Five tools to help with your social media makeover
May 16th
By Ian Cleary, {grow} Contributing Columnist
Part of my daily routine is going to the gym. The gym is a chance for me to think about what I’ve delivered that morning, plan out my day and dream about potential ideas for my business.
In the world of social media it’s important to step back and review what you have done and implement changes on a regular basis. And maybe, just maybe, it’s time for a makeover. Here are five cool tools you can use that just might deliver some new “oomph” to your social media efforts:
1. Ignite Facebook Fans
On average only 16 percent of your fans see your Facebook updates. Suck! This is a well-known number but something you should completely ignore because there’s no reason why you should be average!
But even if 50 percent of your fans see your Facebook updates there’s still the other 50 percent that don’t see them at all. And on top of this are they actually reading them? How often do you read all the updates on your Facebook page?
One strategy for ensuring more of your fans see your updates is converting your fans to eMail Subscribers. This means you can communicate with them over both channels and have a better chance of reaching them.
You can add a customized application to your Facebook page with a provider such as Heyo, Tabsite or a run a competition using Shortstack and start building those email subscribers.
2. Measure Conversion from Social Media Traffic
Social media is not necessarily all about sales but I’m sure you’d like to see some action from the updates you make. This may be visits to your website where you get people spending time there, subscribing to your email list or buying your products or services.
If you set up goals within Google Analytics, Google will start tracking social media activity for these goals. If you go to the traffic sources section of Google Analytics, select all traffic and then select the relevant goal you can view the conversion rate across any channel.
The goal set up in this report is related to getting email subscribers. From the image above you see that there is a 2.50% conversion rates from LinkedIn and 1.90% from Facebook. This gives you a goal to achieve higher on both channels.
If you don’t have goals set up in Google Analytics or an equivalent analytics program, then consider doing so as soon as possible!
3. Easily Optimize Your Content for Google
If you have a well-established blog with a large amount of traffic, you may not be too concerned about optimizing your content for Google. But if you want to get additional traffic and you want to ensure that it is relevant, then it’s important to help Google index your content correctly.
When writing blog posts there is a very useful free plugin called WordPress SEO which gives some guidelines that you can follow to optimize the content.
Using this plugin you specify the focus keywords you want Google to rank you on and then it then gives an indicator where these keywords are mentioned in the post in areas that are relevant for Google.
If you don’t have WordPress you can still identify focus keywords and make sure they are included in relevant areas as indicated in the image above.
4. Capture the Attention of your Website Visitors
What are you doing to capture the attention of your visitors when they come to your website?
Do you use popup’s, clear calls to action, a bar that appear across the top of the screen?
By getting your visitors attention you can get them to take action. Lead Converter is a useful tool for capturing attention. You can test out a banner that appears across the top of the screen, popup’s, boxes that slide out at the bottom the page and more.
If you had a free guide you could show a banner across the top of your screen after a visitor is on the page for a certain time. This captures the visitor’s attention like this:
The conversion chart will show what conversion you get from this and in this example it’s 2.11 percent. A conversion in this case is someone that clicks the “Yes, please” button and signs up as an e-mail subscriber.
2.11 percent is OK but not what I want so more testing is required. Think about how you can attract attention of visitors on your website to achieve your goals.
5. Start Using Slideshare
Slideshare was initially developed as a tool for sharing presentations but has since expanded out to videos, documents and much more. When you create your blog post it’s useful to consider where else you could promote this post. By changing your blog post into a presentation you could share it on Slideshare. This is very much a B2B platform so if you are targeting the business community Slideshare is ideal.
When you share out a presentation on Slideshare it’s indexed almost immediately so straight away you can start getting visitors. Just make sure you consider what your ‘focus keywords’ are when sharing out content to help Google index it correctly.
If you are interested in Slideshare a good starting point is Todd Wheatland’s book on SlideShare.
These are just five improvements you could make today for an almost instant social media makeover. Let us know your thoughts and please share any improvements that you would suggest.
Ian Cleary is founder of Razorsocial, a website that provides sharp insight on on social media management tools. Follow Ian on twitter @iancleary
Case study: Fox Sports connects social media to advertiser revenue
Mar 12th
By Ian Cleary, Contributing {grow} Columnist
Engaging with your fans or followers through social media dialogue, polls and interactive competitions are quite popular, but they are not easily discoverable or linked to revenue generation – These online competitions are generally run in isolation through a Facebook page, website or other social media platform.
Clearly that is the essential goal for any business — connecting all this social activity to business goals. I discovered a great example of success in this area when I caught up with Andrew Hossom, vice president of marketing and consumer insights for Fox Sports Digital (he recently left his position to set up his own consultancy)
Andrew wanted a solution that allowed his marketing team to set up online competitions without any development help. He also wanted to run them simultaneously across many sites on the web and mobile platforms and bring in a sponsor to offset expenses for the opportunity of engaging brands with the fans of FOX Sports.
It was also important to aggregate results across all sites and platforms. So for example, the same leaderboard in a competition would be displayed wherever customers access the site.
