Measuring Your Social Media Efforts

So the experimentation with social media has begun; well it’s begun for us and more broadly a lot of businesses are beginning to test the waters, that is, if they are not already fully submerged!

Social Media Marketing is a key strategy to employ when trying to enhance the your websites landing page SEO. At Intelligent Information Systems the experimentation has begun in correspondence with the overall of our website in an effort to improve our overall web presence and to conjointly improve the SEO of our site.

Social Media is a way to get high quality back links to your website.

The key tools for measurement which shouldn’t be overlooked are:

Google Analytics

Google analytics will not help you understand the viral nature of various social media completely. But when using the combination of Google analytics and conversion tracker, you can learn an awful lot about where traffic is coming from and map it to your social media campaign to see what is working; at least directionally.
You should look at sources of traffic and see if it is broadening to include the elements of your social media campaign. You can also look at key variables like:

•Time spent
•Bounce rate
•Page views

Looking at and considering these variables will all help you make inference-based decisions on the quality of the traffic you are driving to your website.

Emerging Social Media Measurement Tools

Many new tools are emerging for measuring social media effectiveness. Most are limited in scope to one channel or type of social media experience.
One promising new tool, that will measure the viral effects of social media, is the popular ShareThis platform. ShareThis reaches over 400 million people a month though the social media share buttons you can add to your content that they provide as part of their service. This service is simple to implement on your site. If you don’t already have sharing functionality, you should consider implementing ShareThis or something like it.

ShareThis is about to add the ability to analyse social media by business category, which will be very useful for niche businesses. The company recently shared some interesting stats regarding social media with TechCrunch. According to the company, Facebook accounts for 45 percent of all shared content across its network. E-mail followed with 34 percent and Twitter with 12 percent.

The key here is thinking about social media as a coordinated piece of your overall marketing mix and measuring it as such. While measurement tools are not perfect, you can get enough data today to make solid decisions to help you optimise your social media campaigns.

Original Article: All Business.com

General dos and don'ts for using social media

Do put a communications strategy in place. What are you trying to achieve, what do you want to say, where, how and to whom. This will make it much easier to keep control

Do develop a style. Tone of voice will need to be different for each audience and situation, but make sure that your brand personality comes through in everything you do. If relevant, incorporate your brand values and where appropriate, use first person language to humanise the conversation.

Do strike the right balance between conversation and sales. Nobody wants to receive an overt sales pitch via social media, but be honest about why you are talking to consumers. Ignoring the fact that you have something to offer will make you seem disingenuous and untrustworthy.

Do set limits for what you will and won't tolerate in any channel. Just because you want to seem approachable and conversational doesn't mean you have to put up with abusive comments from consumers.

Don't be afraid to vary your strategy per channel. Don't just assume all social media channels work in the same way. Different networks have different user profiles, so the tone and content used for one will not necessarily work for another.

However, do be consistent. Make sure you use the same URL naming convention across all channels, to avoid confusion. Make it easy for people to find you. Also brand the different platforms with your company logo and colour theme to fit where applicable. You want the essence of the brand to be immediately conceived on visiting on the page.

Don't forget to update your content. There is nothing worse than starting a Twitter feed which is active and updated for the first three weeks but then goes silent, or a Facebook page which still has reference to an event which occurred three months ago on a landing page tab. Social media needs to be a constant consistent investment and can be a full-time job, so make sure you have the resources to keep your channels manned and your information up to date.

Read the full article at: http://www.businesszone.co.uk/topic/marketing-pr/social-media-etiquette-dos-and-dont/29932

Social Media Best Practice

Our efforts at Intelligent Information Systems have been noted in relation to our social media practice. Within this months SAP Social Media Webinar broadcast to channel partners the spotlight was put on Intelligent Information Systems as we were given a mention for our endeavours.

Our Social Media Best Practice has thus far has involved the following:

Establishing the platforms that we wanted to create a presence.

Forming a Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn company page as well as a LinkedIn company group.

Finding our customers and competitors on the various platforms.

Setting up a company blog and you tube channel and regularly updating it with relevant and insightful content.

Integrating all the social media platforms, and using Tweetdeck to update them all at once.

