ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT ESSENTIALS FOR SEO AND SOCIAL MEDIA
What do your customers think of you? If you’re at all unclear or otherwise uncomfortable with the answer, your business could be suffering because of it.
Fortunately, there is a proactive way you can take part in the conversation: Online Reputation Management (ORM).
It’s a strategy that generally involves actively engaging with both the material in Google search engine results page (SERP) and online reviews/feedback about your brand. Just how important is your online reputation management strategy?
According to BrightLocal, “85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.”
So, how do you shape your online reputation management through SEO and social? Get your crash course up ahead.
The Big 4
When it comes to ORM, there are four major players. A complete online reputation management strategy will, at a minimum, involve these four digital marketing channels.
· Media mentions
· Paid media
· Social media
· Your domains
Let’s start from the beginning.
Sometimes you get lucky and a big (or small) media outlet drops your brand’s name in an article. That’s great! In the biz, we call this earned media. Because of its ability to positively and immediately impact your rank, it is among the most highly coveted of all ORM efforts. Some companies find that working with a public relations or digital marketing firm can help them secure more of these valuable placements.
More and more, businesses are turning to paid media in the form of PPC campaigns and sponsored posts on social media and influencer accounts. It’s a great way to get your name out there, but then it’s up to you to continue growing and forging those new relationships.
Don’t neglect your social media accounts either. They’re a direct reflection of your brand and implore potential customers to interact with you online. As a general rule: the more actively you monitor them and engage with your audience, the more effective they’ll be.
Finally, whether you’re focused on your website(s) or blogging platform(s), realize that they’re pillars of building a strong online presence. You have control. Use it wisely.
Online Reputation Management Tools
Now that you know where to focus your efforts, let’s shift gears to how you can successfully gauge the effectiveness of those efforts.
Google Alerts is a great place to start.
If you do nothing else, at least set up an alert so you know when anyone publishes content that mentions your brand. You can use the same function to keep tabs on your competitors as well as relevant current events or news as it relates to your industry.
Quick pro tip: Make a note of any especially active journalists or bloggers who might be interested in receiving a pitch about your products or services!
Setting up the alert is easy.
Simply pick your keyword(s) and populate the frequency of email notifications you wish to receive. If you have a preference about which type of content you get sent (blogs, videos, news sites, etc) you can add those specifications, too. If you’re trying to improve your local SEO or reputation there’s also a field for you to specify your geographic location.
It’s a free solution that ensures you never miss an opportunity to re-post the nice things being said about you or respond when the feedback isn’t so great.
Other ORM tools we like include:
· Social mention – a social media monitoring tool.
· SentiOne – for insights about what people are saying about your brand.
· Reputology – a review management platform that lets you monitor reviews for each individual location of your business.
· Meltwater – a media monitoring tool that helps you do far more than organize your press clippings.
Ready to take your reputation into your own hands? You don’t have to go it alone. Let us help put your good name on everyone’s lips! Start chatting with an account specialist here.
HOW TO SECURE SOCIAL MEDIA BRAND AMBASSADORS
Brand ambassadorship is the new celebrity endorsement. Today’s social media influencers are the movie stars of the internet, and with thousands or millions of followers hanging on their every post, they’re a potent marketing outlet.
You may have many reasons for aligning your business with a social media brand ambassador. Perhaps you’re looking to increase your sales. Maybe your branding strategy is all about boosting brand recognition among millennials.
In any event, joining forces with social media influencers and ambassadors can elevate your brand awareness and boost your reputation as well as your bottom line. But first, you have to secure them. Here’s how.
Types of Social Media Brand Ambassadors
Brand ambassadors are creatives who post content that elevates your brand. Be it in videos, a mention in their stories, review of your product, or promotion, the goal is to get more eyes on your brand and help you tap new segments of your target audience.
For the purposes of this piece we’ll cover two main types.
The first is known as a social media influencer. These are typically users who have collected an impressive number of followers. In recent years, influencer marketing has become big business, and it can be easy to be dazzled by large follower counts.
The truth is, almost anyone can be a brand ambassador. That is, so long as they’re actively engaging with your target audience (and vice versa). Don’t underestimate the power of a small but captivated audience.
