Facebook Shows You 5 Important Ways To Measure Success

Measuring Facebook key to Social Media Success

When you are running ads on Facebook, different options exist for executing campaigns today. That includes the tracking of actionable success metrics.

You are probably familiar with the sponsored (paid) ads. But, you might also consider the sponsored stories, which can be really good for your brand lift.

How do you determine which is better for you business? Analytics and monitoring is key.

No matter what you choose, including the (must-do) free options (the Facebook account itself, events, groups, applications, newsfeeds, etc) – it will be important for your business to reveal what your users do on your Facebook network.

Performance graphs, real-time measurements and in-line ad management are a few of the new things you’ll need to understand.
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Top 10 Amazing Social Media Success Stories You Can Learn From

The social media platform has quickly become known as a significant part of a successful internet marketing strategy. This post presents ten of the most successful social media campaigns, with a brief description of why each one worked. Social media campaigns follow a process. You can learn more about starting a social media marketing campaign here.
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Social Media Tools: Listen, Analyze, Engage

Image by Intersection Consulting via Flickr

For those of you not familiar with social media, here’s a brief description: “media that is social”. Funny, but true.

We see so many organizations that begin with social media, and they set up a Twitter or Facebook account and tell us their are doing social media.

When we look a little closer, we can see it’s nothing much at all, and its typically “one-sided”, meaning they only speak about themselves, and nobody is engaging with them.

Maybe the reason is that they didn’t build out a strategic plan with specific goals and targets, as well as not understanding that listening is the second word (after competitive & market research) to learn in social media.

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A Simple Facebook Guide – Advertising Tips – The Strategy (Part 1 of 4)

Facebook is easy if you know how. This is a short guide (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4) for learning how to start Facebook Advertising.

If you are looking for more ‘face time’ with potential customers, advertising on Facebook may be great opportunity.

Begin your quest by identifying some workable goals.

Remember that not all ads are driven by the force of the sale.  In fact, a more workable solution may be using Facebook advertisements to generate leads, increase brand awareness or generate increased traffic for a specific page of your site.

Use these goals to help develop text for your ad – always remembering that Facebook limits the number of words you can use.

A successful Facebook strategy always starts with identifying  specific goals. What objectives are you thinking about?

So, what goals have you defined? Here are some examples:

How many leads? How many new likes? How many fan pages? How many ads? What pictures to use? How many new content pieces each day? Contests? Quizzes? What else?

And, goals don’t get met in a day. Space these over time, and make sure you have a process in place to make it happen. Build out a plan for it, including resources if you don’t have it.

Related articles About Facebook Strategies

• Facebook Announces New Design and Upgrades to Fan Pages (hubspot.com)
• How To Create and Optimize a Facebook Content Strategy – Advice from Alison Zarrella (bethkanter.org)
• New Facebook Pages: Everything You Need To Know (allfacebook.com)

Beat Twitter Traffic With Adwords Traffic Instead?

Social media is all the rage these days. No wonder. It’s what everybody talks about, and it’s a press-darling too. It sure does work well for some companies.

However, it’s a lot of talk, and – it’s as if they forget all the other ways to drive traffic, and more importantly, build conversions on your website.

Well, now you have a chance to test and see if you can leverage the true, tried tested methods for driving traffic quickly to your site, while you build the (sometimes slower) social media programs. (Big note here: not to be discounted, you should leverage Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and others while you test the multi-channel marketing).

You can meet the experts that we have worked with at previous conferences. And you do it all from the comfort of your own home or office.

Click the find out what your competition may already know.

Social Media Helping Pet Owners: Pet-Based Businesses Connect

It’s official—air travel is for the dogs, and the cats too. Pet Airways, which offers flights across the country for four-legged friends only, recently partnered with the ad network DogTime Media in order to get the word out about their services and promote DogTime Media’s pet adoption at the same time.

Other pet-focused businesses are taking a similar approach. Many pet food manufacturers, including Whiskas and Purina maintain, have maintain, or sponsor interactive social media sites, complete with online games and videos. Purina Animal All Stars, for example, hosted by Yahoo! Invites pet owners to send in videos of their talented, funny, or unusual pets. The company’s main site www.purina.com, also has games, downloads, and coupons available for it’s visitors.

