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2015 Social Media Wish List

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In this video, Steve Groller and Jim Doherty discuss the biggest social media marketing gifts Santa forgot to leave under our trees in 2014.

Here’s to a New Year of social media success, useful integrations, customized business solutions, more efficient management, and killer reporting!

1. Desktop Notifications

Social media is a really fast-paced environment from a marketing standpoint, and I think it’s important that there’s a one-to-one connection with the intended audience. It can be a big disconnect from a brand standpoint if that communication is stalled or delayed by a certain degree of time.

A lot of social media platforms in 2015, we’re looking for that more instantaneous notification system. A lot of them have those notification systems, but they’re very mobile-based; they’re not so much desktop-based. And throughout the day, a social media marketer might not be on their mobile phone, on that mobile application as much as they might be on their desktop. And most social media marketers might have ten lists open with five or six tabs, and might not have the time or even the inclination at some points of the day, to scroll through and refresh each one of those feeds. But they would rather have that notification system, whether it’s a desktop pop-up or an email or something along those lines to let them know about the important things that are going on behind the scenes.

2. Realistic Upgrades

So the beauty of social media management solutions is their ability to integrate with other third-party solutions, whether it’s a CRM or whether it’s an app, different analytics platforms. That connection is great for businesses that have existing platforms but want to bring and tie all the pieces together.

A lot of these solutions say that all of these integrations are coming forward and they’re in the pipeline and they’re in the works, but none of these transitions actually translate into meaningful data that we can use.

So one thing that we wish for in 2015 and moving forward from these platforms is a more clear distinction between the expected roll-outs for updates and integrations and for better data, for better features, and what actually makes it to the platform at the end of the day.

3. More Robust Reporting

For any business that has made the foray into social media, one big challenge that we’re seeing is the ability to justify the expense and the investment, and show a return on investment for their activities on social. And for the most part from the marketer’s standpoint, that falls to reports. Reports of progress, reports based upon activities they’re doing on the networks and that sort of thing.

So from a reporting perspective, the visual interpretation that we’re able to provide to our clients and to upper management is key in our industry, especially when social media is becoming more visual in and of itself; that holds true for the reporting aspect as well.

So that’s why we hope for, on our wish list for 2015 for social media, that a solution comes around that can strike that balance between great looking visuals, customizable information, and quick exports into a presentable format.

4. Small Business Solutions

For a small to medium sized business to only be able to manage three of their accounts on a free version of a solution usually is problematic. Usually if they’re a local business, they have more than just a Facebook, a Twitter, and perhaps a Google+. There are other platforms that are very valuable to their business such as review platforms like FourSquare and Yelp. If they do videos on a regular basis, their YouTube is also probably a very important social asset.

There’s often a big disparity between the features any business needs and the features that really are catered to an individual person, so where you might want to run a campaign or a contest or something a little bit more elaborate for your small business, in most cases that costs an exorbitant amount of money in relation to how much you pay just to use the platform on a monthly basis.

In 2015, we’d like to see more middle-of-the-road options for small and medium sized businesses who don’t want to necessarily break the bank to run a contest or a promotion, to incentivize their customers to connect with them, to have a more meaningful relationship with their customer base, and eventually turn that social media traffic into foot traffic.

What items are on your social media wish list? Let us know in the comments!

Social Media Survey: The Results Are In

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Why So Optical?

The ever-changing realm of social media develops new processes, norms, and expectations on a seemingly daily basis. So much so, in fact, that the only way to keep tabs on how the industry is changing is to get the information straight from the source behind the changes: the platforms themselves and the marketers who use them.

That’s why our friends at Software Advice, a social CRM research company, have released the preliminary results of their Social Media Content Optimization Survey – a survey of organizations’ content optimization processes on social media – specifically, what tactics are most effective.

According to the results – and not surprisingly to us – using photos and visuals in social media posts is the number one way to optimize engagement – with nearly 85% of respondents labeling visual content as “very important” or “important”. Social media marketing is all about grabbing attention (and ideally maintaining it) so as social media continues to integrate more closely with our brands’ visibility, the content we share needs to reflect that visibility in more than black and white.

Social media content optimization survey results say that photos and visuals lead to success
Survey results point to images as the most effective tactic for content optimization.

Why We Should Follow Suit

The effective implementation of visual content into your social media strategy can prove beneficial to more than just how many “likes” you’re receiving. More importantly, visual content gives your brand a personality capable of building meaningful relationships that go beyond the electronic equivalent of an awkward hug – the Tweet “favorite.”

How Platforms Are Responding

Recently, Twitter’s transition to making images in line with text so that users no longer have to click a separate link to view an image has streamlined the user experience. More notably, it’s brought visual content to the forefront of Twitter campaigns.

Facebook has traditionally been the industry precedent for visual content, and continued without exception with the integration of larger images on link posts. If you share a URL on Facebook, a preview of the article with an image now over twice as large as in early 2013 will appear – which has been increasing engagement across the board.