Ensuring that our posts across the various platforms and sites remain consistent.

Joining and interacting with groups and blogs within our customer verticals, as well as within areas of interest to us most notably SAP and SAP Business One.

Our next step is to begin to make use of the free online tools to monitor our social media presence; we shall keep you updated!

There are lots of integration tools and apps available on the different platforms and branding options. We have put a lot of effort in to ensuring that we have made use of everything that is available. Check out or presence on the various sites via this blog page. Feedback, insight and tips are all very welcome!

Social Media Made Easy - Integration and Monitoring

The world of social media is vast and your involvement can be time consuming. Each feature and platform is new to me and integrating each element is a key way in which I recognise I can save time. The tools are available so why not use them!

TweetDeck is a desktop application which allows you to readily update your different social media accounts via one platform as well as monitor the activities of your friends and networks across the various platforms within which you have a presence once the accounts have been linked in and verified.

TweetDeck offers an excellent reply capability. Unlike the Twitter web site, TweetDeck doesn't only show you replies that start with @yourusername—it shows you any tweet that contains @yourusername anywhere in the body. Similarly, it can show you a constantly updating search for a particular term, like a search for "Lifehacker." The more modules you add to TweetDeck, the wider it gets.

It’s easy to use, customised to your needs and can be minimised to allow you to concentrate on your work whilst supplying you with updates in the same fashion as your outlook account.

Hootsuite is another desktop application which is comparable to Tweetdeck.

Ping.fm is tool which can help you deal with social media updates. As with TweetDeck you can post one update at Ping.fm which can be spread across the various social media sites; contacting them simultaneously. Updates can be made from your browser via the ping.fm dashboard, email or via SMS or if you are using the Twitter iPhone App Tweetie you can also integrate ping.fm.

As you become involved in the various platforms you are sure to be interested in how it is supporting your company or brands presence across the web. How Sociable and Social Mention are sites which readily condense and assimilate all this information for you across the whole web.

How Sociable is a website which can be used to readily assess the visibility of your brand or company across the web. It only takes minutes, sometimes seconds to acquire the data and you can then drill down to see where you have been mentioned within which sites and in what context.

When you input the name of your brand or company you receive a visibility score once it’s processed. The score is calculated based on benchmark results which were acquired using one globally recognised brand which was given a score of 1000. To ensure that even small, local brands would be recognised they introduced a sliding scale.

Keep an eye on your progress by regularly checking your score.

Social Mention is a social media search and analysis platform that aggregates user generated content from across the universe into a single stream of information.
It allows you to easily track and measure what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web's social media landscape in real-time. Social Mention monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc…

Make your life easier and monitor your progress!

5 Reasons Recent Graduates or Interns are the best people to kick start and manage your social media presence

College students or recent graduates are being cited as the best people to look after your company’s social media presence, all be it with some supervision, as they are seen as being far better at interacting online than those higher up.. This was suggested recently by Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media writing on The Business Insider War Room.

Even if you think your online image is too important to entrust to interns or recent graduates you should take a leaf out of their book and follow their example.
Some of the reasons they can help you achieve social media success are:

They are chatty – this mindset and their willingness to interact and converse on a range of topics as they are happy to avoid the other perhaps more mundane and repetitive tasks such as photocopying works in their favour in the world of social media.

They are closure to the ground – they are more likely to pick up on information, interactions and underlying problems or difficulties from the ground up that CEO’s are unlikely to acknowledge or be aware of. They can bring an outside and fresh perspective and potentially help your company overcome its misgivings and things which could potentially be hampering it’s intended identity and perceived image.

They are excited and enthusiastic – they are in touch with day to day reality far more so than CEO’s are likely to be. They are potentially closure to your customers in terms of understanding their perspective and what they are interested in. Being in tune with the social world that your customers reside will come across in your social media presence as well as their general enthusiasm and excitment for potentially some of the same issues.

They know they have weaknesses – a student or a recent graduate is more likely to be in touch with their weaknesses and will be happy to admit them and their ambitions to overcome them. This is far more attractive to customers as opposed to being greeted by a constant message that your company is perfect which may be portrayed by a CEO.

