Entries from May 2011 ↓

This is a question that most of the bosses in the world want to know.

Resistant to taking on this new marketing form, their usual argument is:

“Sure, we’ll use social media if you can quantify its ROI to me.”

Hmm…there lies a problem – how can you work out the ROI of something that doesn’t seem to have one?

Does Social Media have an ROI?

Recently, Finextra’s international series of social media events was kicked off at Thomson Reuters’ London headquarters. A gathering of participants from the financial services industry chewed over the opportunities and pitfalls presented by the likes of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

A flurry of tweets ensued including one that caught my eye saying “There is ROI in social media, finding it is the Holy Grail!”

In my humble opinion, social media is more about the ROR (return on relationships) than ROI. How can you put a value on the relationships you build with your followers? This revelation  then prompted another flurry of tweets between myself Sean Clark, Huw Sayer and Gary Dickenson and prompted Sean’s blog post What’s the ROI on Conversions?.

Sure, you can monitor the work your social media activities generate but that’s not what Twitter is about for me. It’s an incredible tool for communication. By listening to what people are saying you can be there to instantly offer advice when someone needs it. If you monitor it you will get to know when something goes right or wrong with your service so it’s an excellent customer service tool. Not only that but it also helps as part of your SEO strategy.

In short, your ‘ROI or ROR’ will depend on what you’re trying to get out of it. And that’s going to be different for everyone.

What about numbers?

That’s all well and good but there are still a number of CEOs out there that are going to want numbers. So you have to determine precisely what it is you want to get out of your social media strategy.

It could be:

• To drive sales
• To drive enquiries
• Boost brand awareness

Once you know what you’re trying to achieve you can then attempt to quantify your effectiveness.

Maths was never my strong point so I was interested to find a post on Social Media Examiner that addresses this issue.

So if you’re adamant you have to have numbers to quantify your social media activities take a few minutes out and read A Simple Way to Calculate Social Media Return on Investment.

Do you have other ways of measuring your social media effectiveness?

Do you think having a numerical measure is important or do you prefer to see it as a way of building and nurturing relationships?

This is a debate that’s going to rumble on for a while yet so please take a few minutes to share your views by leaving a comment below.

Sally Ormond – Copywriter, Blogger, Social Media Fan

Social media is great for marketing your business and raising your profile – every one knows that.

But it’s also a great relationship builder and customer service tool.

Monitoring your name and brand on the various social media grape vines helps you identify what people are saying about you, alerts you to any potential problems (such as customer service issues) and also tells you when you’re receiving a big thimbs up from your customers.

The problem is hearing all of that through the background noise.

You can use Google Alerts (although they are limited in their effectiveness) or use various paid tools that are available.

But wouldn’t it be great if you could build your own tailormade social media listening device for free?

Well you can.

Tony Ahn has written this incredibly useful post and how-to guide on Social Media Examiner which takes you though the steps required to create your very own social media listening device.

Now you too can monitor social media to find out what people are saying about you.

Take a look now and learn How to Build a Free Social Media Monitoring Dashboard

Thanks Tony!

David Murton has been helping companies build and maintain their online relationships with customers since 2006. On a more personal note, David is an avid piano and accordion player, drawn especially to music of the classical and romantic periods.

The author’s views are entirely his own and may not reflect the views of FreelanceCopywritersBlog.com. If you are interested in producing a Guest Post for this blog, please get in touch with your ideas.

Serious SEO services and bloggers realize the importance of using both SEO tools and social media to increase their online visibility. Embracing both methods to enhance recognition is more effective than using either approach alone.

An event involving Rebecca Black of SEOmoz is a good example of what social media can accomplish. She was unhappy with Verizon Wireless and spoke with a customer service rep to correct the issue, but to no avail. She tweeted her dissatisfaction and promptly received a tweet in return, by a different rep that solved the issue. Social media made that happen because of the connections it creates.

Benefits of SEO

• Link building
• Keyword research
• AdWords
• Analytics

In short, SEO is strategy. Any kind of website can be well-known in certain communities, but without an effective link building campaign spurring traffic, competitive sites who build links see more visibility. Keyword research is an effective aspect of increasing rank, especially thorough long-tail keyword research, contributing to conversion rates. AdWords is paid advertising links. Google Analytics is a robust set of marketing tools that monitors activity and measures everything.

Benefits of Social Campaigns

• Digg
• Reddit
• Stumbleupon
• Blogging networks
• Similar communities

Websites and blogs at the top of the SERPs don’t get there by SEO alone. They have strong communal ties, discussion boards and other interactive aspects. Social news websites like Digg, Reddit and Stumbleupon allow the dissemination and sharing of links to content, as well as commenting and voting.

The Left Brain / Right Brain Approach

Lefty:

SEO is the left brain, logically categorizing data. The left brain analyzes website dimensions and metrics, collating all that data to form a strategy that will appease search engine spiders and visitors. “How do I optimize R = S / V?” “I have to increase PS = (N – W) / S!” That is SEO, tactically building an online presence geared a little more toward feeding code to search engines than reaching out to people.

Righty:

Social media is the right brain, seeing the bigger picture. Holistic synthesis is a tool of the right brain, imagining several components working in harmony. Social media is about making new connections, building an online presence that leans more toward sharing with responsive people than churning out code for unfeeling search engines.