Which brings us to our next type of ambassador: your employees.
Think about it. You have this arsenal of people who are already loyal to your brand. Most of them come with a well-established audience of followers who are already invested in the content they share. If you’re not already leveraging your employees as brand ambassadors you’re missing out on a huge untapped market.
How to On-Board Brand Ambassadors
Ok, we promised you a how-to and we aim to deliver.
Before making the ask you’ll want to review their follower demographics and make sure they match your specified target audience. If all seems like a fit, reach out online or via email.
Once on board you’ll want to make sure they’re genuinely excited about your brand and give them as much context as possible. This means background about your company, your core values, campaign goals, product specifics, etc. The more familiar they are the better.
You also need to make sure you discuss in detail how they’ll represent your brand. Have a contract in place that specifies the duration or number of posts with a clause that you’ll reexamine your working relationship after reviewing the results of the campaign. Also, state any content they post is subject to approval and designate an individual on your team to give the all clear.
When working with employee brand ambassadors it works a little different.
Sure, you could just throw out a blanketed catch all requesting employees to share about an achievement or company update. However, you’ll be much more effective if you:
1. Make a direct request.
Keep a close eye on your staff to determine which have the most outgoing, gregarious personalities. They’re likely to have a similar social media presence. The more seen you make them feel, the more likely they are to want to share on behalf of the brand.
2. Incentivize your employees.
A little employee recognition can go a long way. Staying attuned to their needs at and outside work can help increase their advocacy. Whether you’re inspiring via friendly competition or everyone’s favorite, paid time off, be sure to compensate and recognize their efforts.
3. Create company–wide hashtags.
The more clever and creative they are, the more likely your employees are to use them.
4. Invite their feedback.
Everyone likes to feel seen and heard. Let your employees know you want their buy-in by inviting their feedback. You may be surprised to hear new channel recommendations or marketing ideas that you hadn’t previously thought of!
Remember, the goal of any effective social media partnership is to build an enthusiastic community that actively engages with your brand. Influencers and ambassadors are like a direct line to potential customers. Approach them right and you’ll all but secure more sales for your brand.
Want us to sweet-talk them for you? Simply make contact.
How To Gain Customer Attention With A Business Youtube Channel
One billion hours. That’s how long we collectively spend consuming content on YouTube every day. The only statistic that rivals it? The 1.8 billion total monthly users that login to watch – that’s a quarter of the world’s entire population! What’s more, when it comes to reaching 18-49-year-olds, YouTube outpaces every other major cable network in the U.S. and 85% of American teens use it, too.
Whether these stats were old news or news to you, they’re undeniably compelling.
Have you been considering starting a business YouTube channel? Grab some popcorn and settle into your director’s chair as we show you how you can use it to capture the attention of your key consumer.
Getting Started
Google bought the video content site back in 2006, and since then the two have functioned as a unit.
Already have an existing Google account? You can easily use it to create your YouTube channel. If not, you can start a YouTube page from scratch and a Google account will be automatically set up for you as a result.
Let’s assume you already have at least a Gmail account set up. Time to create your YouTube business channel.
- Go to YouTube and sign in.
- Take your cursor up to the top right of the screen and click your user icon.
- Access the small gear icon to bring up your YouTube Settings.
- Select the option to create a new channel.
- Choose “Use a business or other name.”
- Enter your Brand name.
- Click create then start creating!
Be sure to fill out the ‘about’ section fully. Remember that since YouTube is a Google product, the more keyword rich your copy is, the more likely it will be to show up in search results. Remember, you can link out to your website and other social media channels, too.
Don’t ignore the cover photo either. This banner is prime real estate for branding – like a virtual billboard for your business.
Suggested Video Content to Upload
Just like any good content marketing strategy, the videos you upload after starting a YouTube channel for your business should cover various aspects of your brand.
Keep in mind that many users turn to YouTube as a source of education, not just entertainment. Whether they’re looking to learn how to make a killer casserole or change a flat tire, they are accustomed to learning a lot of the time.
Use this to your advantage! Have some knowledge base you’d like to share with your customers? Instead of writing a blog post or investing in online advertising like PPC campaigns, show them the best ways to make home repairs or build a brand on social media via vid. The more step-by-step instructions you can give, the better.
