How Has Blogging Changed the Voice of Women?
In this video I interview Lisa Stone, CEO and co-founder of BlogHer, the leading cross-platform media network created by, for and with women social media leaders.
Lisa tells the story of BlogHer, the fifth largest blog network. She also shares insights and tips for successful blogs and current trends for women bloggers.
Be sure to check out the takeaways below after you watch the video.
Here are some of the things you’ll learn in this video:
- How blogging changes the voice of women
- Why blogging is the perfect tool for women
- Why you should find a community when you start blogging
- How to build your blog community
- What the popular topics are for women bloggers
- How to manage an online community
- How to set up your blog to drive revenue
- Examples of blog-to-book stories
Connect with Lisa on Twitter @LisaStone and Google+. And be sure to check out the BlogHer community.
Do you belong to a blogging community? What tips do you have to share for women bloggers? Please leave them below.
Read More#5 – 5 Tips for SEO Friendly Blogging, Social Media and Blogging, Developing a Social Media Strategy
MindProtein.com – “5 Tips for SEO Friendly Blogging, Social Media and Blogging, Developing a Social Media Strategy” Ralph Plumb and K onrad Sopielnikow discuss cutting edge strategies
on business development, social media marketing, blogging, and using virtual assistants in the process. Check out http for more business and marketing info!
Video Rating: 5 / 5
How to Estimate Your Social Media Return on Investment
Are you wondering how to determine the return on your social media activities? If so, look no further.
In my prior Social Media Examiner article about Social Media return on investment (ROI), I discussed the financial definition of social media ROI.
This article goes a step deeper by working through a few examples of estimating the social media ROI.
Why Estimate a Return?
Before we go any further, let’s review why we need the social media return and ROI again.
You use the return and the ROI to compare the efficiency of marketing campaigns; for an in-house team, you can use these numbers to negotiate budgets with your management; for agencies, you can use estimated numbers to land prospective clients and to retain current clients. The numbers are used in conjunction with social and web metrics to analyze and optimize current and future campaigns.
Last but not the least, a primary reason for using the return and the ROI is social media financial accountability. As social media initiatives become mainstream, executives are holding them to the same accountability as other business initiatives, demanding financial returns and ROI on social media investments.
In the article mentioned above, I also said that the ROI calculation is easy; you simply use the financial ROI formula. The tough part of social media ROI is to tie a hard-dollar value to the social media return.
How Should I Estimate My Return?
So, how do you estimate the social media return?
In this post, I will show how the social media return can be estimated. As I work through these examples, it’s important to remember that I can only estimate the social media return and ROI—as in most areas of marketing, exact numbers are not possible.
ROI month-over-month trending.
To estimate the social media return and ROI, you need to start with a 3-step process:
- Define your social media goal.
- Based on the goal, define your social media return.
- Finally, define how you will tie hard dollars to the social media return.
So let’s get started with estimating your social media return and ROI!
To show how we can estimate your social media return and ROI, I will use three examples: return on sales, return on consumer insights and return on customer support.
Social Media ROI on Sales
In this case, we are tasked with estimating the ROI on sales. The tricky part is to attribute sales to social media.
Using the 3-step process, we first define our social media goal as “we want to increase sales.” Second, based on the goal, we’ll define the return as the value of sales that can safely be attributed to the social media campaign. Third, the hard-dollar value is the amount of sales dollars.
The second step in the 3-step process—attribute sales to a social media campaign—is hard to do. How can you safely attribute sales to a social media campaign? Getting accurate numbers is tough, but we can estimate sales by employing a few different methods.
The first method is to look at is last-touch sales, which means that by using our web analytics program, we can follow a user upstream from the online check-out counter to where the user entered the stream. If the user entered the stream from one of our social media touch points, we can attribute that user’s sales to our social media campaign.
A second method is to provide our users with social media campaign–only coupon codes, which means that if a user checks out with this coupon code, we can attribute that sale to our social media campaign.
A third method, which is a bit more involved, is to forecast the value of our sales without a social media campaign. During the campaign, we compare actual sales with forecasted sales and assuming that the actual sales are higher than the forecasted sales, we can use the difference as the value of our social media return.
Sales gap analysis.
Each method is good; however, a combination of methods could give us a more accurate picture.
Now, the last step in the process is to declare that the amount of sales that you attribute to your social media campaign is in fact your social media return. Based on the cost of the campaign, you can quickly calculate your social media ROI using the standard financial ROI formula.
Social media ROI = (return – investment) / investment %.
