In this Infographic we ask the question “What measures up for a recipe for success?”.  In response, we have visually highlighted some social statistics from a recent blog post by the socialskinny.com, that provides insight into the more popular marketing tools being used and the social response to them:

• The most popular social networking tool for marketing is Facebook – being used by 92%(of businesses), followed by Twitter (84%), LinkedIn (71%) and blogs (68%).

• 23% of Fortune 500 companies have a public-facing corporate blog.

• 58% of Fortune 500 companies have an active corporate Facebook account, 62% have an active corporate Twitter account.

• 43% of marketers have noticed an improvement in sales due to social campaigns.

• 47% of customers are somewhat likely to purchase from a brand that they follow or like.

Facebook just released new posting functionality for offers that will help businesses post deals to their Timeline for fans to redeem.   Currently the functionality being released is to a limited number of Facebook Business Pages, but will eventually be available to select types of businesses.  We have seen this option become available for clients with Local Business Pages and it is currently free to use.  Facebook has created a help section to guide administrators and fans through the offer process, and tips for creating successful offers.   Here is a preview of how to set up a Facebook Offer, and the types of options available.

To create a new Facebook Offer, Page Administrators will simply select the offer option (if available) from the post dropdown box:

Each offer contains fields for a Headline, Thumbnail Image, Number of claims, Expiration date,  and Terms and Conditions:

• Headline text: 90 characters

• Terms and conditions text: 900 characters

• Offer image size: 90 x 90 pixels, non-square images will be cropped to a square

You can also select who the target audience is for the Offer:

Once published, fans will then be able to see your Facebook Offer in their newsfeed and on the company’s Timeline.  By selecting “Get Offer” a prompt will appear letting them know the offer has been sent to the email address associated with their Facebook account.

Facebook recommends tracking offers with an internal sales/redemption code, purchasing a sponsored story to promote it, making sure the staff is educated and aware of the offer details, and creating deals that have a high perceived value to encourage sharing activity.

If you have questions about Facebook Offers, or are interested in a Social Media Marketing Strategy, please call us at 800.787.0497, or email us.

Mobile Check-Ins have proven a very popular tool for social interaction.  By utilizing an API that combines a smart phone’s GPS cordinance with the social media channel CTA Check-In,  many users document where they shop, eat, entertain, and even work.  This ability to Check-In to a physical location can be easily rewarded, therefore adding a marketing element to a local address.  Business have already begun to reward members of Foursquare with discounts, free items, and exclusive specials by becoming Merchants and setting up marketing campaigns.   Foursquare is the primary source for Check-In marketing activity for local establishments, but does not have the largest audience in comparision to other social platforms. Let’s explore the larger social networks that include the Check-In API, to reveal marketing opportunities for local businesses using this location based functionality.

Facebook – Topping the charts for the largest social network with the most engaged users, Facebook Places is a fully integrated mobile and desktop feature the offers the ability to provide a location within any post.  These locations are also recorded on a user’s Timeline via a map that shows everywhere they have Checked-In.  If your business location has a Facebook Page, the Timeline keeps stats on the number of Check-ins for your business address just under the page name.  Increase activity with your Facebook Page by asking fans via posts to Check-In regularly. Offer a special discount to visitors who Check-In while checking out at the register.  You might even advertise the deal inside the business location or near the counter, to encourage new followers to your Page.

Twitter – This is the second largest network, and one of the most active audiences on mobile devices,  Twitter users have access to a feature that tweets their location when they post an update from their account.  Although the location services on Twitter will not associate your business name with the address, you can encourage fans to @mention your Twitter business profile - along with the Check-In location - for a prize.  This is great for businesses with multiple locations under the same brand name.  Each store can include a fun hash tag that is unique to their physical location to differentiate the tweets and make it a contest amoungst the locations. For example:  The promotional could be advertised for a month and include Tweet locations with @mentions/hash tags from all of the business locations, but the store with the most activity will get to host a discount day exclusive to their local patrons who participated in the contest and earned them the winning location.

