'Net Features : social media analytics

Casse-Y Study in Digital Best Practices

Amberly Dressler — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:00:00 GMT

From email marketing and social media to e-commerce and video, self-made fitness sensation and online personality Cassey Ho knows a few things about building an online business.

In fact, using her own handheld cameras and editing skills, Ho uploads her daily workout videos to her growing YouTube fan base of 340,000 subscribers. Her use of digital best practices has increased her online following to more than 35 million total video views and growing 4 million-plus each month. The 26-year-old is considered to be one of the Top Online Fitness Influencers, second only to Biggest Loser’s Jillian Michaels.

With her credentials out of the way, we caught up with the blogilates.com owner and operator to see what other Web workers can learn from her success.

How do you leverage social media to acquire new visitors and keep current ones engaged?

CH: I make sure to post new content as often as possible, and I am always looking to try new types of workouts and exercises.

How do you use email marketing to engage users?

CH: Never try to sell anything! A newsletter should be personal, as if you’re writing a note to a friend. Just keep it genuine and full of good information that people need.

What were some challenges launching the e-commerce side of Blogilates.com and how did you overcome them?

CH: Creating a product line takes lots of development time and testing along with tons of trust. You can’t rely on yourself anymore – there are just too many pieces of the project to go at it alone, so you have to bring people in for help. I had to learn how to manage people and delegate tasks in order to focus on the overall picture. This was definitely a challenge because I am used to doing everything myself.

Editor's Note: Blogilates' checkout is powered by highwire.

In terms of content marketing, do you follow an editorial calendar? How do you strategically place content on the site?

CH: I try hard to stay organized, and I definitely plan the content ahead of time. I have a calendar for YouTube video uploads so that fans can expect to see a video on a certain day. For the blog, I just try to write as often as I can which is about every other day.

How has the use of video grown your business and what advice do you have for other digital companies to leverage its power?

CH: I actually started with video, so I totally recommend to other businesses to try it out and use it. To me, video is the most personal way to connect with users, so I always try to have a new video posted every few days.

How has the use of contests/giveaways grown your business? How do you conceive these and execute them?

CH: People love free stuff! It’s a great way to get fans excited and talking. If there’s a product I love or maybe even something new I design, I’ll announce a fun task for the fans to do and at random, I will pick a winner. People get really into it, and this actually helps build the community as well!

What can we expect from you and the site in the future?

CH: Get ready for a very special fitness community site that will connect hundreds of thousands of workout buddies from all over the world.

Take Social Media Analysis a Step Further

Michael Garrity — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 18:00:00 GMT

Internet marketers are constantly trying to find the best ways to leverage social media platforms to get the most out of their time spent on these sites. And with all of the social networks out there, they can spend a lot of time on these sites.

One powerful weapon in their arsenal has been social media analytics platforms, which help make sense of the copious amount of data (both statistical and anecdotal) that marketers collect from social networks.

In order to expand upon the insights gleaned from social networks, particularly Facebook, social media analytics tool Sotrender recently enhanced its platform with new features for the advanced management of international fan pages, integration with Facebook Insights, more account administration options and the ability to process online payments.

Now, Sotrender users can more precisely analyze activities and engagement taking place on their international Facebook Pages using content targeted for different, specific countries. Thanks to a unique algorithm, Sotrender is able to provide its customers with data on the most engaged users and most attractive content for each selected country, allowing brands to post the most relevant content for their various international audiences.

And, because of direct integration with Facebook Insights, the social network’s in-house analytics program, users won’t have to leave the Sotrender platform to see Facebook statistics along with Sotrender’s data.

The enhancements also include administration upgrades that let users track the history of modifications to their accounts. In addition, they can add new Facebook pages to monitor, add users to the panel and grand defined permissions to users. This is ideal for larger companies or marketing agencies that may have separate teams following multiple campaigns.

Finally, through a partnership with online payment provider PayLane, Sotrender is now able to offer a convenient payment option with Visa, MasterCard and Maestro credit and debit cards. Of course, this comes with various security features that come standard with PayLane’s antifraud tools, such as identity verification mechanisms like an Address Verification System, GeoIP, Card Verification Value and Card Verification Code. Both verification and payment handling are part of a single service, so there is no redirection to third-party providers. This means that the entire payment process takes place on Sotrender’s website.

Social Media Analytics & Internet Marketing

Administrator — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 20:30:00 GMT

As social media keeps providing new marketing opportunities, in addition to a way for online users to simply pass the time, the need for social analytics is becoming more pressing.

Utilizing reporting tools that are available online today can help Internet marketers continue to shape their social media strategy and overall online interaction methods.

