Monday, July 19, 2010
Measuring Results in Social Media
Online marketing is a bit different from other forms of traditional marketing because of analytics. The fun part is launching your campaign and watching what happens instantly. Within online marketing, email marketing is probably one of the most matured fields where parameters defined already. Deliverables are well defined, industry standards are pretty clear. And if you don't follow the rules, consequences are pretty clear, too.
Social media marketing on the other hand is still a new field. People are still trying to figure out what works and what really doesn't. Social media analytics not very clear yet but numbers matter a great deal. There are the easy ones that you can measure like retweets, forwards, mentions etc. Social rules which are generally "nice things to do" for someone which are easy to figure out but the technology still has to be perfected for tracking.
Just because social media is the new kid on the block doesn't mean old school ways of online marketing doesn't matter anymore either. SEO is still important, you should still take a look at unique visitors and click through rates, time spent on site etc. You need to get these things right because they are the foundation of your whole online marketing strategy. The tools for measuring your SMM campaign are out there but some things are still experimental, not defined like email marketing. Personally, I like GetClicky.com a lot -- it also integrates nicely with Wordpress. Trendrr is pretty cool and is worth a look. And I really like the stats that SocialMention gives out -- it's fantastic for monitoring reputation in the social media sphere.
I've been disappointed a bit with Google though. They just launched analytics for email marketing, which is integrated, but I have a sneaky feeling that it's still a bit experimental. I'm sure they're still developing social media analytics but who knows when they'd launch it. Analytics need to be in one complete package instead of having people run around looking at three or four different sites, tools and software. It's too time consuming, the main job for a social media strategist is to be able to analyse the numbers.
And of course, if you have funds, you should check out Omniture and Web Trends -- the two grand daddies of web analytics. Both of them have integrated their analytics software with real time social media tracking. But it will cost you a pretty penny. What are your favorite social monitoring tools? Which ones would you recommend?
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
comScore Arrives in India (Finally!)
Marketers who use both mobile and social media marketing will be able to have better tools in their belt. Since there are more mobile penetration in India, it cannot be ignored. By September 2010, there will be 760 Indian cities that have 3G networks. People are already recharge (read pay) their satellite TV services, and conduct banking processes on their phones, the next step will be to order and buy products. This would require concrete stats and analysis for both sales and marketing teams. Having comScore there to navigate these waters will be a bonus and a much needed helping hand.
Graphic: http://www.flickr.com/photos/silvertje/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Thursday, March 4, 2010
How do you spark real conversations?
What I found weird was the videos in between of TED speakers. While they were thought provoking, I couldn't understand why they were shown. We just assumed it was to make up for the lack of live speakers. I mean, couldn't we just sat at home and watch the videos? Plus the audio wasn't calibrated properly (my biggest pet peeve) and the visual wasn't at the right resolution.
I enjoyed Atul's talk on the BBS systems, and the old ways of communicating online. A lot of people disagreed on his statement about folks not having meaningful conversations anymore. He asked the question on how we can teach the next generation to have conversations. Of course there was a strong reaction from the audience (which was great since that was the only time people became alive). I wished there was an interactive session that followed the talk but it didn't. Plus Jeanne and I had to run to a different meeting after tea time.
While Atul was speaking, I started thinking about the next generation of social media consumers. About how I started using the Internet. I was part of the first generation of social media consumers. I still remembered when Bolt.com was marketing to "the youth" at a youth conference in Washington, D.C. This was when TakingITGlobal went online and folks were talking about connecting to those who are separated for three degrees -- this was before the dotcom bust back in 1999. Did we use social media back then to have real conversations? We certainly did.
Student activists used platforms like Friendster to connect with activists across the nation. Fast forward to the Facebook era, there is a lot more noise but I follow young people like Will and Shonali. Yes, there's a lot of teenage banter but there's also a lot of meaningful conversation. We've talked about renewable energy, religion, culture and dealing with being outsiders more so on these young people's walls than other adults.
Will is 16, a fantastic writer (his blog here) and an excellent conversationalist. He comes up with topics that some adults can't even fathom. He knows more of literature, culture, and subculture more so than a lot of people in their twenties. He has no problems hanging out with us at "adult functions", which I wouldn't even invite some folks I know. Shonali is just a remarkable young woman who is not afraid to make her point and engages people. Her wall comments go on and on with real, meaningful conversation.
Why am I telling you all this? Well, one of Atul's questions at TEDx was on how to get young people to have real conversations. The answer is simple -- engage with them. Engage in real conversations with young people. Give them books and other materials to read. Ask them questions. Listen to what they have to say. Listening to young people and validating them as young adults not just empowers them but gives them reasons to go out and engage in more real conversations. They question their friends, and influence other young thought leaders.
