Sink or Swim: A Social Media Article eBook

Asking Smarter Questions
Social Media Article Series

AskingSmarterQuestions.com July - August 2012

Table of Contents
Sink or Swim Article Series

Preface
Sink or Swim: Let’s Talk Social

Part 1
Social Intelligence Research: Dive Head First into Data

Part 2
Staying Afloat in a Sea of Options: Social Media Platforms

Part 3
Gold Medal Goals: Don’t Settle for Silver

Part 4
Game Time: Put Your Social Strategy into Play

Part 5
Don’t Get Burned: Know What Your Customers Are Saying

Part 6
Don’t Put Your Head in the Sand: Measurement is Key

Part 7
Bathing Suit or Swimsuit? Test Your Social Messaging

Part 8
Stay Studious: Ongoing Social Optimization

SinkorSwim.AskingSmarterQuestions.com

Social Media: the new darling of the Internet industry, of many industries. Some will have you
believe it is a fad, others the proverbial silver bullet. The reality, which everyone seems to
Preface
be overcomplicating, is that it is simply about relationships. In this series we take you from
Welcome to our
social conversation listening, to platform selection, to sharing your message. We take you
Social Media Series:
from strategy to measurement of social and teach you how to determine an actual ROI from Sink or Swim
your effort. We also take you from testing messages to optimizing your communications on a By Steve Parker, Jr.
continual and methodical basis based on data rather than faith.

Now I’ll admit that doesn’t sound too “relational,” but the reality is that we all do these things in
order to have solid relationships. In fact, in really good relationships these listening, platforms,
strategies, measurement, testing and optimization efforts are so commonplace that they are
just an everyday occurrence we do not notice. In bad relationships, these processes are absent
or difficult.

Social media is not unnavigable; in fact, with the right tools and measurement, it can be easily
measured to an exact return on investment. You may say, “I don’t measure my relationships to
an ROI.” But sure you do! Where you fail is honesty. The fact of the matter is we all measure
our relationships; when we have a bad one it feels like a struggle, when we have a good one
it seems so simple. And I can tell you from where I sit, most brands are failing at measuring
relationships, hence they are failing at this big thing called Social Media.

Establishing Meaningful Relationships
So, let’s talk about relationships since that’s what social is really about at its core. Man was
not meant to be alone, and since the beginning of time, humankind has craved connections;
connections at home, with family, friends and co-workers. However, with the advent of Social
Media, connections have become more about quantity than quality. How many friends do you
have? Honestly, how many do you know well and spend time with? Not many. What we all
struggle with is how to make relationships more meaningful. If you recall the ending of the
movie The Social Network, you may remember Mark Zuckerberg sending a friend request
to his old girlfriend and then hitting refresh on his computer screen over and over again just
hoping to establish one relationship – not many – just one. Meanwhile he has 15 million
people subscribed to his Facebook feed. But it is deep relationships that matter; we all want
relationships to be meaningful; for a brand that would mean a consumer who trusts you and
buys from you. Yet most in the industry are focused on quantity, not quality, and that is a major
failure.

SinkorSwim.AskingSmarterQuestions.com 3

Highlights from First Class
Relationships are about being honest. Clearly it is hard for a brand to be honest at all times
Preface (cont.)
and even if they were, consumers are oftentimes distrustful. That’s a tough one for most of
Welcome to our
us; don’t pretend that you are honest in your relationships all the time every day. To prove that
Social Media Series:
you are not, go look at your Facebook timeline. How many of your posts are honest about your Sink or Swim
day, your life, your experiences? Very few. In fact most of us just show highlights of our life By Steve Parker, Jr.
(generally the pretty parts). Fishing with the kids, drinks with the wife, vacation with the family,
the first class seat on the airplane. In other words, “here are the nice parts of my life, but not
the other ones.” So as human beings we have begun to compartmentalize our lives and limit
the vision others have of us - and brands are not immune to this.

