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Linksharing, Hotlinking, and Rolling with the Bloggers

Tuesday, October 25th, 2011

Moderated by Jimmy Greenfield of Chicago Now, a Tribune-owned network of local bloggers, this panel featured four bloggers who spoke offline about the best ways to write, edit, and publish online. Kelly Ryan O’Brien of fashion blog Idols and Egos, Nikki Knepper of parenting blog Moms Who Drink and Swear, Julie DiCaro of sports blog A League of Her Own, and Andrew Huff of arts and culture blog Gapers Block all have one thing in common: they recall that the creation of their blogs was purely accidental. But more specifically, their blogs were created out of the necessity to address an issue that needed its own web address.

Huff said that he got the idea for Gaper’s Block, which now includes eight section editors and countless contributors, while writing a monthly newsletter to family and friends and realizing that there would inevitably always be stories he couldn’t squeeze into just one newsletter. DiCaro, on the other hand, realized she needed her own blog when she and her friends started getting flack for dominating the comments section of more traditional sports websites. Twitter led her to other women who were writing about sports; over 90 women have contributed to the blog since its founding in 2007.

DiCaro’s advice on styling a distinctive voice in your blog? Offer different kinds of content and coverage than that of the major online news outlets like ESPN, for example, when writing about sports. Otherwise, why would your audience choose your blog over ESPN if you’re covering sports exactly the same way? DiCaro’s other piece of advice for starting a blog: “Grow about five new layers of skin, particularly if you’re a woman and you’re blogging about sports.” If you can’t deal with it, she warned, then you should probably just be writing in your diary.

Nikki Knepper agreed that airing her opinions online occasionally went hand-in-hand with receiving nasty feedback and disturbing emails. But for Knepper, whose blog is published by Chicago Now, the perks of blogging outweigh the negatives. The staunchly anti-profit blogger likes to use her social media presence to promote other mom bloggers and charities in her community, rather than selling ad space on her webpage. “Your blog is jacked up with crap,” Knepper said of other bloggers who use their online presence to turn a profit.

Meanwhile, O’Brien said she didn’t have a problem with using sites like Commission Junction and Linkshare to make a commission from linking to a company or a product that she already liked and intended to blog about anyway.

While some bloggers disagreed about the legalities of hotlinking, (or linking to an image already in use by another website), they all agreed on the importance of building your audience by adding other blogs to your own blogroll and linking to other sites whenever possible. “Links are the currency of the web,” said Huff, while DiCaro echoed similar sentiments: “blogging is a collaboration, not a competition.”

-Jennifer Swann

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Posted in facebook, Publishing, SMW Chicago media coverage, SMWCHICAGO 2011, Social Media Week Chicago sponsor, Social Media Week Event Schedule

The Million Dollar Question

Friday, September 23rd, 2011

During Social Media: An Information Treasure Trove, our moderator, Amy Guth of the Chicago Tribune, kicked off the session with a fully loaded question: Why do we measure, what do we measure and how do we measure?  With only an hour and a half, my first thought was how are we ever going to get to the second question?  This is the million dollar question for any marketer exploring the social space.  As Justyn Howard, CEO of Sprout Social, pointed out, we would be surprised how many businesses don’t even have a benchmark to measure against and it’s probably because they don’t know where to start.

So, where do you start?  Patrick Rooney, EVP of Zócalo Group, says the first step is listening.  You need to get to know the landscape of your industry by understanding your audience, what they are talking about and where they are talking about it.  Knowing your market will be indicative of your success.

Then you need to determine what you are going to measure.  Just measuring everything is not the solution.  Chuck Hemann, VP of Digital Analytics at Edelman, shared that even at the enterprise level you can’t measure everything.  Your goal is going to be at least one of three things: make money, save money or make consumers happy.  What you track needs to help you prove one of these.  Understanding the objective of your program will help with this.

Among all of the metrics you can measure, the panel agreed there are some that are undervalued.  Content is one, Patrick suggests.  Listen to what your audience wants to hear about and take a closer look at your content mix.  Mandy Zaransky, Manager of Strategic Insights for the Chicago Tribune, says sentiment is undervalued.  Although most tools used to measure sentiment are not totally accurate, if done right, sentiment is a great indicator of how people feel about your brand or product over a period of time.