Google Plus - Last, but far from least this social network is smaller that the other two, but the Check-In API is integrated into multiple Google products -like Places and Lattitude- that make it a powerful tool and could effect your organic search results.  Even if your business does not have a Google Plus Page, your physical address can be entered or recommended for Check-Ins and a post will be shared on the users profile with a map from Google Places.   Try taking a different marketing approach if you have a larger location with over 50 employees. Market this feature amoung your employees to gain access to a wider network of people and online activity by requesting that they each Check-In daily with their personal Google Plus accounts for one week to enter to win a reward.  Monitor the response to this increased activity, check to see if your website and business location had an increase of natural traffic due to the additional exposure.

Reporting on Social Media Marketing involves defining a unique set of key performance indicators (KPIs) that help to measure the level of activity and effectiveness of your brand within the social realm.  Social analytics can measure the impact of social media on your business.  This means collecting intelligence from aggregating and analyzing online conversations and social activity generated by your brand.  By using this data, your company will be able to improve and report on brand awareness and reputation, marketing and sales effectiveness, and customer satisfaction and advocacy. The benchmarks to focus on will be those that combine specific engagement metrics that result in lead generation. This reporting will help define the effectiveness of social media as it relates to marketing, sales, and customer service performance.   We have created the reference charts below with basic formulas for analyzing the metrics for the KPIs listed based on an Infographic created by  Awareness Inc.

These insights will help your company adapt to the social environment it participates in and to improve on the relationship people have with your marketing, sales, and customer service initiatives.   Social analytics can be a combination of real-time analysis for campaigns, or historical trend analysis of engagement and growth metrics.  By evaluating your company’s social analytics, you can report on the return on investment from participating in social media marketing successfully.

What are other KPIs that your company uses as a measurement for social media success?   Share your ideas or questions via the comments box below. We look forward to hearing from you.

Influencing a community on a social network can be especially effective when promoting with a contest.  Engaged users will participate, promote, and provide content simply by entering to win whatever prize you are offering.  Strategy behind running a successful contest in social media includes selecting a prize the will resonate with your audience and excite them to commit to the actions that promote your brand.   Before choosing what type of contest to have, and which channel may garner the best results, do some basic research into what current contests appeal to your demographic that are affective.  Review the contests highlighted below and the outlined framework that makes them successful promotions.

Facebook Contest #1: White Cloud – Beyond the Green Sweepstakes

• Best Practice: Promoted Visually on Timeline, Tab, and App includes sharing

• Prize is a Car, and a product coupon

• CTA: “Like” Page to be able to Enter, Enter Zip for Coupon, Enter Sweepstakes App that includes address fields.

Facebook Contest #2: Del Monte – Crown the Cook Contest

• Best Practice: Promoted Visually on Timeline, Tab, and App includes sharing.

• Prizes:  Trip to San Francisco,  Professional Cookware, Chance to Win Cook-Off

• CTA:  Like the Page, Enter a Recipe, View Fan Recipes, Share contest or recipe to get a $1.00 off Coupon.

Pinterest Contest #1: AsukaBook USA Pin-spiration Contest

• Best Practice: Drives traffic from Facebook, to Pinterest, to Email submission form.

• Prize:  3 Photo Albums

• CTA:  Like Facebook Page, Follow Pinterest profile, Pin 5 images from website, Pin 1 product image, submit entry via email.

Pinterest Contest #2 Dreaming of a PINK Summer Pinterest Challenge

• Best Practice: Landing Page on website for Contest, includes Facebook sharing, contest details and email submission form.

• Prizes: $500 Shopping Spree and Tote, featured pin board, and 8 $50 Pink Gift Cards for finalists.

• CTA’s:  Create a Pinterest board with brand name/contest name in it, Pin 3 products, Pin summer images associated with PINK, submit email and board link, pin it examples.