Last Thoughts
Perhaps the real value in life, in Social Media, and for the individual and the brand, would be
to build mutual relationships that matter—that mean something. Perhaps we should all be
creating smaller groups of relationships. Perhaps, much like with people, the purpose for the
brand in social should be connecting – and not just with people who buy their product - but
those that buy their product and share another interesting attribute or two (geography, hobbies,
etc.). Then you will have begun to build something together that is strong, that creates change,
that is actually meaningful.

I hope you find this series meaningful, full of vision, strategy and tactics that will help you
achieve what could be.

Steve Parker, Jr.


Data can tell you everything you need to know – you just have to know how to mine it and
properly analyze it in order to use it strategically. Take social conversations, for example.
Part 1
Whether you’re just now jumping on board the social train or you’re just in need of a fresh, Social Intelligence
more strategic and effective approach, you can’t hope to have any kind of success without first Research: Dive Head
taking a look at the existing data across the social sphere. First into Data
By Steve Parker, Jr.
The social phenomenon has taken the world by storm. Although social communication has
existed since cavemen were grunting and drawing symbols on cave walls, this online shift in
the past 15 years has completely changed the way we communicate and share information.
Now, through online social networking sites and forums, people from all four corners of the
world can quickly and easily connect and share information with each other. Sometimes this

“
communication takes the form of sharing photos and recipes on Pinterest, staying in touch
with friends and family through Facebook, or creating a network of professional contacts via
LinkedIn. Oftentimes, however, the conversation relates to something much nearer and dearer
to a marketer’s heart: your brand.

The Power of Social Conversations
“Ignoring
Yes, people are talking about your business. They’re sharing information and experiences with
friends and strangers alike, providing open and honest reviews on your brand, product, service consumer
or competitor. People, by their very nature, are opinionated – and many of them want their conversations
opinions to be heard. The result? The social universe has become somewhat of a free, limitless
and unsolicited consumer response survey. Your customers are happily telling you what they
like, what they don’t like, what they want and don’t want. Ignoring consumer conversations
or only listening to them in part is like being handed a free winning lottery ticket and swatting
it away. It’s powerful, incredibly insightful information that could not only help you form your
social strategy, but also help you make business-changing decisions across every facet of your
company. So don’t let it go to waste – use social communication as a listening post, helping
is like being
handed a
free winning
lottery ticket
and swatting
“
guide your social strategy. it away”
Social Intelligence Research
So what exactly is social intelligence research? Social intelligence research entails using online
tools to aggregate and analyze conversations taking place across the social web. You not only
monitor conversations in real time, but also analyze consumer perceptions to uncover your
company’s strengths and weaknesses – whether they are related to your brand, competitors,
products, services, sponsorships, events and so on. These insights act as a guiding light,
affecting the way you approach each phase of your brand’s social strategy development
process.


There are five phases of the social strategy framework, the first of which is initial social
intelligence research. Performing this step first is crucial, as it sets the tone for each of the
Part 1 (cont.)
next phases. Gathering social intelligence allows you to develop and implement a customer- Social Intelligence
centric strategy by listening to what is already being said. It draws attention to holes in your Research: Dive Head
current marketing strategy and reveals opportunities for your brand to take advantage of First into Data
different audiences and trends within those audiences. The mining of social data also allows By Steve Parker, Jr.
you to set baselines for brand conversation volume and sentiment, aiding in measurement
down the road (but more on that later in this series).

Getting Started
To begin, use an advanced social monitoring tool to dive into the archives of the social net,

“
scouring the Internet and going beyond Facebook and Twitter to the thousands of one-off
forums and blogs across the web where a significant portion of social conversations actually
take place. Through conversational aggregation and analysis, find out what consumers have
been saying about your brand historically. By digging deeper into these conversations, you can
uncover unknown trends and themes regarding topics of interest to your brand. You can also
discover what your audience is asking to know more about. And you’re able to actually listen to
“The trends that
consumers as they honestly and willingly tell you what interests them, as well as their opinions
regarding what your brand is currently doing.