However, the most powerful statement made was from Chuck: primary research is not dead.  You should be surveying your fans and followers, as well as holding offline focus groups to learn from your consumers.  When someone tweets “I love your new line of gym shoes!” instead of just saying thank you, ask them why they like them?  What’s their favorite part?  Would they recommend them to a friend?  Use these engaged followers to gain some insight. When you couple primary research with social listening, Mandy says, you will get the best results.

Are there any social media metrics that you feel are undervalued?

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Posted in Engagement, facebook, SMWCHICAGO 2011, social networks

What’s the Big Idea?

Thursday, September 22nd, 2011

Reintroducing a brand to a new demographic is not exactly small peanuts. Companies spend millions of dollars researching, testing and launching campaigns like this. But Jennifer Lucente, New Media Manager for the Chicago Architecture Foundation, showed us sometimes all you need is a big idea and a Twitter account.

The Chicago Architecture Foundation, or CAF, was founded in 1966. The foundation hosts 85 tours around Chicago, all lead by 450 volunteer docents. You are probably thinking Wow! 85 tours? I had no idea. That’s exactly the problem Jennifer was facing. The CAF was only reaching seniors and, while Jennifer assured us this demographic is fantastic; she wanted to reach the younger audience as well. In what she calls a personal brainstorming session, Jennifer came up with the Around Chicago in 85 Tours Challenge.

Jennifer began her personal journey to complete all 85 tours the CAF offers in one year and broadcasted it to the world, or at least to her modest following on Twitter, Facebook and CAF blog. Without the help of a PR agency and no budget for advertising, her story was featured in publications like Crain’s, Business Week and Fast Company, all because of her genuine efforts on social media. People started to join her during tours and take on the challenge themselves. That year, the CAF had the best attendance and revenue in its history! Through her engagement with the community, Jennifer also helped increase their Twitter followers by 77% and Facebook Likes by almost 200%. The best part? Her total costs were around $300.

At the end of it all, Jennifer truly did see her name in lights. The historic Chicago Theatre offered to host a party celebrating the completion of the Around Chicago in 85 Tours Challenge and put Jennifer’s name, along with a congratulatory message, on the marquis.

So what’s going to be your big idea?

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Posted in facebook, SMWCHICAGO 2011, social networks, Uncategorized

3 Best Practices for Like-Gating Your Facebook Fan Page

Thursday, September 22nd, 2011

One of the many gripes about Facebook “like-gating” (i.e. requiring someone to like your Facebook page in order to see certain content) is that it’s considered the social media equivalent to link baiting. For many brands, this is exactly the case. But only offering up a one-time coupon or badass sweepstakes prize isn’t doing your brand any favors in the long run.

When Taco Bell offered up free tacos under its like-gate back in February, how much did the brand really benefit? Taco Bell gained 250,000 new fans, but it also had to shell out $.99 to $1.09 per taco. If only 30 percent activated the coupon, that’s a potential loss of $81,750. But here’s where it starts to add up. In addition to hard costs, consider the staffing and technology resources Taco Bell used to fulfill this campaign. And out of all Taco Bells’ new fans, how many were repeat customers?

Establishing long-lasting relationships with your brand’s Facebook community should be the ultimate goal. Why waste time and resources on a like-gating campaign if the costs don’t outweigh the benefits? Below are three best practices for like-gating your fan page without wasting your time or looking like an e-marketing asshole.

1) Avoid gimmicks. Stay true to your brand.

Like-gating shouldn’t just be about the numbers; it should be about engagement. You want to grab the attention of Facebook users who are truly interested in your brand and what it has to offer. This will pay off when your like-gating campaign is over. According to a study by ExactTarget and CoTweet, 26 percent of Facebook users said they only liked a company to take advantage of a one-time offer. To avoid this drop-off, consider offering up something that’s unique to your company. When the New Yorker like-gated its Facebook page, the magazine engaged readers with a special 12,000-word piece by frequent contributor Jonathan Franzen. According to Poynter’s Damon Kiesow, “the Franzen story was chosen because it represents the type of writing The New Yorker is known for. It is therefore likely to attract readers who will be interested in the magazine long-term.” Even if your campaign only attracts 5 new fans, it’s a win if those users are your brand’s target audience.