I was lucky enough to have parents who gave me protocols to read. Knowing what ICJ is and how it functions in my pre-teen years was awesome. Experiencing first hand, the notes from the Earth Summit in Rio influenced me a great deal, too. You don't need to have diplomats for parents to have these conversations. We can always talk about the price of oil, society's dependency on it, war and terrorism that happens in our own back yards, racism etc. These are things that will effect future generations, too, not just us.
Another big factor to all this is travel. Both Will and Shonali are third culture kids. They've traveled enough to know that this world is not homogeneous. That it is not one dimensional, that our generation is leaving them a lot of problems and challenges for them to solve and deal with. We need to engage and talk about these problems so that they can be better leaders and citizens of the world when they grow up. Already I hear things like, "You guys are leaving us a shitty planet and we're going to have to solve this stuff," they're right in a sense but they don't have to grow up totally unprepared.
How do you have real conversations with young people?
Monday, August 10, 2009
Blog Management: Managing Comments Pt. 2
Comment management tools help you save time and weed out spam comments and spam trackbacks. Some tools also help you promote your blog across multiple sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc. They help you verify the identity of the person who comments by having them log in through OpenID or Google. If you don't already have comment management system on your blog and you're thinking of installing one, you should keep the following in mind when you're choosing a system.
1. Make sure you're familiar with the system because you're going to be the one handling it, unless a site admin does it for you.
2. See if the company you're going for is going to be there for a while and not shutdown shop a couple of months down the line.
3. If you're satisfied with the system that comes with the blogging platform you have, you don't really have to change. Just because everyone is doing it doesn't mean you have to do it, too.
Having said all that, if you want to still put them in your blog, here are the five tools that will help you manage your conversations. First thing I did was to check them against each other so that I know how popular they are. Here's a snap shot of what the figures say:
I encourage you to check their sites and play around before you change your blog. Don't forget to back up your blog before you change things!
1. Disqus
I use Disqus to manage comments on this blog. According to Compete.com it's the most popular tool compared to the other four. It had a steady incline in traffic and seems to be doing very well. It works on most blogging platforms and it didn't take a lot of tech skills to get it installed on this blog. I like the fact that you can integrate a lot of services like Facebook Connect, OpenID etc. It gives my users a lot of options as to where they want to login or not and comment.
2. JS Kit
I found JS Kit through Jeanne's blog actually. It had a lot of visitors a couple of months back but it seems the traffic has decreased. Just like Disqus, you can login using your OpenID, or Twitter account to comment. It's tied up with one of the biggest blogger networks: Blog Catalog - which can explain why it's so popular.
3. BackType
I was really surprised that BackType isn't doing so well. I heard about it from Robert Scoble. I think the reason they're not getting a lot of visitors is because they're not compatible with platforms like Blogspot. I think BackType's developers are working on it though. Blogspot users tend to be folks who have been blogging for a long time, and those who focus on content rather than the bells and whistles of coding.
4. IntenseDebate
I've seen IntenseDebate here and there but mostly on Wordpress blogs. Besides the usual features of a good comment management tool, the have a neat little voting system so that the best comments are moved to the top. I thought that was interesting. Who wants to read 20 comments if you can just read the top best ones right?
5. coComment
I used to use coComment when I had to track a lot of blogs/personalities. It was the only management tool that I used then. Frankly, I'm surprised and disappointed that they're traffic isn't anywhere near Disqus -- but that can change depending on what kind of services that they're incorporating in the future.
Photo by: massdistraction
Tools for Your Blog: Managing Comments Pt. 1
Comments and conversations are the building blocks of social media. They happen on any site you logon. They happen on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. They used to happen as IRC, forums, MySpace comments, and blog comments. It's the way people interact, share stories, have flame wars, introduce themselves, meet new people -- and generate ideas. Conversations also build community, reputations, brands, and spread awareness of whatever that you're doing or promoting.
Comments are an integral part of any blog no matter where the conversation happens. Most of the conversation on this blog happens on Facebook and Twitter. No matter where your conversation ends up happening, the starting point is always your blog.
If you're thinking of starting off in building a community around your blog, here are 8 Steps to Growing Your Blog Community one Person at a Time by Ben Yoskovitz. It's an old post written even before MyBlogLog was bought by Yahoo. But the principles still hold true and you can apply them for Facebook, or Google. Fast forward to the Twitter age -- we still need conversations despite having them in 140 characters or less at a time. So how do we plug into the stream of conscious with all these sites and all these conversations happening at the same time? What if we don't have time to manage an influx of spam comments? Simple: get a comment management tool.