For example, during last month, we estimated that we could attribute $ 2,500 in sales to our social media campaign. This is our social media return. Let’s assume that our investment in our social media campaign was $ 1,000. Using our ROI formula:
Social media ROI = ($ 2,500 – $ 1,000) / $ 1,000 % = 150%
This means that for the last month, we estimate that our social media ROI is 150%.
Social Media ROI on Consumer Insights
In the second example, we will try to estimate the social media return on consumer insights.
Using the 3-step process, we first define our social media goal, which in this case is to generate a high number of high-quality consumer insights from our social media campaign. Second, we define the social media return as the value of these consumer insights. Third, we’ll tie hard dollars to the return by comparing what it would cost to generate the same quantity and quality of consumer insights using a focus group.
Here again, we run into the same problems as with sales: How do we attach a hard-dollar value to consumer insights?
The answer is that we use consumer insights equivalency. We know the cost of a focus group. We also know the number of acceptable consumer insights per focus group. Based on these two numbers, I can estimate the cost per consumer insight.
Over the course of a month, based on what our users are saying to each other and to us on social media, we count all consumer insights that we determine to be of equal or higher quality as the consumer insights from a focus group. Based on this count and the per-insight cost, we can determine the value (the return) of our social media presence.
Using the standard financial ROI formula, we can quickly calculate the ROI.
For example, in a particular month, say the return on consumer insights is estimated to be $ 900 and the investment during that month was $ 600. Using the ROI formula:
Social media ROI = ($ 900 – $ 600) / $ 600 % = 50%
So the social media ROI on consumer insights for this particular month was estimated to be 50%.
Social Media ROI on Customer Support Calls
In the last example, we will calculate the social media return and ROI on customer support calls.
Using our 3-step process, we first determine the goal of our social media campaign. In this case, our goal is to save customer support dollars by minimizing the number of calls that our customer support group needs to handle. Second, we define our social media return as the amount of dollars saved. Third, we tie a hard-dollar value to the savings by multiplying the average cost per call with an estimated number of calls that we avoided by using our social media presence.
Any customer support group should know exactly the cost of an average call. In the U.S., the average support call cost is approximately $ 10 to $ 25 per call, depending on the product, services and the vertical.
It is tough to estimate the number of avoided support calls; nevertheless, we will present two methods.
First, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, in their national bestseller Groundswell, walk through a customer support cost analysis based on cost savings from a community forum. The authors base their estimates on parameters such as the percentage of customers joining the forum and the percentage of customers finding answers on the forum. The outcome of the analysis is the annual cost savings from avoided calls.
Another way of estimating prevented calls is similar to our sales estimates.
We forecast the number of calls without social media. Over time, we measure the actual number of support calls. The number of prevented support calls is the difference between forecasted and actual support calls.
Support call gap analysis.
Based on the social media return and the social media investment, it is again easy to calculate the social media ROI using the financial ROI formula.
For additional reading, Kathy Herrmann and Dr. Natalie Petouhoff wrote a white paper that does a great job analyzing the ROI of Social Customer Service.
Conclusion
We laid out three ways of estimating the social media return and ROI: sales, consumer insights and customer support. It is important to note that a social media campaign does not need to include all three social media returns. In fact, most campaigns don’t. The primary take-away is that your social media return and ROI depend on the goals of your social media campaign.
So what do you think? Do these three ways of estimating the social media return and ROI make sense to you? Can you use them in your business? How do you estimate the return and ROI today? Leave your comments and questions in the box below.
Read MoreLanding Your First Social Media Client
[This is a unique guest post by Social Media expert Kate Buck Jr]
One of the most important items that you can do to land that first client is to often be on the lookout for the subsequent opportunity. There are numerous opportunities around you.
Everything from a short conversation with the diner owner that you pay a visit to for coffee every morning, to a couple of of your online friends can lead to a new client and a new opportunity.
While it’s essential not to constantly talk like you’re trying to make the sale, maintain in mind that a straightforward conversation can often lead to wonderful outcomes. Keep your possibilities and your mind open.
Of course, landing a new client is not only about getting in the right place at the proper time, or producing the chance happen for you. It is also about how the potential client sees you.
* Do you present your self as a person who is capable?
* Do you demonstrate expertise and information in your area of specialization?
By demonstrating that you are plugged into what’s happening, men and women are far more most likely to start seeing you as the go-to person for their social media wants.
With your newly acquired capabilities, and of course the capability to understand new ones too, all that is left is to be your natural friendly self. Be positive, be friendly, and present your self with the confidence and professionalism that you would come to anticipate from those about you.
Even though how you present your self and searching for opportunities is crucial, it is also important to know how to accomplish those tasks. Usually remember to do the needed analysis. Make use of online tools such as Google Alerts or the search function on Twitter to seek out new possibilities.