2) Strive for authenticity and exclusivity.

If the content you’re providing under the like-gate can be found somewhere else on the Web, what’s the point? To truly entice your audience, you’ve got to give fans something authentic and exclusive. This past April, Self magazine like-gated a live chat with cover girl Kim Kardashian. In doing so, Self was providing its fan base with an insider experience that they couldn’t get elsewhere. Jennifer Lopez did something similar when she asked users to like an upcoming single on her Facebook page. Once they liked the song, fans could download it from iTunes before the official release date. Only 2,000 Facebook users liked the tune—compared to Taco Bell’s 250,000 new fans—but I would argue that Jennifer Lopez’s likes were more valuable. These fans were seeking out something they couldn’t get anywhere else, unlike a $0.99 taco. The result: truly qualified leads.

3) Watch your post-campaign engagement.

An April study by Visibli found that overall engagement levels for brands and media companies decrease as the number of fans increase. Once your like-gate campaign is over, it’s important to keep your new (and old) fans engaged by sticking to best practices, some of which include:

  • Ask your fans a question or for their opinion when you post
  • Provide calls to action with polls, quizzes, fill in the blank posts, etc.
  • Clean up your posts by revising headlines and descriptions
  • Getting rid of clutter will make your posts standout in the news feed
  • Keep your posts simple

You’ll know the above best practices are working by monitoring your like rates, comment rates, and engagement rates at www.facebook.com/insights.

Here are some other ideas to consider from a recent Buddy Media analysis of Facebook pages from 100 of the world’s largest retail brands during a six-month period:

  • Posts made between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m. receive 20% more user engagement
  • Be sure to post on Wednesdays. Fan engagement is 8% above average
  • Posts with 80 characters or less receive 66% higher engagement
  • Fill in the blank posts receive 9 times more comments than other posts

In the end, knowing your audience and testing out ideas will win out over other brands’ tips and tricks. If you notice something’s not working on your like-gate, stop. If you want to try something different, do it. Just remember to back everything up with data, and most importantly, remain true to your brand. Your fans will thank you.

Posted in Engagement, facebook, SMWCHICAGO 2011

Are You Sure You Want to Know ROI?

Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

Demonstrating the return on investment, or ROI, for social media is a challenge every marketer faces.  But Scot Wheeler, Marketing Science Director, and Shaina Boone, VP of Marketing Science at Critical Mass, question whether ROI is what your senior management really wants to know.

ROI has almost become synonymous with value.  So is your CEO interested in the value of social media or the actual ROI?  It really depends on what they are willing to put into it in terms of time and budget.  If they truly are interested in the ROI, Critical Mass says there are three secrets to success:

1.  You have to have clearly defined business, marketing and consumer objectives

2. You need adoption, belief and trust in your objectives

3. You need to set targets and goals for your objective

Trying to measure ROI without clear objectives already set is quite literally a crapshoot.  Instead, use your first six months to a year on social media to monitor activity and set benchmarks.  This will help you estimate the returns you should expect moving forward.

As websites became more ubiquitous and necessary, people didn’t worry about proving their ROI.  Critical Mass hopes that as social media becomes a more mature channel, the same thing will occur.  If that doesn’t happen, Shaina jokes, you can easily talk someone out of wanting to know the ROI by showing them the process to find it.

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Posted in facebook, SMWCHICAGO 2011, social networks

Social and Successful by Design

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

During the panel session: When Integrated Marketing Met Social: Love at First Like, Brad Keown of Facebook introduced the idea of Social by Design.  We, as humans, are social by design and therefore, we expect our online experiences to be as well.  If the 65% of the 750 million Facebook users who log in daily are any indication of our desire to connect, then businesses should be taking this whole social media thing seriously.

