Social Media Marketing

The Social Media Analytics War Against ROI

Do you know what to analyze with Analytics?

Do you know what to analyze with Analytics?

Hey Guerilleros, I know I’ve been out for WAY too long, but there’s way too much going on right now and updating this awesome kind of got pushed to the sidelines.

But I want to come back today talking about something that has been constantly on mind now that I’m managing multiple blogs and social communities. It’s a pretty hardcore guerilla that many social media marketers continue to get bombed at.

I’m going to touch a simple aspect of tracking social media referral traffic using Google Analytics.

1. Traffic Sources

Where is your social media marketing most effective?

Where is your social media marketing most effective?

This is very basic, but is a major part of your guerilla – you need to know where your wins are coming from. It does you no good to spend hours on social bookmarking places if your real traffic comes from Youtube.

Of course, there are secondary advantages of using social bookmarks, but you get the point – if you’re active on one platform, it will undoubtedly work better for you.

And here’s the key point most people miss when determining social media ROI: you dont have to ponder secondary benefits (awareness, exposure, etc..), at least initially. Track salaried hours and social media expenses against measurable results – traffic, leads, referring links.

That’s ROI when it comes to social media, at its primary stage. But when you’re trying to analyze what your results are, look at the report on the left side and ask yourself:

“are these sites where my market ‘hangs out’?”

If it is, then great.

But some guerilleros have no idea where their market hangs out… Those guys just go out and fight for every inch – no matter which direction they’re going. For those guys, there’s more analytics.

2. Understand How Social Visitors Act On Your Site

Here’s the complete report for the picture above:

Track visitors' experience for each social media platform

Track visitors' experience for each social media platform

You’ll see on the table above: visits – pages/visit – avg time on site – %new visits – %bounce rate.
What those tell you is basically this:
Your visitor came, looked at X number of pages, in about X minutes. But out of everybody that came to your site, X hit the back button without clicking on a single link.

So your job when tracking social media marketing ROI is to analyze who’s connecting with your content in a more efficient way – You can even add conversion tracking to your analytics:

analytics tracking conversions

analytics tracking conversions

With simple interpretation of raw data, you’ve just found out which platform gives you the best results. If it’s Youtube, darn, get more videos up! If it’s Facebook, spend some more time connecting and updating your status.

It’s easier to spread your social guerilla marketing all over, but it’s hard to win a battle. If you’re winning, stay on top of it!

Social Guerilla Marketing Done Right: The X-One Mug

X-One is the most socially active coffee mug ever!

X-One is the most socially active coffee mug ever!

Guerilleros, today over at the ASI Central I read a cool post about 5 hot marketing trends and if it’s hot, there’s social media all over it.

No doubt, Social Media was the very first “hot trend” (they call it “trend”, we know it’s a GUERILLA!) and even though they didn’t seem to be very familiar with the topic, they picked a real Guerilla strategy to talk about: The X-One Mug Fan Page

The company that makes the X1 (Gold Bond Inc.) decided that

As a travel mug, the X-one is always going places, so the marketing team figured social media was a natural fit, and the X-one Facebook page was born

Pretty clever, huh?

There are a ton of reasons why Gold Bond marketing director Karen Sherrill should receive a considerable bonus, but here at the Guerilla we’ll discuss why their campaign works like charm:

Social Media Marketing With Humour

Attention to details: humor and constant updates on the x-one fan page

Attention to details: humor and constant updates on the x-one fan page

Now raise your hands those who enjoy when companies make fun of themselves… ???

When you go social, online or offline, it’s your personality that attracts people – and the X-One team have created a darn cool one for their fan page.

Mentioning personality is important not only to make the X-One remarkable but to instigate people to talk about it (like I’m doing right now).

I’ve written about the guerilla marketing viral effect and how content goes viral when there’s a benefit to the user that is syndicating it.

