'Net Features : social media marketing

Black Hat vs. White Hat Social Media Marketing

Allison Howen — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 20:00:00 GMT

When it comes to social media marketing, there is a long list of best practices and worst practices that brand managers should be aware of.

Sometimes the lines of good and bad get blurry, and even though a brand might simply be trying to improve its follower or engagement metrics, it could be crossing over to the slippery slope of using black hat tactics.

Black hat tactics go against both the written and unwritten rules of social media. These tactics game the system in order to achieve better results. While some black hat tactics are clearly underhanded and easy to identify, other tactics are better disguised and are leveraged by thousands of brands on a daily basis, many times unintentionally. Read below to discover more about five black hat strategies, along with ways to clean up these tactics.

Black Hat: Buying your Audience

This is an obvious black hat practice, and it really makes no sense. While there are many available services that make it simple for someone to purchase fans or followers, this tactic has little-to-no value. Sure popularity is nice, but you shouldn’t have to pay for it. Not only can this practice damage your brand’s reputation with real fans and followers (if they find out), but chances are that these mysterious new audience members probably don’t care much about what your brand has to say. Moreover, purchased fans and followers could contain spammers and hackers, which have the potential to cause a whole lot of problems for your brand and its real audience.

White Hat: Growing your Audience

The best way to grow your audience is with a variety of engaging content. This includes informative posts, images, videos, promotions, polls and any other type of interactive status update that grabs audience attention. Once this type of content is being created on a regular basis, social media managers should also consider either advertising on social networks or promoting their content so that more people can see it, which can be done on both Facebook and Twitter. These strategies spread the word about a brand’s social profiles, which helps increase real fan and follower numbers.

Black Hat: Running Facebook Promotions Directly on a Page

This is an example of where the lines between black hat and white hat get blurry. Although many brands run promotions on Facebook on a regular basis, only the brands who are running these promotions within Apps on Facebook.com are actually complying with the Facebook Pages Terms.

White Hat: Running Legit Promotions

The Facebook Pages Terms make it clear that promotions must be administered within Apps, either on a Canvas Page or a Page App. However, social managers should also note some of the social network’s other promotion rules, such as acknowledging that promotions are not endorsed or sponsored by Facebook, disclosing who is collecting each participants’ information, as well as not using Facebook functions (such as likes, comments or check-ins) as valid actions for entries into a contest or promotion.

Black Hat: Spamming for Traffic

Another obvious black hat tactic is spamming for traffic. Most of us have witnessed social spammers, who tend to comment on popular posts and tweets with a random message in addition to a strange link. While most of you reading this article know better than to click on these spammy links, others don’t, which is why this shady tactic continues.

White Hat: Posting for Traffic

The best way to fight against spammers is to report them, but this doesn’t solve the dilemma of how brands can obtain more traffic to their sites via the social Web. Aside from posting intriguing content, another way brands can boost their visibility (and therefore direct traffic to their sites) is by participating in conversations on trending topics, which is most easily done on Twitter. By using a relevant hashtag in your post, Twitter users who are also using that hashtag to tweet will be more likely to see and interact with your brand and its updates.

Black Hat: Corrupt Cover Photos

Facebook cover photos are meant to be a representation of your brand, but some brands leverage this area to promote sales or encourage engagement. The Facebook Page Terms, however, clearly labels these tactics as prohibited. In fact, covers images cannot be made up of more than 20 percent text, include price or purchase information, contain website, email or mailing addresses, have references to Facebook actions or other call-to-actions.

White Hat: Innovative Cover Photos

If you are determined to use your cover photo to promote a new service or product, try to use a little imagination in order to not breach the Facebook Pages Terms. Taco Bell is an example of one brand that has successfully accomplished this task. The popular fast food restaurant updated its cover photo this morning to promote the company’s new Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos. While the cover photo definitely gets to the point, it also complies with cover photo guidelines by not including too much text, a call-to-action or pricing information.

Black Hat: Sneaky Automation

Using automated services for social media campaigns is another place where the lines between black and white hat get blurry. While these services can make life much easier for social media managers, they can also be major annoyances when used in the wrong way. An example of a bad use of automation is when brands send out generic messages to new followers and fans thanking them for becoming an audience member. While this practice isn’t necessarily “bad” when used as stated above, some brands take the thank you message a step further by asking their new fans to take an immediate action in engaging with the brand by adding a link to their website, a product or additional social profile within the message. While this might not bother some audience members, it can come off as pushy and turn others away.

