can also make boards to distinguish your fashion inspirations and pieces that speak to you from the ones you actually own and adore. Wherever you draw your creative fashion ideas from, you can showcase this with Pinterest while simultaneously learning the new trends for the season.

Fashion brands can also utilize Pinterest in other ways besides promoting new items of clothing or accessories. Pinterest is great at helping a fashion brand to create a voice behind the brand. By creating several boards with categories other than fashion, a personality will begin to emerge. By creating boards that include themes like destination and travel, celebrities and entertainment, and decorating homes, this gives the brand thoughts, opinions, and emotions towards things outside its directly related field. A good example to check it out is Free People Pinterest page (http://pinterest.com/freepeople/) which has many boards, divided by fashion themes, seasonal trend watches, and various non-fashion related categories that all describe the values behind the brand.

Whether you are a wishful fashionista, an avid shopper, or a style guru with your own brand, Pinterest is the perfect digital space to get your creative juices flowing and organize your fashion goals. You can even win pieces by your favorite designers in contests that are often held on Pinterest. Here at Buzzsmith we are true fans of merging Pinterest and fashion, and we are proud to announce the global launch of the Guess “Color Me Inspired” Pinterest contest that is running all week until Thursday. Check it out for yourselves and get inspired:

http://pinterest.com/guessinc/color-me-inspired-contest/

Blogger Outreach & Fashion Campaigns

Influence is limitless, and with the new age in fashion – we at Buzzsmith are seeing a shift in how a fashion brand connects with their consumers. From style platforms to image sharing, new technology is redefining how we experience fashion.

A few months ago, Buzzsmith Media began an innovative campaign to reflect this trend by launching a “Style Your Look” blogger outreach and polyvore contest for JOIE clothing. The California clothing line launched their new e-commerce site launch and wanted to utilize digital strategy to increase awareness. Buzzsmith conducted a campaign based on celebrating the style of eight different style bloggers, who all selected their favorite JOIE pieces, but tailored to their personal style and voice. The blogs involved included Bag Snob, MyFashDiary, The City Sage, Kendi Everyday, Natalie Off Duty, Cheyenne Meets Chanel, Trop Rouge and Apartment 34. To further promote the “Style Your Look” blogger campaign, Buzzsmith designed a contest on Polyvore to garner community involvement – The winner who designed the best style site using the Polyvore editor won $500 to the new site.

The significance of this campaign and contest was to promote JOIE’s seasonal collection, expand its potential clientele, and announce its new e-commerce site.

Multiple fashion houses have also embraced this digital wave to tie in with their collection. For instance, the Kate Spade spring 2012 collection campaign is themed around music and the power of the female voice. The bold colors, vintage shapes, floral patterns, and metallic hardware all help to perfectly develop this theme, putting at least somewhat of an association to the brand in the minds of Kate Spade fans.

This new age in fashion is boundless and proves that inspiration can truly come from all sources. We will continue to provide updates on exciting ventures happening in-house and those that inspire us.

The Best Pinterest Practices For Your Brand

Pinterest has become one of the leading social networking forums since its launch. While Pinterest can help you plan your wedding, organize fashion wish lists, and try new delectable recipes, it hasn’t really been used as widely by brands as some of its counterparts. And although it does come off as more of a personal cork board, brands can really benefit from its popularity and fan base if they use the right strategies.

The first tool to keep in mind when pinning for your business is to think of overall themes not just product displays. When creating a board, don’t merely pin pictures of new products. Think, instead, of a theme for that board that inspires creativity but also maintains your brand’s core values. For your collection of boards, think outside the box but make sure the themes are at least somewhat related to the type of brand you have. For example, if your brand is a restaurant you don’t have to solely go the food route for every board. You can do a “Party Planning” board or a “Dream Vacation Spots” board. Because both are loosely related to your food business, it gives your brand more personality and its own ideas rather than keeping just the same associations.

The next tool is to engage your fan base instead of just making constant announcements. Ask questions, request input, and express opinions — don’t stick to just declarative sentences. You should also try to involve your followers as much as possible by either allowing them to pin their own items to your brand’s boards or by hosting contests via Pinterest to create interaction. Always make sure you are monitoring for appropriate content to keep the integrity and control of your brand.