Your brand might also consider showcasing:
Product videos. Do your wares require some assembly? The more complex your product, the more you want to encourage your customers to understand the full breadth and depth of its benefits. Upload tutorials, how it’s made videos, and any influencer engagement.
Reviews and testimonials. No doubt your brand is well loved and respected. Make sure potential customers and YouTube viewers know it, too. Uploading video testimonials is a no-brainer. Whether they’re reviewing your products on-screen or singing your praises in person, it’s sure to leave a lasting impression.
Brand identity. From your brand story to behind the scenes footage of your day-to-day dealings, videos are a fantastic way to intro the people behind your products and services. Try telling the tale of how and why your business came into being. Endeavor to participate in charitable works? Share those too. You can even give a virtual tour of your office, warehouse, or production factory – anything that helps humanize your brand.
Whichever combination you choose, make sure you’re creating content that aligns with your business’ target demographic. It’ll entice them to do a little deeper dive into your brand.
Optimize YouTube Videos for SEO
So, you’ve started a YouTube account for your brand. That’s great! You’ve created some clever content and uploaded it to your channel. Next, you have to implement a few easy SEO steps to ensure it gets seen.
Similar to the SEO strategy for your site, take the time to complete each section’s back-end parameters. Start by checking that you optimized the video’s title, description, and tags. They’re essential for drumming up discovery by user and search engine alike. Take your time and ensure each video is supported by keyword rich descriptions and carefully copyedited so as not to hurt your credibility.
Ideally, your goal should be to rank high in Google’s SERP as well as YouTube searches. Though the prior owns the latter, you’ll ideally want to turn up first in both.
Feel like your business’ YouTube channel will a little help getting noticed? Our video and SEO experts can help get the camera rolling.
PINTEREST FOR DADS
When most people consider the social media platform Pinterest, they typically think of a decidedly female demographic. And that’s not unreasonable; the majority of Pinterest users are, in fact, women. But interestingly enough, Pinterest has reported that around 42% of American dads use the site, as well.
In today’s video, we’ll explore this surprising statistic. Spoiler alert: it can be attributed primarily to the fact that more and more millennial guys are becoming fathers. Men of that generation are typically more involved with child-rearing and housekeeping duties than their progenitors, necessitating the need (and desire) for research in these areas. Pinterest-savvy dads often search for many of the same things that their wives, girlfriends, and other female peers do: cooking techniques, cleaning tips, and DIY Instructables. A father may not be particularly interested in creating a cutesy scrapbook or assembling centerpieces for a garden party, but he might be intrigued by instructions for building a child-sized playhouse or a recipe for a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner.
The bottom line? Don’t assume that you should completely discount Pinterest as an effective marketing platform just because your product or service is aimed at men. You may wind up denying yourself access to a significant number of “dear old dads” that would be very interested in what you have to offer.
HASHTAG HACKS TO BOOST YOUR BRAND’S SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Gone are the days when a good old-fashioned number sign was recognized as anything but the almighty hashtag. Now, add those two vertical and two horizontal lines in front of any word and it creates an online filing system that makes the term or phrase both searchable and discoverable across the web.
It’s so effective that posts which employ hashtags get 70% more likes than those without, according to a study by Agorapulse.
However, hashtag strategies are one part science and one part art. They’re situationally dependent, changing based on both the type of content you’re sharing and the platform that houses it. What’s more, haphazard hashtagging is a quick way to confuse your customers and can even turn them away from your brand.
Want to bolster your social media marketing? Effective hashtags help new target audiences discover your content and connect with your brand? These hacks will help.
Hashtag Research
Researching hashtags is not altogether dissimilar to keyword research. Both require some specificity and knowledge of the niche. They also involve coming up with multiple iterations of the same word or phrase to cover all bases.
For instance, if you know #creativeagency is a fit, you might also try couplings like #agencylife #creativesBTS #agentsoftheagency that have similar terminology but can make contact with different audiences. They each have their own unique online traction but ultimately support and boost your cause. The more combos you can craft, the better.