White Hat: Automation to Help Save Time

Automation tools should be used to help brands make the posting process less time consuming. Although service like IFTTT can make some social media management tasks easier, brands should remember that interactions with fans and followers should come off as authentic, and not from a robot.

Viralheat Gets Smart with Social

Allison Howen — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 16:35:00 GMT

Social media marketing platform ViralHeat has launched Smart Stream, a unified, Web-based social management, monitoring and analytics application built exclusively for brands.

Smart Stream enables marketers to use one platform to manage and monitor all connected accounts and keyword searches. Users have the ability to customize smart filters to view relevant brand mentions by keyword or hashtag from a variety of sites, including Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, blogs and YouTube. Moreover, users can engage with their audience directly from the stream via replies, comments, retweets and more.

“Social media management tools are not tailored to the way social media managers work. Most social media managers spend too much time bouncing back and forth between tools to manage multiple social platforms,” said Vishal Sankhla, co-founder and CTO of Viralheat. “Viralheat’s Smart Stream gives social media managers a suite that allows them to gain a complete understanding of their social media performance within minutes, along with the insights to take action right from the Smart Stream. This new version is completely focused on helping social media managers meet their goals around brand awareness, customer satisfaction and customer acquisition.”

Additional enhancements to the Viralheat platform include a redesigned analytics dashboard and user interface, targeted publishing functionality and personal Facebook account publishing. It is also important to note that Viralheat provides its users with detailed reporting and analytics across Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube and the social Web. In fact, the tool's built-in sentiment analysis identifies mentions as negative or positive, while also allowing users to manually change a sentiment if necessary. Furthermore, the platform identifies potential sales leads and packages them in a downloadable Excel or CSV format, which can be imported into a CRM.

Create Targeted Posts for Facebook

Allison Howen — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 20:30:00 GMT

Are you ready to publish Facebook posts that target your audience based on information such as their educational background or current relationship status?

Earlier this month, Buddy Media announced the integration of several new targeting features that marketers can leverage when creating Facebook posts. Previously, Facebook allowed marketers to target by location and language. Now the world’s largest social network enables marketers to also target based on age, gender, relationship status, education and workplace.

This enhancement means that marketers will better be able to distribute relevant content to consumers. For instance, marketers can generate engaging content, and then create multiple versions of that post to reach different audiences.

Social media managers can also leverage the new targeting feature in the same way email marketers target segments of their audience. For example, typically marketers don’t send out an email blast to everyone within their company’s email list. Instead, they create targeted lists, which lead to better response and engagement from consumers. This same idea is now possible with Facebook marketing.

The new targeting functionality is already available to Buddy Media clients. However, don't be alarmed if your business's Facebook Page doesn't have the enhanced post targeting feature yet, because as with all Facebook updates, these new targeting options are expected to slowly roll out to all Pages within the next few weeks.

The Parallels of Email and Social Media Marketing

Allison Howen — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 23:45:00 GMT

What do customers that subscribe to a business’s email list and like a brand on Facebook have in common? A lot – according to a new study from Constant Contact and research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey.

The parallels between email and social media marketing are strong because both are types of permission marketing according to general manager of social media from Constant Contact Mark Schmulen.

“Whether someone ‘Likes’ your page or ‘Opts-in’ to your newsletter, they are effectively giving you permission to communicate; one happens to be in the newsfeed and the other, in the inbox,” says Schmulen. “This study reveals the similarities behind ‘liking’ and subscribing as well as ‘unliking’ and unsubscribing. The main reasons people unlike or unsubscribe have to do with relevancy and frequency. Content isn’t king. Relevant content is king.”

Opting-in

Most consumers are opting-in to email lists or liking a business on Facebook because of sales and promotions. According to the study, 58 percent of consumers subscribe to emails in order to receive discounts and special offers, while 39 percent subscribe to take part in a specific promotion and 37 percent subscribe because they are a customer of the business. Very similar reasons were found as to why consumers like a brand on Facebook – with 41 percent liking a brand in order to receive discounts and special offers, 28 percent wanting to take part in a specific promotion and 27 percent liking a brand because they are a customer of the business.