Social by Design is the idea that adding a Like button to your homepage is not enough.  You have to strategically design all of your communication points (website, email campaigns, text messages, etc.) to be social. There are four guiding principles:

Build from the ground up

When writing your social business case, make sure the questions what can we give people that they will want to share? and what would make someone want to engage with us? are at the top of the list.  You have to understand your audience and know what they like.  Facebook’s data can give you insights into this and using a third party tool, like Techlightenment by Experian, can help you leverage this data.

Once you understand who your audience is and what they like, you need to figure out how they consume information.  Take some time to listen to conversations happening on social media.  Where are they taking place?  What are they talking about?  What is the sentiment of the conversation?  All of this will help when deciding how to make your website and other marketing communications more social.

People are at the center

Your audience, or people, should be at the center of your strategy.  Regina Gray, of CheetahMail by Experian, described 2010 as the year of the follow, but 2011 is the year of the relationship.  You may already have a Facebook or Twitter presence, and you may already have thousands of followers.  Now it’s time to start listening to what they saying and using data to segment your communication with them.  A great example Regina provided was a survey for Sears.  They asked people what they purchase from Sears and one option, among many, was clothing and another was none of the above.  Using data from Facebook, they could see people who purchase clothing from Sears Like Katy Perry, whereas people who do not purchase anything Like Lady Gaga.  If the marketing team at Sears is looking for a spokesperson for a back to school clothing campaign, they know they should look into Katy Perry and not Lady Gaga.  By listening to consumers and taking a deeper look into their interests, you can be more strategic and successful with your marketing communication.

Part of putting people at the center is labeling your key influencers.  Charlie Lee, of Techlightenment by Experian, discussed the software’s ability to create a leaderboard of key influencers on social media in relation to your brand,  product or keyword.  Take Joe Shmoe as an example.  Your CRM system may show that his purchasing history is not too impressive, so he is not showing up on any extra-special-gold-VIP list when he calls the support line.  But if you look at his influence on social media, he may have 2,500 followers on Twitter and mention your brand more than anyone else.  Regardless of whether he is buying your products regularly, he is influencing others who are considering your products.  Shouldn’t Joe be added to your extra-special list?

Lay in the social plumbing

Now it’s time to add social plugins to your site so you can track and monitor who is talking and what they are saying.  Facebook makes this very, as Brad Keown phrased it, simple.  For my fellow laymen, essentially Facebook provides a couple lines of code for your tech department to add to your website.  The addition of this code gives you the ability to track shares and see demographic information on those who visit your website and are simultaneously logged into Facebook.  If your target audience is teenagers, who spend 79% of their online time on social networks, you can probably collect some pretty useful information.

Make it easy and scalable

Amy Gibby, VP of Marketing for Redbox, discussed how they have made connecting with them on social media simple for consumers.  Part of this strategy, Amy describes, is understanding that social media can be practical, engaging and emotional.  Redbox connects with users on all three levels. By thinking of social media as an inherent part of what they do in marketing, it has easily been integrated into their communications.  She attributes their social media success to being strategic and lucky, but as Adweek’s third most social company, I have to think it’s a lot more strategy.

Technology is constantly advancing and, as marketers, we need to keep up.  The CEO of Netflix recently pointed out that companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly.  Keeping up with, understanding and embracing social media has become an essential part of having a successful marketing strategy.  Is your business social, and therefore, successful by design?

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Posted in facebook, SMW Chicago media coverage, SMWCHICAGO 2011, social networks

Is your marketing social by design?

Monday, September 19th, 2011

To get the most out of social media, brands need to get smarter about integrating social into mainstream marketing activities like email – and use social as a customer insight tool.

That’s the main take-away from a September 19 Social Media Week Chicago session, “When Integrated Marketing Met Social: Love at First Like,” held at the Tribune Tower.

Brad Keown of Facebook leads off the session by discussing how brands are using Facebook. He asserts that many marketers are not using Facebook the right way. All they’re doing is adding a “Like” button to their websites, or collecting Facebook fans without interacting with them in any meaningful way.

(more…)

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Posted in facebook, SMWCHICAGO 2011

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