Sherill proved to be a master guerillera when she stated this in regards to being remarkable:

One of the important elements seems to be humor or intrigue that will give friends and fans a reason to pick your tweets and posts out of the onslaught of others

Why the x1 Guerilla Marketing Has Gone Viral

Sherill and her team have made the X-One campaign extremely engaging by asking people to share how and where they take their mugs. When customers send them pictures, they’re all published on the fan page under the album “Places I Have Been“.

Check out these pics from the album:

Is that a successful campaign or what?

Is that a successful campaign or what?

Remarkable social media marketing...!

Remarkable social media marketing...!

They’re completely NOT A SOCIAL MEDIA SILO – From their facebook page, you can see that the entire company participates: there are mentions of the plant manager, becky the sales rep…

What they missed – Subtle Monetizing…

We could not find a link to the company website at the fan page, and we could not find a link to their twitter account either.

ATTENTION: Good social media guerillas are subtle about these strategies, and it’s not a bad practice to make it a bit less obvious for your visitors that you’re trying to sell something.

In the X-One case, however, they’re really not trying to sell anything. Their approach is almost entirely entertaining, and that’s where they missed the point:

What If I wanted to buy an X-One?

My wife drinks more coffee than Brazil can export it, and I’d love to buy her one.

How about a link to a “getthex1.com” domain with more pictures, and an online order form?

Anyway, many praises to Sherill and the marketing team at Gold Bond Inc. They’ve put together a really powerful guerilla campaign, and it should be an inspiration for companies who think social media marketing is about blasting 140 character ads over twitter.

Is Your Company Stuck With A Social Media Silo?

If your social media marketing is a silo, you're doomed to implode.

If your social media marketing is a silo, you're doomed to implode.

When I read this post over at Label:Indescript about social media silos, I immediately connected the subject to at least 4 business owners I’ve been in contact with.

Justin Boone, the author (and a darn good guerillero), talks about how companies start their social media strategies with a department (read blogger guy) that becomes completely alienated from the rest of the staff and from other departments.

I’d say that’s a better start than having NO SOCIAL MEDIA WHATSOEVER, but there are points to be taken from this when it comes to a powerful social guerilla.

The majority of businesses that decide to implement a blog or create dedicated social network accounts do so with only one objective: create more revenue.

Now that my guerilla is expanding into the fascinating world of “real” business (read offline companies), I’ve found that all these companies really know about social media marketing is that it’s “cheap” and can go “viral”.

Why They End Up With A Social Media Silo

The real benefits of creating an active community start when there’s a commitment throughout the entire company to share, engage, and participate in a public dialog.  A good guerilla is never won by one lonely guerillero, but by a tactiful team.

And I’ve experienced lots of lost battles when:

  • Companies fail to communicate with the social media deparment

The poor “blogger guy” is left hunting for material to post, and is left out with the task of tracking customer feedback and analysing google and twitter alerts.

Or, what is worse:

  • All of the social media material comes from the marketing department (the billboard approach)

That happens more often than necessary, but it seems to be that corporate mentality impregnated on offline people; old ads, product releases, listing of properties… The entire community is now a giant billboard!

Stimulate The Social Spirit

Turn projects in development over to the SM department, let them post updates. Collect feedback, and apply their comments into the design.

Integrate multiple areas of your company by asking them to report daily activities to the SM team. Motivate the staff to post their comments on the company blog and to interact with each other within the corporate Facebook page.

And one more thing:

QUIT THE RETURN ON INVESTMENT CRAP!

There are tons of ways to measure social media buzz, to ignite content syndication, and those are valid strategies to evaluate strategies. Hiring a web analytics expert is also a good idea.

But enough with the constant cry about time and effort wasted: if these companies havent noticed yet, online content doesnt “die”, and even though it may not be immediate, a solid online participation will pay huge dividends as online usage wont stop growing anytime soon.

Underground Guerilla: The Social Bookmarking / Backlinks Relation

Guerilleros, you’ve probably heard about the Del.iciou.s trend: bookmarking your favorite websites into online services, so you can access it from any computer, and even share them with friends.