They take chances – the risks may not be as high for a student or recent graduate, they are optimistic and striving to prove themselves and are therefore more likely to take chances. This is necessary within the world of social media as it needs to be constantly driven by ambitions to make everything better.

Once guidelines and policies are in place there is no reason why your social media presence shouldn’t be managed by your interns or recent graduate employees; seemingly it’s all about taking risks they just need to be monitored and quantified!

LinkedIn For the SME

LinkedIn is geared towards professionals and has become one of the world’s largest virtual networking platforms. It

For a small business it is seemingly not what you know but who you know. It’s all about the contacts, building relationships and taking advantage of the dimensions of your business relative to your larger competitors!

LinkedIn’s mission is to connect the world’s professionals supporting increased productivity and success.

Set up 6 years ago it has achieved continuous monumental success by linking over 70 million professionals worldwide across 180 countries and 157 industries with approximately 3 million new professionals joining every month which is the equivalent to 1 joining every second!

There are now over 675,000 groups, with 1,500 new groups being formed every day and 1million status updates every week. The UK has the largest membership in comparison to its European counterparts with over 4 million professionals signed up to the network.

When you sign up you build a profile, add you C.V and information about your experience, expertise, interests, accomplishments and qualifications. From there you can begin to construct your network, searching for people you know first and foremost and from their connecting with additional professionals through invitations, introductions and links.

When searching for people you know consult your outlook contacts or business cards and carry out a quick search for them as well as anybody you may have worked for or with, in the past or that you are seeking to work with in the future.

The whole point of LinkedIn is to network, get to know people in your vertical, advertise job posts or seek out employment, offer your services or advice, create discussions and gain insight that you may otherwise remain oblivious too.

For small businesses it removes obstacles such as geographical isolation and time constraints creating a level playing field with larger competitors. Everything is done online which means that networking can be done almost anywhere and anytime whenever the time is available.

Through making valuable connections professionals can build their brand and find new opportunities.

The How To: First Steps into the World of Social Media

Gaining support and encouragement from SAP as we enter the world of social media via monthly webinars has been fantastic and we continue to look forward to the forthcoming sessions as we embrace opportunities and elements of the landscape which haven’t yet been discovered by us.

Here are some of the tips that I’d like to share from the first two webinars which I’ve found effective and should help you on your way to making the first few steps into the world of social media.

Listen and Learn - The first step is to begin to observe what your customers and competitors are saying on the various social media platforms. Take your time and start with one platform; don’t take on them all at the same time because your likely to become overwhelmed.

Enable - Join or follow a forum and begin to comment as you gain confidence. This is the first step of social media interaction.

Connect - Reach out to those who have influence and seek to connect with your customers, competitors and all your business partners.

A useful blog post which may be of interest and use to those interested in SAP Business One connecting and engaging with SAP and other SAP Business One leading professionals and users from Intelligent B1 is "SAP in the World of Social Media".

To Do List Month One

•Check on main competitors.
•Check on customers.
•Find a niche social network and blog in your vertical; join and follow respectively.
•Respond to comments and queries if people looking for advice.

Note: If you’re a member of twitter use links shared by those you are following to find relevant and interesting blogs to follow.

Another useful and insightful blog post from Intelligent B1 is "Where to Start in the World of Social Media

To Do List Month Two

•Join LinkedIn and set up or check out your Company Profile.
•Join relevant groups and begin to interact with other professionals in your verticals.
•Present your Company’s unique message.
•Look at how you might encourage your audience to seek advice and put forward their queries via social media platforms in order to improve your service and products proffered.

Have Fun! The most valuable bit of advice is to enjoy it! If you’re not enjoying it your audience is unlikely to be inspired or motivated to engage with you and it’s also unlikely to last if it’s not something which you take pleasure in.

Social Media Can Improve Productivity

There countless social media platforms now being presented to us and some companies are making every effort to become involved in what they see as being the key platforms. But really it’s not about the scale of our efforts, it’s about the way in which we are utilising the tools which are available, and the efficiency of our endeavors in this new and opportunistic discipline.

There is also the big question mark hovering somewhat like a storm cloud over whether businesses entering the world of social media is perhaps hampering productivity levels as employees become distracted and hours spent embracing and interacting the world of social media are considered to be immeasurable in terms of the impact on business.

