Drill-down into your social activity

Following on from our July marketing seminar, last month we provided you with a blog dedicated to the importance of Google Analytics and what your business should be measuring. As promised, in this blog we delve deeper into the world of social analytics to provide you with additional tools to help you make sense of your social media presence.
Identifying social media ROI is a difficult task for any business.  We have seen a dramatic rise in the number of businesses using social media within their marketing mix over the last few years; however, many have jumped on the bandwagon with little consideration for the actual benefits to their business. Identifying ROI has been, for the most part, fairly elusive for marketers and business owners; provoking questions such as, ‘How do I know if social media activity will generate business?  Is this really an effective way to spend my time?’

In the past, a measurement of social media success was determined by the number of followers or ‘Likes’ generated through Facebook and Twitter. Many businesses struggled to see the bigger picture, often basing their decisions on assumptions, because defining a meaningful ROI was difficult. However, recent changes to Google Analytics have helped ensure marketers and businesses owners are now better informed about the impact of their social media activities on their website traffic, helping them establish how to spend their social media time and budget most effectively.

Google Analytics have taken their social analytics tools a step further with the intention of delivering the following information:

  • The full value of traffic to your website coming from social networking sites and the ability to measure how they lead to direct conversions or assist in future conversions.
  • What social activities are happening both on and off of your site to help you optimise user engagement and increase social key performance indicators (KPIs).
  • Make better, more efficient data-driven decisions in your social media marketing programs.

So how will the latest Google Analytics developments help businesses achieve the above?

New data is now available under the “Social” tab in Google Analytics, which includes:

Overview:

The overview report provides data from all the other social reports and contains a Social Value visualisation of how social networks contribute to website conversions.

Sources:

The Sources report shows the source activity based on social referrers. Google unifies different URLs that can be used to send traffic from one social network. For example, Twitter can send traffic from both twitter.com and t.co. Traffic from both sources are combined under the category of Twitter.

Pages:

This report highlights social activity per page, what happened on and off the site.

Conversions:

The Conversions data provides a quick view of which social sources drove conversions on the site.

Social Plugins:

Social Plugins is a summary of pages and the social activity that happened, such as clicking on a like, tweet or +1 button.

Social Visitors Flow:

Social Visitors Flow is a visual presentation of how visitors from social properties are navigating your website. Assuming the goal of your social media campaign is to get more traffic to your website, this report gives you insight into which social platforms are sending the most traffic to your site and what your social visitors are doing once they get there.

The reports available have the ability to drill-down further into data and reflect things like comments, shares or likes to help you identify successful social media campaigns and what works for your business.

At TLC Business, we believe measuring the ROI of any marketing activity is essential, the new tools from Google Analytics will help you perfect, tailor and manage your social media campaigns, helping you make the most your time.

Install, sign in and start measuring your Google Analytics today.

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A picture is worth a thousand words

Following on from our July marketing seminar, here is another top tip to more effective SME marketing. This month we highlight the growing trend in Quick Response (QR) codes.
Whilst the QR code debate rages on and we assess whether this is a passing fad or a marketing phenomenon, the last year has certainly proven that QR campaigns can work effectively for the larger brands. From Coca Cola to Tesco, more and more companies are adapting their marketing campaigns to take advantage of the latest technology and consumer engagement channels available.

So is it worthwhile for SMEs to jump on board the latest marketing bandwagon?

SMEs may feel that technology such as QR codes is best left to bigger firms, with more resources and a deeper understanding of how it works. However, with QR codes, this is simply not the case; they can benefit the marketing of organisations of all sizes.

A QR code is a marketing tool that can help drive consumers to specific content of your choosing, such as a landing pages on your website, contact details or competition entry forms.  QR codes are cheap and easy to generate online. All your prospect needs to access them is a smart phone. Studies from 2011 indicate that businesses were reluctant to introduce QR codes, with only 8% of businesses thinking that QR codes were worthwhile; however, in 2012 the numbers changed significantly, with 47% of businesses declaring that their brand would benefit from introducing QR codes into their marketing, due to the rise in smart phone adoption amongst consumers.

How can my business use QR codes?

QR codes are currently dominating the consumer market, from packaging, magazine adverts, bus stops and billboards, the list is endless.