I was going to write just one post on this but there's a lot of topics to explore. Next up is, which blog comment management tool you should be using. Stay tuned.
Photo: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
How to Market Yourself for Geeks and Laymen
I was invited to speak at Mukti '09 -- A National Level Technical Symposium on on GNU/Linux and Free Software, organized by Linux Users' Group NIT Durgapur. It was a great conference and I really wished I could stay longer but I had to go back home to Kolkata. I loved being out in a smaller city which is Durgapur. The National Institute of Technology (NIT) Durgapur campus was great. It was a quieter town than Kolkata, less people, less traffic, and less pollution. I felt like I was on a weekend getaway out in Woodstock from New York City.
The crowd consisted of undergrad students so I spoke mostly about how to market yourself online and offline. There was a great discussion on whether one should have a blog, and if writing too many personal things is a bad thing, and what do you do when someone uploads a picture of you that is not appropriate online. We spoke about Google's Orkut -- the largest social network in India, Facebook and how to use LinkedIn to get your profile out there.
One thing I didn't cover that @indradg managed to pick up was on marketing yourself as a coder or programmer. As an employer he Googles people and checks forums, IRC, and change logs for coding. They're all available online and they can be traced back to you as a programmer. Of course, the more active you are the better. There was a lot of things going on campus so there were those who wanted to attend but missed out so I'm uploading my presentation here.
Mukti09-YuYuDin
I'm having formatting issues with Scribd and Star Office. You can always follow me on Twitter: @yuyudin or connect with me on LinkedIn if you have questions etc.
On top of that, check out the following links on marketing yourself online:
How Dan Zarrella found a job using Internet marketing in a recession.
10 Ways to use LinkedIn to find a job by Guy Kawasaki
How to find, network with and influence people using social media this last one is a super list so it'll give you plenty of stuff to do.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Tweeple: 12 People I'm looking forward to Interacting with in 2009
You know the year can't end with last minute meme of some sort. Well, this isn't an official twitter meme but feel free to pass it on. (Folks on this list can also go ahead and pass it on!) I "met" and started interacting with the following people on Twitter through either their blogs or some other people's tweets. I usually pay attention to their tweets because I have a great laugh, get ideas or learn something new. And believe me, getting the list down to just 12 tweeple is not that easy! There were other folks that I want to include but that'll be just too many people. I'll highlight them in the New Year so stay tuned!
1. Michael Leis @mleis
This is the man I blame for my Twitter addiction. ^_^ Before he came into my life it was quiet, though I had set up my Twitter account before I never really saw the use until I was woken by his thought provoking post on marketing. I first read one of Michael's post on iMedia Connection about the future of social media. I saw that I can have a conversation with him on Twitter so we hit it off. Jokes aside, I wouldn't have met the rest of the wonderful folks if it wasn't for him.
2. Leah Dossey @CreativeWisdom
I got to Leah's profile through @Jimconnolly when she answered a post on creating Twitter backgrounds. She's written an excellent tutorial on making your own Twitter backgrounds. We DM-ed (Direct Message) back and forth and hit it off immediately. She's a great designer and has a really fast turn around time according to folks who've worked with her. So if you need a designer stat, she's the person you go to.
3. Ande @dailytwitter
First you have to check out Daily Twitter the site. It's going to be expanding in 2009 as a news site. But guess where the news is coming from? Yup, the microblogging world! Besides, Ande is a great guy to follow, he's a great dude to brain storm with. I think he started following me when I replied back to someone, I forget, but hey replies will get you followers too so don't be so self absorbent!
4. Michael Gass @michaelgass
Michael Gass is my Jedi in advertising. If you're into advertising he's THE person to follow. He'll push your thoughts beyond the Web 2.0 world with his tweets. He asks the right questions and he points to the right answers. Advertising and marketing has a line that gets blurred often. An ad copy is just as important as a marketing copy. I never had "formal" training in either subjects so I need to read and learn stuff. Sure enough, you'll learn everything you need about the advertising world and where it's headed from just following Michael Gass's tweets.
5. Valerie Stevens @ValerieStevens
Valerie Stevens is a bit of a mystery woman, which intrigues me a lot. She's a hard core social media maven. She's already using Facebook and Twitter in a very synergistic way. In just a short span of time she has a good amount of people following her on Twitter as well as joining her group on Facebook. She's going to be traveling and launching a lot of blog properties in 2009 so I'm really interested in watching what she does. Plus she's a fun person to interact with.
I got to David via @mleis. I think I've seen his blog before but never really interacted until I started following him on Twitter. He writes about social media strategy and content, how it all ties together and how you should harness the power of your network. If you're a writer or an Internet marketer you should totally follow this guy. He brings news from the "edge".
Have a fabulous New Year!