Mining these kinds of insights will help lay a path for your social strategy. The trends that
are uncovered can lay the foundation for the kind of content you should provide through the
various social platforms. To help decide which platforms you should consider joining, look at
the sources of social conversations about your brand and your industry. If your target audience
are uncovered
can lay the
foundation
for the kinds
of content you
“
has a much bigger presence on Pinterest but hardly any on Twitter, maybe you should focus should provide”
more of your time and energy on Pinterest.

From what platforms to join and content to provide to the best times to post updates, social
intelligence research can provide you with countless insights that are crucial to building a
successful social strategy.


It seems like there is a new social media platform every day that marketers deem “the next big
thing.” Start-ups in Silicon Valley are banking on the fact that social media marketing will not
Part 2
always belong to Facebook and Twitter. Though these two platforms have the largest volume of
Staying Afloat in
daily active users, with 526 million and 140 million respectively (Q1 2012 figures), there are
a Sea of Options:
ample branding opportunities on other social networking platforms. In this post, we’re going Social Media
to break down the big fish, the smaller fish and how to decide which platforms your business Platforms
should be on. By Jeff Adelson-Yan

The first myth we need to dispel is that your business should be on every single available
social platform. In fact, Levelwing often recommends choosing only a few because it is
important to have the time to manage and create fresh content instead of just being on them

“
for the sake of mere presence. It is important that you do a little research and figure out the
functionalities and audience demographics before launching into full-fledge campaigns.

Facebook
Most notably, and first in the social media game, is Facebook. Facebook is great because
it reaches a large audience; practically everyone in the United States in on Facebook. In
“ It seems like
fact, unless you’re marketing to China (the country uses other social media networks), it’s
there is a new
the largest social networking audience you can reach. With Facebook, you have two large-
scale marketing options: paid and non-paid. Paid ads generate Facebook’s revenue and are
constantly changing and being tested (and arguably) improved. Though they do not offer
as much flexibility as Google ads visually, they do have decent targeting options like age,
gender, sexual orientation, location, family status, broad or precise interests and more. The
effectiveness of Facebook advertising has been questioned, but with the right optimization, we
have found pretty good results if the proper measurement is put into place.
social media
platform “
every day that
marketers deem
the Next Big
Non-paid Facebook is essentially brand page management, or cultivating an online community.
Thing”
Brand pages are gaining more and more flexibility and optimization on Facebook. Timeline,
which has been available to brands for just under a year now, has created more opportunities
for pages to be branded micro-sites. With the multitude of Facebook applications that can be
created, additionally, it is becoming more of an interactive tool for fans now more than ever.

Twitter
Twitter has also tried to leverage paid and non-paid with varying degrees of success. Non-
paid consists of brand page management. Options include branding opportunities with the
background and hashtags, tweeting content with photo and video attachments and more.
Twitter has a slightly smaller audience, but the life of a tweet is significantly shorter than a


Facebook post. Therefore, it is more “socially acceptable” to tweet multiple times a day. On
Facebook, it’s best to keep to one update a day or perhaps even every other day. Since Twitter
Part 2 (cont.)
feeds move faster, it is recommended that tweets go out every few hours to stay up to date in
Staying Afloat in
the conversation and to stay in front of your audience.
a Sea of Options:
Social Media
Hashtags are another great piece of Twitter marketing that many often forget about. Hashtags Platforms
are essentially an easy way to search Twitter for others discussing the same subject. For By Jeff Adelson-Yan
instance, if your brand is in the automotive industry, using hashtags like #cars, #automotive,
#tires, #tuneup or #engine could help people find your tweet and information quicker (without
following you). Additionally, Public tweets can also be indexed in search engines, so it’s
important to maintain a professional but engaging voice; you never know who is reading your

“
brand’s tweet. As social integration into search becomes more of a reality, it is important to
keep your Twitter content fresh. So who is on Twitter? The highest-represented demographic,
according to Pew Research Center, is 18-29 year olds. 15% of Internet users are active on
Twitter, with 8% logging on every day. Minorities also have a high Twitter usage percentage—
over 28% of Black, Non-Hispanic Internet users utilize Twitter.

