Pittsburgh Social Media Marketing Campaign Strategies

The first 3 posts in this series:

• Planning Your Social Media Campaign
• Analyzing Your Social Media Campaign
• Implementing Your Social Media Campaign

have showed how to plan your social media campaign, analyze the social media market, and implement a social media campaign. Now it’s time to look at measurement of your efforts to determine your campaigns effects on Traffic, SEO, and Reach.

Measurement statistics or analytics, as they are referred to, provide a way to judge how effective your campaigns are to date. Analytics can provide valuable insight into strengths and weaknesses of your social media campaigns and sniff out opportunities that you may have to promote your campaigns and your business.

THE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING MIX – ANALYTICS

All websites and blogs should have some form of Analytics. The screenshot above is from a Twitter analytics tool called Twitalyzer. Measuring your success in the Social Media arena is very important. There are many great social media platforms to choose from; as mentioned in the previous posts in this series. Measuring your traffic on your website or blog can be done with a simple hit counter. Other more involved statistics can be done by implementing Google Analytics or AWstats.

Here is a great article to show you how involved statistics can be and how much they can cost. (see comments) Having said that there are loads of free tools that you can utilize to measure your social success in the marketing arena for free.

A great free tool for you to benchmark where you are at any time is http://www.socialmention.com/. This is very powerful and provides you with a number of options for finding your content and reach. Of course if you are yet to start your campaign then it can give you an idea of how competitive the social media landscape has become for your terms.

Another free tool we really like is http://www.howsociable.com . This tool generates scores based on your level of involvement in dozens of social media sites. It is no frills, no login, and generates a nice idea of how well your campaign is progressing.

Just remember that analytics are only a barometer of how well your doing. The true measure of your success is always conversions. Need help with your Pittsburgh Social Media Marketing campaigns? Contact Blackball Online Marketing for a free analysis.

Pittsburgh Social Media Marketing Campaign Strategies

We hope you have already read the Planning Your for Social Media Marketing Campaign and the Analyzing Your Social Media Marketing Campaign posts. If not take a minute or two to catch up. That was quick. Having gone through the steps in the previous posts all that’s left to do is have some fun. Research for us is fun.

Now that you know your company’s strengths and weaknesses as identified previously it’s time to research the Social Media channels that are right for you. We mentioned previously about asking your present clients “What if any social networking sites do you use?”. This information can now be put to use in a real way. Explore a little and draw your own conclusions.

The absolute first thing we did was to build a blog. While this may not be a strategy you wish to employ right now keep it in mind. There are many blogging platforms out there. Blogger, WordPress.com, WordPress.org, and Drupal are the top blogging sites according to the Alexa rankings as of this writing but there are also other alternatives.

Social Media Blogging Platforms

Blogging on your own site has a number of distinct advantages. The traffic you generate will be all yours. As you become more proficient with your blogging tools and your writing, you will generate a clear channel to your audience with no static. A one to many relationship between you and your customers / readers. Why not have the traffic you generate with your words and your thoughts benefit you? Sounds fair – right? This is not the case when you choose a platform hosted elsewhere. Yes, you can link back to your main site but it doesn’t carry the same weight. One the flipside, more technical skill is required and someone must administer the blog thus using company resources. Blackball Online Marketing designs custom blogs for small business and can help you implement your small business social media campaigns.

One last thought on blogging. This requires commitment as well as any other business initiative. Social Media, and business for that matter, is really all about commitment. Cultivate your audience and your business relationships will grow and prosper.

THE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING MIX – IMPLEMENTATION

Into Action - Whether you chose to implement a blog or already have one it’s time to take your research and put it to use. Use Alexa to find the sites with the most popularity and the most reach. Are any of these on your lists of sites already mined from your customers? Have a look at the Social Media sites on this list and do your homework.

A short list of must have sites in our opinion.

• Twitter – This site is easy to understand and implement and it lets you get your feet wet with minimal effort. Please read all their valuable info on the site to get you started.
• YouTube – This is the second largest search engine on the Internet – don’t let it pass you by. Get creative and make some videos for publication.
• LinkedIn – A very business oriented site that let’s you develop a business profile and sharing level without the non business noise that comes with most of the other sites.
• Facebook – Yes we said Facebook. Although there are still some privacy concerns as far as simplicity, this is still the big dog of social media marketing and should not be overlooked.

So if you’ve been following along and developed a list of sites to submit to, here is where your blog or website represents you to the rest of the blogosphere and the rest of the net. Share and promote your blog/site everywhere you can. It’s the world’s view of you. So keep this in mind when blogging and commenting on other posts or pages.

As you grow your social media following you’ll likely have many logins. Write these down as you submit to them. It will save you a lot of grief later. Hope to see you on a social media site out there or get started now and join our blog and comment right away. We’d appreciate it.

Pittsburgh Social Media Marketing by Blackball Online Marketing

Pittsburgh Social Media Marketing Campaign Strategies

Having completed the planning of your Social Media Marketing Campaign/s it’s time to take a look at your company’s core competencies and shortcomings. The SWOT analysis has been used as a business tool for some time and is a good barometer for analyzing your business. While Social Media is the focus of this series of posts, this analysis tool can be used for any number of business projects.

Being very honest with yourself and using cautious measurement will serve you well here. We like to underestimate slightly for unforeseen factors that arise thus giving us a real world scenario and a better overall picture of how a campaign will perform.

THE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING MIX – ANALYSIS

Go through the SWOT chart with all the parties involved and see where you stand in these areas. A much clearer picture will develop about where your management and employees stand and if they’re on board. This is where your Social Media Campaign starts to take shape and where it gets fun.

