CASA Marketing (Social Media Monitoring and Analytics)

Social media monitoring and analytics are two important tools to consider for social media marketing purposes. In short, social media monitoring revolves around initiating conversations and posting content to social media platforms. Most importantly, social media monitoring should involve social listening, that is, searching for feedback from customers. On the other hand, social analytics refers to the ability to measure performance metrics, such as likes or conversations.

Delving even further into this topic, social media monitoring and listening can be broken down into two components; owned media and earned media. Owned media relates to properties that you control, such as a personal Facebook or Twitter account. On the opposite side of the spectrum, earned media contains conversations or shares on a social media account that you do not control. In either facet, learning how to use tools like Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, or Radian 6 is an integral part of the social media monitoring experience.

An ideal time to utilize social media monitoring is during a time of social media crisis, similar to when Target suffered a data breach. During a fragile time like this, social media enables a company to respond to harsh situations that could potentially tarnish its image. This is especially true if a company does not have a Public Relations department, as social media allows messages and conversations to spread at an almost uncontrollable speed. Consequently, this can either positively or negatively a company's financial position in a specific industry depending on how its followers respond to a particular crisis.

Finally, social media monitoring is useful for a company when a customer complains about a product, raises a question, or wishes to engage in a conversation online. Overall, utilizing social media monitoring and listening truly helps improve customer service efforts for a business, which can also have an impact ROI as well.

MKTG 347: Hootsuite

Hootsuite is an excellent tool to utilize from a social media marketing perspective, as it allows users to post content simultaneously to multiple social media platforms at once.

With this idea in mind, I recently utilized Hootsuite to post a recent article I wrote for a fantasy football company, which is Dynasty Nerds.

To begin, I selected Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter as social media accounts that I wanted to post my article on:

After I composed a short preview of my article, I then proceeded to post it to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter directly from Hootsuite. The results are pictured below:

After using Hootsuite for the first time, I can personally admit that the service does an excellent job of simplifying the process of posting content on social media.

CASA Marketing (Hootsuite)

Can you imagine if there was a resource that allowed you to simultaneously post content to multiple social media sites? Well there actually is, and it can be done from a site called Hootsuite. Essentially, Hootsuite is a tool that enables users to manage social media accounts by developing and posting content to multiple platforms at the same time. For instance, if I worked for a social media company and wanted to promote a new service, I could theoretically use Hootsuite as a form of marketing to generate buzz for my company across Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter all at once. Although this may seem overwhelming at first, Hootsuite is an excellent tool to utilize from a business perspective. It is especially important as it relates to sustainability, particularly where content and return on investment are concerned.

If you have never used Hootsuite before, there are various ways to become familiar with the site and its abilities. Fortunately, Hootsuite has a free version that can be used as a test to determine if the site will work for a marketing campaign.

As as new user, Hootsuite's welcoming screen will look like this:

As you can see, the site appears to be very user-friendly. From its main page, Hootsuite allows users to sign in to various social media accounts or even create products/plans as a business. Due to the fact that Hootsuite can be rather intimidating to a new user, the site has an engaging help section that will surely guide you through any questions, including live webinars for those who enjoy a visual learning experience. In addition, more information can be learned at Hootsuite University, with video tutorials available on YouTube.

After you have pondered through Hootsuite and believe that you have a firm grasp on how to use the site, I recommend to then create an account. To begin, creating a free account should more than suffice. Once an account is created, Hootsuite will guide you through the process of adding social media networks to your account. After all of your accounts are connected to Hootusite, you will be able to post content simultaneously to social media platforms. The final step in the Hootsuite configuration process is to practice using the site's features in order to become familiar with navigating around the platform. Overall, Hootsuite is an important tool to gain an understanding of to develop a continuous stream of content that will deliver information about a product or service, with the ultimate goal of generating a return on investment from marketing efforts.

CASA Marketing (LinkedIn)

LinkedIn is an extremely useful social media outlet, especially for B2B (Business to Business) companies. From a B2B perspective, LinkedIn allows companies to target other businesses or organizations on a social media landscape. Yet, it also holds value for personal use, as it is a great resource to build a brand for yourself on. This can be accomplished by consistently updating your profile to showcase projects, talents, or work that is related to your area of expertise. From a B2C (Business to Consumer) perspective, LinkedIn is used for recruiting and posting available jobs. In either facet, LinkedIn offers various forms of ROI, but establishing a presence alone is half the battle.

I personally utilize LinkedIn as a job-hunting resource, as it a valuable tool for connecting with recruiters. However, it is even more appealing to businesses that create a LinkedIn page to develop and share content in order to earn credibility and generate ROI. A sound strategy for any company that is looking to establish a presence on social media is to begin using Hootsuite, in which all content can be posted simultaneously to Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Under this approach, a company can post all of its content on social media at once and appear reputable in the process by creating a consistent marketing campaign.

In terms of advertising on LinkedIn, it is arguable that running ads on the site is more costly than that of Facebook or Twitter. Hence, LinkedIn is best suited for building an online presence as a social media marketer or business professional.

As a form of self-promotion, the screenshot pictured below is from my LinkedIn profile. Feel free to connect with me if you're also interested in the field of marketing, particularly sports promotions.

Gerbil Liberation Front Activity

Today in class, I found the Gerbil Liberation Front activity to be rather interesting. To begin, I visited the GLF website, which is created off of a Google site. Outside of Wix, Google Sites are easily one of the best options to consider for developing a site for free. After visiting the website, I ventured on to its Facebook page to research more about what the Gerbil Liberation Front had to offer. I discovered that GLF is musical group formed by gerbils, whose genre blends between hip hop and metal.

