Category Archive: Social networks
Share the love
How to expand the reach of your campaigns on social networks
When I was 13-years-old, I thought I’d marry a Backstreet Boy. I had their faces plastered on my bedroom walls, and I knew their middle names and birthdays. Since I was such a big fan, I talked about them all the time because that’s what we do when we love something: We tell everyone.
Fans of your product, service or content are likely already chatting you up to their friends, and that can be very good news for your business. Take advantage of this by making your brand and message as visible as possible, and your fan base will grow even larger.
Need some ideas for expanding the reach of your email campaigns? You’ve come to the right place.
Post your signup forms (almost) anywhere
I’m always surprised to talk to Emma customers who haven’t yet made use of their unlimited signup forms. They’re included for free in your account, easy to create and allow you to pick up new subscribers wherever you interact with folks — in store (via a tablet at the register), on your blog, on Twitter, on LinkedIn and more. So, go ahead: post those forms all over the place and watch new subscribers roll in. When you create separate forms that filter to separate audience groups, you’ve built in automatic audience segmentation, so you can eventually send separate campaigns to your Twitter audience versus your in-store customers, for example.
Another way to attract even more new contacts? Offer discounts or exclusive content during the signup process, and then set up a trigger campaign to make good on that promise once they’ve subscribed.
Target your subscribers by interest
Just as you might send unique content to folks based on how you met them (or where they signed up), you can show subscribers how well you know them by setting up trigger campaigns based on their interaction with the first few campaigns they received from you. The Direct Marketing Association’s Email Experience Council reports that triggered campaigns had a 96% higher open rate in the fourth quarter of 2011 than typical email campaigns.
Let’s say folks clicked a campaign link to read about the seasonal trees your nursery just received (we’re fans of the pink dogwood, by the way). Set up a link-based autoresponder so those folks also receive information about soil treatment. When you connect with your audience in this way, they’ll be likelier to open your next round of campaigns — and to start telling others (via email forwards or social shares) about your campaigns.
Use email + social together
Stop using Facebook to creep on your college boyfriend’s recent antics (man, he really hasn’t grown up, has he?) and create a Facebook business account for your brand instead. Add a tab for your page, and post an Emma signup form to it. Set up a Twitter account and cross-promote your website, email campaigns and Facebook presence there.
With Emma’s social posting feature, it’s easy to post your email campaigns to your Facebook and Twitter pages, right after you’ve sent them to your audience. And make sure to enable social sharing in your campaigns, so recipients can click to share your newsletters on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Be likable
This one seems obvious, but seriously: Don’t be an email sender that your audience starts to ignore — or dislike. Prune your content for relevance, and stick to your editorial calendar. Ask subscribers how often they’d like to hear from you, and respect their preferences. Sending frequency — whether you’re sending too often or not enough — is the primary reason for opt-outs.
And make sure to treat brand new subscribers and your most loyal customers differently. New folks need an introduction to who you are and what you do, while your biggest fans likely want to get more involved in product sneak peeks, giveaways and events.
Remember, your audience is letting you rent space in their inboxes — so strengthen those relationships into something that builds your business. If you build it, they will come; if they like it, they will share.
+++++
We’re giving you even more ways to perfect your email strategy: Download our guide to email marketing success.
Stepping out of the inbox
Give your email campaigns a second life with social media
Here’s an interesting question: When you set out to create your company’s newest mailing, do you think of it as an email or as a campaign? Of course, your audience will see it as an email among others in their inbox. But you’re not just creating an email — you’re creating a message that’s worth sharing. And that message (or series of messages) can go beyond the inbox. If you think of it as a coordinated effort or campaign, you’ll realize it’s worth spreading through other channels, too.
Take a closer look at your social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more. I’ll bet you’ve got more combined followers than you realize. Do all of them know how to receive your email updates? Have they heard about your latest campaign?
It’s easy to expand your email’s reach beyond the inbox by enabling Emma’s Social Sharing feature, which allows subscribers to share your email with their social networks, and it’s about to be easier for you to post your email to your social networks, with the release of our new Social Posting tool this winter. With a few clicks, you’ll be able to send a mailing to your subscribers and simultaneously post it to Facebook and Twitter. It’s an easy step that makes a big difference. In anticipation, let’s take a look at a few companies who’ve made an art out of extending the reach of their email campaigns via their social channels:
GOOP
GOOP shares a link to their emails on Facebook, generating lots of fan dialogue.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle-oriented email newsletter, GOOP, won’t turn you into an Academy Award-winning actor/singer/cookbook author, but it might make you feel like you’re having a weekly teatime chat with one. GOOP carries on lively conversations with its audience via its Facebook page, and when the latest issue hits the inbox, you can count on a timely post with a concise, appealing teaser.
GeekChic Daily
GeekChicDaily plays hard to get with a Facebook teaser.
Like GOOP, geek culture email newsletter GeekChicDaily thrives on email engagement. But GeekChicDaily takes an interesting approach to extending its email newsletter’s online lifespan through social media: It tells, but doesn’t show. Take a look at this Facebook post. If you’re hooked by the promise of news from the Jim Henson Company (and really, what self-respecting geek wouldn’t be?), then you’ll have to sign up to get the word.