Opting-out

The parallels between the two marketing strategies were also similar when the surveyed consumers were asked the top reasons for why they unsubscribe to an email list and unlike a business on Facebook. According to the study, 69 percent of consumers unsubscribe to an email list because they are receiving too many emails from the business, and 56 percent unsubscribe because the content is no longer relevant. Additionally, the top two reasons as to why consumers unlike a brand page on Facebook is because 42 percent claim the brand's information is no longer relevant, while another 42 percent claim that there are too many notifications from the specific organization.

Local Businesses

The study also found a bright spot for small and local businesses, revealing that about a quarter of consumers prefer to subscribe or like local businesses over national businesses. The study shows that 25 percent of consumers are likely to subscribe to a local business email list compared to 17 percent being likely to subscribe to a national brands email list, while 28 percent are likely to like a local business on Facebook compared to only 11 percent being likely to like a national brand on Facebook.

“Effective marketing is about earning your audience’s permission and delivering relevant and actionable content without being overly intrusive,” says Schmulen. “This data shows the importance of not just producing great, engaging content, but following best practices and finding the right balance between over-doing it and not communicating enough.”

Social Platform Shoutlet Brings Control to SMO

Administrator — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:31:00 GMT

Social marketing software Shoutlet has released what looks to be a promising new version that features trigger-based campaign publishing, giving marketers the ability to apply synchronized actions to campaigns across social networks.

New features in Shoutlet 5.0 include Social Switchboard, a campaign planning and execution functionality for social marketing which uses pre-scheduled marketers and milestones to trigger automatic changes to content across multiple social networks. The platform also features Social Canvas, which provides users with tools for Facebook page design and custom Web app creation.

Shoutlet has also made some improvements to its social CRM solution. The Social Profiles feature gathers information on user preferences, interests, engagement frequency as well as general receptiveness for remarketing that could give brands a leg up on knowing who would be interested in products and promotions in the future.

"Our vision from day one has been to arm our customers with the tools they need to build and manage powerful social campaigns, allowing for easy and intuitive content creation and giving them real-time and accurate user analytics to better plan fan interaction," says Jason Weaver, CEO of Shoutlet. "With Shoutlet 5.0, we are doing just that with relevancy marketing at the core, providing customers with a wealth of information generated by features like Social Canvas, Social Profiles, and Social Switchboard. These tools combined are optimizing the way brands are communicating with fans and significantly enriching those relationships."

Awe-inspiring Twitter Brand Page Designs and Tips

Michael Garrity — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:32:00 GMT

While awaiting the imminent rollout of “the new Twitter” to the majority of the social network's user-base, now is a great time for businesses to start considering how to prepare their new Twitter brand page layouts.

Whether Twitter’s big update will be your company’s first attempt at a brand page layout or yours was one of the businesses that has enjoyed early access, it will be important to have your page optimized before the entire Twitterverse gets a look.

Here are five basic tips (and examples) to help you tweet your way to Web success:

Make a strong first impression with headers
Since headers are going to be the very first thing that users see when they go to your brand page, you definitely want to take advantage of the space as a place to share essential information and establish your branding.

Use the section for your 140-character bio to let the user know what your company is about and what your Twitter account is for, whether it be support, news, contact or all of the above.

For branding purposes, the clear first step is to include your company logo or icon as your profile picture. Twitter also gives you space just below the header to include banner images that can run the length of your Tweetdeck. Here, you should include an image that reflects the tone of your brand or business, as in the example below:

Embed images and video in your Promoted Tweets
Analytical data has shown us that the most important aspect of a Twitter brand page is the Promoted Tweets section just below the banner image. This is where you can share your most important and relevant information with users.

Studies have shown that the best way to do this is by embedding visual images or videos, so taking advantage of this opportunity is important for brands and businesses. With consumers' increasing acceptance and even reliance upon online video, executions like the one below will likely draw the most interest and engagement from users:

Create synergistic designs
There’s a lot of customizable space included on the new Twitter brand pages. Profile pictures, background images, banners and the Promoted Tweets section all offer a place for you to imprint your brand’s unique presence. Try to ensure that they all maintain a consistent tone and express the image of your brand, as in the example below:

Use promotional space wisely
Every customizable part of the Twitter page design affords you space to both impress your brand on the Twitterverse and promote important contests, deals or sales that you offer. This is an opportunity to apply some basic advertising design techniques, announcing promotions in an eye-catching and interesting way. Of course, consumers don't like to feel like they’re being advertised to all the time, so use this option sparingly (see below) and only for crucial deals that will help drive conversions. For everything else, just write up a tweet about it.