Tesco in South Korea is a great example of a forward thinking QR campaigns. In order to help save time, Tesco found a clever way to bring the grocery store to the consumer. Tesco launched a QR code campaign that plastered enormous images of food items on to South Korean subway walls. These images came with a QR code and allowed consumers to scan individual food items to be loaded in their virtual shopping cart. Once they finished their checkout, their order was processed and delivered to the consumer’s doorstep.

If you were at the Olympics this year, you may have noticed that QR codes were sitting right at the centre of mobile engagement during the 2012 games, linking supporters to Olympic action, promotions, merchandise and information.

Before and throughout the Olympics, Southwest trains used QR codes to help their customers plan their journey in a timely fashion, so the passenger could avoid any confusion during the games.

QR codes are not just for the big players. QR campaigns can be used in various ways within an SME environment, from business cards and adverts to direct mail and merchandise.  QR codes are a cheap, effective addition to many marketing campaigns and can be used to increase the effectiveness and measurability of campaigns. Common ideas include:

“Scan this product to download a recipe straight to your phone”

“Scan to ‘Like’ us on Facebook and get 20% off this purchase!”

“Scan to enter our latest competition”

Like any marketing activity, it is essential to have a campaign strategy in place, offering something special or unique. You need to understand your target audience, have a clear objective in mind and most importantly, provide valuable information to encourage the user to interact with your brand.

Businesses should always measure the results from any marketing campaign, QR codes included.  Did your website receive more traffic? Did the campaign generate more sales, Twitter followers or ‘Likes’ on Facebook? Whilst trying out the latest marketing trend can be fun, ultimately the campaign needs to generate results for your business.

To create your free QR code today, click here.

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Top Marketing Tips September 2012

  1. A tool to help you expand your Google+ following. Use Find People On Plus to search for individuals and companies using Google+.
  2. Followerwonk helps you explore and grow your social graph. Dig deeper into Twitter analytics: Who are your followers? Where are they located? When do they tweet?
  3. Removeem, a tool for identifying which backlinks are hampering your SEO efforts.
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Top Marketing Tips – October 2012

  1. Pheed is the latest social media platform to come on the scene. It offers the standard sharing features, such as text, photos and videos. However, they have decided to differentiate their offering by including new features like voice notes, audio clips and crucially, live broadcasting. It also offers a unique way for users to generate income from their content. They do this by enabling account holders to charge monthly subscription fees to access their content or set up pay per view features. Will it take off? We think it is unlikely, but it does offer small businesses an interesting platform to showcase content.
  2. Google have realised their newest tool that allows website owners to “disavow” low quality links that might be reducing their PageRank. The function has been added toWebmaster Tools. It comes with the warning though; “only to be used with caution”. The main purpose of the Disavow Link tool is to stop low-quality spam links negatively impacting on the search rankings of your website.
  3. If you organise events, seminars or meetings, Doodle could be just the tool you’ve been looking for. It is a free online scheduling tool that enables users to identify a date and time to meet multiple people, which is convenient for all.
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An insight into Britain’s coolest brand

Last month, CoolBrands released a list of what they described as an electric collection of some of the coolest brands in Britain.  Since 2001, CoolBrands have been canvasing the opinions of consumers and industry insiders about the coolest products, places and people in the UK; ranking brands on their originality, authenticity, desirability, uniqueness, style and innovation.
CoolBrands, with the help of 3,000 voters and their expert panel, crowned tech giant Apple as the winner, beating car maker Aston Martin to the top spot for the first time in six years.  Unlike previous years, almost half of the list is made up of technology and media brands, with a record number of online brands featured in the top 20.

“It is interesting that in this age of austerity, our perception of cool has increasingly shifted from aspirational, luxury brands to free or more affordable brands that provide us with pleasure,” said Stephen Cheliotis, chairman of the CoolBrands expert council.

So what makes Apple a cool brand? How can we learn from this organisation and how have they been responsible for the shift in consumer behaviour and what we consider as ‘cool’?