We recommend researching a tag in Instagram, then looking to see what other hashtags that top posts are using. You can also use the search box drop-down list to see what similar hashtags populate when you start typing #keywords.
As you might expect, there are entire companies whose sole purpose is devoted to discovering trending and popular hashtags. Besides looking on other social media channels like Twitter, Google Plus, and Facebook, you can also visit monitoring analytics sites like:
- Hashtags.org
- Trendsmap
- Hashtagify.me
- RiteTag
- Hashtag Etiquette
Different social media channels require different content strategies to trigger the most engagement with your posts. Some are short form, some long, and the same is true when it comes to the corresponding hashtags.
Though all of them technically allow up to 30 tags per post, here’s how we recommend you structure them for each platform:
- Twitter – With only 140-280 characters, you’re limited in what you can say. A concentrated approach is always best. Focus first on your key messaging and if you’ve said all you need to with no room left for #’s, that’s a-ok. Well-written content will expose itself, with or without the hashtags. If you do have room for some hashtags though, make sure you’re selective. We’re talking one to three max. Weighing down your tweet with too many tags may make it too heavy to fly.
- Facebook – FB was a little late to the hashtag party, and still isn’t huge on them. Still, if you know how to work their system, they can still be an effective means of exposure. Though you’re not limited by character count, #too #many #hashtags #can #clutter #your #copy. Think brevity, relevancy, and intentionality.
- Instagram – The ‘gram is a totally different ballgame. We’re pro maxing out your hashtag limit since there’s a generous 2200 character limit and clever ways to disguise your tags within the post itself. Include your collection as one of the comments or by housing them below your post copy with a string of vertical ellipses.
.
.
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#so #it #will #look #something #like #this
And speaking of Instagram…
Did you Know?
- Hashtags have now been deemed clickable from your profile! Adding them to your intro could be a good traffic tactic.
- Users can follow entire hashtag streams! Anything that piques their interest is fair game. When they follow a particular topic, content that correlates will populate their feeds anytime a post uses the specified hashtag.
- You can even include linkable hashtags in your Instagram Stories! There’s a sticker expressly designed for this purpose. When a follower clicks it, they’ll be transported to the hashtag’s feed, same as they are when clicking directly from a post in your main IG page.
Types of Hashtags
Here’s where we do some hashtag heavy lifting. These various varieties allow you to craft your own personal hashtag strategy. Use some, all, or a combination to help you meet the masses.
#BrandedHashtags – They create a direct line to user-generated content that aligns with your brand and are great at generating awareness. Ex: #GlobeRunnerRockets
#LocationTags – So much of a good SEO strategy is based on incorporating your location. Your products and services are likely to have great appeal with local audiences. That is, if they know how to find them. For example, if you run a pet supply shop in North Texas #dallasdogs could be a nice addition to your posts.
#PromoHashtags – Hosting a contest or giveaway? You’ll need entries to enter. Hashtags like #contestalert and #instagiveaway are like spotlights that can draw bigger crowds that may not have previously interacted with your brand.
#TrendingTags – Though it’s probably not accurate to say hashtags themselves are a trend, some individual tags definitely are. Weather, politics, and current events all drive popular hashtags that can temporarily spike specific searches. Pay attention next time there’s a Google Algorithm update or Apple announces a new iPhone version – you’ll see what we mean. Just be careful not to be too controversial with your posts or tags. It could dissuade or alienate some of your customers.
#TagsForTheMasses – Though we recommend you aim for specific, niche hashtags where you can, there’s certainly a time and place for hashtags with more mass appeal. These are evergreen words and phrases that are highly applicable to almost any post you share. They’re used frequently and searched equally so. Just make sure you have a nice mix so you don’t get lost in the crowd. Examples would include tags like #instagood and #love.
In the end, there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to hashtags. Character limits, yes. But no rules. When in doubt, exercise your best judgment. Using hashtags to identify and support what users are seeing is usually #best.
BUILD A BRAND ON SOCIAL MEDIA
What do you use your social media for? I think we’re past the days where everybody says, “Oh! I have to be on social!” We now know that everybody is on social. The more important question has become “What do I do with it?”