Brite Revolution
Brite Revolution manages to work the sizzle & the steak into one tweet.
If you monitor your emails’ response activity over time, you’ve probably noticed a trend: an early spike in activity (usually in the hours immediately after the send-off), followed by a steady decline in new activity over the course of the first 24 hours. However, as the folks at Brite Revolution know, last Friday’s email content will still be fresh on Tuesday for those who didn’t receive it in their inbox. They’ve packed a lot into this tweet: In addition to linking to both their newsletter and their signup form, they’ve set the expectation for how often they email — and communicated a clear benefit for joining. Not bad for 131 characters!
As email and social media become increasingly intertwined, it’s important to remember that they evolved to answer different but complementary needs. As you join the conversation with your followers on social networks, remember that your email campaigns are a unique opportunity to share sophisticated, content-rich updates. And Facebook and Twitter’s link-friendly environments mean that email updates may prove remarkably well-suited for your social media audience.
+++++
See what we’ve got in the works this winter at Emma. It’s a Featurepalooza!
Talking with Tom follow-up
How portable data means better audience relationships
As a follow-up to my interview with Tom Martin about what’s next in tech, I want to create a little food for thought about how marketers can make the most of these evolving technologies. These advances influence the way brands can communicate with their audience in new and exciting ways.
In my interview, I focused on the evolution of how data moves more freely across the internet than ever before. Because folks who build web applications — like Emma, Salesforce, FreshBooks and more — have embraced the idea of open APIs (the way applications transmit and receive data), the challenge of getting member data out of one system, imported into another, then keeping everything in sync has shifted from something terribly difficult and time consuming to something potentially very easy, not deeply technical and mostly automatic. We’re entering an age where we can create a more customized web, built to our own specs for the way we want to look at our data.
So that’s basically what’s happening “under the hood” of web-based applications everywhere, but what does that mean for marketers? At its core it means that we can get excited about a parallel evolution happening in modern marketing, where the customer is empowered to interact with a brand in multiple ways, often on multiple channels, and extract value from the relationship in a way that fits their lifestyle, availability and medium of choice. And while that may sound like a daunting task for marketers to execute, it’s probably easier that you might think.
These three tips will help you strengthen your audience relationships by embracing a more customer-driven marketing plan:
- Focus on your members as much as your content. It’s easy to focus on what we want to say and how/when we want to present that information. But remember that you’re speaking to a bunch of individual people who are all at slightly different stages in their relationship with your brand. Investing some time creating smart groupings of members will make it easier for you to learn what content resonates, at what frequency, and it will give you deeper insight on how to make their experience better and to make your message stick.
- Have a clear strategy for each communication channel. The content-to-audience balance also extends to different communication channels. Social media provides a great opportunity to interact with members on an individual level and can also be your best bet for communicating timely information. Think about how you can engage or share socially in a way that provides complimentary value to what you’re sending to members‘ inboxes. Remember, the trick is to be social, not simply do social.
- Reward engagement to build evangelism. There is no better way to build evangelism and that all-important word-of-mouth recommendation than to personally acknowledge your most engaged members. The investment you make in learning, understanding and reaching out to your most loyal members in special ways will pay off in spades. In most cases, a simple thank you email or @mention on Twitter will make the recipient feel valued and even more likely to talk about that great experience with others.
At the end of the day, all of this new technology simply gives us more opportunity to understand our audience better and communicate in a more personalized way. Open APIs and portable data can break down barriers that have traditionally held member data hostage, and as marketers, investing the time to understand what this new holistic picture is telling us is the real opportunity.
+++++
What’s new at Emma? Take a look at the features coming soon to your account.
Google+ pages for business
Why it matters, or not ...
The launch of Google+ this summer was difficult to miss. It was a long-anticipated release and subject to all kinds of speculation about how it would change the landscape of social networks. Would it threaten Facebook’s dominance for personal networking? Would it replace Twitter as the de facto link sharing tool for millions? Would Google finally get social right or simply launch another mediocre product, destined for the scrap heap? While we’re a long way from knowing all of the answers, the last few months have given us a chance to get our hands dirty and start to understand how Google+ fits into the larger social picture.
With the latest news that Google+ has opened its doors for brand pages, marketers have a whole new set of questions to tackle. Is Google+ worth the time and resource investment? Can brands use Google+ to interact with customers in a new way?
To be sure, there are some considerations for integrating Google+ that don’t exist for Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. I’ve picked out a few pros and cons that will hopefully help frame up the unique space that Google+ is trying to carve for its social product.
The good
More customizable page setup
Google realizes that there are all types of businesses and organizations out there that want to communicate and share with their audience, sometimes in unique ways. Google gives you the opportunity to categorize your page in the setup process, with each designation having some unique benefit. The categories are:
- Local business or place
- Product or brand
- Company, institution or organization
- Arts, entertainment or sports
- Other
This is especially helpful for local businesses, for instance, who want to tie in their Google Places account, which displays helpful info like maps, hours of operation, phone numbers, etc.
