Archive for year 2012
Big blog posts that made a difference
Dec 29th
I’m frequently asked by new readers if there is some way to catch up with the best content on my blog. Well, hopefully it’s ALL good to somebody, but each year I look back and review the blog posts that seemed to make the biggest impact. Let’s start with the blog posts that you loved. Based on page views alone, here are the most popular posts of 2012:
Top 2012 posts by page views:
10. The Six Elements of Human Behavior that Drive Social Media — A fascinating look at the basics behind the phenomenon.
9. Florida State University Using Klout Scores to Determine Student Grades — This piece by Professor Todd Bacile ignited beyond the social web, drawing commentary in the traditional media and educator conferences.
8. Six Ways to Create Great Content in Just 15 Minutes a Day — We’re all starved for time. This post shows you how to get a little more of your day.
7. This is why you must use Twitter — In this post I show how Twitter can change your life.
6. 35 Experts weigh-in: How to create influence on Facebook — Great insights with a little help from my friends.
5. Three Careers That will Dominate Social Media (And it’s not What You Think) — I stepped out on a limb with this post but most people seemed to agree with my projections.
4. Pinterest Drives Enormous Blog and Business and Success — This was one of the first Pinterest business case studies on the web.
3. Why Facebook Will Be the Most Dangerous Company on Earth — I speculated why the Facebook IPO would signal disturbing changes at the world’s most popular social networking site.
2. Why Google+ Needs to be Jay-Z– A cool headline and a success recipe for Google+ rang true with {grow} readers.
1) 20 of the World’s Wittiest Twitter Bios — Humor works! I’ve created four posts in this popular series, with another one on the way soon!
15 Posts that moved the conversation
Here are posts that I’m proud of because I think they moved the conversation forward in the last year. They may not have been the most popular, but each one took a risk:
15. The Social Media Measurement Smackdown — It was time for a rant and the comment section blew up!
14. This is Why You’re Not Seth Godin — Sometimes roles models are not the ones to emulate.
13. The Profound Power of Five Blog Readers — Short but powerful testimony for tenacity!
12. Wisdom from the Most Influential PR Professional of the Century — I got to meet Harold Burson. ‘Nuff said.
11. 7 Reasons Every Job-Seeker Needs to Blog– I send this post out to some young person at least once a week. I hope it has helped!
10. Five ways the Mobile Revolution Impacts Your Blog — A new way of looking at mobile and it’s not all positive.
9. Social Proof and Your Battle for Credibility — Exploring one of the most controversial issues on the social web today.
8. The Business Case for Buying Facebook Likes — It’s icky, but let’s talk about it.
7. Six Factors that turn social media strategy into results – This post seemed to help a lot of people.
6. We are All Standing on Digital Quicksand – I love bringing tech-humanity issues together. Great discussion on this post.
5. Why Social Media Strategy Should NOT start with a drive for Facebook Fans – Injecting common sense through the hype!
4. Three amazing ways social media will change the world — A post filled with hope.
3. How the physics of social media could kill your marketing strategy — A simple but important lesson about what we’re up against.
2. Your 2013 Social Media Strategy: Grow a Pair – One of my riskier posts but it seemed to strike a chord with readers.
1. Is there anything new in blogging? No. — This post ignited a firestorm of commentary, counter-commentary and alternate posts.
Funniest posts:
Humor is a big part of {grow}. Here are a few that made people laugh!
5. What Proctology Exams Teach Us Aabout Social Media — A genius post by Chris Reimer that pokes fun at a social media trend.
4. Punterest. Kind of Like Pins Only Funnier — A totally whacked-out post!
3. 210 Seconds of Fame – I was on National television. A lesson in pure terror.
2. The Secret History of Pinterest — Revealed! – A tongue-in-cheek-post poking fun at the “visualization” of social media!
1. The World’s First Social Media Sniglets – There’s a first for everything. An assist by Kerry Gorgone for the funniest graphic ever!
Five favorite Guest Posts of 2012
I encourage guest posts from community members and we had posts from nearly 50 different perspectives this year. Here are five that really stood out to me:
Social Media Levels the Playing Field — One of the best things of 2012 was meeting Anne Reuss and this was my first guest post done in American Sign Language. It was also my most-viewed video blog of 2012.
Straight Talk on Social Media Gurus — Stanford Smith rocks. He just does. Stan has been a regular contributor and had so many great posts this year.
Social Media Good Samaritan Donates Tweets to Save Business — I wish this post by Pavel Konoplenko would have gone viral because it is such a sweet story depicting social media at its best.
