Questions for Your Consultant: Working Efforts
Today I answer the final question in the Open Forum miniseries about questions you should ask your social media consultant. Today’s question asks how do I know if my social media efforts are working?
Out of all the questions in this question series, this is probably my favorite because of my analytical mindset. For the business owner or social media manager, this is also probably the most important question as well because you learn how well you are engaging on social media. Luckily there are a dearth of tools that allow you to understand how engaging you are, your monthly active users, amount of influence and when your followers are usually online.
I usually begin by telling the client that fan count does not really matter, to a degree. Everyone would like to have 5,000 followers but the real truth is that if only 1% of those followers are engaging, then does it really translate to success as opposed to if you had 50 followers with 1% engagement? If your monthly active users are relatively high with a lower count of fans, this means that your marketing campaign is real, working and that you are invoking good feelings out of people.
But I digress (somewhat).
I believe you know your social media efforts will be working when you see an upward and positive fluctuation of engagement on your social media platforms (read: Re-Tweets, replies, mentions to groups) as well as possible increase of sales in your own business. If you really care to measure your social media efforts through numbers, you will notice discover that your Klout score has risen and that your network has really expanded and that you are seen as a specialist within your industry.
Like the open forum post says though, and that I believe hits it home:
If your expert focuses your metrics for success on volume (ie – getting 1000 Twitter followers), they probably have no idea what real business impact looks like.
What do you think? How do you measure real social media impact? How do you know if efforts are working? Tweet at me or comment below.
Questions for Your Consultant: First Moves
Today I enter the fourth day of my Open Forum miniseries regarding questions for your social media consultant. Today’s question asks, what should we do first?
Social media is an interesting thing for businesses and industries. When I hear this question mentioned above, it usually comes in the discovery/proposal phase. Why is a company interested in social media? What is the benefit for them? What is the point?
Usually the company in question has already dabbled in social media, but is either not satisfied or sure if they are currently on the right path. As a business owner, its always important to ask you some simple questions before wondering what to do first:
1) Why are you on social media?
2) What is the value of social media to your industry?
3) What have competitors done to succeed on social media?
4) What have the returns been on your social media strategy? Are they measurable?
As a consultant, the first and most difficult thing about understanding a first move is the industry you are going to be working for — whether its mobile, restaurants, retail or anything else, the key to being engaging is to know how customers respond in each industry.
Do you have any other first move tips? Share them in the comments below or tweet at me.
Questions for Your Consultant: Social Media Mistakes
Today I continue my miniseries interview off of the Open Forum article regarding questions you should ask your consultant. Today’s question asks What social media mistakes have you seen small businesses make?
Everyone makes mistakes. In social media, we’re here to learn.
In understanding the role of social media in business, the first rule is to understand the changes of marketing in today’s world. No longer are we looking at a world where marketing comes from the brand to the customer in a one way street but rather at a world where you look at a two way street: marketers now interact when they want to and customers reply when they feel like it, sometimes to the chagrin of marketers who don’t want things to go out of control.
The number one mistake that I see businesses making everyday is the effort to engage with their followers and potential customers. This means posting relevant content that followers find valuable, engaging with people who reply and coming out with original content that provokes thought leadership. As social media is inherently social, and media is only 50% of the total task at hand, businesses who don’t respond generally get a bad reputation and are unfollowed because they seem aloof.
The number two mistake that I see businesses make are finding out ways to figure out how they want to measure their social media results. Return on Investment (ROI) is always a key indicator because it shows how good a campaign or overall establishment is. Checking up on your Klout Score, TweetStats or how many monthly active users (MAU) the company has.
These are my two cents on this specific topic. If you’re a consultant, let me know what you think. What mistakes are businesses making these days that worry you? Tweet at me or comment below.
Questions for Your Consultant: Case Studies
Today I continue my miniseries interview off of the Open Forum article regarding questions you should ask your consultant. Today’s question asks Can you share how you helped a small business and how you did it?
This question is juicy. Case studies are always great ways to show off what good can come out of Social Media.
Santa Clara University
SCU is a Jesuit School in Silicon Valley, my Alma Mater and a school of about 8,000 students of which 5,000 are undergraduate. As a student assistant in the marketing/communications office, I helped them with their Social Media efforts. A few things I did to help them:
1. Cultivate the Experience: Cultivating an experience over Social Media is always important and key to bringing fans into the fold. If its a school, cater to alumni. If its a product, cater to a user story. If its a sports franchise, talk about classic moments, the list goes on.
2. Analytical Data Points: Measuring how social media works is always important for your business no matter what. Quarterly, I gave analytics and data points for the University to understand what was working and what wasn’t.
3. Status Updates: Asking questions never hurt you in school, and it never hurt you in social media either. Questions can be great in creating a discussion on Facebook and garnering feedback over Twitter.
There are many other case studies I would list, but would take you forever to write. Are you interested in more ways that I’ve helped other clients? Tweet me or ask me in the comments below. I’d love to share.
Questions for Your Consultant: Career Longevity
Starting today I’m offering a miniseries on Social Media questions that you should ask your consultant. This is a spin off from a post that originally appeared on Open Forum and one that I decided to expand on. Today’s question asks How long have you been working on the Internet and at Social Media?
This question is an interesting one to answer, primarily because the Internet is so young and social media is barely out of its infancy. When I look at this question, I break it down into two different segments: My experience on the Internet, and my experience on Social Media. I’ll answer these two separately in this post.
Internet Longevity
I first entered the Internet back in the Fall of 1994 on dialup that my parents had installed. I was all of about eight years old at the time and primarily used the web at the time to watch videos, learn off Microsoft Encarta and just see what was on Yahooligans (the Yahoo! for kids at the time). As years progressed, I found myself blogging, gaming, programming and a little bit of everything. I maintained a blog over at Xanga for a bit in my early high school days and had a Wordpress blog at Qian Dynasty Productions that I recently shut down to completely move over here.
My understanding of the Internet is relatively cut and dry. There are the websites I visit daily, and then there are the websites that I go to for understanding internet culture (think 4chan, Cheezeburger Network, et al among many many others). I’m a heavy user of Google, email as well as an Internet connection and probably would go nuts if I was disconnected for more than a few days at a time.
Social Media Longevity
I made my first foray into Social Media in the Fall of 2005 when a friend from high school sent me an invite to Facebook back when they were testing out high school students on beta. I was quite addicted immediately and found all the functions quite interesting to play around. This is back when Facebook was intuitive and relatively simple to use. I created groups, events and other things to stay abreast of what my friends were doing and get my friends involved. My first experience in creating a group that led to something bigger was a group targeted at creating alternative events for students at SCU.
Social Media as a business model didn’t hit the web until about 2008, and did not really become a part of my life until 2009, when I was working at the marketing/communications office at Santa Clara University. I remember it was Mid-May and the communications director walked out of her office and proclaimed that she wanted to bring the University onto Facebook. I volunteered to be part of the job and it was probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. In the time since, I’ve worked for various clients such as Chad Greer’s District 9 Campaign for San Jose City Council, Ark Collective (a backpack company) and some local establishments here. I’ve learned how the Facebook Page platform works, how Twitter functions as well as how to take measurable statistics from Social Media and judge a good return on investment.
So that’s my consultancy history as well as my Internet history. Come back tomorrow as I talk about case studies and how I’ve managed those. If you have any questions, send me a tweet or comment below.