A lot of my customers come to us and say, “We want leads.” They are very lead focused, which is great. We, at Globe Runner, are very lead focused, and a lot of our efforts revolve around leads. However, social is a place that is not always focused on leads.
Now, there’s a lot of strategies that will develop leads on social, but brand is a critical thing to develop on social.
Social is a place where your audience wants to get to know your brand. They want to engage with you. They don’t want to be sold. They don’t want you to hammer them with a pitch or an offer every two seconds. They want to connect with your brand and who you are.
There are simple ways to do this. For small companies, it may be company culture. Maybe that’s what want to show off. Or maybe it’s showing off your quirkiness and showing just how interesting you are.
If you’re in the B2B space, maybe it’s showing somebody your thought leadership and how much you’re leading the industry and not just following the trends in it.
In short, there’s lots of ways to build brand on social. But remember, social is not just about generating leads. What’s more important is building your brand.
If you’d like to have help coming up with a strategy on building your brand on social media, reach out to us. We look forward to talking to you.
4 REASONS ENGAGEMENT RING RETAILERS WIN AT SOCIAL MEDIA
Globe Runner has had its fair share of fine jewelry clients, specifically those in the engagement ring business. And boy, marketing diamond sparklers on social media is tough.
Apart from the competition, there are also the twin challenges of growing your audience on social and driving traffic to the website. We’ve learned by trial and error what works and what doesn’t, and listed below the five most useful lessons we’ve learned from our fine jeweler clients who excel at social media:
1. They make their pictures work harder
Our clients put immense effort into the photography and retouching of ring photos — for good reason. In their world, it’s the eye candy that grabs attention, not clever copy.
But you already knew that. Here’s what you may not know:
Good marketers optimize their photos as they help with visual search. Make sure your photos have keywords; ensure better page load speeds by reducing their sizes. Think of places where your photos could end up and you’ll see that watermarking them (discreetly) or adding a logo or web link (discreetly) adds an extra boost to your social media efforts.
Many Pinterest boards have photos that lead to 404s because the page with the photo was unthinkingly deleted. A web URL on the image would help enormously in leading interested shoppers back to your site.
Vary the solo photo routine every now and then by throwing in themed slide shows. They’re fantastic ways to repurpose existing content and are proven to be a draw. And don’t be afraid to be quirky. This slideshow on Disney-inspired engagement rings was the best performing content about engagement rings in 2015, earning 547,000 shares on Facebook for tech site Chip Chick. Which brings us to the next point …
2. They know Facebook is their best friend
BuzzSumo research on engagement ring content from the last 12 months bears this out. If fine jewelry clients had time and/or resources for only one or two social media platforms, for sure Facebook is there. The proof is in these BuzzSumo charts:
Facebook has more than quadruple the number of shares on Pinterest, the second most used social media channel.
Facebook dwarfs the other platforms when it comes to sharing pretty much any content format for engagement rings.
Why is Facebook such a win in engagement ring marketing? Two reasons:
- Getting engaged counts among one of life’s most significant milestones, and Facebook is The Platform for announcing to one and all life’s updates, whether big or small. If as far back as six years ago women were already discussing how to compose a creative engagement status update on Facebook, it’s only logical for fine jewelry marketers to focus the most attention on this social media network.
- Two-for-one: Although women are the main audience for engagement ring retailers, their fiancés are the buyers. The ability to tag one’s significant other when going into raptures over rings gives marketers more visibility for their product.
Posting times can be critical to Facebook posts’ performance. From our experience, evenings are the best time to schedule a post as brides are busiest scouring social media for inspiration and ideas.
3. They promote engagement (pun intended) by asking questions
Flash a question mark in front of people and they’re prompted to respond — it’s wired into the human brain. Some examples of how engagement ring retailers have applied that philosophy with sterling results to social media posts:
- A collage of recently engaged celebrity engagement rings, accompanied by the question ‘Whose engagement ring style do you like best?’
- A photo of a gorgeous ring with a coy ‘Say yes?’
- A group shot of different diamond cuts, appropriately labeled, with a caption that says ‘Marquise, cushion or halo? Which cut is your dream ring?’
Make sure the questions are of the easy yes/no variety and watch the answers roll in.