Websites can be effective, entertaining or informative with a low rank, and without an SEO strategy in place. Conversely, websites can rank fairly well due to good SEO, yet be ineffective, unfunny or uninformative. Both types of websites do not fare well in the long run. Competitors to such sites lead the way because they implement SEO while leveraging the power of social media to their benefit.

Everyone Benefits

Not long ago, social media and SEO were separate entities, serving different purposes. Once businesses from large corporations to indie labels learned how to generate buzz, social media/cyber-public relations became an effective partner to SEO implementations, essentially fusing with SEO. The goal of social campaigns is brand recognition.

Whether your brand is a product, service, or just you – many times it’s all three – remember that people drive your business. Opening 20 different accounts on social sites and leaving them to gather dust does no good. The social sites themselves add no value to your brand, nor do they generate traffic or revenue. Recognition, traffic and revenue come from people, the new acquaintances made during a social campaign. Like building links, a social campaign is promotion that’s done offsite. Also like link building, a strong social campaign is an ongoing process rather than a quick remedy.

1. Use SEO to tweak code, enhance conversion rates and increase search visibility.

2. Add social campaigns to drive more traffic to your well-oiled machine.

3. Reap the rewards.

We all like to think we’re perfect – but at the end of the day we’re only human which means things go wrong now and then.

Everyone at one time or another has made a mistake.

After spending hours on your latest marketing email, you hit send only to notice at the last minute a blaring typo, you’ve sent it to the wrong list, or you got the offer details wrong.

I can see you’re nodding. But don’t feel bad because you’re not alone – everyone’s been there at some point but its how you deal with it that matters.

How to deal with mistakes

When things go wrong people tend to fall into one of three camps. They either:

• Hide and hope no one notices
• Realise their mistake, correct it and hastily send out the email again to the same list without an apology or explanation
• Hold their hands up to their mistake, apologise and make it up to their customers

Which are you?

By being the honest guy in the third scenario, you’ll gain more respect and happy customers. You’ll probably still get a rap over the knuckles by the boss but at least you owned up and put things right.

Often it’s how companies deal with their mistakes that wins or loses them customers. A company that refuses to acknowledge their short comings will lose customers in spades. But one that admits it’s not always perfect and does get things wrong and is willing to go that extra mile to put it right will retain customers.

How to avoid mistakes

In an ideal world mistakes wouldn’t happen.

Whilst being human tends to mean things will go wrong now and then there are a few simple techniques you can follow to try and keep these cock-ups to a minimum.

1. Validation list

Before you send your email to your customer list, set up a validation list comprising of colleagues or friends (if you’re a one-man/woman band) who will proofread and test out your links for you. This should help flag up any errors before its broadcast.

2. Preview

If you have the ability to preview how your email will look in different browser windows, it will help you ensure your email looks good and that the layout isn’t compromised.

3. Slow down

Don’t leave it to the last minute.

Plan your email marketing carefully to make sure you have plenty of time to compose it and check it before sending it. Writing in haste is asking for trouble.

Email marketing is a very powerful tool when used properly. Whether you create your own content or use a professional copywriter to create it for you, always make sure you check and double check the text, offers and links before sending.

A great way to boost your online exposure is by writing guest blog posts.

Although you will undoubtedly be doing this to increase your own profile you must never lose sight of the blog owner. If you don’t add value to them they won’t be asking you back.

Here are 6 tips to help you write great guest blogs and get asked back.

1. Understand your audience

You’ve got your first guest blogging gig – fantastic!

But before you start to write, you must research your audience. Read through several past blog posts to get a feel for the style and what the audience are reading. After all if you are writing for a marketing blog and come up with a post about flower arranging, it’s unlikely to go down well.

2. Don’t bluff

Don’t be lured into writing for a blog just because it has a high page rank or vast swathes of traffic. The key to a great blog post is writing about what you know. If you try to write about a topic you know nothing about just because it gets shed loads of visitors, you’ll get found out. Stick with what you know and show your expertise.

3. Have personality

Even though you’re writing for someone else’s blog, still show your personality through your writing. A post without personality is dull, dry and boring.

People want to be entertained so don’t disappoint them.

4. On topic

This goes hand in hand with number 1. Don’t try and write a post for a blog that has nothing to do with its main subject matter. It’s a waste of your time and the blog owner is not going to publish it and probably won’t entertain any other submissions from you.

5. Write to get readers

A big mistake from many guest bloggers is that they write to get traffic for themselves as opposed to the blog they are guesting on.

Building a relationship with blog owners is essential if you want your work to get published. Therefore use social media to spread the word when your post is published. Generating traffic will get you invited back. As will interaction – if your post is commented on, interact with your readers and show that you’re not just a post-and-run kind of blogger.

6. Don’t push your link luck

When you guest blog the publisher will be happy to provide you with a link – but don’t be greedy. Getting your name published on a popular blog is pretty cool, and to get a link back to your own blog or mention of your business is great. But don’t blatantly add in links that are obviously there to promote your products. If that’s your motivation, ask before you add – if you don’t your post could be rejected.

Writing guest blogs is great for you and great for the blog readers. It offers new perspectives on subjects and enriches the readers’ experience.

If you want to be a guest blogger:

• Ask first – drop the blog owner an email and ask if you can submit a post
• Research – make sure your topic fits the blog
• Entertain – make sure your blog adds value

If you have something to say about marketing, copywriting or social media and want to be considered as a guest blogger for Freelance Copywriter’s Blog, drop me a line with your suggestions.