We all know that the casual social media user is resistant to change. One could’ve thought the Mayan Apocalypse was more than a rumor when Facebook made its 2013 layout and chat functionality change. So, when a platform decides that change is worth the blowback, marketers best revise their strategy accordingly. The computer age and the visual movement are now one in the same.

Has visual content enhanced your social media experience? Send us a tweet or share your story below!

Post Smarter on Social: Leverage Social Reports in Google Analytics

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It’s no surprise that more organizations than ever are allocating additional time and resources to establishing a solid presence in social media. Strategies are cooked up by marketing and brand managers. Page designs, cover photos, and icons are designed with care. Facebook and Twitter badges are placed on marketing pieces and business cards. As a member of a team of digital marketers and analysts, this is a glorious thing to behold. But (there’s always a ‘but’), how effective are these strategies? Is there room for improvements? Are these organizations really connecting with the right customer segments, or are they just shouting in a room full of the wrong people? These are just a few of many questions that Google Analytics Social reporting can help answer.

These reports can be found under Traffic Sources and range from Referral data to landing pages, Trackbacks, Conversions, and more.

These social reports can shine light on a wide array of facets of your social media presence, including referrals, social plugins (Likes, +1’s, etc.), social conversions (online purchases, submissions, or requests performed by social visitors), as well as the flow and paths of social media traffic into your website. Let’s take a look at three of these reports and features a little closer and see how they can be leveraged to bolster the effectiveness of your social media assets.

So, Where Are You From? – Network Referrals

One of the more fundamental reports available in the Google Analytics social section, the Network Referral report, is very similar to the main Traffic Sources report we’ve all come to know and love in the past. Much of this referral data was available within Google Analytics for some time, however in the past we had to perform some manual slicing and dicing to get a clear picture of social media traffic. This report does much of that manual labor for us, shining light onto what social media assets are actually referring visitors to your web properties. Since this is essentially a modified derivative of the original Traffic Sources report, you also have access to advanced filters and regex functionality.

See what social platforms are sending the most traffic to your site – and see how relevant they find your content!

What Google Analytics report would be complete without some drill-down functionality? There are some juicy insights beyond just the names of the social media websites that referred traffic. Clicking on the various network names drills down to reveal what URLs on your website were shared and how many visitors landed on each. This is where you can really turn insights into tactics: Leverage the information here to determine what social posts and links are being deemed relevant to your target audience. If they’re clicking on the links and getting to the site but aren’t spending enough time on the page to do much of anything, there’s a good chance that there’s a disconnect between the post’s message and the content on the shared page.

Thanks For Sharing! – Trackbacks

A crucial element in establishing a solid foundation on any social media platform is to secure advocates of your brand or product. One very powerful way of leveraging this is getting these advocates to talk about you! In today’s world this can take the form of social posts or even blogs. With the Trackback report in Google Analytics, you can see exactly where some of these kinds of social referrals are coming from. Just last month we found a very interesting tidbit for one of our financial services clients using the Trackback report. A prominent travel blogger recently posted a very in-depth evaluation and review of their global credit card that detailed his experiences using the card abroad. Not only was this critique extremely useful for optimizing their product; but it also expanded their brand and product visibility to a significant and extremely targeted audience. Overall, this is not a report to be ignored! Trackbacks may come and go depending on the size and volume of your website, but every now and then there might be a hidden gem worth taking a look at.

Thank You, Come Again! – Conversions

It’s great to know how many visitors reached your site from Facebook versus Twitter, what pages they landed on, or who’s talking about you; but how do you know that your social marketing is really effective? By using the Social Conversions report, of course!

Whether we like it or not, marketing always comes down to Return on Investment. Since social media is one of those weird areas where the emphasis is more on customer relations than sales, it can be a bit tricky to directly tie social media success back to ROI. So whether you’re leveraging social media for sales, customer relations, or both, you can gain much greater visibility into the end result using the Social Conversions report in Google Analytics. This report provides a look at whether or not your social traffic is performing the conversions you’ve set up in Google Analytics. If you’re leaning more towards using social media as a customer relations tool but still want to see if all of that hard work is leading to increased long-term sales, you can employ the use of the utm_nooverride parameter on your shared URLs to ensure that the first touch-point with social media gets credit for the conversion over the long-term.

Measure, Rinse, Repeat!

It should be noted that these are only a few of the measurement capabilities that Google Analytics has with regards to social media. Some of the other reports and features within the tool can easily be sliced and diced with filters and advanced segments to uncover even deeper insights into your social media marketing effectiveness. The biggest thing to keep in mind: any marketing method (social media, traditional, pay per click, etc.) can only be improved if you have a measurement strategy in place. In the case of social media, leveraging Google Analytics brings your insights full-circle and provides actionable insights to keep your customers happy and your marketing budget even happier.

Have questions on how you can use the social reporting capabilities of Google Analytics? Leave a comment and our web analytics team will answer!