How to Draw Meaningful Conclusions from Social Media Metrics
The wealth of information available to social media marketing practitioners is staggering. Companies typically track “likes” and retweets, but they can also track things they rarely focus on: the qualified leads coming from social, a company’s share of a conversation, and even the amount of revenue generated from an individual social marketing initiative. While this […]
5 Deadly Ad Buying Mistakes
Over the past year, there has been a lot of venom thrown at display ads: people are saying that they don’t work on desktop and that they won’t work on mobile devices. Even the creators of display ads are piling on the hate. Although display advertising has room for improvement, there are many people who see its effectiveness, as […]
How Social Media and Smartphones Breed a Petri Dish of Negativity
It’s time to recalibrate your expectations about customer complaints. 57% of Americans will have a smartphone this year, meaning that the majority of your customers (and in some industries, the vast majority) now possess two things, at all times, in their pants: Access to almost the entirety of the world’s knowledge Several different mechanisms to […]
3 Ways to Survive the Coming Social Bust
Today, the social media industry is crowded and swollen like a grilled sausage, right before the heat splits the casing. The bust is coming. In both social media software and social media services, the herd is about to be thinned. It’s inexorable, as this is a process undergone by all maturing industries. The winners will […]
The 3 Rock Solid Questions To Guide 2013 Social Media Success
There is an almost infinite variety of minor circumstances that can occupy your attention and create frustration for social media and content marketing professionals. The pace of change is breathtaking, and the feedback loop is instantaneous. This creates a culture of disproportionate attention to detail. So much has been written about the mechanics of social […]
4 Ways to Thump Your Competition with Better Facebook Analysis
Managing a Facebook page is a major part of many companies’ marketing and communication programs, but the data we use to measure the effectiveness of those efforts is sorely lacking. Facebook consistently changes what’s measured and how, adding complexity and incongruence to an already squirrely data scenario. For example, People Talking About This is the […]
How to Track Facebook Success Or Failure with Real-Time Stats
There’s been lots of gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands and pounding of keyboards about Facebook’s Edgrerank lately. “How dare they!” pontificate the social pure bloods. “We put forth the effort to get fans to ‘like’ our page, and now we have to PAY Facebook to reach them? It’s an outrage!” It’s not. Facebook […]
The 5 Top Google Analytics Reports for Social Media Marketers
Use Google Analytics reports and tools to demonstrate the value of your social media marketing practice.
The Only 4 Reasons Agencies Should Care About Their Own Content Marketing
Mimicry is not a strategy. Compulsion is not a strategy. Yet, far too many agencies are devoting resources to content marketing and social media solely because they feel they have to do so. Other agencies have a blog, and Webinars, and an active Twitter feed, so we need some of that too! To what end? […]
To Build Blog Subscribers, Get Narrow-Minded
I had an interesting conversation about blog visitors and blog subscribers with my friend Doug Karr a few weeks ago at the Blog Indiana conference. Doug’s blog covers a wide swath of digital marketing topics, whereas Convince & Convert is of course mostly in the social media lane with occasional dalliances in email, conversion optimization, […]
The 4 Types of Content Metrics That Matter
In a post last week, I talked about turning your content marketing upside down and focusing first on what behaviors you want your content consumers to perform. Once you’ve done that and created content that you think will drive the desired actions, you can start measuring the efficacy of your content program. Content cannot be […]
5 Reasons Social Media Measurement is Making You Lie to Yourself
Social media measurement causes unsavory (and ineffective) marketing behavior because unlike the rest of our marketing key performance indicators, social media metrics are out there for anyone to see. Was it a surprise last week when Presidential wannabe Newt Gingrich was (allegedly) busted for having 1.3 million followers on Twitter, most of which were bots […]
Calculate Your Blogging ROI in 9 Steps
Blogging isn’t free. Creating and sustaining a good blog for yourself or your company is a highly labor-intensive proposition. The people (maybe you) working on the blog could be doing something else that helps the company make money, save money, or both. Thus, blogging presents a serious opportunity cost to the company. Smart organizations methodically […]
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Tracking Website Engagement
Guest post by Petri Darby, APR, the director of brand marketing & digital strategy for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America. In Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” a computer known as Deep Thought spent seven and a half million years contemplating the great Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. Seventy-five thousand generations […]
SunButter Succeeds in Social Media Step-by-Step
Guest post by Libby Hall, digital strategist at the Flint Group of agencies. Here’s an example of strategic social media in action for our client, SunButter. SunButter sunflower seed spread is like peanut butter, but totally peanut-free and made from sunflower seeds, so it’s perfect for people with peanut allergies. It’s also delicious, as fans […]
The 5 Reasons Most Companies Aren’t Measuring Social Media
We hate math. Our abhorrence for calculation enables us to mutually agree on statistically dubious metrics with nary a shrug or arched eyebrow. Consider Nielsen ratings, which are used to determine the popularity of all TV shows and, consequently, how the dozens of billions of dollars in TV advertising is apportioned. Nielsen ratings have a […]