Fox launched a suite of apps provided by Voices Heard Media (VHM). Instead of creating a new and sometimes artificial destination site less likely to attract users to competitions, they integrated these apps into the existing channels that consumers were using in addition to the sites of the sponsors. What I like about this approach is that Fox deployed once and the contest data is all coming back to one source without nay artificial manipulation.
VHM provides an easy tool for setting up the competitions and great analytics to monitor results. What surprised me is the sophisticated level of functionality available at a price affordable not just to Fox, but to any type of business. Here’s an example of a Quiz currently running on Fox Sports: 
This quiz was sponsored by CitiBank and can be displayed on many sites across the web – Fox Sports sites, Citi sites, Mobile Sites, Facebook pages. I think this is an interesting application because advertisers are increasingly looking for more than just an impression through a banner ad.
In this case study, the advertiser is providing fun, social engagement in a relevant, integrated, and compelling web experience. Just seems like a much more effective type of sponsorship, doesn’t it?
But even if you’re not bringing in a sponsor to your web activities, what about offering a discount for your product and service based on the contest participation? Or just collecting the name/e-mail address for another mini competition and then adding this person to your email subscriber database?
What makes this type of innovation interesting is that the industry is starting to push beyond the vanity of fans and followers to integrate revenue generating opportunities as part of our social promotions. And all the data from every channel is put together in one easy to understand dashboard for your advertiser and internal management team.
I like Voices Heard Media as an affordable social media tool that connects the dots between social engagement and customer metrics.
So what is your experience running similar social engagement applications? How have you turned fans and followers into dollars? What other applications have you come across that allow you to engage your customer in interactive competitions wherever they are on the web? We’d love to hear your feedback.
Ian Cleary is founder of RazorSocial an award winning website that provides social media training on social media management tools. Follow Ian on Twitter @iancleary
How to do Social Media Management on the cheap
Jan 16th
By Kerry Gorgone, Contributing {grow} Columnist
A while back, I wrote a post on the Best Social Media Management Tools for Small Business Owners. I researched and reviewed a handful of the least expensive, most versatile options, but the comments included some lesser known alternatives that seemed worth investigating.
I’ve taken some time to check them out, using the same parameters I used to gauge the initial set of tools. To restate, any tool considered must enable you to:
- Schedule posts
- Connect numerous social media accounts
- Provide analytics
- Shorten URLs
Here are some additional options for small business owners in need of a cost-effective social media management tool.
Sendible
Price: Starts at $9.99 / month for eight accounts, offers plans up to $99.99 for 120 accounts
Platforms: Web application and mobile apps for iPhone and Android, mobile web version
In addition to offering low-cost plans, Sendible enables you to manage your Google+ pages, which is still a rare feature in social media management tools. (Note that this is limited to Google+ pages, as opposed to your individual profile or stream.)
The service also supports Facebook (profiles and pages), Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Tumblr, Ning, Bebo and a number of other options. The full array of services you can connect to Sendible is impressive, so most business owners should be able to manage their social media efforts quite handily. Sendible does not offer a free plan, however, which is a drawback.
Viralheat
Price: Free for 7 social accounts, offers plans up to $499 / month for 50 accounts
Platforms: Web application (Chrome extension available)
Viralheat also connects a robust assortment of networks, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google+, offers robust analytics including sentiment analysis for paid accounts (basic account analytics for free), has URL shortening via Bit.ly integration, and enables scheduled posts. My favorite feature: it enables geotargeted sharing to Facebook.
In short, Viralheat is a versatile social media management tool, well worth considering for small business owners.
Jugnoo
Price: Free up to three team members managing 20 accounts, $20/month for five team members and unlimited accounts, custom pricing available for larger teams
Platforms: Web application, mobile web version
What you get for free with Jugnoo is impressive. Link up to 20 social accounts, managed by up to three team members. You also get access to web analytics, Google analytics and social analytics. This makes Jugnoo highly appealing, and if you need to connect additional accounts or give access to more team members to manage your content, leveling up costs just $20 per month. They do have a custom pricing model, as well.
Fresh out of beta, this lesser known option added some new features recently, including link previews and rich media embeds.
Scheduled posts are enabled through BufferApp, which is itself a good option for business owners to manage their social networks.
Among free and low-cost options, Hootsuite is still the reigning champion, in part because its widespread use means there are many plugins and informational resources available. There are some viable contenders for small business owners to consider, however.
I investigated some of the platforms mentioned by commenters on my previous post. Although helpful, they do not fully meet the criteria outlined above:
Agora Pulse – Offers granular management of your Facebook pages, from scheduling posts to managing contests, but it’s limited to Facebook only.
Engagio – Engagio is a discovery tool, as opposed to a social media management tool. This service enables monitoring and engaging with Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and more through an inbox message format. Although this is helpful, this service lacks analytics and the ability to schedule posts, both of which are critical to small business owners.