January 1977, Apple’s advisor Mike Markkula, assembled a 3-point marketing philosophy. After thirty-five years, this philosophy remains

  1. Empathy – We will truly understand their (customer) needs better than any other company.
  2. Focus – In order to do a good job of the things we decide to do, we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities.
  3. Impute – People DO judge a book by its cover. We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software, etc.; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities.

Apple is aware that customers may be limited to thinking only in terms of what they know, instead of what is possible. Apple thinks about the customer experience more deeply than the customer could. For any product that Apple creates, the people who create it have to want it themselves.  The engineers make them for themselves and the end product has to be something that they personally couldn’t live without.

Apple understands that whatever product they create, their consumer may need hand holding.  When you go into an Apple store and are greeted by one of the sales staff, you’re not asked, “How can I help you?” Instead they ask, “What would you like to do today?” They go straight to the heart of the consumer’s question, a question that’s always related to what they want to do with the technology, not about the technology itself.

 While beautiful design is a critical component of any product Apple makes, but if it is not easy to use, it is considered worthless to the consumer. As technology has become more intricate and users want more features, the task of keeping things simple is sometimes difficult. It’s often rare to find a company creating something where ease of use is more important than the product itself. Apple makes this a critical goal when creating anything for the market.

The replication of these core values in your organisation may seem daunting. Apple are a global corporation, renowned for delivering great software, industrial design and powerful content; such as apps and services. However, knowing your consumer, developing your product and providing great service are all key factors any business of any size can implement.  By sticking to their core values and devising a business model that creates ongoing customer value, Apple has been able to directly influence what we as a society consider ‘cool’. Importantly, aspirationally, Apple’s products are attainable for most aspects of society. 55% of the UK population are now predicted to own and use a Smartphone, what percentage of the population own an Aston Martin?

The full list of this year’s Top 20 ‘coolest’ brands is below:

  1. Apple
  2. YouTube
  3. Aston Martin
  4. Twitter
  5. Google
  6. BBC iPlayer
  7. Glastonbury
  8. Virgin Atlantic
  9. Bang & Olufsen
  10. Liberty
  11. Sony
  12. Bose
  13. Haagen-Dazs
  14. Selfridges
  15. Ben & Jerry’s
  16. Mercedes-Benz
  17. Vogue
  18. Skype
  19. Nike
  20. Nikon

Who’s on your list for 2013?

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‘CamKids’ Update

Sreylim-1You may already know that TLC Business supports ‘CamKids’, The Cambodian Children’s Charity. In 2010, TLC Business decided too help the charity further by sponsoring a young girl called Sreylim. Unfortunately, Sreylim’s parents are too poor to support her and her brother Chanrith and they were deemed to be at risk, therefore, Social Services decided that it was in their best interests to live in the children’s village created by ‘CamKids’.
Our sponsorship not only provides food, education and clothes for Sreylim, but also lets her enjoy activities such as, swimming, sport and music….things we often take for granted.

We have received an update from ‘CamKids’ and we’re really pleased to hear that Sreylim recently completed grade 6, finishing near the top of her class in every subject.

To read more about Sreylim, life in the village and her progress, click here.

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Top Marketing Tips – November 2012

1. Instagram Web ProfileInstagram is about to launch a web based profile for its users. This will allow Instagram users to directly edit and create pictures through their PC and laptops rather than through a mobile phone. Instagram released an official statement through their blog post on Monday: “You’ve asked for Instagram on the web and we’ve listened, over the next few days, we’ll be rolling out Instagram profiles on the web.”
The Web based profile is set to look similar to the current Facebook profiles; however, one of the major differences is the design layout. Instagram’s web profile will also allow you to use more than just one picture as your cover photo; it also updates itself on a regular basis, once you have taken a picture and uploaded it through your mobile it will automatically be updated on the web profile. To set up your web profile click here http://instagram.com/

 

2. GIMP – The GNU Image Manipulation Program
Want to edit images but don’t want the expense of Adobe Photoshop? GIMP is an open source (
and therefore free) image management program. It is great for tasks like:

  • Photo retouching
  • Image composition
  • Image authoring
  • To find out more and to download it, click here.