Better search results
Google has integrated brand pages into its search algorithm with something they call “Direct Connect.” Now, adding a “+” to a standard Google search will take you directly to that brand page, skipping the whole search results stuff. For example, try it by typing “+Anderson Cooper 360” into a Google search bar. You’ll see that it jumps straight to Anderson’s +Page. Again, this is a great benefit to local businesses who often struggle to make it to the first page of standard Google searches. And speaking of that first page, Google’s algorithm will now count how many of your followers have clicked the +1 button (Google’s version of liking) as a way to boost your overall page ranking. It’s leveling the playing field for brands, while adding a way for Google to improve the user experience for their main search product. After all, most users are more interesting in finding than searching,right?
More targeted sharing
As we try to get better at tailoring messages and content to the right people at the right time, the need to segment and understand your audience is more important than ever. That idea is baked into the Google+ platform in a fundamental way with its Circles feature. When it comes to sharing content, page managers will have a much easier time sharing links and content to one, some or all of their members with just a few clicks and some smart grouping of members into circles. Google+ also opens doors to easier direct engagement with hangouts — think of it as group Skyping. The combination of circles and hangouts means that a page can share and interact with only specific groups of followers really easily and all on one platform. Pretty powerful stuff for businesses who don’t have a full staff of marketing and customer service folks at the ready.
The not-so-good
No support for multiple users
At this time, pages can only have one manager who is allowed to own or post to the official page account. This will make it hard for social media or customer service teams to collaborate or divide up work among team members.
No contests, sweepstakes, offers or coupons
Perhaps the biggest difference between Facebook and Google+ will be the nature of the interaction between brand and follower. According to Nielsen, the number one reason folks “like” a brand on Facebook is to receive special discounts or offers. This will be fundamentally different on Google+, and depending on your strategy, could be a dealbreaker for you.
No vanity urls
I expect this feature will come shortly, but as of now it will be a tad cumbersome to tell folks how to navigate to your page. Vanity urls aren’t in play yet, so instead of something easy like plus.google.com/Emma, urls look more like plus.google.com/106168900754103197479/ – not the easiest thing to remember.
At the end of the day, we need to craft a mix of content and communication that meets our customers, fans and followers where they are, and one that delivers consistent value, regardless of delivery channel or network. I don’t think Google+ will be a natural fit for everyone, but I do think it offers some interesting and unique value to a great many businesses. If you’re time-strapped, a small team or a predominantly local business, Google+ may be a perfect fit for you, with benefits that extend beyond the direct engagement you create on your page. As with any new technology or tool, taking an inventory of your own strategy, your audience and how you engage is always a great starting point for determining where you should spend your time and energy. Who knows, a few weeks from now Google+ may be your new one stop social shop. Have a look for yourself, and come back to tell us about your experience.
+++++
Just opened an Emma account? Download our Getting Started Guide.
The results of Emma’s holiday survey
How you responded & what we've got in store. Plus, we announce the winner!
Last month, we asked you to take our holiday survey and tell us a bit about your email marketing goals, habits and interests — especially as they relate to your holiday marketing plans. We were thrilled to receive so many thoughtful responses, and I’d like to share the results with you. Some of the answers really surprised us, and the experience highlights just how important it is to eliminate assumptions and ask your audience.
Take a look at how you answered below, and hear what we’ve got in store this season to assist you. Plus, find out a few tips for creating your own surveys and the winner of our survey prize!
1. Choose 3 things from the list below that you’d like to learn more about.
Since we asked you to pick three answers, we knew there’d be a healthy split among them. And we’re already thinking of ways to provide quick tips and to make your holiday emails look as fresh and festive as possible. Take a look at Mary’s five tips for retaining and attracting subscribers. Then, head on over to Emma’s 2011 Holiday Design Spectacular, and check out the holiday templates we’ve designed for your seasonal invitations, promos and greetings.
2. What article types on the Emma blog are most beneficial to you? Choose all that apply.
We’re glad to know that you continue to find value in our posts with email best practices and tips, and that you like our design showcases as much as we do. Throughout the holiday season, we’ll provide even more, including this recent holiday design showcase.
3. Where do you most often read your emails?
There’s lots of talk about designing emails for mobile these days, and with good reason — nearly 31% of mobile users in the U.S. access email on their phones. But, it’s also important to remember that the vast majority of subscribers haven’t booted email activity on their computers in favor of their phones. If we’re ever in a pickle where we must decide between how an email looks on a desktop computer versus a mobile device, we can make a case for designing for our desktop readers.
4. How many email inboxes do you manage? (Choose closest answer.)
This response surprised us more than any other. Boy, you guys are busy! Three inboxes is a lot to manage, and 14% of you manage even more than that. Your responses encourage us to keep our Emma Roundups packed with solid offerings each month — we want to make sure ours is an email worth opening.
5. How many emails do you send out from Emma on a monthly basis?
These results are a fairly close match to the sending behaviors of our entire customer base; in fact, more than 60% of our customers send 5,000 emails or less each month. In an industry where it’s easy to get hung up on list size, remember that it’s the quality of your list, not its size, that matters.