Make your brand easily accesible
Stay social and network with your brand page by providing users with information on how to best contact your company on the ‘Net. Twitter provides you with the opportunity to include a link at the end of your bio, but that should definitely be reserved for your primary website’s address. To promote your other social destinations, like Facebook and Google+, learn from some other major companies and include the URL information for these profiles on your background image. They won’t be clickable, unfortunately, but they will be extremely visible and helpful for users looking to connect with you through another avenue.

Check out this screencast for more examples of Twitter Brand Page designs!

Promote Your Shows on Facebook with ReverbNation

Michael Garrity — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Many artists and music industry professionals turn to ReverbNation for marketing, promotion and social media tools, so they should be pleased to hear about the company’s newest beta launch of a solution to help music venues drive better attendance and ticket sales.

PROMOTE IT for Shows is a new product that fits into ReverbNation's established PROMOTE IT line of Facebook music promotion tools.

The system is based on the idea of helping venues (of all sizes) reach the right local people, and then encouraging those users to respond and invite friends to join them. It will also “learn” what works for venues based on previous campaign performances.

The new tool will focus on moving beyond traditional advertising techniques to create new relationships between venues and local music fans by encouraging users to “Like” venue pages and sign up for email lists. Venues will even be able to offer free tickets to early responders, if they want.

Prominent venues already using PROMOTE IT for Shows include LA’s Roxy Theatre and New York's The Knitting Factory and Brooklyn Bowl.

Optimizer for Twitter Launched by Terametric

Michael Garrity — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:30:00 GMT

Today sees the release of Optimizer for Twitter by marketing analytics company Terametric.

Optimizer for Twitter is a brand new SaaS platform that makes leveraging the reach and growth of Twitter to engage more customers and drive more conversions a much easier task for both product and corporate marketers.

The platform works by predicting and measuring the activities that have the highest impact and then delivers the user real-time actionable recommendations, which makes it possible for everyone from novice to expert social media marketers to measure and improve their contribution to marketing performance. This is the first and only social media marketing platform to integrate real-time analysis with support on what and when to tweet and which users to target.

A unique competitive benchmarking engine drives Optimizer for Twitter, which, in addtion to real-time predictions and recommendations, also helps to compose and schedule tweets for directing the right message at the right time. In this sense, it's sort of like a Hoot Suite that gives you advice, the Alfred to your Batman, if you will.

Optimizer for Twitter also aids marketers by watching their stream and pointing out the most influential and highest-trending tweets with which to engage. All of this allows marketers to drive, measure and improve their Twitter campaigns in a single management platform.

A 30-day free trial of Optimizer for Twitter is available (for qualified marketing organizations) by clicking here.

New Social Tools from iContact

Linc Wonham — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 14:30:00 GMT

Email marketing firm iContact has introduced the latest version in its growing line of social media marketing solutions. I Contact Social Tools gives small and medium-sized businesses a powerful and effective means to reach existing and new customers through social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter.

The upgraded version of iContact Social Tools builds on the foundation established earlier in the year when the company started blending email marketing and social media marketing into a single conversation focused on small business success. Following are a few of the expanded features and functionalities:

• Social Tools Tracking – Users can insert, edit and track Like and Tweet buttons in every message for recipients to easily share with their friends, colleagues or followers on Facebook and Twitter. This feature splits up the tracking of Likes and Tweets by source so marketers can see how the numbers break down across viewers coming in from Facebook posts, Twitter posts, direct email recipients and other third-party sources.

• Facebook Like Buttons – Contacts can now “like” a vendor’s emails from their inboxes to further extend their reach.

• Tweet Buttons – Users can add a tweet button and contacts can tweet from anywhere in the message.