This is true in as much as it is true for marketing as a whole. The rewards and benefits may not be immediately discernable but as with any activities being undergone within an organisation, if the objectives are determined from the outcome, however specific or broad, the ease by which the results and outcomes can be measured will be shaped.

Some managers believe this new work style which involves workers engaging in social media activities has resulted in a blur between personal and professional time. The question is whether the potential benefits of engagement outweigh the widely acknowledged and cited drawbacks.

There are few noted areas within which social media can potentially enrich productivity.

Scalable Networking

The majority of networking is today being carried out online which saves a hell of a lot of time and supports networking on a much larger scale than would be conceivable on a face to face basis.

Information Overload Can be Avoided

Some may argue the opposite, but if searches are refined and networks, forums, groups and platforms are selectively embraced then information becomes more distinguished and specifically tailored to meet the needs of the any particular business or business person.

Freedom to Collaborate

In a world where collaboration is most often supported by some type of software, social media can provide the functionality to make sure that everyone can be productive while using the tool that works best for them. That said it is something which does need to be monitored as the freedom which the world of social media bestows could potentially be abused.

I think the blur and potential for social media to be abused can and should be ideally overcome be developing or utilising the ethos which exists within an organisation. If everyone is on the same page, is committed to the organisation and its objectives and holds its values in high esteem the potential shortcomings of social media as identified by many managers should certainly be surmounted.

Social Media can evidently be a double edged sword and it is fundamentally down the organisation or individual user to identify what they want to achieve through their involvement, examine the way in which they are using the tools available and endeavor to make the most of them.

Tidy Up Your Social Media Identity

Those of us who have entered or are planning to enter the world of social media are unlikely to consider creating an identity on one single platform. Utilising multiple platforms and integrating them is now customary.

As with all marketing communications we need to ensure and remain focused on the identity of the company or brand and insure that messages support and remain consistent rather than conflicting each other.

Integrated marketing communications, IMC, is now a cornerstone concept in the world of marketing and one which companies strive to adhere to, some more successfully than others. The concept is one which should underpin and direct the way in which we manage our presence within and use of social media.

Here are a concise few tips that I came across on the Mashable website: www.mashable.com

Be Consistent

Your profile pages should remain as consistent as possible in design. Utilise the design and branding tools available.
Updates should also remain consistent, not necessarily verbatim but they should have a degree of uniformity about them with regard to the message content and tone.

Be Sure of Your Brand

Whether you are going to create a new brand online or further extend and promote your established brand/company identity the message needs to be strong, clear and consistent.

Optimise SEO with Social Media

Use inbound links from the various platforms to connect your profiles and content. Make sure that what you’re posting is what you want to be known for and will support the way you wish to be perceived. Again consistency will help you optimise SEO.

Use the Management Tools available

Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and Ping.fm are useful platforms that will reduce the time you spend managing your social media presence when you have established one across multiple sites.

Humanise

Social Media is about humanising your company and delivering direct messages from you to your target audience. Ensure that what you’re saying and delivering is honest and true to you.

Adapted from Zachary Sniederman, How to Clean Up Your Social Media Identity, www.mashable.com

Digital Marketing isn’t just for the Big Players

Digital marketing offers huge potential for SMEs looking to increase their range and communicate with the audience who matters most to them. With the consumers now beginning to look beyond the recession, it is an ideal time for SME business owner to consider the options available to them.

There is such a great variety of online tools available that SMEs can choose the one suited to their needs to increase their impact on and within their chosen market.

It doesn’t have to be costly, which is a common misconception, but more about selecting the right campaign and tool, identifying clear objectives and deciphering how you can measure and acquire a true ROI.

Digital marketing is more accountable and measurable than its traditional counterpart and as a result, the return is more easily recognised. It is ideally used to complement existing marketing activities, supporting the strength of campaigns and fortifying a stance, position or message.

The key is to ensure that all activity is tailored to the company’s exact requirements: whether it’s a campaign based around key search terms on Google, an affiliate campaign promoting the business on relevant websites, or a campaign around a social network like Facebook.