6. Which social network do you use most frequently?
Another surprising answer. We expected Facebook to lead the pack, but we didn’t expect it to lead by such an overwhelming margin. Perhaps it’s a false consensus bias of mine: I use Twitter so frequently that I wrongly assumed that more of you did, too. This becomes a question that could launch a separate survey. We’d love to know more about why you use Facebook most frequently, if you manage a personal or business account and, if you use multiple social networks, how you differentiate your usage. And do say hi to Emma on Facebook, too!
7. What sites, blogs and resources do you use to improve your email marketing?
We had two motives when asking this question: to find out which sites you find most useful and to add some new sites to our everyday reads. We received too many great answers to list them all, but here are some of the sites that came up again and again (go ahead, add ‘em to your Google Reader): Mashable, HubSpot, Email Experience Council, iMedia Connection, MarketingProfs, Marketo, Inc., Fast Company, ClickZ, CMO, Which Test Won, American Marketing Association, Sender Score, Open Forum, Marketing Sherpa, Seth Godin’s blog and eMarketer.
8. Fill in the blank. When it comes to my holiday emails this year, I’m most concerned about ______.
Based on your response to this question, we’re excited to be planning some style-specific articles for your holiday email campaigns. Stay tuned, and in the meantime, check out these articles:
- 5 tips for better-looking campaigns
- Stylishly formatted campaigns, parts one and two
- How can I make my plaintext pretty?
- Building a slice and dice campaign
9. Say that Santa has a magical elf who only answers North Pole mail dealing with email marketing questions. What would you ask him?
This was a fun one! We received so many excellent questions — some serious, some a bit silly — and we’ll be featuring the most common in a series of Q&A posts this season.
+++++
Want to send a survey to your customers? Here are five tips:
- Provide some intro text to explain the purpose of the survey, how long it’ll take to complete and what respondents should expect to get out of it. If you neglect to provide this information, why should anyone respond? You’ve got to know your purpose first, then design and promote the survey.
- Start with a few fun, engaging questions. This helps to hook respondents and set momentum right off the bat.
- Design questions that get at what you really want to know. When I first designed our survey, question #6 asked, “Which social network is your favorite?” A colleague pointed out that it’d be a difficult question for respondents to answer — Favorite right now? Favorite of all time? A network I like the most but maybe don’t use a lot? — and that it wouldn’t provide information we’d be able to draw reliable conclusions from. So, instead, I changed the question to “Which social network do you use most frequently?” This more clearly gets at what I want to know — where folks spend most of their time.
- Save demographic questions for the end — and make them optional. Putting your demographic questions at the beginning is boring at best and alienating at worst. Leave them for the end, and give folks the freedom to answer some or none of them.
- Keep it short. Appreciate that your customers are busy, and they’re probably not inclined to take a survey that requires more than five minutes of their time. You can still collect very valuable information in 10 questions or less. Giving yourself a limit also forces you to cut out the fluff and make each question matter.
+++++
Who won the survey prize, you ask? We used random.org to pick a winner at random, and the winner is … Lauri Young of Quantum Bank. She’s won a month’s worth of free emails on us. Congrats, Lauri!
+++++
Get into the holiday spirit. Request a Readymade design from Emma’s design team.
Emma Agencies weigh in on Facebook’s new metrics
With the recent changes to Facebook's Insights, our agency partners are learning more about their audience
In the past few years, Facebook has embraced marketers more than ever. And, recently, they rolled out several changes to the data available to page administrators. It provides an even deeper look into your audience. In fact, you may be able to extrapolate and learn a bit about your market in other channels, too.
We asked a few of our agency partners to weigh in on what these changes mean for marketers and their clients. Let’s take a look at the updates, and then we’ll see what our agencies have to say.
What’s new
As a page administrator, you have access to a tab called Insights. This has always been the destination to find, well, insights into the success of your page. Take a stroll over to that area now, and we’ll walk through the new data:
Facebook now shows Total Likes, Friends of Fans, People Talking About This and Weekly Total Reach
Total Likes: Likes are a familiar stat that’s been here before. Also referred to as fans, likes is the cumulative number of Facebook users who have ever clicked “Like” on your page.
Friends of Fans: This is a sum of your fans and all of their friends, a significant number because it represents the potential reach that your page could have if each fan talked about you.
People Talking About This: We consider this to be the page’s meat and potatoes (or its tofu and quinoa, if that’s your style). In the past, you’ve been able to watch your Likes and comments to get an anecdotal sense of how many folks were interacting with your page. Now, you can see the exact number of people talking about you, which Facebook explains as “the number of unique people who have created a story about your page in the last seven days.” More specifically, it includes folks who have liked your page or one of your posts, those who have checked into your Place and folks who have mentioned your page in a post or tagged it in a photo.
Notice that this metric is also a public number. Now, when someone visits your fan page, he will see both Total Likes and People Talking About This. This introduces a brand new success metric to report to your clients and to show potential fans.