Each social media contest above is tailored to a target audience and is hosted where that audience is most likely to participate, promote, and engage with the brand.  By providing the right prize incentive, they have leveraged the most from the value a contest can provide when influencing a community.   If your company needs to grow a social media presence, we are here to help with strategy and implementation best practices.  Shoot us your ideas in the comments below, or email us for answers to your questions.

Unexpected design changes to Google+ pages and profiles emerged this week without warning to page owners.  If you are not familiar with Google+ Pages, we included a diagram in a newsletter article,” What’s the “Plus” about on Google” earlier this year.   The original page design was reformatted to include new navigation tools, a panoramic cover image, Explore page, and additional insights that drop down from posts.  When Facebook announced the conversion to Timeline for Businesses, there was a one-month publish/preview option that gave companies time to design, and strategize how to use the new format before it went live.  With Google+ apparently page enhancements and changes will simply be introduced when already implemented. Here is a review of what to expect when you log into your Google+ Business Page account.

Page design includes a Cover image, Explore page, and new navigation tools. Originally, there were five scrapbook images those images can now be replaced with a panoramic cover image that spans behind the larger profile thumbnail at the top of the page.  The navigation to the stream, photos, circles, etc. has moved to a left hand ribbon - that is drag and drop customizable - and includes a new landing page labeled “Explore”.

On the Explore page you’ll find trending topics, recent posts, who to follow, and a “What’s hot on Google+” slider.  Personalize the amount information from “What’s hot” shared on your home page with this tool.

Search results have a new look that promotes business pages. Google+ search results used to reveal posts with relevant keywords, then required sorting to view people/page results. A new results page format includes people/page results on the right side, and sorting options at the top.

User profiles get a new Hangouts page. Although this feature is not present within business page profiles, it is important to note the change in the user experience.  With the new landing page for hangouts, users can see hang outs on air – hang outs that are recorded – or join hangouts in process.

If you are interested in learning more about the benefits of creating a Google+ Business Page for your company, or require a social media marketing audit to assess your performance within Google+, please contact us or call us: 800.787.0497 for help.

The concept behind marketing with video makes sense for social media for many reasons.  People are attracted to a visual medium, and video can provide stimulus for both the eyes and the ears.  There is a power behind providing your message in video if it’s done well, and engages the audience.   Basic concepts of creating videos aren’t so different from traditional marketing campaigns where a good story is the core concept behind the messaging.  Once the video is produced, uploading to YouTube and providing keyword rich titles, descriptions, meta tags to enhance the video’s exposure is also a key to marketing success.

In The Q4 2011 Video Marketing Survey and Video Trends Report by Web Video Marketing Council (WVMC) and Flimp Media shows that video marketing continues to trend upward as a strong marketing vehicle.

The latest survey results from the Web Video Marketing Council show that:

• 81% of marketing professionals say that they have used video in their online marketing efforts.

• 67% of marketing professionals have posted online video to their websites and 61% to social media sites.

• 52% of respondents have used video email marketing and of those that have used it, 88% report that integrating video with email marketing has made a positive impact.

Social Media is the second largest used application for distributing marketing videos:

As the majority of the social channels support video sharing, it is clear why marketers continue to find value in participating in these platforms.   The added SEO value from optimizing videos to rank in organic search results also presents another viable reason to invest in this format.  As online marketing and social media marketing strategies develop, expect video to be the most sought after medium for communicating messaging to consumers.

If your business has already seen the value of the blogging, and invests in creating unique content each week, then Tumblr is definitely a social network to utilize for exposure.  If your business is considering a creating blog, but has not decided where to host it, then learn more about the features of Tumblr within this post.   Tumblr is a mix between Twitter and WordPress offering a less verbose form of blogging where users can post updates with text, photos, quotes, links, dialogues, audio, video, slideshows, and more.  Below are the basic features that are included when participating in this free micro-blogging platform.