Some of the most important metrics to track when it comes to social media include the ROI — how time spent marketing on sites like Facebook and Twitter translates into revenue for the company — and the growth and interaction factors surrounding a company’s online profiles and communities.

Any metric can be broken down into granular parts for a closer look or to add quantitative micro-metrics to an overarching qualitative metric. For example, the number of links acquired on shared or viral content pages via social media is a key factor for the SEO-minded.

But instead of looking only at how many links the viral content page received you can break it down by:

1. Volume of links for a number of pieces of content
2. Amount of links based on number of visits
3. Shift in site-wide link count over time
4. Competitive link growth
5. Links by category / topic
6. Links by social channel

The important thing to remember when it comes to social media analytics is to take into consideration what “success” means relative to the page and brand that is being measured. Comparing a small business’ page to a nationwide, well-known business is an impossible feat — the numbers will always be a disappointment.

New Developments in Facebook Insights

Facebook makes it easy to track page metrics by sending administrators a list of statistics every Monday, including the growth in fans when compared to the previous week and the traffic that has actually come to the page during that week. These statistics can then be calculated into averages per month, as a way to report growth in traffic and overall interaction.

Facebook also reports Insights on every post made by an administrator on a page, along with new graphs that display users’ gender and age range. These demographics may be helpful for companies that have a strict target audience — say a product targeted towards a specific gender (such as Axe body spray or Cover Girl makeup) or an age range target, like Seventeen Magazine or Budweiser. When users outside of the target demographic area visit the page regularly, this may reflect how online and traditional marketing campaigns affect and draw in their audiences.

Post insights include the number of impressions or how many times a user has seen that page’s post on either their Facebook wall or on the page’s wall, and the percentage of interaction with the post. This percentage takes any action a user might do with the post — whether that be “liking” it or commenting — then divides it by the number of impressions. For the most part, impression percentages are quite low, depending on the number of fans of a page and their average interaction rate. For example, if a Facebook page is created for a study group, it may only have 30 “likes” but the interaction percentage may be very high, especially if the users are going to the page daily and commenting on every post.

Audience size, average interaction and post quality are all important factors when evaluating an interaction percentage. Most pages with 1,000 fans or less will consider one percent or more to be a resounding success, whereas a page of a famous name brand or celebrity with thousands of fans (5,000 or more) and an active community might see an average of two to five percent.

The New Twitter Analytics Platform

Twitter announced a new analytics platform that allows users to track follows, unfollows, clicks and overall traffic. Expected to be released in 2011, the Twitter Analytics service is different than Facebook Insights because it tracks clicks in addition to some of the other, similar metrics.

Because Twitter is primarily used as a link-sharing service, tracking links is one of the most valuable analytics that can be reported on the platform. While this can already be completed using outside services, having the ability to access the data directly on Twitter could make it more accurate and reliable, and definitely more convenient

Current Independent Reporting Tools

There are several other, free or third-party independent reporting tools that can track links and mentions of a company’s name or products on social media. Bit.ly, TwitterFeed, Tweet- Deck, and Social Mention are a few great tools that can be utilized to offer customized social media analytics reporting. Plugging the bit.ly API key into TwitterFeed, along with UTM tags, allows you to track clicks from an RSS feed published on Twitter in bit.ly, and the UTM tags can track your posted links in Google Analytics. Tracking the source and medium UTM tags (displayed as http://www.blog.com/contactus? utm_source=twitter&utm_ medium=twitterfeed) can help calculate ROI — especially if a link posted on Twitter or Facebook with a UTM tag is taking users to a landing page with a shopping cart or contact form that counts as a conversion. Using a link shortener to condense URLs with UTM tags makes it easier than ever to write link URLs without having to worry about character restraints.

Another impressive metric of social media reporting is calculating the percentage increase in average traffic and “likes” on Facebook, or followers on Twitter. Even small numbers, such as going from 44 to 75 “likes” in 10 days, translates into impressive percentage increases. And because of the difficulty in assigning concrete numbers to social media, these types of increases can help to prove that a social media campaign is successful.

While Facebook and Twitter are the most well-known social media platforms in the United States, other websites that should be reported on are YouTube and social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon and Reddit. YouTube, for example, is offering more customization to advertisers and account owners when it comes to their channels, to help attract and maintain audiences. Measuring average views, comments or another metric applicable to the particular social site are good ways to tell if a marketing strategy on these websites is effective. However, these websites are in a niche of their own and should never be compared to Facebook and Twitter — one of the most important things to remember when reporting social media analytics to determine success.

The Folly of Comparing Social Media Platforms

Before proclaiming that Twitter is more effective than Facebook or any other social platform, their respective statistics need to be put into the perspective of how each of the websites is used differently. Twitter is more of a link and information- sharing platform rather than Facebook, for example, which is used to forge relationships and build repeat interactions over time. The same can be said for comparing LinkedIn with YouTube or StumbleUpon with Reddit.