Weekly Total Reach: With this update, you can find the number of Facebookers who have seen any content associated with your page. This includes fans who read posts by your brand and people who are not fans but saw someone on their newsfeed “talking” about you. It also includes people who saw your purchased ads. Naturally, as your talking metric rises and falls, your weekly total reach follows suit.
Post by Post: As you move beyond the large sweeping numbers, you can see more granular information too. Sorted by date, you’ll see how each individual post affected your audience.
- Reach tells you how many people were exposed to the post.
- Engaged Users counts everyone who clicked anywhere on your post, ranging from liking the post itself to clicking on a commenter’s profile.
- Talking About This tallies anyone who commented, liked or otherwise interacted with that post.
- Virality gives you the percentage of people who talked about your post compared to the number who saw it. This number allows you to compare your posts to each other to determine what type of content creates the most engagement.
Demographic Data: After you get a handle on the aggregate data, check out the Fans, Reach and Talking About This tabs. From there, you’ll see a breakdown of those people by gender, age range and location.
Facebook reports your fans by gender and age range, giving you more details about your audience
What these changes mean for marketers
Buzz data
As with any tool that marketers use these days, more data is better as long as it informs a greater strategy. While these changes may not upend your efforts, you’ll be able to track engagement and brand buzz at a much higher level.
People Talking About This provides both a new insight into the virality of your posts and a new metric by which others will judge your page. Craig Dunn, Vice President of Client Services at Music City Networks, one of Emma’s agency partners, weighs in on the sudden combination of Likes and this new metric:
People Talking About This may carry even more weight than Likes in some ways, but you have to look at them together. They point to success of different strategies and goals. Sometimes we’re trying to build an artist’s fans on Facebook, but sometimes we’d rather have people click to the website. People Talking About This will help us measure what’s generating real conversations and real sharing. Before, we could throw stuff out there and not really know what was compelling and what wasn’t. This metric extends Facebook’s numbers to be more like email, where you can actually see the direct results and drill down to what gets people excited.
Craig makes some great points. In fact, consider using the new data to inform your social media strategy in these ways ways:
- Better engage current fans by taking note of the types of posts that elicit the most response.
- Increase the reach of your page by encouraging discussion on topics that generate the most interest. (Compare your actual reach against your total potential, found in Friends of Fans. Then, use what you learned in the individual posts section and tailor your conversation starters to your audience.)
Giving your fans more of the content they love and react to is the obvious way to accomplish both. To get started, David Baser, a Product Manager at Facebook, recommends adding more photos and video in your posts, because those rich content categories are often more engaging. (Read the entire ClickZ interview with David Baser here.)
Polly Bibb, Social Media Strategist at JLB Works, one of Emma’s agencies, agrees that it’s vital to use the metrics to plan content:
You have to think about what’s going to stand out. You always want something catchy, but of course it depends on the company. This new tool is fabulous for knowing what works and what doesn’t. It definitely will encourage people to get more savvy with their status updates.
Demographic data
Beyond the buzz data, you’ll also be able to use the demographic details to watch as new segments of your audience pick up the conversation. Polly explains:
It’s going to help everyone in the online media world keep their game faces on because you’ll be able to see if you’re successfully targeting, or even if you’re bringing in a new audience you weren’t even aware of. It helps you assess and change your strategy a lot earlier than you otherwise could have.
Speaking of changing your strategy, keep the following in mind:
- Embrace new segments who are talking about your brand by including them in your messaging. They may become your best evangelists, and the Insights tab will help you pick up on that.
- Re-engage your core demographic if you are seeing a low response rate from them. Tune in to what makes them tick, or consider asking them what types of content they’d like to see. Brand updates, office pictures and videos, polls, events and questions offer a variety of ways to start a conversation with that group.
Onward
Ultimately, Facebook is still in the early years of its relationship with marketers, and we are going to see that relationship grow. Clients increasingly expect agencies to be experts on social media, and because these developments allow you to measure success a lot more easily, they will only enhance your expertise.
Julian Bibb, Principal and CEO of JLB Works notes:
Facebook is the rising tide that lifts all ships. It introduces the concept of social media and makes people more aware of all other social networks, like Twitter and YouTube. In years past, we were explaining to our clients what social was and why it was important. In 2011, they are coming to us with some of that knowledge. Facebook has become part of our clients’ public consciousness a lot more than it was in years past, and as time goes on, they will become increasingly aware.
We’ve heard from a few of our agency partners, and we want to hear from you! Let us know how Facebook’s changes are affecting your social media strategy, and how you’re using the new metrics to inform your clients. Comment here, or reach out to Emma’s Agency Relations team.
Want more details about Facebook’s changes? Download their Product Guide for Page Owners [PDF].
+++++
Learn more about becoming an Emma Agency.
Facebook launches a new dashboard, API, ad unit and more
How do you feel about the recent changes, and how do they affect the way you interact with brands?
Oh, Facebook, there you go again. Changing things up just as I was getting comfortable with the last batch of updates.