One way is to start off getting notifications or alerts for search words in locations that you have a particular interest in. For example, let’s say that you have a particular interest or information in Sicilian cooking. Why not set up a Google Alert for those suggestions as well as social media management? That way, when you find individuals looking for those terms, you’ll be able to rapidly tailor what you do to fit their requirements.
Also be sure to set up general searches for social media assistants or social media management as nicely. You by no means know what you will find on the finish of the line – possibly a partner, a subcontractor, or even a client just waiting to locate you!
To discover a lot more techniques to land your 1st Social Media client and how to earn a full-time income as a Social Media Manager, check out my course:
Lets Get Social: How To Grow to be A Social Media Manager
How Google Analytics Is Impacting Business
s 2.0
In this video I interview Avinash Kaushik, the digital marketing evangelist for Google and author of Web Analytic
Avinash shares how the free enterprise-class tools available through Google Analytics impact businesses today.
He explains how your social media activity influences the behavior of your business audience to help you improve your results.
Be sure to check out the takeaways below after you watch the video.
Here are some of the things you’ll learn in this video:
- What you should monitor on Google Analytics and why
- How to quickly identify bad landing pages
- What “bounce rates” are and the problems they highlight
- How to define outcomes and conversions
- How to monitor people for different purposes
- What the connection is between Google and social media
- How Google Analytics can help you understand your social media results
- What metrics businesses need to follow on social media
- How to quantify your social media efforts to improve your results
- Why you should monitor the wave of retweets instead of individual retweets
Connect with Avinash on Twitter @avinash and check out his blog.
Do you use Google Analytics? What tips do you have to share on monitoring Analytics? Please leave them below.
Read MoreTop Social Media Media Sites Should You Really Care About
Top Social Media Media Sites Should You Really Care About
I’m sure you already know that everyone and their mother is on Facebook right? Facebook, that behemoth of a platform with 500 million users is number one. If you want to have visibility online and engage in the platform that offers the best source of social media traffic to your website or blog you need to be on the number one social networking site in the world.
What about the number two player? If you have a social networking campaign to launch or you want to engage and make “friends” so that you can eventually interest people in what you are doing online, where would you go after Facebook? Well, it surprised me in writing this article that the answer is StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon is a social bookmarking site where people can “Stumble” web pages that peak their interest, write reviews, rate, and share their discoveries with their followers. We should all care about StumbleUpon if we care about what social media is – making connections. The Social Media Examiner wrote a nice little article on how to use StumbleUpon, so I won’t get into how I am using it until the end of this piece.
]]>
When TechCrunch first reported StumbleUpon’s #2 ranking in April, they had StatCounter‘s Global Stats graph from Mar 2009 to March 2010. Well, I did another StatCounter graph from Nov 2009 to Nov 2010, and the results still show StumbleUpon as the number two most trafficked social media site.
<!– You may change the values of width and height above to resize the chart –>
We’re not talking members here, because StumbleUpon has roughly 11 million users versus 175 million Twitter users. We are talking about level of importance if the results from StatCounter are correct, and we are going to assume they are, because TechCrunch is influential enough to have done their homework. The conclusion is StumbleUpon is an important social media traffic generating platform for your blog and website. Similar to Twitter’s ReTweet, as you stumble-upon more content and discover fascinating new information that has yet to be stumbled, you will gain new subscribers who will see a plethora of the stuff you found good enough to “Like”. StumbleUpon requires you to do minimal self-promotion of you own site(s), and instead share information about new websites that you recommend. Align the content, and relationships you’ve created on StumbleUpon, with your burgeoning “StumbleUpon Station” correctly and the potential rewards for mega traffic back to your own website is almost guaranteed.
Now for my take on how to use StumbleUpon. If you really want to get your blogs and website to be eyeballed, get yourself StumbleUpons’s link shortener – su.pr simply by opening a free account. Copy and paste your Tweets in the box supplied with the original link to the article, hit the shorten link button, check the Twitter and/or Facebook check-boxes and then click on “post” or schedule the post, and you are finished.
Your article will be posted by using su.pr shortening service to your Twitter and Facebook accounts. You can then click on the article snapshot and “vote it up”. After you have done this, simply go to your StumbleUpon profile and share the article with your other subscribers and if you are fortunate, they will also vote it up as well. Alternately, if you don’t mind your screen real-estate being infringed upon, you can certainly download the StumbleUpon Firefox add-on and the website will be available in the toolbar of your browser. The pay back for the browser add-on is it appears StumbleUpon gives more credence to the content you’re sharing when you do your stumbling and liking through the frame, because you are now fully part of the community.