4. They don’t think of social media as an end unto itself
The best marketers of engagement rings see social media as part of an intricate ecosystem with many moving parts, and the latter has to be organized for the former to perform at its best. Before posting that perfect picture and caption on social media, you can be sure that these have taken place:
- The landing page linked to from the post has been optimized for desired actions, e.g. extending a visitor’s stay on the site by providing links to other related products; providing a pop-up with a promotional code in exchange for an email address
- The link was generated through Google’s URL builder to measure visitor traffic driven by that post
- Thought has been given to going beyond organic shares — using promoted or boosted posts, for example, or social media influencer outreach
In short, social media both complements and is enriched by other marketing channels. Getting all the cogs working together for a common objective is key.
Underwater photo of engagement ring by Emily Cline via Flickr. Alicia is director of brand strategy at Globe Runner and a recovered diamond enthusiast.
LINKEDIN IS THE NEW PREFERRED SOCIAL SHARING NETWORK: HERE’S HOW TO TAKE ADVANTAGE
Over the years, I’ve seen many social sharing networks come and go. I remember the good old days when Digg, Delicious, and Reddit were popular social sharing websites, and if you want content like a new blog post promoted, you just went over to Digg, submitted it, and hopefully it would get enough up votes to hit the site’s home page. Google Plus gained some popularity at the beginning, still can send social traffic to a site, but not like it used to. From what I’m seeing now, though, LinkedIn has quickly become my preferred social sharing network. For new content, evergreen content, and especially new blog posts, LinkedIn is the new preferred social sharing network. Here’s what you need to know to take advantage of it.
LinkedIn has traditionally been thought of as a website to network with others in order to get a job or further your career. However, because LinkedIn’s home page (when you’re logged in) is essentially a list of what your network has shared, it’s become a social sharing site. If you have enough connections in your network. you’ll see all of those updates that others in your network have shared. Here’s a sample of what I see when I’m logged in:
As you can see, there are plenty of updates posted by those who I’m connected with–all 14,000+ of them. You can Like, Comment, and Share these posts. Since I’m connected with over 14,000+ people on LinkedIN, anything that I Share, Comment, or Like will then appear on 14,000+ others’ home pages, so they can see it as well. Here’s an example of new content (a recent blog post of mine) that I’m sharing on LinkedIn:
Notice that when I post, I am leaving the full URL of the blog post in the description. When you do that, you’ll see that the URL does NOT have the “nofollow” link attribute on it. While it is a shortened URL as seen below, it’s still a good link to have:
So, sharing on LinkedIN will get you links, but it will also get you views. Let’s take, for example, this photo which I posted recently using the BloomSky app (I have a BloomSky device that captures live weather data):
Just on this one photo that’s shared from my BloomSky device, there are over 1,000 views of the photo–there are some Likes, and it’s even popular enough to warrant some spam comments. Incidentally, you know the post is doing well whenever you get some spam comments, as people see it as a post worthy enough of spamming it. Ha!
Being Active Pays Off
Since I’ve been social networking and using social media for over 10 years now, I’ve learned that it pays to be active. And, if you’re active enough on any social network, you’re going to build up followers and contacts. In fact, if you have enough followers I’ve learned that just about anything you post will get lots of views and shares. It’s just a numbers game, really in a lot of cases.
In order to get your network large enough so that you get views and shares, you have to be active. Don’t just expect to go over to LInkedIn, post something, and get 1,000 views on a weather picture. And you don’t build up 14,000+ connections overnight. It’s taken years to do that–although I have been more active in the past few months than I ever have, and it’s paid off tremendously.
There are several things that you can do to keep up a good presence on LinkedIn, here are a few things to consider:
– Consider spending a few minutes every single day visiting the site.
– Add connections on a regular basis. There are limits to the number you can add every day, so I wouldn’t go crazy with this. But adding more each day will help.
– Get into the habit of Liking, Commenting, and Sharing posts of people in your network. When people notice that you’re liking and commenting, they’ll notice it. Even better if you’re sharing posts from time to time.
– Use the My Network/Connections page to connect with others, but also send congrats and wish your connections a Happy Birthday whenever it’s their Birthday. LinkedIn makes it fairly easy to do this, and it does make a difference.