As the administrator of Emma’s Facebook page, I suppose it’s time to embrace the inevitable changes to Facebook. It’s a platform that just doesn’t stay static — and perhaps that’s a good thing. It requires those of us who manage business pages to adopt a practical strategy that’s sustainable even as the platform is in flux.
Curious how Facebook’s changes will affect the way you monitor your brand’s business page or how you interact with brands on Facebook? Let’s take a look at a few articles that provide insight:
- Facebook’s New Tools Give Marketers Insights, Help Measure Fans’ Word of Mouth on Fast Company. E.E. Boyd gives a comprehensive view of new features released to Facebook today, including a new dashboard (called Insights) to measure the reach of individual posts, an API to build tools on top of Facebook’s data and a new ad unit that enables brands to create ads out of posts. The new dashboard is likely to please page administrators — now we’ll know more about our fans’ interests and their engagement with our brand. But, I’m curious, if you’re on the flip side of this, is it as appealing?
- Is this the future of Facebook business pages? on The Social Path. Kammie Avant posits that the new Timeline on personal pages is likely to make its debut on business pages soon. Now, Timelines are akin to autobiographical scrapbooks. Will this change how you tell your brand’s story? Will it prompt you to fill in story gaps?
- Prepare Yourselves: Facebook to be Profoundly Changed on Mashable. As Ben Parr suggests, Facebook is undergoing a rebirth of sorts. If it’s lost its emotional resonance, it wants to bring it back in the form of revamped friend lists, subscribe buttons and more.
- For more information on all of these updates, visit The Facebook Blog.
We want to know what you think of these changes. If you’re an administrator of a business page, how do they affect the way you use Facebook? Which changes make you cheer? Which ones make you grumble? And if you’re an agency thinking through these changes on behalf of your clients, what are your biggest considerations?
If you’re on Facebook to generally connect with friends and businesses you support, how do the recent changes affect your use? Are you spending more time than ever on Facebook, or are you drifting to other platforms, like GooglePlus? Are you more likely to “like” your favorite businesses on Facebook, or do you prefer to interact with businesses in different ways?
Is Facebook a platform that you love to use or love to hate? Tell us in the comments below — we’re interested to know what you think of these changes.
Insights about “what’s next”
Emma's market strategist weighs in on what's missing from Talking with Tom's digital predictions
Hopefully you are following along with Tom Martin’s Talking with Tom series. It’s an interesting experiment for many reasons, not the least of which is the amazing content Tom is collecting from some of today’s top thought leaders in marketing and technology. The premise is simple: Ask really smart people what they think is the next big thing. I’ve been a close follower of the series so I want to share a few thoughts on the trends that I’ve seen emerge and also talk about a few things that are missing from the conversation.
The trends
Tom is a social guy — professionally, yes, but also just an all-around good guy to hang out with — so he’s been able to collect a great mix of interviews from people with a wide variety of web-based businesses. And while there’s a nice variety of people, there are a few notable trends emerging:
- Mobile: Lots and lots of people say mobile is the next big thing. I can see why. Advances in technology make it easier than ever to market via mobile, either with location-based technology, with advertising served inside apps or by redeeming a coupon using your phone and QR or bar codes.
- Social analytics: We’ve moved beyond the question about whether social is a viable medium for brands. Now we want to know how we’ll measure our investments of time and energy there. We’re abuzz with talk about social ROI, engagement metrics, deeper data slices and influencer identification.
- More noise: Granted, this is my own takeaway, but I don’t hear anyone talking about less of anything. It’s more content, more ads, more traffic, more measurement, more channels, more devices.
What’s missing
The truth about what’s next is probably a complex combination of everything based on Tom’s interviews, plus even more. And while there’s already a lot to think about, I’d like to offer one more dimension to the conversation: how to match the DNA of our content to the the DNA of the channel we choose to use.
When we talk about each communication channel, there is a fundamental reason why it was created. There’s a DNA to the platform that was baked into its very concept, and, ultimately, that DNA is why the platforms is successful today. To illustrate this, let’s look at the DNA of a couple of platforms and think about how we can shape our content and engagement strategy to embrace their natural sweet spots.
- Facebook: The “make me feel something” platform. The DNA of Facebook is about real connection and the opportunity to maintain and grow personal relationships. It’s about sharing meaningful bits of our lives and engaging with others when what they share resonates. As marketers, if we take a step back and look at Facebook for what it was built to do, it helps clarify a content strategy that falls into the natural flow. One example: We see countless brands using Facebook to collect “likes.” The promise of a coupon, discount, VIP status or other incentive tactic can, indeed, bring you “likes,” but is that why Facebook users really use Facebook? Does a “like” translate into a memorable brand experience? To a connection? Is it similar to that person’s other interactions on Facebook, where they are sharing their stories, pictures and comments? I’d bet the answer is no. Since Facebook is all about stories and meaningful experiences, marketers need to share real stories, ask question that matter and start meaningful dialogue on Facebook.
