Tools that may measure your social media effectiveness

2012-01-07T14:39:00.000-08:00

In 2012, social media is shaping up to be at its most influential point in history.

Companies are realizing that their online presence is of utmost importance to stay effective and competitive in their chosen industry. In this economy however, that alone is not enough to warrant spending money beyond the stereotypical $8 an hour after school kid to "update our Facebook and Tweets".

To allocate a social media budget, an ROI of sorts is going to need to be factored; I always recommend using professional services to accomplish this goal, but in all reality, not every budget can afford this service.

I wont throw out the cliche' "How can you afford not to" sales pitch as, in all honesty, social media should not pose a hardship to your business, rather it should be a way to expand your offering and messaging, and control what is said.

I have identified a couple of tools that are gaining attention in the realm of identifying and/or improving your "reach" or end user messaging. This is by no means comprehensive or an endorsement but rather a starting point for your research.

These are what can be described as "reach" tools that determine the reach or how many of your target audience you are getting your message to.

Klout - Klout has a curious business model around "influence". Essentially people that have done their social media correctly can get businesses to pay to piggyback off this good score which is calculated by criteria developed and weighed by Klout.

PeerIndex - Peerindex measures relevancy by using methodology around "likes", "comments" "activity" and basically how much interaction the entity has. There is a comparative function to similar sites that play a factor in the calculation.

Conversely, there are analytical tools that show if what you are doing is working:

Gephi.org - Is software used to visualize network data in the form of graphs; Linked-in, in maps use Gephi.

Weka is more technical, which I wont go into here due to the parameters of the discussion.

RapidMiner on the other hand tries to incorporate all you need into one platform with an easier to use interface and nice graphical representations of data, similar to Gephi functionality.

There are other packages gaining attention and notoriety, and as the year progresses, we will analyze their effectiveness and make recomendations; until then do your homework and good luck!

A quick valuation of blogs.

2011-12-29T00:49:00.000-08:00

Before dismissing the part that blogs play in search results, keep the following statistic in mind:

On the average, blogging plays an important role in approximately 50% of online businesses.

Some of the benefits that business' with blogs can enjoy:

First, Blogs help establish familiarity and trust in the brand. By reading regularly about a brand or product, the affected customer feels an ownership in the brand as well.

Second, people get the chance to know your business for the right reasons. Is the time to start blogging after a scandal or unflattering press? Absolutely, but imagine if you started blogging before the incident? The damage done would be minimal.
Third, there are connections taht can be made which are not necessarily possible with an e-mail or cold call. Not to mention, a customer that finds you is many times more likely to buy, than one that you found.

Next, keep in mind that Referrals and business can come directly from blogs, and as a result, your business cycle is noticably shortened.

Here are some statistics that are difficult to ignore:

1. 95% of businesses employing a blog report an elevated search ranking.
2. 55% of businesses employing a blog drive more visitors to their website through a blog than without.
3. 45% of businesses realize actual revenue from their blog and,
4. 36% of companies report an image gain when they added a blog to their website.

*Sources: comScore, eMarketer, Neilsen

ISCRS

Tools that may measure your social media effectiveness

A quick valuation of blogs.