– Respond to Pending Invitations in a timely manner. If they’ve sent you an invitation, decide whether or not you’ll connect with them.
– Import your contacts and connect with others. There are tools in order to import your contacts from Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, AOL, and you can even import a file with contacts.
– Export your connections from LinkedIn, as you’ll want to save that data, as well. I prefer to export them into a file and import the file into my Google contacts.
– Connect other services that will automatically post to LinkedIn. Sites like Buffer.com will allow you to schedule posts, or you can share posts on Buffer that will post on several social networks all at once. Many different sharing services will do this, and there are even WordPress plugins that will post your latest blog post on LinkedIn, as well. Be sure to set these up and link up your social networks with LinkedIn.
– A while back LinkedIn allowed you to publish full length articles on LinkedIn, which is great. Not only can you share links to posts or other URLs, you can also post directly on LinkedIn and get those articles Linked, Shared, and Commented on as well. LinkedIn posts, if done right, can get a lot of traction. Check out Larry Kim’s Moz post titled 3 Unusual Hacks to Dramatically Up Your Game.
Spending the 5 or 10 minutes every day to add contacts, Like, Share, and Comment on posts helps build your LInkedIn network. LinkedIn can, in fact, send a lot of traffic to websites, and you can take advantage of this if you have a large network. Rather than think of LinkedIn just as a network that’s all about jobs, lately it’s become the preferred social sharing network of choice.
SOCIAL MEDIA ROI: HOW TO TELL IF IT DRIVES TRAFFIC TO YOUR WEBSITE
by Claire Parker
The subject of social media ROI is a vast, complex area that we won’t get into — there are far more substantive sources out there on the topic.
What we do want to share is how you can tell if your social media posts are driving traffic to your website. It will however require viewing Google Analytics. If Analytics hasn’t been deployed on your site, make sure it is so you can follow along.
(These would be the most straightforward instructions for creating a Google Analytics account and installing it, with pictures of the process for all of you visual learners out there.)
Let’s say you shared a blog post via social media. On the left-hand menu, go to Behavior –> Behavior Flow –> Site Content –> Landing Pages. Cut and paste the URL path name of the blog post into the search field, then enter.
So for example, we want to see whether our social media shares of https://globerunner.com/a-free-customizable-content-calendar-for-2016/ were effective. You will only paste /a-free-customizable-content-calendar-for-2016/ into the search field. The table that shows up will show the number of visits attributed to this blog post. In this example, we see that the content calendar post was the source of 1,113 visits.
To find out which social media platforms were behind the visits, click on the Secondary dimension drop down menu on the menu bar. Select Social –> Social Network to see the specific platform. In our example, the top network was Reddit, followed — rather distantly — by Facebook.
What is ‘(not set)’? Good question. According to Google, there could be many reasons for getting this value, but it’s generally due to a session having no page or screen views. Other reasons could be bot traffic or the visitor not allowing a cookie to be placed.
One way to get more clarity is to click on the Secondary dimension drop down menu again and choose Acquisition –> Source/Medium. Source would be the originator of the traffic and medium is the method. You should see some social media platforms among the sources.
This appears to be a more substantive view in that you can see visits via mobile which are identified by the ‘m’ before the platform.
Having said that, it’s better to be pro-active rather than reactive.You must’ve noticed that when you share newsletter content that arrives in your inbox that the URL contains UTMs? These were created using Google’s URL builder. Use this tool to generate URLs for your social media posts that will show up in the Campaigns section. The generator will create a unique URL for you showing the source, medium and name of the campaign.
In this example from a client’s campaigns, you will see that Facebook posts drove 66 visits to the website while a video on YouTube resulted in two visits. Identifying these social-sourced visits in a campaign allows you to find richer data along their customer journeys, whether that be downloading a gated piece of content, filling in a contact form or, in the case of e-commerce, ending in a purchase.
Claire Parker is Globe Runner’s account manager for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMB). Determining whether your social media efforts result in site visits is just one metric that SEO can teach social media or public relations practitioners. Read more about what SEO can teach PR and vice-versa.