Audiences can be more readily targeted with the use of digital marketing which is ideal for SMEs. They can reach out directly to interested consumers, in the long term reducing cost and improving efficiency of their marketing activities.

Digital marketing is also an ideal way for SMEs to create two way communications and interactions with their target market and existing customers. The humanisation of businesses has never been easier or of borne as much significance to the sales cycle and CRM.

The challenge for most SMEs looking to enter the world of digital marketing and utilise the available tools is where to start.

I would suggest with your website and from there it is up to the individual.
Google Adwords could be explored in order drive the optimum amount of traffic to your website.
The world of Social Media is continuously growing and SMEs would be hasty not to at least explore the many well established sites that now exist.

Digital media is rapidly becoming a vital element of the marketing communications mix.

With so much advice and support available SMEs should take advantage of what has been tried and tested by the bigger players in the market, delve into, test and find their place within the digital marketing revolution.

Marketing shouldn't be a Luxury; it's not just about New Sales

A topic very true to my own heart having recently acquired the post as Marketing Coordinator for IIS and with a well established fascination and interest in all things marketing, I truly appreciate and advocate SMEs investing in marketing continuously and recognise it as a way they can turn the downturn into new business opportunities.

Bill Gates famously said that, if he was down to his last dollar, he would spend it on marketing. But, with the UK still stuck in a deep economic crisis, many companies are setting aside strategies for growth altogether and are intent solely on survival.

Global consultancy McKinsey & Co found companies that remained or emerged in the top quartile of their sample overspent their less successful peers by almost 10 per cent during recessions, while other studies have found that companies that increase their marketing spend in a recession recover three times faster when economic conditions normalise.

Marketing is not solely concerned with supporting sales objectives, it's about building and maintaining relationships and ensuring that your company and brand message remains consistent.

According to CIM there are six key reasons why committing to a marketing plan pays off in a downturn.
1.The alternative of heavy discounting could damage your company or brand reputation

2.Customers don’t stop buying, they just contemplate their purchases more than they might have and just need a little extra reassurance

3.Communication is vital, “out of sight” is potentially “out of mind”

4.Innovation is key; in order to survive shifting circumstances businesses need to adapt

5.Empathy is valued; incentivise and create loyalty schemes that demonstrate your understanding or your customers positions

6.Why not utilise the internet and the many free services and social networking platforms that are continually seeing rapid growth in their membership; gain insight, interact and promote your business on a large scale

Though it is claimed we are coming out of the recession, this advice stands whatever the weather. For the time being make the most of the quietness, retain your position and potentially gain competitive advantage!

Social Media is Not a Vocation

I think we all have become a bit wrapped up in the world of social media both within our personal and working lives, myself included. What is now becoming apparent is that some people are now completely dependent on it and have come to view "Social Media" as a vocation in itself. They appear to hold it the same esteem as "Marketing" in terms of it being a distinct occupation.

Although an outlook of my own it is obviously not exclusively my contemplation.

Social Media is Not a Vocation

Social Media as a tool continues to grow in importance. Not utilising it as a marketing tool suggests complacency, neglect and lack of foresight on the part of a business.
On a daily basis we are updated as consumers and those more closely interest in the exploitation of it. To ignore the teachings of the most insightful and practices of the world largest companies seems imprudent and frankly ludicrous.

Businesses need to assess their own needs and the relative opportunities, make use of the most pertinant tools in a distinctive manner whilst at the same time making a concerted effort not to become bogged down and consumed entirely by it.

Social Media is a now a fundamental element of the marketing mix though not to the detriment of the other components. It's developing and progressing at a rapid pace and businesses need to remain poised and ready for the the next wave of activity!

Intelligent Information Systems enters the world of social media!

We're looking forward to interacting with our customers, gaining insight and feedback in to their needs, sharing our experiences, ideas, interests and developments and expanding our insight into the vast array of sectors to which we supply SAP Business One. We want to remain the leading providers of SAP Business One in UK and Ireland and we recognise the need to share and build upon our devoted interest to its development, and developments in our own and customers industries.

Come join, follow and interact with us on:
Our Blog: http://intelligentinformationsystems.blogspot.com/
Our YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/IntelligentB1/
Our Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Intelligent-Information-Systems/