The basis of social media strategy is the fact that social media as a whole should be treated as an entire set of tools instead of focusing on a single website to bring traffic and business to a company.

Engaging social media to attract and retain an active, participating audience should be the end goal, no matter what social media analytics metrics are being measured. When it comes to social media, both the individual analytics and how different platforms can be combined to form a total online marketing strategy can produce endless opportunities.

About the Author: Jordan Kasteler has been involved in Internet marketing and SEO since 2001. He currently is SVP of Content Development and Managing Partner at BlueGlass Interactive, Inc., an industry leading agency in social media marketing and search engine optimization.

Omniture Taps Facebook for Social Media Marketing

Mike Phillips — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:40:00 GMT

Omniture is a leading provider of "business optimization software." Facebook is the world's leading social network. Put them together and you have a package for the ultimate in social media marketing measurement. Today they announced a partnership in which Facebook analytics and Omniture's Facebook application analytics (and more) will provide marketers the best available solutions to measuring and monitoring social media marketing efforts -- one of the biggest hurdles to date on the way to successfully leveraging social media for business.

From the official press release:

"This alliance can help companies more easily integrate Facebook as a marketing channel in order to connect to and have relevant conversations with Facebook’s more than 400 million active users. As a result, companies will be able to better understand and optimize the impact and ROI of their Facebook investments. Marketers will then be able to incorporate Facebook as an integral part of their unified, multi-channel marketing mix – an approach increasingly used by marketers today for marketing planning, budgeting and execution."

There are two major ways this partnership will help marketers with Facebook.

The first is by using Omniture's SearchCenter Plus, which facilitates the purchasing of targeted Facebook advertising, complete with detailed analytics.

The second is deep reporting on customer engagement through channels like Facebook Pages and applications.

“It is evident that marketing is undergoing a significant transformation as more digital innovations and channels emerge. Accordingly, more and more of our customers’ customers are using Facebook,” said Josh James, senior vice president and general manager, Omniture Business Unit. “With this collaboration between two market leaders, Facebook and Omniture will provide the new tools online marketers need to connect with the right customer at the right time in the world of social media.”

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Social Media Mis-Measurement

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:09:00 GMT

Web analytics provider Tealium believes that businesses are "grossly" under-counting their traffic by not meausuring "view-through" traffic.

According to the study, only 20 percent of visitors to websites from social media and public relations are the result of a direct click. The remaining 80 percent are from "view-through," which measures traffic from Internet users who come to a site after viewing a piece of social media or online PR content that either did not contain a direct link to the site, or did not acquire the user as a result of a direct click from the content.

The problem that Tealium hopes to solve through its analytics platform is only being able to measure clicks from social media outlets, and its solution is to measure traffic where links that are not clicked on, but which still generate interest for a future visit, and traffic from content that does not provide a link, sending users in an indirect manner and emerging as a view-through. How do they do it? Tealium uses browser-based tracking to measure historical browsing behavior. To implement, Tealium clients must only embed a JavaScript tag to website pages - no hardware or software required.

Tealium Social Media is easily integrated into all popular web analytics solutions, including Google Analytics, Yahoo! Web Analytics, SiteCatalyst, WebTrends, Coremetrics, NetInsight and others. The integration lets marketers get an apples-to-apples comparison of results from their social media marketing, online PR, and other marketing channels such as pay-per-click and banner advertising.

"The study shows that marketers measuring the impact of their social media marketing and online PR based on existing analytics tools are under-reporting their performance by 80 percent," said Ali Behnam, Tealium co-founder. "View-through reporting provides marketers with a true measure of social media and PR success."

Social Media Analytics Spend to Increase in 2008

Mike Phillips — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 16:08:00 GMT

BusinessWire is reporting on Sapient's new annual Interactive Marketing Survey, comprised of 120 senior level respondents directly or indirectly responsible for managing digital marketing budget allocation across multiple channels.

One interesting note of the study regards social networking - the respondents cite social media as the least trackable digital channel, with only 12 percent saying they tracked social networking campaign performance in 2007. But these executives also see the vast potential of social networking marketing, claiming that in 2008, 42 percent anticipate using analytics to track social networking efforts.

"While marketers have developed an aptitude for tracking more traditional online channels, the emergence of social networking further complicates the interactive landscape," said Sapient Chief Creative Officer Gaston Legorburu. "In 2008, marketers will seek the ability to seamlessly incorporate this medium with their other channels, including search and email, and the capability to monitor and measure performance to ensure they are achieving optimum results."