Soon after visiting the GLF Facebook page, I continued to Zazzle, which is a online retailer that allows users to customize merchandise with unique designs. As a part of its social media marketing efforts, the Gerbil Liberation Front has a Zazzle account and enables its fans to purchase t shirts to support the group. The merchandise looks to be made of high-quality, as you can visualize in the picture below:

Finally, the Gerbil Liberation Front also utilizes mailchimp, which is a resource that can be used as a way to gain subscribers via an emailing list. I found mailchimp to be an ideal alternative to creating a Facebook page for a company, as it can be used as a channel to regularly distribute content to users or fans. Overall, I thought that the GLF class activity was very helpful, as I was able to learn about new social media marketing tools and resources, such as Zazzle and mailchimp.

CASA Marketing (Twitter)

In previous blog posts, I have looked at different social media channels, such as Facebook, to determine the likelihood of earning a return on investment. This week, I will focus on Twitter in particular, in order to see if it is a recommended channel for social media marketing.

Similar to Facebook, Twitter is one of the more popular social media channels for a brand to promote itself on. Although users may not have purchase intent while surfing through Twitter, it still stands as a major resource to advertise on. As a company or individual, Twitter allows you to promote ideas or topics, but you can only do so with a 140 character limit. This limitation makes it difficult to implement marketing strategies at times, but it is also advantageous in the sense that less information could appeal to a target audience that is overwhelmed with information overload from other social media sites. It is also important to note that Twitter is used extensively as a customer service outlet for companies, as it allows businesses to directly interact with customers for the general public to see, which can positively impact a company's image.

But how do you use social media marketing techniques on Twitter? That's a fair question, and I have an answer to it. A popular option is to promote a tweet, that is, pay Twitter to make a post appear in the feeds of other users. Sound familiar? It should, since Facebook has a similar business model for boosting content on its platform. Regularly posting on Twitter alone could return a profit on advertising efforts, but to effectively measure ROI it is necessary to analyze how many people actually make a purchase on a website after clicking a link from Twitter. As a result, consistently positing quality content on a social media platform like Twitter is critical to engage users and attempt to earn a return on investment from marketing efforts.

Since I have discussed multiple social media platforms to date through my blog post, I figured it would be relevant to discuss how often you should post to each channel. According to an article on buffersocial, there actually is a recommended amount of content to consider for each and every social media platform. For full details, be sure to read the article I provided a link to above. If you simply wish to see a brief overview of the article, please view the picture below as an insightful resource. As you will see, three posts to Twitter is widely viewed as a safe amount of content to publish on a daily basis, especially from a business perspective.

CASA Marketing (Skillbox: Content)

One of the most critical aspects of social media marketing is the ability to offer quality content to an end-user. In particular, the following three areas of content are of the most importance: curation, creation, and collaboration. From what I have read, curation is related to searching for content, including sharing, reviewing, and commenting on it in a social media landscape. For example, finding a YouTube video that is appealing to you and then consequently linking it to a social media platform can be considered a form of curation. Creation is the most unique form of content, as it gives you the freedom to create a blog post or write an article and post it on a social media medium. Finally, I learned that collaboration is creating content with other people, in order to develop a more polished finished product. Finding people with different skill-sets and allocating work is an ideal way to create quality content and combine resources.

Another important step in broadening your overall skills in relation to social media marketing is becoming familiar with Google and its corresponding tools. There are many ways to approach learning about Google's resources, including how each can make a positive impact for marketing on social media.

Please consider the following list of Google tools and resources as essential pieces to understand and utilize in order to become a successful social media marketer:

• Create a Google Account or Gmail Address
• Start a Blog (Use Blogger)
• Create a Free Website (Wordpress or Google Sites)
• Make/Edit Videos
• Become familiar with editing on YouTube
• Understand how to crop images (Use Picresize)
• Know how to take screenshots of images

Overall, I strongly believe that Blogger is one of the easiest ways to refine your social media marketing skills, while verbalizing knowledge and creating content in the process.

CASA Marketing (The Basics For Having Fun and Finding Work)

To begin the semester, I was introduced to the basics of social media marketing. In short, return on investment (ROI), engagement/public relations, and channels (Facebook and Twitter) stood out to me as being some of the most important aspects of marketing on a social media landscape.

Return On Investment, otherwise known as ROI, is simply the measurement used to see if a business or individual is earning money off of social media marketing. It is critical to monitor the funding of a social media campaign in order to determine if it is profitable or a waste of financial resources. In order to efficiently measure ROI, it is crucial to practice the skill regularly. Failure to do so will result in consequences, such as the inability to decipher if a particular social media marketing channel is a match for your brand or product. One way to interact with a social media channel in order to gauge its level of success is through engagement. While engaging with an audience, promotions and other forms of content will allow a business or individual to generate buzz, awareness, or attention. Essentially, engagement is a form of public relations in marketing, as interacting with a target audience enables a business to listen to its customers and simultaneously build relationships in the process. Finally, I believe it is important to understand the social media channels that are available to utilize to promote a business. Currently, Facebook and Twitter appear to be the most dependable platforms to market content on from a social media perspective. Overall, I believe that the material I have learned this week is extremely beneficial to know as a marketer, and could be useful to consider in order to find work in the future.

Other important introductory concepts to consider about social media marketing include:

• B2B and B2C marketing
• Monitoring (Radian 6 and Social Mentions)
• Posting
• Tools (Internal, Third Party)
• Things change!