That, my brother&sister-in-war, is a huge social media guerilla opportunity, and it’s so powerful that it’s giving Google a hard time to track.

The thing is that with the record-keeping of your favorites in a remote, public location, you’re creating a link from that platform to your website/blog.

As you already know, the more links you have pointing to your website, the more Google will enjoy you. And being friends with Google is like nuclear weapons to North Korea: it makes you untouchable.

Of course, Guerilla Marketing is not about blowing radiation on the competition, but achieving massive results under the radar, without turning spotlights on your campaign. it involves subtle moves, and social bookmarking is extremely subtle.

Boring, but subtle 😉

Stop the atomic talk and tell me: What is Social Bookmarking?

You’ll see on the bottom of this post a button that says “share/save”. Hover your mouse over it and lots of icons will popup, some of which you may recognize; those are social media platforms that will accept your bookmark entry.

Average users usually pick one of those platforms, and stick to it. The widely known Del.icious is one of the most famous social bookmarking services.

As you post your bookmarks, other users will see it, and they may go visit it as well. If they like it, they bookmark it also – get the hint?

This bookmarking cycle generates ‘buzz’, and what is the point of any guerilla marketing campaign? GO VIRAL!

But.. It’s not that easy to create viral content..

Exactly – social bookmarking alone won’t get your content to go viral or bring much traffic to your website. For that, you need to actually BE SOCIAL: make friends on Del.icious, Diig, Diigo… so you have people that pay a bit of extra attention to your bookmarks.

However, building relationships take time and can be a pain…

So why bother using social bookmarks?

Remember what I said in the beginning of this post about creating links to your website?

While you’re making friends and socializing in one network, go ahead and post your website to ANY bookmarking service available. Even though some services are less populated than a desert, they may still share some link juice.

Below is a screenshot of this very own blog, with less than a month of existence, showing the results of posting to only two or three social platforms:

Backlinks from social bookmarking alone

Backlinks from social bookmarking alone

As you see, Yahoo! Site Explorer has 8 incoming links pointing to us – and that’s from 5 platforms alone: Diigo, Facebook, FriendFeed, IceRocket, and MyBlogLog.

What are the best services?

  • Delicious
  • Diigo
  • MyBlogLog (for blogs, duh!)
  • BuddyMarks
  • SocialMedian
  • Mister Wong
  • Jumptags
  • Reddit

And those are just a few… You can use the ‘Share/Save’ button below (you BETTER USE IT!) and get some ideas of networks to use.

What If I don’t have time to bookmark in all of these services?

(lazy…)

Well, if you’re really short in time, you can use a social bookmarking software.

Even though highly effective, this technology is rather new and it’s difficult to guarantee results. The best strategy is to create  a large, active content syndication network, that will leverage your content throughout multiple social platforms.

And be sure to come back and share your results with us! Comments ARE APPRECIATED!!!!

How To Turn Guerilla Marketing Viral – The Viral Effect!

The psychology behind anything that goes viral is that the user gets some sort of benefit by promoting it.

The “viral” aspect only works if, after spreading it to their friends, that user will be seen as funny, smart, up-to-date, or valuable.

So, when thinking about new Guerilla marketing content, focus on creating remarkable pieces, that will separate those who have seen it (the cool, the smart, the savvy, the geekiest…) from those who NEED to see it (beyond your potential customers)

The Viral Effect Determines The NEED To See/Read/Try It

Therein lies the Viral Effect; divising the “have seen it” from the “need to see”. And the more remarkable your Guerilla marketing is, the bigger the “NEED TO SEE”.

You’ve probably seen a very old viral video on TV being advertised in the ‘news’ and thought to yourself:

“I’ve already seen it, those TV people are always behind…”

And of course, you’re a much cooler person because you had already seen it 😉

Alright, but how does one go about creating the viral effect in guerilla??