Twitter offers a few options for brands that want to engage in paid advertisements. A promoted
tweet (which appears at the top of a News Feed) is the easiest placement to purchase
(and usually the more inexpensive). Promoted trends are considerably more expensive (the
minimum is somewhere between $100-150k) and are only promoted for a 24 hour period.
More Twitter advertisement opportunities are said to be rolling out soon, so this might be
“72 hours
of video is
uploaded to
YouTube every
“
something to keep your eye on—especially if you’re targeted demographic is young. single minute”

YouTube
YouTube is often forgotten as a social platform, but it is astounding the amount of sharing
that happens on this channel. For instance, 72 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every
single minute. Beyond the branding opportunities with channels (customizable skins, tabs
and landing pages, etc.), YouTube offers several paid options, including Promoted Videos and
advertisements (before video, during video, banner ads, etc.). Targeting is especially great for
YouTube ads because the user is already committed to watching a video involving the industry,
brand or product. In other words, you know that your ad is showing to a captivated audience—
not just appearing in the right hand column to be potentially ignored. YouTube is careful to not
bombard the user with cumbersome ads, however, as the company does not want to interfere
with the user experience too much.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a Facebook for business professionals and with about 48 million active users
(though we’re not positive on the daily amount), it definitely has great brand awareness


potential. LinkedIn offers the same non-paid options as Facebook, but with a little less
flexibility. It is possible to create multiple tabs to use as landing pages, but the possibilities
Part 2 (cont.)
for customization and branding are fewer. LinkedIn is comprised of professionals looking for
Staying Afloat in
business opportunities, job postings and information about companies. It is a great place to
a Sea of Options:
explore if your company is a B2B. Paid advertisements are very similar to Facebooks with Social Media
targeting that includes job title—especially helpful when marketing B2B. Platforms
By Jeff Adelson-Yan
Google+
Google+ is Google’s venture into social media—after the death of Google Buzz and
Wave. After gaining some heavy momentum during its launch, Google+ has leveled off in
engagement. In fact, a study concluded recently that only 30% of Google+ accounts that have

“
made a public post will ever make another public post again. This is measured against the
social network “norm” of 70%. While 170 million users sounds promising, we wonder if people
are actually interested in cultivating communities on the platform.

So why are we including it in the list, then? Well, Google+ is still on the radar for a number
of reasons—most of them being its parent company. Google has plans to firmly entrench
“Google has
Google+ posts and stories into search engine results pages. We have seen this most recently
with the integration of Google Local and Google+. Whether or not your brand wants to be on
this platform could be irrelevant. To be shown in the results, you might have to adopt. To what
extent Google will integrate Google+ remains to be seen, but we advise doing your homework
about the platform anyway. Demographics skew male and popular stories often include
technology and media.
entrench
Google+ posts
“
plans to firmly

and stories into
search engine
Pinterest results pages”
Pinterest has become the favorite of most women in America at this point and has taken on
some serious growth spurts in the last year. Though its audience is mostly women, Pinterest
has a lot of functionalities that make it perfect for marketing. Firstly, it has a lot of engagement.
Secondly, it sends a lot of referring traffic (more than Facebook). Thirdly, it’s all visual, which
is great for brands with the power to create enticing creative. Though Pinterest is trying to
fight the inevitable marketer takeover, it also has a reputation for coolness that is not to be
disturbed. When creating a Pinterest account, brands must understand that it is not about
selling, selling, selling. Instead, it is about sharing ideas with the audience and cultivating a
community. Even moreso than other platforms, it’s important to stay away from self-serving
content. Incorporating a product every now and then is fine as long as the user is gleaning
useful information (Do-It-Yourself is a big subject here) and does not feel bombarded by sales
tactics and images. Currently, Pinterest does not have any paid options for advertising. A few
smart brands got in on the ground level—like Dwell Magazine, West Elm and Real Simple—
but there is still plenty of opportunity to go around. A quick tip: before signing up for Pinterest,