“People who go to sites like these are people who love their pets and people who are spending time thinking about the products that they buy for their pets,” Bob Shaw, CEO of Concentric Marketing, the agency that works with natural cat litter manufacturer Feline Pine to help socially promote its corporate website, told DMNews in a recent interview.

“From a marketing perspective, we’ve understood that there is an opportunity to connect with consumers around their emotions to connect with pets.”

For Real? McDonalds Launches Social Media Campaign For McCafe Coffee

The current economic climate has everyone searching for ways to save money, and coffee giant Starbucks, whose name is synonymous with the four dollar latte, has been facing price competition from other chains, including Dunkin Doughnuts and McDonalds, which recently announced the launch of a social media campaign.

The campaign, which includes a website with shareable videos and an interactive sweepstakes,and a Twitter account, McCafeYourDay, was to promote the McCafe coffee line.

“We’re having a lot of fun online, and there’s a great dedicated area for McCafé on the McDonald’s Web site with some really quirky fun things,” Sofia Therios, director of marketing for McDonald’s USA told DMNews.com.

It is clear that more and more corporations are beginning to realize the value, and the tremendous impact of social media campaigns and strategies.

Cat Food: The Next Big Thing In Social Media Marketing?

Image via Wikipedia

As more businesses realize the value of interactive website
features and social media techniques, DelMonte, makers of Meow Mix cat food, has recently debuted a new interactive website and a game show to promote its new Wholesome Goodness line of cat food.

The website features interactive games called Cat Capades, which allows players to use their “house cat” instincts to overcome household obstacles and challenges.

“We know that cat parents feel a kinship with their cats,
and it’s not uncommon for them to ‘know”
what’s going on their heads—what they think and
feel,” Alison Olsson, account executive for Agency.com,
said in a recent email to DMNews. “We knew this would be
especially fun for cat lovers, because they are familiar with
many of the cat behaviors highlighted in the games.”

Social media strategies are being employed by many companies in
the hopes to reach an increasingly Internet savvy and Internet
based audience. Cereal companies, like General Mills, have
offerings similar to the Meow Mix Site, including an interactive
avatar-based town called Millsbury, which is designed to provide
a place for children to share avatars and items with other
Internet users in their demographics.

Based on trends in Internet usage and social media prevalence
and popularity, it isn’t a stretch to imagine the
websites of the future as increasingly more interactive and
geared toward specific interests and demographics.

How Effective Can Social Media Marketing Tactics Really Be?

Sites like isitdoneyet.gov which provide
consumers with proper meat cooking temperatures and tips are
becoming more prevalent as government officials have begun to
realize just how effective social media marketing tactics can
be.

“When you begin to work with government people on the
client side, you learn just how passionately they care about the
issues, and the limitations that they have.” Brian Herder,
president and executive creative director of Russell Herder, a
Minneapolis based firm specializing in government to public
marketing for state and local government agencies told
DMNews.com.

Some of the biggest obstacles to any government sponsored
commercial marketing campaigns include accountability and ROI,
both of which can be measured more easily when they are
Internet-based. While traditional commercial marketing
campaigns, which are television and ad-based, have been proven
to be effective, the role of the Internet in the lives of the
American public means that online advertising reaches a greater
audience than most traditional types.

Alan Minton, VP at Track Marketing, an Alexandria, VA based firm
specializing in work with federal agencies including the EPA,
the SSA, or Social Security Administration and The Department of
Justice, believes that direct marketing within these campaigns
is the key to their success.

“It’s not enough to say `we put out 20,000 brochures’
anymore,” says Minton. “The OMB (Office of
Management and Budget) requires measurements and agencies are
forced to show real outcomes.”

In addition to isitdoneyet.com, other successful government
sponsored campaigns to emply social media tactics include the
Minnesota Department of Health Teen Education Campaign, and the
Healthy Eating Campaign sponsored by the CDC.