First of all, check through this list to make sure your content passes “guerilla quality control”:

  • Very little pitch, if pitch at all
  • There’s no way anybody will know what it relates to unless they watch/read it to the end
  • Creates expectation/suspense/thrill/curiosity
  • Goes WAY beyond “target market”, attractive to a wide range of users

If it passes all these factors, there’s a big chance you’ve got a bazooka Guerilla on your hands.

But well, it’s not like there’s an ignition button to fire up massive content syndication – specially if you don’t have a large syndication network – but here are strategies good for any marketer:

  • Most twitter users have their own blogs, but it’s also good to check alltop.com for specific blogs and contact bloggers.
  • On youtube, if you’re doing a guerilla video, it works very well to ALLOW embeds and comments. After all, you do want buzz, right?

This troublesome strategy of contacting social media personalities is the ONLY shortcut to those who do not have a large network of friends to syndicate your content.

The other strategy that seems to work (depending on budget) is to have a top-notch PR firm feed the media.

(of course, we’re talking about social media here – so don’t expect me to suggest helicopter-bombing-business-cards type of strategies here)

But turning any guerilla into a viral marketing depends on your ability to:

  • be newsworthy

  • be social (online)

(grow a large group of ‘friends’ on multiple platforms – your content syndication network)

  • be remarkable

  • be steady & keep ’em coming

(turn a single campaign into multiple posts/pieces – start a specific website/blog just for it)

We’ll keep the guerilla rolling, and will post much more content here, but if you really want to overthrow the establishment and learn underground guerilleros’ tools to automate social media marketing, click here.

Okay, Social Media & Guerilla Marketing? Yeah, Here’s How!

Hand Grenade Guerilla Marketing

The Social Media Guerilla Logo

First of all, a quick explanation on Guerilla Marketing, from the one-and-only wikipedia:

“Guerilla Marketing is an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget.”

How about a budget of $ 0.00, and results like this, or this ?

What if I were to tell you that Social Media Guerilla elected President Obama?

The possibilities are endless, and the results are extremely tempting.

So, what does it take?

Social Guerilla Marketing Starts With Syndication

Who turns any Guerilla content Viral? You. Me. Users!

And how does any content spread on the internet?

It starts with ignition:

  • submission to social bookmarking services
  • submission to news/media rating services (Digg, Social Median)
  • a tweet

Which is all very simple; the kick comes when nobody rates, or bookmarks, or retweets your content.

For the viral effect, a key factor in the formula is Syndication.

Content Syndication is how your Guerilla content gets to the first page of Digg, which leads to several retweets, which all together creates copious amounts of traffic.

And as we know, traffic is good for two things:

  • MONEY – either selling stuff or selling space on your website to promote stuff, traffic is a major asset (when steady)
  • INCOMING LINKS – the more attractive (Viral) your content gets, more and more website owners will link to it in an attempt to enjoy some of the buzz you created. Search engines feast on incoming links, and your other content gets a nice bump on SERPs because of all that love you spread.

Okay, everybody knows that…

But how to get people to syndicate your content?

To answer a question with another:

How many friends do you have?

Just like word-of-mouth, the initiator usually tells a close friend, who tells another, and the entire chain is set.

Online, it’s all a matter of having the right friends – the more, the better.

Friends are created on social networking sites like Facebook, or MySpace (if you’re under 14). Those are great to meet and interact with people, but they are useless for marketing.

Good syndication-friends are created at services where user-voting determines the visibility and the quality of the content. We’re talking about Digg, Del.i.cious, Social Median, Reddit, etc…

The trick is not just to ‘add a friend’ but to lead attract that person to reciprocate, gaining a ‘mutual friend’ status.

This means (depending on the quality of your content) that your friend is more likely to vote positively for a content submitted by you.

So, forget about Facebook?

Why not?

From now on, your focus as an Underground Social Guerilla (USG) is to:

  • Create high-quality content
  • Create a powerful content syndication network

With the first task, there’s not much anybody can do except recommend good readings.

But for the latter, you can kick-start your syndication here

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