make sure your website has “pinnable” content. It’s easy—just try to pin an image from your
website. If your website’s images are not pinnable, then it might not be the best
Part 2 (cont.)
platform for your brand.
Staying Afloat in
a Sea of Options:
Instagram Social Media
Instagram is a newcomer to social media. This start-up is currently not even drawing a profit Platforms
it’s so new. Instagram is very interesting, however, because it is a feed for photos. These By Jeff Adelson-Yan
photos can be uploaded and manipulated with various filters to make them more visually
appealing. You can follow someone or a brand on Pinterest much like on Twitter. You receive
all updates. Instagram is currently broadening functionality with hashtags as well. It is also
very easy to share Instagram photos on Twitter or Facebook, which makes the platforms
compatible. Brands that belong on Instagram could be anything from art galleries (post photos
of new exhibits) to tourist destination visitors’ bureaus (post photos fun activities) to fashion
designers (new collections, inspiration, models, raw materials, etc.). Inherently visual brands
can take advantage of this platform better than others.

It’s important to stay abreast of the latest and greatest social networking platforms and the
audiences they target. For instance, currently, there is a lot of discussion surrounding video-
based social networks like Viddy and Social Cam. Brands have already begun leveraging these
tools to expand their social media presence. While it is important to stay informed, it is even
more important to decide what is best for your brand. As mentioned before, being everywhere
isn’t necessarily the best answer. Devoting time and money to one or two platforms and
assessing the benefits is always the best way to begin.

“ “ Being everywhere isn’t
“
necessarily the best answer”


With the Summer Olympics fast approaching, we were in the spirit of going for gold
(USA! USA! USA!). In respect to social media strategy, it’s important that you set your
Part 3
goals high. Many companies decide to setup Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts
Gold Medal Goals:
because they’ve been told by someone that it’s the thing to do. They end up feeling
Don’t Settle for Silver
disappointed that their social handles aren’t generating likes, clicks or leads. But first
setting goals and implementing a specific strategy for each platform is paramount.
Therefore, I’m going to discuss how to go about setting the right goals for the various
social platforms and the steps necessary to achieve those goals. First, you need to ask
yourself these questions.

1. What platforms should my brand be on?

“
We recently assessed the most popular social platforms in our article entitled “Staying
Afloat in a Sea of Options.” Review that article and come right back.

2. What is my strategy for each platform?
Because of the differences in the social platforms (demographics, types of messaging,
acceptable amount of engagement), it is important to implement separate strategies “There are
for all the platforms on which your brand is seen, but also ensure that they all have a
singular voice and work together to paint a broader picture of your brand.

3. What actions will I consider a key performance indicator (KPI)?
If your goal is to get your Facebook page more likes and your Twitter handle more
followers, why? What does a like and a follow mean to you? How is it furthering your
business? If the number of likes or follows isn’t that important to your brand, what
measure efforts
on social media
“
plenty of ways to

including direct
attribution of
kinds of actions do you want users to take and how can you develop a social strategy leads and sales”
that will get them to do those actions?

4. How will I measure my brand’s social initiatives?
This is a gray area for many companies, as they have been told that social media
simply cannot be measured. However, there are plenty of ways to measure efforts on
social media–including direct attribution of leads and sales. If you are not planning
on measuring beyond number of likes and follows, you will probably be disappointed
in your social media efforts. Understanding how social media works and how it can
positively influence your business is fundamental to your success… and the only way
to understand it is to measure and optimize.

5. What is my brand’s voice and who do I want to manage that voice?
You can choose to be your brand’s voice. You can hire an intern. You can hire an
agency. You can outsource. There are plenty of options for social communication.


However, which one strikes a balance between cost and time efficient and also
accurate? Representation of your brand can make or break social media initiatives.
Part 3 (cont.)
Do you plan to offer customer service? Introduce new products? Manage your online
Gold Medal Goals:
reputation? These all require different strategies and people to implement those
Don’t Settle for Silver
strategies. Choose wisely and implement clear rules of engagement with customers/
clients to be sure the brand is accurately and professionally represented.