- Twitter: The “keep me informed or make me smarter, and do it quick-like” platform. Twitter’s DNA is about short and timely updates on news, great content and significant events happening “right now.” It’s a fast-paced ticker tape of our personal interests, shared in near real-time. A great Twitter citizen understands that there is as much to gain by sharing other peoples’ content as your own, and when you embrace that part of Twitter’s DNA, you can expect all of those good things like trust, influence and engagement to grow. Develop a content strategy in which you are a regular contributor, sharing ongoing and multi-faceted content inside the Twitterverse. If you’re only tweeting about yourself and your brand, you’re limiting the potential for growth and influence which probably brought you (and others) to Twitter in the first place
- Email: The one-to-one, personal communication platform. Email is by far the most personal channel and its DNA is built on a totally different paradigm. It wasn’t built to be social; its promise is that it’s a secure and personal space. That’s why we value our email address more than our Facebook page’s URL or our Twitter handle. In its most simple form, email is: from me to you. As marketers, how can we embrace that simple notion and create content truly feels personal and one-to-one? Relevant, targeted messaging and list segmentation become even more vital when you think about how they’ll help you embrace the natural grain of the email channel.
So, what’s next again?
Lots, clearly. With all the new tools, channels, devices and analytics to choose from, I hope you’ll take the time think strategically, and remember that every channel has its own special DNA. Crafting a content strategy that acknowledges and embraces that flow will help you create new levels of resonance and engagement with your audience, no matter where they may find your brand.
+++++
Get involved in Tom’s social media experiment. Help decide who will get the last word. Vote here!
5 questions with Frank Eliason
A bonus round with a social media expert and this week's Talking with Tom participant
Frank is SVP of Social Media for Citibank. He lives in the Philadelphia area.
What’s the most interesting thing happening in your industry right now?
Within social media it is conversation regarding Google+, and specifically Hangouts that I find interesting. I have always seen video as a disruptive option and hangouts make it easy. I am also fascinated with the notion of social fatigue, although I do not believe it is being discussed heavily right now. I watch my newsfeed on Facebook, as well as other spaces, every day and I am noticing less and less posts by those not associated with social media. I believe this is more fatigue, as individuals decide what they want to share, with whom and how often. In the service industry, I enjoy watching businesses start to realize the impact this social world has on the overall customer experience and how they need to improve that via all customer touch points. Service is the most important aspect to business and now the customer is making that point. Just appeasing those in social is not enough, and not the right approach anyway. If you want customers speaking positively about your brand, you have to provide the experience that would encourage that. It is no longer lip service.
What inspires you?
Passion! I love watching passionate people change the world. I see it through people like Guy Kawasaki, Gary Vaynerchuk, Chris Brogan, Brian Solis and others. This is what drives success. For me, I am passionate about the consumer, and I will live that in everything I do.
Which companies are leading the way in social media and customer service?
I still think Comcast is doing a great job. I also like watching Samsung, Dell Time Warner, AT&T and many others. At Citi we strive to lead by finding alternative solutions to better engage customers. As an example, the trouble with banking and social service is customer privacy concerns. Our solution is implementing secured click to chat. If you are talking to a Citi service representative and the conversation drifts to something that requires private dialogue, we can share a link and you will be able to continue the same conversation with the same person in a secured manner. If you are on a mobile device, we can send a similar link that will connect you to a call with the same person.
What brand do you love right now?
I have been an Apple fan for many years. I have also found myself purchasing many Samsung products for around my new home.
You can invite any four people to happy hour. Who’d be there?
Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein and Martin Luther King. Every one of these individuals were disruptive in their own way yet were able to achieve so much. In responding to this question I was able to think of so many others that would be fascinating, including artists, religious, world leaders (good and bad) and business leaders who truly generated change. I think many of us are doing that today through our thoughts on social media, yet others paved the way for this disruption to take place, and it would be fascinating to learn from them.
+++++
Get involved with Talking with Tom! Vote now to help decide who gets the last word.
Twitter tips and resources
How to make the most of Twitter
Twitter is fairly polarizing. Folks love it — because they have access to breaking news and their favorite leaders and bloggers — or hate it — because they don’t really care what someone’s eating for lunch. I get it. With about 200 million world-wide Twitter users, there’s a lot of great information and a lot of fluff out there.
Still, not all 200 million users are active. About 2.2% of users generate 60% of the content on Twitter. Perhaps you’re one of the Twitter users who created an account in ’08 and haven’t done anything with it since. Or maybe you’re tweeting regularly but feel like you need to be monitoring your presence more effectively.
How can tweeting enhance your business goals? How will you know who to follow and listen to? How can you rise above the fluff? Whether you love it or hate it, you can make Twitter work for you — either using a personal account or setting up an account for your business. I’ve pulled together these tips and resources to help you make the most of Twitter, and even integrate it successfully with your email marketing strategy.
What’s this you say about goals?
That’s right. You need to figure out what you’re aiming to do with Twitter. This isn’t a chicken-or-egg situation. The most effective way to use Twitter is to start with goals, then concern yourself with content, frequency and tracking. Are you looking to build brand awareness? Connect with thought leaders in your industry? Sell more sweaters? Here’s a helpful article about setting Twitter goals. Set two or three goals now that’ll guide your decisions later.