“It is easy to share information with friends on Facebook,” says Chris Regalado, revenue manager for Miami’s Beacon Hotel, which uses Facebook to encourage fans and previous guests to sign-up for its email list and take advantage of promotions for future visits. “We have found that incorporating social media with email makes each approach more powerful, and helps us expand our marketing efforts and grow our brand awareness. iContact’s Social Media tools are very straightforward to use, and we can see great results in a short period of time.”

iContact Launches Free Email Marketing Tools

Linc Wonham — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:00:00 GMT

Leading email and social marketing firm iContact is launching a no-cost version of its flagship product that will better enable Web professionals, community organizations and small businesses without large budgets to communicate with their subscribers and fans via email, Facebook and Twitter.

The iContact Free Edition allows individuals and businesses with subscriber lists of 500 or less to manage a contact database, send out emails and social media messages, track the opens, clicks and social views and conduct surveys. Features of the free edition include the following:

•    Email creation, sending and tracking capabilities for up to 500 subscribers and 24 designer templates for effective, eye-catching messages.
•    Social media integration with Facebook and Twitter that allows users to create and share links to their email communications from within the application.
•    Compatibility with iPhone and Android mobile apps that allows users to manage contacts, access and send messages, and view detailed tracking reports, all in real time.
•    Built-in survey tool that enables users to easily create questions and choose a response type, such as text box, radio button, drop-down menu or selector.

To learn more about the free edition, visit iContact or take a look at the company’s blog post announcing the details of the launch.

PR Newswire Launches New Facebook Tools

Linc Wonham — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 08:07:00 GMT

Multimedia marketing communications service PR Newswire has introduced some new social engagement tools that enable the simple integration of custom Facebook pages for businesses on the Web.

The new features are designed to enhance the Facebook presence of Web businesses and marketers by engaging with their existing fan base and capturing new fans through the social media channels from which they most frequently seek information.

“The level of engagement that can be cultivated through social media channels is undeniable and organizations today must consider their Facebook presence a significant part of their PR or marketing campaign,” says Ken Dowell, executive vice president of Audience Development for PR Newswire. “As part of our continued effort to provide our customers with effective audience engagement solutions, these new tools will help them leverage dynamic, interactive content to drive demand, awareness and opportunity.”

By designing custom tabs to highlight specific campaigns and products, Web marketers can share targeted, fan-only multimedia content and conduct special promotions and interactive polling to create a more in-depth and influential brand experience for their audience in one convenient dashboard.

Additional features include automatic posting of news releases, Twitter feeds and other multimedia assets to provide fresh data without any effort, as well as the ability for organizations to easily monitor and measure conversation and feedback on their Facebook pages.

PR Newswire will service the initial set-up and integration of the Facebook pages and provides the tools for maintaining and updating content without requiring the support of IT.

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.

WM Radio Extra! Social Media Strategies with Liana Evans

Mike Phillips — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 13:30:00 GMT

Social media can bring big benefits to all businesses but only if it's executed with the same precision as other important initiatives. And, it's not only just about Facebook and Twitter. We spoke with Liana Evans, diretor of social media, Serengeti Communications - an expert in social media - about strong social strategies and her upcoming SES Chicago presentation.

Listen now, and subcribe to Website Magazine Radio in iTunes!

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If you would like to have your questions answered on Website Magazine Radio, please send email to mike@websitemagazine.com with "WM Radio" in the subject field.

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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100 Retweet Targets for Web Professionals

Mike Phillips — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:48:00 GMT

There's no question that Twitter drives website traffic. This is particularly true when one of your updates (blog post, special offer, etc.) is retweeted within the industry. And the effect is two-fold: You not only get a good dose of traffic to your site, but will also likely gain new Twitter followers as a result. This will help with future Twitter marketing and can even land you on other users' lists.

Also, take into account a September, 2009 study by Middleberg Communications and the Society for New Communications Research, that found 70 percent of journalists said they use social networks to assist in reporting - up from 41 percent the previous year. In all, social networks, including Twitter, can be a very powerful way to get your message and your brand in front of people who are seeking news stories and resources to share with their audiences.

With that in mind, Website Magazine conducted a little research to come up with a list of 100 Twitter accounts for Web Professionals to follow, and target as retweet prospects. This list is in no way scientific and it is not all based on the accounts' number of Twitter followers. In some cases, the account's willingness to retweet has been weighed along with total followers. We cannot guarantee that each account is an expert in the industry, or that they will follow you back - some will, but some will not. However, even if they don't follow you, consider an occasional "@" tweet to get their attention - just make sure it's a quality update that is relevant to their interests. The following list is in no particular order. Of course, you will want to start by following @WebsiteMagazine. Good luck.