Now that you’ve answered those questions, you need to set your goals. Goals should
be slightly more easily achievable than dreams. For instance, your goal should not be
to simply “increase engagement on Facebook.” That’s too easy. It should have hard
numbers attached to it so that your social strategist(s) are held accountable. Perhaps

“
you want to generate leads from Facebook and Twitter. A goal could be to get your cost
per lead down to an ideal amount. Not sure what that amount is? Look to your paid
search information and research average costs per click/action on the different social
media platforms. This will give you a better idea of how to manage your expectations
while still remaining hungry.
“Implement
Goals for YouTube could include not just video views, but a specific number of click-
throughs to a branded website. Track what your customers are doing once they get clear rules of
there. Find out if your YouTube videos intrigue people enough to find out more and if engagement
they purchase a product, fill out a lead form or sign up for a newsletter once they do.
Goals for Twitter do not have to be relegated to followers. Measure clicks and optimize
messaging every month to target the audience that will be most lucrative.

Not settling for silver means thinking beyond the pale and coming up with ways to
measure your social media efforts in a way that will help you to fully comprehend what
it means for your business. Even if your business is not inherently social, there is a way
with customers
to be sure
the brand is
accurately and
professionally
“
to make it work for you. It’s where your customers live online and where they want to represented”
interact with brands. Creating a unique experience for them while maintaining a good
bottom line for your brand is the ultimate gold medal goal.


The Olympic Games are like your social strategy: a lot of time, energy and dedication
go into planning to ensure your top performance on game day. But in the end, the true
Part 4
test of how well you’ve prepared comes down to putting your strategy into play.
Game Time:
Put Your Social
By this time, you’ve done your initial social intelligence research to listen to what Strategy into Play
is already being said about your brand across the social sphere. You’ve done your By Jeff Adelson-Yan
homework by looking into the available social platforms and have determined which
make the most sense for your brand. And you’ve developed your goals, asking yourself
all of the relevant questions about what you truly hope to gain from
your social presence.

“
In other words, you have your battle plan – it’s time to deploy the troops! Get active in
the social space and begin engaging with your audience by launching the executions
you originally outlined.

Platforms
Now that you know which platforms you want to be on, you need to create accounts
within each before you can get the social communication ball rolling. This sounds
simple enough, but you have to think about creative branding on each of the platforms.
And while the branding may be slightly different from platform to platform due to
design restraints, they should be cohesive. This means a similar company description
and profile, logo and branded skin (where possible on sites that allow for customized
profile designs, like Twitter skins, YouTube designs and Facebook Timeline photos and
“Within each

profiles you
“
of your social

should include a
link back to your
tabs). Within each of your social profiles, you should include a link back to your website website”
and possibly even link to your other social profiles.

Social Content Calendar
By this point, you should have your social activity or content calendar developed and
ready to go. This is basically an editorial calendar that allows you to lay out what
content you plan to publish and when. Using a social content calendar makes your life
easier. It provides the “big picture” view of your content from the various platforms and
accounts, making content management more efficient and allowing you to balance the
type of content you share. While you can use any format you want, simply using an
Excel spreadsheet or Google Document often makes the most sense.


Update & Monitor
There are countless tools available for monitoring and managing your social
Part 4 (cont.)
presence. By now, you should have decided which tools you plan to use. Hootsuite
Game Time:
and TweetDeck, for example, are dashboards that allow you to schedule and monitor
Put Your Social
your social content for multiple accounts within multiple platforms, such as Twitter, Strategy into Play
Facebook, Foursquare and more. In addition, Hootsuite allows you to set up streams to By Jeff Adelson-Yan
easily monitor conversations while organizing them by account, content or platform.

Track, Measure, Analyze & Refine
During the deployment phase, you should also begin measuring, evaluating and
refining. In fact, you will want to start measuring the moment you start engaging.