3. LinkedIn Company Profiles
LinkedIn have finally listened to users about the social media site’s company page feature. For so long, users have been unable to make their company’s profile page more attractive. LinkedIn have finally rectified this with the addition of functionality that allows you to add a cover photo to a company page. If you haven’t updated yours, take a look today athttp://www.linkedin.com/

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The Marketing Week that Was – Obama, Apple & John Lewis

Obama’s Presidential Social Media Campaign – 2008 vs. 2012As Barack Obama celebrates another four years in the White House, a recent staudy by Cognitive Match looked at the numbers behind Obama’s latest campaign, and how his social media influence has changed since 2008. Two areas that the study focused on were: social media between 2008 and 2012 and how online costs have increased.

  • Number of Likes on Facebook = 2.3 million in 2008 → 32.1 million in 2012.
  • Number of Twitter Followers = 112.4K in 2008 → 21.9 million in
  • Online advertising spent = $16 million in 2008 → $52 million in 2012.

Obama’s tweet “Four more years” has also become the world’s most popular tweet with over 780,000 retweets.

John Lewis get a social media boost from their Christmas Ad

With Christmas fast approaching, retailers across the country have been releasing their festive TV adverts, and one advert in particular has been a huge hit on social media sites. John Lewis’ Christmas offering, ‘The Journey’, which follows a snowman on a journey to buy matching red gloves and a scarf for his ‘snowwoman’, has received 6,790 likes and 1,340 shares on Facebook so far, since its launch on the 10th November. According to the retailer the advert was trending on Twitter with more than 89,000 mentions, and had received over 1 million views on YouTube.In case you missed it, you can take a look here.

Is Apple’s halo finally starting to slip?

With 2012 drawing to a close and Apple once again finishing the year ahead of its competitors, new research from Harris Interactive identifies several worrying factors for Apple, which suggest the gap between Apple and its competitors may reduce in 2013. According to the research, the margin of Apple’s lead over Samsung in tablets has reduced from a 6:1 ratio among all consumers, to 3:1 among those consumers who buy brand new technology as soon as it hits the market. The research also claims that the margin of Apple’s lead over Samsung is even smaller among younger audiences aged 16-24, which begs the question, are younger audiences becoming disillusioned with Apple? What do you think?

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Don’t delay – review your marketing straight away

As the end of the year approaches, businesses need to take the time to look at how they are going to improve their marketing’s effectiveness and grow their business in the coming year.
What tools are you currently using for business growth? Are you reviewing their success? Are your campaigns actually generating your organisation new business?

No matter how brilliant, creative and unique a marketing strategy may seem to be, if it doesn’t generate results and return on investment, something needs to change.  Now is the time to go back to basics and simply look at what worked and what didn’t in 2012.

So where do you start? How do you review your marketing and what should you be looking for?

For any marketing campaign you undertake, analysis should be a vital part of your plan. If you have missed this step, or you are unsure what you should be reviewing, take a look at our 3 top tips for reviewing marketing effectiveness.

 

Email marketing – don’t ignore the data:

Many businesses understand the importance of sending out emails to their database, whether it be a monthly e-newsletter, or the occasional special offer.  A company invests time and resources into creating campaigns, but few measure the end result effectively.

There are many email software packages available to businesses, two of the biggest are Mail Chimp and Campaign Monitor. They allow you to review in-depth results generated from your emails, including open and click-through rates. The results are key to determining if your campaigns are effectively engaging with your database. An open rate indicates the percentage of people who opened your email, whilst a click through rate measures how many people actively clicked on a link and engaged with your communication.

The subject line and email address will influence the open rate most significantly.

The click through data reflects the level of engagement in your email. It shows exactly what information people are interested in. If you’re writing about multiple topics in a newsletter, click-through information can be used to determine which topics are of most interest to readers. Are the same people reading your emails each week, if so, are you following up the email with a telephone call?

Use you results to establish trends. Look at what time of day your emails are sent and what subject lines you include. Does your email include a hook?

 

Social media isn’t just for show – measure your engagement 

Like any marketing activity, in order for your social media activities and goals to be achieved, you need to put together your company’s social media strategy. Your strategy is just like your business plan; it enables you to define your social media goals and future objectives.