Having been on StumbleUpon for a couple of years and having hardly had a go at it, I are now armed and ready to really use it in a manner that clearly works for a large majority of its subscribers.
Social Media Junkie is a Social Media Strategist for RED Brand Media.
Top Techniques to Create Engaging Facebook Page
Top Techniques to Create Engaging Facebook Page
A tremendous way to connect to audiences is through facebook pages. According to facebook statistics, an average user is connected to over 60 pages (some months back). This implies that besides the rest of the friend activity that goes-on in Facebook, Facebook-page is among the top 60 that are competing favourably to catch your fan’s attention.
To achieve efficient social media marketing program, the following are the techniques you can employ to transform Facebook page to a powerful and engaging location for your Facebook fans:
The worst thing you can do is to create a bland Facebook page. You need to painstakingly work out on how you can create a unique page. Don’t forget that your page is among the top 60 activities that an average user pays more attention to.
Creating an exceptional page is of utmost importance.
The major aspect of being unique in Facebook is the design; investing time to come forth with the best design for your Facebook page is a worthy effort.
One of the best and fastest ways to grow your Facebook presence is to give away something to your followers. This way, you can reach other prospective fans that may be interested in your Facebook page.
]]>
There are useful features on Facebook that can allow you to customize that specific page where various users are to land on. Those who are visiting your page for the first time can view different page from the one viewed by your page fans. It is sensible to allow prospective users view a page specifically designed for them; such page could bear some hints about your company or website, and would provide valuable reasons for joining.
Facebook visitors are interested in seeing pictures; of course, Facebook is by far the biggest photo sharing site available on the Web. Therefore, ensure that the photo used on your profile to represent your company or brand is a large one. It helps to improve your branding and build integrity on your profile.
Saying thank you to those who become your Facebook fans can go a long way to appease them and they can get motivated to invite others to join your fan page. Also, you can give away things to them such as an e-book or coupon.
If you want to make your fan more engaging, one of the best ways to achieve this is via contests. Also, contests are a form of incentives to entice potential fans just like giveaways, and they are very effective marketing tools if used properly.
Jeff Matthews is a freelance writer who wrights about Internet marketing ideas To know about this subject and Jeff please visit http://www.aceinternetmarketing.net
Netsuite SEO and Social Media Marketing
http://api.tweetmeme.com/imagebutton.gif?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.seotips.org.uk%2Fseo-videos%2Fnetsuite-seo-and-social-media-marketing.html&source=newseotips&style=normal&b=2
Social Media Manager: The Business World’s Newest Profession
Guest Post From: Kate Buck
I still get funny looks when I tell people that I get paid to send Tweets and Facebook updates… While there is obviously more to being a social media manager than just playing on Facebook, the truth is, my job is way more fun and wayyy more lucrative than the jobs the people giving me those funny looks have. 
NOW being a social media manager is more official than ever and is seen as a viable and high paying business PROFESSION. Check out this video and you’ll see for yourself!
In case you missed any of those juicy statistics…
On average, social media managers make $ 50,000/yr. starting out. Pretty fair compensation for managing social media accounts right? I bet I won’t be getting as many of those funny looks anymore 
If you fit the job description of: ”Someone who understands Facebook and Twitter and would enjoy tweeting, posting and engaging customers through social media” Then there is a big opportunity out there for you.
If you think you fit the job description, leave a comment telling why you think you’ d be a goo
d candidate for a social media management position.
-Kate Buck
Read MoreHumanization of Brands in 2011
The video below is a highlight from a speech he gave
about the thought behind his up and coming book
‘The Thank you Economy’.
I think Gary is right on the money when he says
brands no longer have the option of being silent,
and really they must become more human.
Hit play, and watch the clip below:
Social Media is still a little kid and has a lot of maturing to do, it’s not slowing down anytime soon. Because of this, brands and businesses must be completely and totally aware of what’s happening in social media.
Heck, you’re getting to essentially tap into the convos and thoughts going on inside your customers social lives. The internet has become a giant coffee shop and if the person next to you is mentioning your brand, then you’re a fool and a jerk to ignore it and not respond.
I’m not kidding when I tell you that next year, if you’re not establishing a place in Facebook and Twitter, you’re going to LOSE.
If you feel like you’re not ready for next year with your social media, then comment below and say so!
Now is the time to reach out for help!
Humanization of Brands in 2011
Get Amazing Stats Magic!
Get Easy Video Player 2
Video Marketing Software
Elegant Premium Themes & Plugins for WordPress!
Walk to the DarkSide…