BLOGGERS

twitter.com/shoemoney
twitter.com/SalesBlogcast
twitter.com/problogger
twitter.com/Scobleizer
twitter.com/copyblogger
twitter.com/TheNextWeb
twitter.com/ryan
twitter.com/socialcitizen
twitter.com/StartupPro
twitter.com/chrisharrington

MARKETING

twitter.com/adage
twitter.com/SocialMedia411
twitter.com/MarketingProfs
twitter.com/danschawbel
twitter.com/HarvardBiz
twitter.com/PublicityGuru
twitter.com/RickM
twitter.com/ducttape
twitter.com/eMarketer
twitter.com/JoeTrippi

SEO

twitter.com/dannysullivan
twitter.com/reelseo
twitter.com/SeanSEO
twitter.com/leahsoleil
twitter.com/briancarter
twitter.com/AussieSEO
twitter.com/SEOTipADay
twitter.com/fadisemaan
twitter.com/the_gman
twitter.com/theDukeOfSEO

INTERNET MARKETING

twitter.com/ShawnRobinson
twitter.com/ezyhelper
twitter.com/atniz
twitter.com/joshlam
twitter.com/AlexGoodall
twitter.com/Bullhunter
twitter.com/tomsebastiani
twitter.com/shawnafennell
twitter.com/Pat_Lorna
twitter.com/giaiphapso

PR

twitter.com/prnewswire
twitter.com/steverubel
twitter.com/Steveology
twitter.com/wearesocial
twitter.com/MagicSauceMedia
twitter.com/PublicityHound
twitter.com/Kathy_Johnson
twitter.com/ereleases
twitter.com/PressAbout
twitter.com/justinkistner

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

twitter.com/leeodden
twitter.com/BrandRepublic
twitter.com/iMediaTweet
twitter.com/larrybrauner
twitter.com/smmguide
twitter.com/ideas4rent
twitter.com/SocialNetDaily
twitter.com/socialmediamind
twitter.com/brandyou
twitter.com/jaybaer

DESIGN

twitter.com/smashingmag
twitter.com/DesignerDepot
twitter.com/inspiredmag
twitter.com/naldzgraphics
twitter.com/DesignNewz
twitter.com/designfollow
twitter.com/Design_Innovate
twitter.com/Reencoded
twitter.com/nishanjoomun
twitter.com/Minervity

AFFILIATE MARKETING

twitter.com/bigmouth_aff
twitter.com/affmeter
twitter.com/affiliatetip
twitter.com/MissyWard
twitter.com/webaffiliates
twitter.com/affiliatesummit
twitter.com/btabke
twitter.com/affiliateapps
twitter.com/affbuzz
twitter.com/robertbarry

TECH

twitter.com/kevinrose
twitter.com/google
twitter.com/LeoLaporte
twitter.com/Veronica
twitter.com/timoreilly
twitter.com/guykawasaki
twitter.com/engadget
twitter.com/mollywood
twitter.com/BBCClick
twitter.com/rww

WEBSITE MAGAZINE CONTRIBUTORS

Geno Prussakov: twitter.com/eprussakov
Bryan Eisenberg: twitter.com/thegrok
Tim Ash: twitter.com/tim_ash
Heather Lutze: twitter.com/Heatherlutze
Dante Monteverde: twitter.com/SEOcorner
Kim Krause Berg: twitter.com/kim_cre8pc
Ann Smarty: twitter.com/seosmarty
Karon Thackston: twitter.com/karonthackston
Jordan Kasteler: twitter.com/JordanKasteler
Cindy Krum: twitter.com/suzzicks

BONUS: BIG MEDIA

You might not stand much of a chance being retweeted by these, but it's worth a shot due to their sizable audiences.

twitter.com/cnnbrk
twitter.com/nytimesbits
twitter.com/Newsweek
twitter.com/BreakingNews
twitter.com/bbcbreaking
twitter.com/TechCrunch
twitter.com/huffingtonpost
twitter.com/WSJ
twitter.com/wired
twitter.com/nytimesbusiness

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