Bottlenose – Still in beta, Bottlenose is a helpful tool for monitoring Facebook and Twitter feeds, LinkedIn, and more. The service offers some ability to engage by posting to linked accounts. Although Bottlenose is potentially useful for individuals, small business owners need need a tool that provides more holistic management capability (scheduling posts). The company is planning a pro version, which might have additional functionality.
Bundlepost – This service takes your existing RSS feed and makes it easy for you to select stories that would be of interest to your online audience. Then, you export prepared posts to a spreadsheet that gets uploaded to HootSuite. With minimal effort beyond scanning your news feeds, you’ve scheduled informative, helpful posts to go out over the course of the day, keeping you top of mind for your audience. In short, it’s a great tool, but works in concert with HootSuite, as opposed to providing an alternative to it.
The good news for small business owners is that options abound for you to customize your own no- or low-cost social media management solution.
What do you use? What would you recommend?
Kerry O’Shea Gorgone, JD/MBA, teaches New Media Marketing in the Internet Marketing Master of Science Program at Full Sail University in Winter Park Florida. Follow her on Twitter: @KerryGorgone
5 social media tools to kickstart your business
Jan 8th
By Ian Cleary, Contributing {grow} Columnist
As we start into a new year it’s a great time to reflect on how we can improve our marketing efforts online. One area that we can always consider is emerging tools to help us be more productive and efficeint. Social media is a moving beast and we need to keep moving with it!
Here are 5 great tools that you can kick-start your business in 2013:
Convert Facebook Fans to customers with Agorapulse
It’s very easy to get caught up with the number of fans you have on Facebook but we’re in the business of selling our products and services and your time spent on Facebook needs to be rewarded.
If you’re on Facebook and you want to take it to the next level invest in a Facebook marketing platform that will help.
Agorapulse is a Facebook Marketing platform which contains a broad range of functionality, including page management, 14 applications and the facility for building up a profile of your fans to help turn these fans into leads and ultimately sales.
Here are three highlights of Agorapulse:
Fan Profiling – As Fans interact with your content and applications, Agorapulse records it and builds a profile. Having this profile allows you to segment your fans so you can target your offers.
Suite of Applications – There are 14 useful applications for a broad range of functionality you can use to interact with your fans and further enhance build the fan profile.
Viral Sharing – All apps support Facebook Open Graph. This means that more friends of your fans will see your content. When you’re using applications getting access to friends of fans is where you will reap the benefits and Agorapulse has the necessary functionality to allow you to do this effectively.
Be more social using Nimble
Traditional CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems are dated. More and more of our interaction is with current and potential customers through social media channels. It’s important to have a CRM system that reflects that.
Nimble is a Social CRM tool which is tightly integrated with social media channels and helps you manage and grow relationships with your contacts to ultimately leads to sales.
What’s particularly nice about Nimble is how it builds up a profile of each user by retrieving their social details across a range of networks including Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn and Google +.
Would you like to see your contacts activity across all these social networks in one place and then have the ability to interact within Nimble? Yes, I thought you might!
Monitor your brand more effectively with Mention
Google Alerts is a well-known, free application that allows you to track mentions of keywords on the web. It’s useful but it’s not very comprehensive.
Mention is one of the best and most cost effective solutions I have come across. With a small team they have done amazingly well to deliver a web-based app, an iPhone app, and a desktop app that you can use to monitor keywords that are relevant to your brand.
You set up filters based on keywords you want to track and through a really nice interface it displays what it finds.
When you click on any item you see additional information related to the user and the item.
The following shows a filter based on my name that was mentioned on blogs. This identified an article on Mark’s blog {grow} that was featured on a blog post from Aaron Lee, based in Asia.
Mention is a very powerful tool with a reasonable price.
Grow Pinterest with Pingraphy
Pinterest was hot in 2012 and is destined to be even hotter in 2013. As you build your presence on Pinterest you’ll need some tools that will help.
Pingraphy allows you to upload your pins (pictures you put on a board) in bulk, schedule these items and then view statistics related to how they progress.
If Pinterest is a growing platform for your business check out Pingraphy.
Automate Actions with IFTTT
IFTTT (If this then that) is a useful tool for automating some tasks related to social media. If a particular event happens than another event is triggered.
Most tasks within social media cannot be automated but there are some that make sense. For example, when you create a new blog post it makes sense to automatically share this out on twitter.
Within IFTTT you create a ‘recipe’. This recipe contains the source and the destination. When a trigger happens an action configured kicks off.
So for this recipe the trigger is when a new post is published on the blog and the action is a tweet generated which includes the title of the post and a link to the post.
There is a selection of recipes already built that you can use or customize and you can also build your own recipe with a broad range of applications supported.
Social Media is not free. Your time is your most precious asset and Social Media eats into your time. Using the correct tools is only part of your social media strategy but it’s an important part.
Are you using the right tools for your business? What are your tool tips for 2013?
Ian Cleary is founder of Razorsocial, a website that provides sharp insight on on social media management tools. Follow Ian on twitter @iancleary
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