“
Measurement of your pre-defined KPIs will allow you to assign value to executions,
platforms and audiences. This is the time to find out what is working and adjust your
social activity schedule to capitalize on these trends. Adjust strategy and activity
schedule as needed since social is a dynamic space and brands need to be prepared
to evolve along with the consumer’s ever-changing mindset.

Tools
Not to sound like a broken record, but if you can’t track something, it’s probably not
worth doing. That said, there are numerous ways to track, measure and analyze the
“If you can’t
“
track something,
it’s probably not
effectiveness of your social presence, allowing you to optimize, adjust your strategy worth doing”
and better allocate resources. And as with most other tools in the digital world, there
are both basic and advanced options available.

The basic tools are great for what we call “convenience metrics.” These are the
metrics that are typically easy to track, but probably don’t provide a whole lot of insight
into how your campaigns are performing in terms of your most important, bottom-line
goals, but that isn’t to say you should totally disregard them. For example, tools like
Hootsuite and various URL shorteners, such as ow.ly and bitly, allow you to see which
updates received the most clicks. This can be helpful in determining the best time of
day to post updates, the best days of the week, the type of messaging that results in
higher engagement, etc.


However, you want to get to the heart of it all. Maybe people are clicking on your
content, but is it driving them to your website? And once they land on your website,
Part 4 (cont.)
what are they doing? How does your brand’s Twitter account stack up to its Facebook
Game Time:
account in terms of lead generation and other KPIs (key performance indicators)?
Put Your Social
This is the kind of deeper level insight you can gain through more advanced tools, Strategy into Play
such as Google Analytics or – even more advanced – Omniture, Adobe’s Digital By Jeff Adelson-Yan
Marketing Suite.

If you’ve successfully followed all of the steps above and in the previous parts of
the “Sink or Swim” series, it’s now game time. You’re finally ready to put your social
strategy into play. But never forget the crucial, ongoing elements to any successful
social strategy: continuously measure, analyze and refine. After all, just like an
Olympian, the hard work doesn’t stop on day one of the games.

“ “successful social strategy:
continuously measure, analyze
“
and refine”


We’ve all seen it happen in social media. A brand makes a statement or change to a policy
and suddenly–a viral onslaught of disapproval. It can begin anywhere online with just one
Part 5
disgruntled customer. It’s important to monitor conversation about your brand so that if there is
Don’t Get Burned:
ever a problem, you can tackle it head-on. Now you may be thinking, “how do I know what my
Know What Your
customers are saying online?” And that’s a valid question. After all, you might not be getting Customers Are
everything you need just from a quick Twitter search (you’re doing that, right?). But social plays Saying
a big part in finding out how customers feel about your services/products, customer service, By Steve Parker, Jr.
policies and more. First, we’ll discuss tools that can help you and secondly, we’ll discuss
tactics for online reputation management.

Tools:

“
1. Set up a Google alert. Any time someone mentions your brand (and it’s crawled by the
search engine), it will show up in your alert. You can choose to get these alerts in real time or
just once a day/week.
2. Look into social media management tools. These tools (like Hootsuite or Sprout Social) can
help you monitor and better understand what people are saying about you via the
social platforms.
3. Paid options (which will be discussed in more detail later in the series) like Radian 6 can
also bring new depth to your understanding of customer conversation… as long as you can
“Every
complaint is an
“
aggregate it properly. opportunity”
Tactics:
You’ve found what your customers are saying; now what?

1. Every complaint is an opportunity. What is this person really upset about? Is it something
you can fix? How might you be able to turn a bad situation into a beneficial one? Chobani’s
Facebook page is full of love from fans, but also occasionally gets peppered with complaints
about a bad yogurt. What does Chobani do? Send the customer in question a shout-out and a
coupon. It instantly turns the customer from unhappy to happy, maybe even brand advocate.
2. Every accolade is a chance to promote. Some brands will ignore a fan that celebrates them.
But why not promote that compliment by using it in a Facebook ad campaign or [at least]
re-tweeting? Word of mouth works both ways and can often lead to positive brand awareness.
3. Listen and refine. Listening to social conversation can often give your brand insight on how
to improve customer satisfaction. It could be something small like offering free coffee in a
waiting room. It could also be something big like product refinement or development. No longer
do we have to wait for test groups. People are volunteering their opinions and information
about your brand right now in online public forums. Shouldn’t you be listening?