If there is a consensus that the company has the required skills to proceed then you can look at ways to leverage your Strengths to drive this Social Marketing campaign. During your analysis Opportunities will present themselves, be sure to document them. When analyzing weaknesses look for ways to turn these into strengths. If extra training is required a third party Social Media Consultant may be an option for you. Turn threats into opportunities by identifying them and devoting resources to combat or overcome them.

YOUR CHOICE OF SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS

Your choice of social media sites depends on your current customers, the resources identified in your SWOT analysis and the location of your targeted demographic. Many of these sites require considerable time while others are simply channels of distribution for your content. Consider your time investment and the ability to consistently maintain support for them all. We always recommend starting with a few Social Media channels until you have developed a sufficient proficiency with them and then add channels as you move on or see opportunities. Just remember your consistency and commitment to your Social Media Campaigns will ultimately determine their success.

A great article on the list of links and tools is available at http://www.fredcavazza.net/2008/06/09/social-media-landscape/.

Pittsburgh Social Media Marketing Campaign Strategies

Okay, you have a website that's been well designed and SEO’d for your keywords. Other On Page SEO has been implemented and your site is Indexed in Google and the other major search engines. Your content has been optimized as well as validated. Your backlinking strategy is in place and continuously being improved. What about Social Media?

There are hundreds or thousands of social media websites out there. Which ones should you choose? Facebook? Linked in? Twitter? MySpace? YouTube? Yahoo Buzz? Google Buzz? Mixx? Reddit? Digg? Sphinn? Technorati? BlogCatalog? Stumble upon? Scribd? Twaango? De.li.cio.us? Squidoo? Leapfish? Orkut? I think you start to see the problem.

The Social Media Jungle

THE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING MIX - PLANNING

Do you have a PR department? Most small businesses say no. But we say, yes you do. Your Public Relations department is every owner, partner, employee, customer, supplier, and person who knows about your business. That’s the beauty of Social Media.

Your Social Media Marketing mix is the combination of the Social Media sites that you use and the frequency in which you use them. Any good campaign starts with a plan, this is no different for Social Media Marketing or SMM. Looking deeper into Social Media as a strategy is Social Media Optimization or SMO. Before we analyze any sites we must first look at the resources at hand that can be leveraged for your campaign. Once you have a firm grasp of the time and talent you're willing to dedicate then you're ready to move on to analyzing your audience.

When giving a speech, the first rule is to know your audience. This is key in social media as well. What forms of social media does your audience use? Running a Twitter campaign when your target market is all on Facebook won’t help nearly as much. Are there trade specific forums available? This is information you should already have. If you don't, just look at the main keywords you use for your advertising. Your customers themselves can be a valuable tool as well. Just ask them.

Marketing and Advertising on the Internet through Social Media is still based on sound fundamental principles. Good customer service, responsiveness, and a clear and consistent message should be the main themes of any marketing or advertising campaign. Just remember, unrealistic expectations ruin marketing campaigns. Be prepared to invest plenty of time and energies and you will reap the rewards.

Blackball Online Marketing specializes in social media campaigns for small businesses in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. We also provide social media consulting to help you get started or to take your use of Social Media to the next level.

Pittsburgh Online Marketing –Improving Methods of Measuring ROI

Develop a Clear Pittsburgh Online Marketing Message

When it comes to measuring your ROI from your website or PPC advertisements most businesses rely on analytics, however these are only one form of measurement.

If your goal is to convert sales via incoming phone calls directly generated through a website or PPC ad and you get 10,000 clicks per day to your site and no calls, how good is this metric as a measure of ROI? It’s almost worthless, but it’s a starting point. Everybody has heard of the phrase “statistics can be misleading”, this is a case in point when it comes to using analytics solely in regards to ROI.

Analytics can show a lot about your visitors.  They are a fine measure of how web traffic arrives to your site, what geographical locations visitors are viewing from, what their patterns are for finding your site, how they behave when navigating your site, and where they leave from. Analytics can also measure other metrics, but for final sale rates generated from your site or ads they are only half the measure.

Let’s use the same client from above for an example. Let’s say this client sells 100 units during this day. This would lead us to believe that our Conversion Rate is 1 in 100 or 10,000 clicks/ 100 sales. However, how many calls does our client have to take to get those 100 sales? I suspect it’s more than just 100. We need to measure clicks / calls and then calls / sales.

Let’s not forget that business does not exist in a vacuum like the analytics used to measure it. Most businesses have a Marketing Mix which is far more diverse. Social Media Campaigns, Print Advertising, other Online Marketing listings, word of mouth, and customer Brand Recognition awareness also play a part.

The need for business to measure the effectiveness of Social Media Marketing campaigns, Website traffic, and PPC conversion rates to justify continuation of Online Marketing Campaigns is impossible to quantify by analytics alone. If a company is looking to quantify sales we must look beyond analytics.

Conversion Tracking and Return on investment (ROI)

The following statement comes directly from Google Adwords Help, “ROI is the ratio of your costs to your profits. It's typically the most important metric for advertisers because it is based on your specific advertising goals and shows the real effect your advertising efforts have on your business. ROI revolves around conversions: customer actions that you deem valuable such as a purchase, sign-up, webpage visit, or lead.”

This is all well and good and provides further data for an effective lead generation stream but it has to go further if ROI is to be measured from it. We need a conversion rate for our conversion rates generated by the analytics and the Conversion Tracking we now use and a better way to measure them. Sales are the only way to measure return rates in the traditional sense. Without sales there is no ROI.

Blackball Online Marketing specializes in all forms of Internet Marketing and Website Promotion. We handle Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns, Organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Google Maps listings for Local Search Marketing, Social Media Marketing Campaigns as well as managing many traditional media delivery methods. Call us at (412) 377-7280 to discuss your Pittsburgh Online Marketing needs.