The last helpful aid when adding your brand to Pinterest is to use both hashtags and price amounts. Hashtags appear in Pinterest similarly as they do on Twitter so if you keep a consistent hashtag theme with your boards, you will increase the chances of it appearing when searched. Price tags will also help distinguish which items on your brand’s boards are for sale and which fall into other categories, removing any ambiguities from your page.

Although there are many social media outlets that your brand can utilize to increase awareness, Pinterest is unique in that it will help your brand go beyond just posting lists of products and sales. It will give your brand its own voice, outlining the inner hopes and dreams connected to your brand’s value system. Not to mention, the repinning feature will help spread your brand’s name in a more viral way, allowing you to maximize your brand’s potential awareness.

Source: http://mashable.com/2012/02/27/pinterest-marketing/

How Doctors Are Using Social Media To Save Lives

We all agree social media is a very helpful tool. It helps us communicate with our friends, share photos, voice our opinions, and let people know what we’re doing. A group of non-profit doctors has turned social media into an even more helpful tool — something beneficial and humanitarian. These doctors have begun a medical program called Floating Doctors whose intention aims to provide medical assistance to those in need in impoverished places throughout the world. Many conventional social media outlets are giving them the ability to acquire donations for those in need of medical care, find specialists for particular medical concerns, and spread awareness of foreign disease.

One of the ways they help to provide medical aid is through Twitter. From announcements of new projects to updates on current situations to personal stories, Floating Doctors use Twitter as their number one source for getting the word out. Spreading information virally is essential to their cause because “telling the story is what gets people to reach into their pocket to donate, which allows us to do what we do,” the social media manager of the group, LaBrot shares. Another social media tool they use is digital diagnoses. When they arrive in a poor country and see certain conditions that have previously been left untreated, they are often without many options. So, they use social networks like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter to post videos of these patients’ conditions in hopes of gaining access to a specialist. LaBrot assures us that this digital diagnoses has saved many lives where social media was the only way to find a specialist in isolated places like Haiti. The doctors are also utilizing social media to give a face and personal story to many tropical diseases that would otherwise be meaningless to the rest of the world. LaBrot explains to us that “you can upload a video to YouTube and put it on Facebook and Twitter so quickly, and it’s so intimate — it provides a snapshot into your world…and it gets people involved emotionally.”

Through outreach and video, social media along with LaBrot’s team of doctors are helping to make others aware of the medical ailment going on in the world while also seeking answers to probably very complicated health problems. Although they cannot cure everything digitally or gain unlimited donations via Twitter, Floating Doctors is nonetheless alleviating medical issues that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Source: http://mashable.com/2012/02/27/doctors-twitter-social-media/

Why Your Business Should Be on Twitter

Twitter is the hot social media forum of the year and while billions of people have Twitter accounts for their personal lives, not everyone is utilizing the advantages it has to offer in the business world. If the fact that over three-quarters of the Fortune Global 100 companies have Twitter accounts doesn’t give you enough reason to get one for your business, here are a few more. The 140 characters or less content limit on Twitter may seem like it’s hindering what you can say about your company, but really it is distributed in just the right amount of words for consumers to process wholly and beneficially. Although Facebooking and blogging are also helpful social media toolsin the professional world, Twitter is geared towards a younger demographic and is utterly essential if even a fraction of your business’s consumers would fit into this age group. With live micro-blogging being the future of social media, Twitter is important to allow followers to know that your company is interactive and can be reached “in the moment,” not just sporadically. Fast optimization is another significant aspect of Twitter. Things can spread virally via Twitter as opposed to other traditional methods, which are spread at a slower pace. So, in getting the word out on a new product or brand, Twitter, with its trending topics and ability for retweeting, make optimization easier, faster, and more successful. Not only this, but you will also be able to tweet content through multiple sources much quicker with automatic programs than if you had to do it manually. Lastly, Twitter creates an atmosphere where you do not have to stick to strict guidelines of only talking about your company or product. It gives you the freedom to discuss other topics, ask questions, and partake in conversations that can attract more attention to your business without making your content seem unrelated. This uninhibited Twitter-verse lets you create a voice for your company making it personable, relatable, and “real”, allowing you the potential to have a high follower turnout and a multitude of activity for your brand.

Source: http://fashionablymarketing.me/2011/12/5-reasons-your-company-needs-to-invest-in-twitter/