Is There a Formula for Going Viral? — Srini Rao has been effectively riffing on this theme all year: Cutting through the clutter in a human and authentic way. This was one of his best efforts.
Four ways to be a spell-binding online personality — Mars Dorian rocked {grow} with his provocative writing and mind-bending art. Don’t miss this example of Mars at his best.
The post that had the biggest IMPACT
The kid who wanted a door for Christmas — It didn’t have the most shares, page views, or comments, but it did show the {grow} community at its best because it raised nearly $6,000 for a great cause and touched a lot of hearts.
The {growtoon} Nation
And we couldn’t end the year without a nod to the {growtoon}-ists! Didn’t they do a GREAT JOB in 2012? A great reason to look forward to Fridays. Selecting my favorite {growtoon} was VERY difficult. They all still make me chuckle. But this one by the hilarious Joey Strawn made me laugh out loud and represents a lot of clients I think! 
Well, after nearly 300 blog posts, 10,000 comments and a ton of fun, that wraps up the highlights for 2012. Thank you very much for reading and sharing my blog. I never take you for granted!
Happy New Year, Twitter-style. A {growtoon}.
Dec 28th
Join the growtoonists each Friday for a humorous take on marketing, social media, and current business events.
Joey Strawn is a social media strategist who loves enjoying a good book and then drawing in it. Check him out on Twitter: @joey_strawn
Another way to measure social media success
Dec 27th
via KellBailey
By {grow} Community Member Eric Pratum.
I work in marketing analytics. there is nothing more fun than having a knock-down, drag-out fight over the value of a tweet, a follower, or a like. If you have the right tracking set up, I can tell you, but whether or not I can tell you isn’t that important to most businesses. The cost of getting an accurate measurement is.
But I think there are many, many creative uses of social media — and even more creative ways to measure it — that many people miss. Let’s look at that today.
Another way to measure social media
I’d like to offer a different way to look at the value created by deploying social media for an organization. What if it’s more valuable for some businesses to look at the money they save versus the money they make as a result of social media use?
Let’s imagine you run a popular coffee shop. There’s always a line, so your problem isn’t whether or not people are interested in purchasing from you. It’s throughput – how many people you can get through the cash register every hour. Your average sale takes 45 seconds and is worth $5, but you notice that 10% of your customers all have the same basic questions, and asking and answering those questions adds 15 seconds to every sale and does not increase the sale price.
Calculating social media ROI
When no questions are asked, you make 80 sales per hour and take in $400 per cash register. If just 10% of your customers ask a question when they order, you make 75 sales per hour and take in $375. That’s a 6% decrease in sales. The opportunity cost of answering those questions is $25, or the cost of 1 or 2 hourly employees — per hour, per cash register.
What if you could use social media to answer nine out of 10 of the questions asked at the cash register so that customers are prepared and don’t take up that extra 15 seconds?
I’ve actually had clients in this situation. “What’s today’s special?” Tweeted it, Facebooked it, put it up on the big chalk board at the door and above the register. “How many shots are in a grande?” We worked that into updates at least once every week. “Do you have soy?” Yes, indeedy, and our tweeted, instagrammed, and Facebooked photos make that clear. For the cost of one employee hour every day spent on social media, we increased sales per cash register almost $50 per hour.
When you’re open 12 hours per day, 7 days per week, 360 days per year, that’s additional income of $216,000 per cash register per year.
Another type of social media savings
Let’s imagine you have a call center for your kitchen appliance business. If you knew that 10% of your callers looked for an answer online before calling in, would it be worth updating your FAQ, going to forums/blogs/Twitter search/blog posts/etc, and try to answer their questions? You could cut your call center staff and put those savings toward product development, marketing, sales, profits, or who knows what else or you could just cut your wait times and make your callers that much happier.
I had a client that did this and saved hundreds of thousands of dollars every month.
Calculating the value of your social media activity
Now, should you spend your time calculating the value of a like? It’s up to you. Either way, social media has made a lot of people money in many measurable ways, and if you’re not measuring at least some of your social media in terms of dollars spent, saved, or acquired, you’re missing out on a major opportunity.
What say you? Do you measure your social media ROI?
Eric Pratum runs Inbound and Agile, a marketing research and analytics consultancy/
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Grow your company, reputation, customers, impact, profits. Grow yourself. This is a community that will help. It will stretch your mind, connect you to fascinating people, and provide some fun along the way. I am so glad you’re here.
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