Photo by: carrotcreative
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Twitter: the New Platform for "Citizen Journalism"
There was a sense of revolution in the air because it was the first time independent media makers across the United States came together to produce their own live national television without the support of corporate media. They were veterans riding the wave of the IMF protests in Seattle. I was the new kid on the block, quiet literally. Folks who knew about the productions tuned into their local public access channels to watch the two live shows: Democracy Now with Amy Goodman and Crashing the Party with Laura Flanders. These were the days before YouTube.
We shared our concerns, our worries, our anger (I'm still pissed the Deepak Chopra's the only "Indian expert" mainstream media can find!) then people like Michael Leis and David Cushman went on to blog about the twitter experience. You can't get anymore real time than this -- the news happened, it was broadcast, digested, then commentary followed right away. Plus, this is happening at the speed of thought. THAT to me is a "revolution". How will this revolution evolve? We'll just have to wait and see, some are calling it "Web 3.0". More on that later...
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Social Media: Bridging Conversations
Ok, I was going to leave this as a comment on Jeff Pulver's blog post but it became really long as I was writing it so I'm doing it as a post. This is a 'response' post to his "Sometimes We Need to Do Things Alone" post.
When I had to venture into social network marketing I felt alone. Not that I didn't know what it was, I wasn't in charge before. The vision wasn't mine. This time around, I wanted to implement a social media strategy, something that is going to work across all platforms that one person can do -- I didn't have a team either. There was just me and my targets. I did blogs before, there were mentors like Brain Clark who writes Copyblogger and Darren Rowse who writes on ProBlogger. Then I had to get into email/newsletter marketing, where there were a lot of articles to read and a mentor in the office. Then, the person left and when I had to go into social media marketing I felt lost even though I was on the scene since it all started with (the now defunct) Bolt and Friendster.
I had to come up with my own experiments and see what worked and what didn't. I had to come up with ways to measure the experiments. I felt like I was doing a science fair project which excited me but I also felt like a train that kept going without the tracks. Then I read Michael Leis's blog post on the future of social media -- something that I was already doing for a year or so now. I really didn't have a word for it except, "guerilla marketing". He called it "screenwriting". His post hit home so close that I had to connect with him on Twitter immediately! I asked him how many people he thinks that does this sort of marketing. His reply was, none. I was surprised of course. We "Direct Messaged" back and forth until the point when he asked me, "It's all experimenting. No?"
The light bulb in my head went off: "AHA!" It was when I realized I was actually at the edge, at the forefront like the rest of the social media gurus and marketers out there. It's hard to realize that when you're geographically isolated, all the way in India. Most people I talk to don't know what Twitter is or don't care. Some can't migrate to Facebook from Orkut, the social network run by Google. I got my bearings right after our brief DMing and the picture became clear: the Internet has an ever expanding edge, today it's social networks, tomorrow it might be evolving into something else -- "a mash" if you will. That drive for evolution I feel is the adrenaline that keeps the cogs in all of us turning. That's what glues me to the Internet and my computers everyday. That's why I can still be sitting in India and talk about the same stuff, the same popular subjects out west like the election, economy, environment, etc.
I wasn't able to do this when I moved from New York half way round the world to Calcutta almost six years ago. Life sucked then, movies would not be here for months after they released in New York. I hated it. I spent my formative years in New York, I loved being "in-the-know", I hung out in the Village, I did artsy-trendy stuff. I made films, assisted on documentaries, spoke at conferences and screenings, listened to spoken word and underground music...
All of a sudden, when I landed in India, I found myself not being able to join in on conversations with my friends -- I felt left out and really isolated. On top of that, we had dial up -- the "Internet" was still making its way through terrible phone lines of Calcutta. This city was KNOWN for its bad phone lines!
A lot of things have changed since then. I don't feel so isolated now. In fact, I think Twitter makes us all on one page, albeit, I'm a couple of hours ahead. ^_^! But thanks to the boom in social networks and social media, I'm back in touch with friends even from high school. Some of them are diplomat brats like me who are scattered across the world. Most of them are still in New York. Some of them are professors. My algebra teacher is a professor at Harvard (how cool is that!)
It seems like I'm the only one who made it out to India, but I'm not complaining anymore, I realized that I'm not missing the action. In fact, the action might be here in the coming months and years. So I got the front row seats. I just happened to be lucky that it's part of my job to be on Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Bebo, Twitter, et cetera... of course it's also a good excuse to keep in touch with friends. As someone who grew up in the 80s, someone who loves making connections, and most importantly, as a writer, I don't think I'd rather do anything else right now... except for a project I'm working on for Myanmar or Burma (I don't belong to either camp) but that's another story for another day.