It is important to review the social media channels you currently use. What platforms are popular amongst your target audience and what content is worth ‘tweeting’?   In the past, a measurement of social media success was determined by the number of followers or ‘Likes’ generated through Facebook and Twitter. Google Analytics have taken their social analytics tools a step further, enabling you to drill down and measure the full value of traffic to your website coming from social networking sites. Follower engagement is also an import metric. How engaged are you with your social network? Is your content being retweeted? Are you interacting with your network?

The world of social media is constantly changing, what was popular last year isn’t necessarily relevant this year , stay on top of the trends and engage with your target audience effectively. There are many social media analytic tools out there. Some are free; take a look at Hootsuite’s free in-built analytics function or Topsy for instant social media insights.

 

Website – analyse your traffic

We can’t stress enough the importance of reviewing your website analytics. Google Analytics is one of the most powerful tools out there for businesses, providing a wealth of insight and data into the performance of your website and marketing overall. It is invaluable for monitoring and analysing traffic, allowing you to evaluate both on and offline marketing campaigns. Simply installing analytics won’t give you the results you need; value is only gained when that data is used to drive action to improve your site.

The volume of results available can be daunting; however, if you break down the data into more manageable chunks, like: traffic, bounce rate, visitor flow and keywords, you can start measuring your performance more effectively.

For more guidance on what you should be measuring with your Google Analytics, click here.

 

No matter what marketing activity you undertake, return on investment is vital.  When reviewing your marketing you need to consider every element of your campaign, from data and content through to execution and evaluation.  Reviewing your marketing each year can be the difference between having an ok year and a great one. If you have failed to generate enquiries from an advert, email or campaign, something needs to change. Start reviewing today and make use of your findings….don’t ignore the data.

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In case you missed it – Key ‘B2B Buying Behaviour’ Survey Findings

Each year, BaseOne commission a ‘B2B Buyers Behaviour’ Survey exploring key themes and channels used by B2B organisation buyers to purchase services and products. Here is a quick summary of the key findings in 2012’s report. Enjoy!
What are the top 5 channels used by buyers to get information when purchasing a product or service?

  1. Web searches – 71%
  2. Word of mouth – 56%
  3. Online community sites – 12%
  4. LinkedIn – 10%
  5. Facebook – 5%

Clearly have a user-friendly and highly visible website is key when marketing to the B2B sector but one should not underestimate the growing influence of social media, so often presented as a more B2B-friendly medium.

Which information channels were deemed to be most useful when making a purchasing decision?

  1. Word of mouth
  2. Web searches
  3. Online community sites

As you might expect, word-of-mouth is the most useful means of getting meaningful information, helpful to the decision making process.

What type of information do buyers regard as helpful when making a purchasing decision?

  1. Visited supplier websites – 73%
  2. Articles and info found in industry press – 47%
  3. Relevant supplier emails – 39%
  4. Relevant press advertising – 20%
  5. Direct mail – 19%

How do buyers here about information sources?

  • Most whitepapers and webinars / videos are found through web searches
  • Most seminars are found out about through supplier emails
  • Most blogs are found via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn

Key changes in channel usage since 2011

  • The usage and importance of supplier websites, word of mouth, web searches and industry press has all increased in the last 12 months.
  • The usage and importance of press advertising, direct mail, online events / webinars, blogs, Facebook and Twitter have all decreased in the last 12 months.
  • The sharpest decline has been in press advertising, direct mail and Facebook.
  • The biggest increase in importance has been around word of mouth.

Social media usage by age

  • 49% of buyers under 30 years of age use social media for information and advice
  • 26% of buyers between 31 and 40 years of age use social media for advice and information.
  • 23% of buyers between 41 and 50 years of age use social media for information and advice.
  • 13% of buyers beween 51 and 60 years of age use social media for advice and information.

What age are the buyers in your target segments? Having this knowledge could be the difference between an effective social media marketing campaign and a costly one.

Which channel / source is most useful at each stage of the buying process?

  1. Identifying the problem and need – Whitepapers
  2. Identifying potential suppliers – Web searches and LinkedIn, with supplier websites and word of mouth just behind
  3. Supplier selection – Twitter and supplier emails

Hope this has given you some food for thought and will prove helpful in your marketing planning for 2013!

To download the full report click ‘Buyersphere 2012 Report‘.

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