Customizable Account:

• Design unique themes for your profile landing page to support your brand

• Configure an about page or description page with external links

• Create a unique url for the blog by re-directing to Tumblr

• Combine the use of Google Analytics and Feedburner for page insights

Publishing Options:

• Mobile and email applications

• Phone number to record audio blogs

• Ability to pre-schedule with a post queue

• Re-blogging (embedding other blogs into yours)

• Photosets and other apps for organizing content

• News Feed Syndication to both Facebook and Twitter

• Bookmarketlet tool for one-click sharing of external sources

• Contributor content with an unlimited number of people and audience members

Optimized Content:

• Uses url slugs and xml sitemaps for search engine visibility

• Uses tags and hash tags for trending topics

• Accepts high-resolution photos

• Can organize and share to specific groups/individuals

• You own the copyright for all content created

Just listing a few of the options available begins to describe the value this network offers a brand.  Over the next few weeks we will continue to examine and expand upon the features of Tumblr, and the ways to effectively use the network to blog for your business.

Google Play begins to rollout globally today offering a condensed source for content from the previous Android market and other Google products.  Digital content gets a new platform within Play, by combining a user’s Google music, e-books, android apps, and games into a single hub.  A user will be able to access all their content from any Android device (mobile/tablet), computer, and even TV simultaneously with the aid of the free cloud.  Social sharing has been taken into account as well, and each of these categories offers unique options to share products with friends.  Non-android market users can access Google Play via an existing Google account, or on the web at play.google.com.  Google condensing all of these features into one place, and promoting the sharing primarily within Google Plus, may help to boost the engagement levels within the social network.

“Share what you love” is the slogan being used to promote the social sharing aspects of Google Play.  It includes the ability to share posts about your favorite e-books, music, movies, games or apps to your circles on Google Plus, in an email, or via text message.

Sharing music on Google Plus will include the ability to listen or buy:

Sharing books can be done while reading from any page:

Watching a movie or reading an e-book can continue seamlessly across all of these:

To date, a few industry analysts have been hinting that Google Plus suffers from a lack of use by the over 10 million registered users.  With the implementation of Google Play, and the limited sharing available, it seems like Google is devising a strategy to boost interaction within Google Plus.  It also encourages users to be logged into their Google accounts from multiple devices, which can have an affect on how search engine results appear, and offer more opportunities to +1 content on the web.  Overall this change in the android market has many underlying benefits for all of Google’s latest products.

Pinterest released a new page design for profile pages this week that will be advantageous for both piners and businesses.  The new design highlights the user profile in a large header and has added more connection options for a user to populate.  The board’s image preview has gotten an update, along with the ability to arrange the boards with a drag and drop feature, so you can organize what boards will appear above the fold.   They have also improved functionality by moving main navigation elements and activity to a single bar just below the profile header.

This is an example from a recent blog post with the previous profile landing page design.

This is the new profile landing page for Harrods after the design release today.

Profile Dashboard:

• New Profile Header contains social sharing icons and a new location icon that populates information provided in the profile settings.

• Activity with the boards and pins you create is now highlighted in a right side container.

• Stats/ Navigation of boards, pins, likes, and activity is now organized into a single bar below the header making it more accessible. The follow all (boards) button is front and center.

Board’s New Design:

• Name of board will show 22 characters before truncating the text and is hyperlinked.

• The board image is now using the most recent pin to the board as the larger thumbnail and then four smaller thumbnail previews of what is also pinned inside.  At this time you can’t adapt how this image is created, it is based on recent posts.

• The stats for the board are also clearly defined above the image, showing how many pins are available in each board.

• The large follow button below the image will follow only that individual board when selected.

Pinterest is making a more business friendly push toward offering more pronounced brand exposure with the new header design.  By also adapting the navigation on a page, it has created a more functional environment for members to interact with. They will find it is easier to edit, manage, and organize boards, and learn about other profiles, by easily noting the page stats and viewing recent activity of pins.   As more businesses start to become early adaptors of this social sharing platform, we will explore the campaigns and marketing strategies making it a successful endeavor for them.  If you haven’t gotten a Pinterest account yet, we recommend posting to accounts (Facebook/Twitter) requesting an invite from a friend/follower, rather than requesting an account from Pinterest - which can take weeks with no response.