Setting up your Twitter account
If you haven’t set up your Twitter account, do it now. The hardest part? Choosing your Twitter name and writing a bio. Don’t underestimate the power of your name and bio. That’s how people find you, and how they’ll create expectations and attitudes about you. Not surprisingly, @LittleMissSunshine gives a different impression than @AngryChip. If you’re tweeting on behalf of your business, the business name should do just fine. And read this article about optimizing your bio to get more followers.
Quick Twitter tips
- Mind your tweeting frequency. This is subjective, of course, but you don’t want to reach a point where your tweets are over-saturating your followers’ feeds. Very active users would say there’s no point of over-saturation, but other folks might be more sensitive. A good move? Follow some of your favorite brands and monitor how frequently they’re tweeting.
- Be smart about the number of characters in your tweets. You have space for 140, but it’s better to keep tweets around 120. That way, others can retweet and add their own commentary. (When you retweet, you can set apart your commentary by adding | or // after the original tweet, then your text.)
- Mentions (when you start a tweet with @____) aren’t shared out to all followers, just the person you’ve sent it to. However, your followers can see it if they’re also following that person, or if they visit your Twitter timeline.
- If someone mentions you, they likely expect a response.
- It’s okay to tweet multiple times about something since not everyone is watching Twitter at the same time or catching all of your tweets. Just make sure to change up the content a bit. Auto-tweets with zero personality will turn off even your most tolerant followers.
- Twitter is not IM or email. It’s for quick back-and-forths, not full conversations. (In fact, IMs and emails aren’t the best place for full conversations either. Pick up the phone once in a while.)
- Shorten your URLs. Most of the social media platforms, which I’ll talk about shortly, do this automatically — but you may want to set up a bit.ly account to shorten URLs and track how many clicks your links get.
Do you mention your workplace in your bio?
If you’ve set up a personal account and labeled yourself as Employee of X or Teacher at Y, pay attention to the content of your tweets in that context. You’ve made yourself a brand ambassador by connecting yourself to your workplace, which is terrific when sharing industry news and tweeting about work-related events. Still, if you’re primarily using the Twitter account for personal uses, I’d suggest adding an “Opinions my own” line to your bio. And, don’t say anything snarky about work or coworkers. You realize that Twitter is public and searchable, right? If a conversation is getting a bit iffy for a public forum, DM (direct message) the person and take it behind “closed doors.”
Twitter tools
Here’s a roundup of useful Twitter tools:
- TweetDeck is the easiest, free monitoring tool out there. You can see all mentions and direct messages in simple, column-based streams. You can set up searches, schedule tweets in advance and add other social accounts (an additional Twitter account or a Facebook page, for example). It also has a URL-shortener built in.
- HootSuite is another popular tweeting and monitoring platform. A basic (free) plan and a pro (paid) plan are available.
- TwitPic allows you to host photos and post them to Twitter.
- TwitDoc is a simple way to share files (up to 15MB) on Twitter.
Not sure which tools are right for you? Check out this TwiTip and this Simply Zesty article about the best, free social media monitoring tools.
A note about retweeting
Twitter is all about anticipated reciprocity. People will retweet what you have to say when you’re retweeting what they have to say. This doesn’t mean you have to retweet with abandon. But, retweeting a relevant article or link gives props to the original poster and also lets your followers in on your personality and interests.
Following and followers
I think it’s best to be a bit discriminate in who you follow. You can’t keep up with every conversation unless you’re staring at Twitter all day (or getting constant updates on your phone) — and who has time for that? Still, you may not want to seem too exclusive. That’s where lists come in. You can create a private list of “Favorites,” or whatever you want to call it, and it’ll likely be the list you watch the most. There’s no limit to the number of lists you might create, for example, by city, industry, customer type or competitor.
What’s the best way to keep up with your followers? You can use TwitterCounter to see a graph of Twitter followers over time. Or, you can go to mytweeple to see who’s newly following you and read their bios.
Not sure who to follow? Check out just tweet it, a directory of users by category with featured Twitter users.
Twitter plus email
Your Twitter strategy and email strategy aren’t mutually exclusive; make sure they’re complementing each other. Add a “Follow me on Twitter” link to your email campaigns and tweet the public link to your campaigns (found on Emma’s response page) after each send-out. And remember to enable the Social Sharing feature on your campaigns so that recipients can share your email with their own social networks.
Want even more information?
Here are some articles I’ve found particularly useful:
- The Complete Guide to Getting the Most Out of Twitter. This site gives a nice rundown of Twitter terminology and etiquette, along with links to a dizzying number of tools.
- Another handy guide is Webdesigner Depot’s Ultimate Guide for Everything Twitter.
- Vist What the Trend to see new trending topics on Twitter.
Do you have any go-to tips or resources for Twitter? Is there anything you’d like to see Emma tweeting about more regularly? Please share in the comments below, or tell us on Twitter using the hashtag #emmatwitip.
Emma is a member of the Email Sender & Provider Coalition and the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group.
Copyright © 2003 - 2012 Emma. All rights reserved.