For our sixth installment of the “Sink or Swim” series, we will discuss the importance of
measurement. It is often thought (and spoken aloud) that social media marketers can’t
Part 6
always assign ROI or a dollar amount to social media efforts. It is likened to billboards
Don’t Put Your
or TV advertisements, wherein the value is implicit.
Head in the Sand:
Measurement is Key
That is simply not the case. By Jeff Adelson-Yan
There are many ways in which your social media efforts can be measured. To begin,
let’s start with the goals associated with your social strategy. These will help you
measure what is important. If your goal is “brand awareness,” for instance, it is wise
to look at metrics like “People Talking About This,” or the number of people generating
stories about your brand (likes, follows, comments, shares, etc.). If your goal is sales-

“
driven, it is wise to look at metrics on your website and referring traffic from
social platforms.

Most brands obviously monitor their increase in likes on Facebook, follows on Twitter
and all the other minutia that these platforms throw at you to make you feel good. In
Hootsuite, you can check your clicks in their “Quick Analytics” tab using your ow.ly
links. But have you thought about appending code to each individual tweet and
tracking with Google Analytics or a paid platform like Marin or Omniture? The options
for tracking are nearly endless and can go as granular as you like. In fact, there are
ways to follow someone around on your site to see their paths. What pages did the
user scope out? How long were they there? Think about how valuable this information
can be to your social strategy and your new business team.
“ The options
“
for tracking are
nearly endless
and can go as
granular as you
like”
Here are some examples of conclusions you can draw from taking the
time (& money) to measure your social media efforts:
1) How do people engage with your brand on different platforms? Perhaps people are
more likely to click on a philanthropic message on Facebook, whereas they’re looking
for deals on Twitter.

2) What is user behavior like once they reach the brand website? How are your call-to-
actions in social messaging affecting (or not affecting) this?

3) How much money is it making your business to be social? And yes, this can be an
estimate or concrete dollar amount, depending on the amount of technology you want.

Too many agencies send brands in the direction of social media because it is fun and
easy; perhaps even because they think they will be held less accountable for hard ROI
numbers. But if you’re not measuring your social efforts, why do them at all?


If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a million times. Test, test, test! Message testing is Part 7
often associated with paid search, but it belongs in your social media strategy as well.
Bathing Suit or
While we recommend trying differing copy at various times and days of the week to
Swimsuit? Test your
analyze trends in engagement, it is equally as important to test what types of copy
Social Messaging
resonate best with your audience.

First, find the best words.
You can use the Google Keyword Tool to search for competitive keywords and search
volumes for each. Below is an example of keyword variations you might use in social
messaging in order to garner better engagement:

With the integration of social and search becoming more prevalent with each passing
day, it is important to note that it is entirely possible for your social messaging to end
up on a SERP. This means that you want your messaging to correlate with the highest
volume of relevant search queries–or, perhaps for a more targeted post, a long-tail
version of these keywords.

You can also do a quick search on hashtags.org to see if the hashtags in your social
“
“Engagement is

means the last”
“
the first step in
analyzing social
data but by no

messages are being used frequently. As an example, “#swimsuit” was used four times
in the last hour, whereas “#bathingsuit” was used once in the last five hours. This is a
quick way to get a top-line feel for what language social users are typing in most.

Second, find the best times.
Obviously bathing suit and swimsuit season is nearly over with the coming of fall, but
for less seasonally-dependent messages, it is important to test various timing. There
are a plethora of studies that indicate different times of best engagement (even broken
down by industry), but it is smartest to test it for yourself. You might find that your
audience engages most in the mornings and not at 6pm.


Try first using your best judgment. Think of when you are on social media most (what
times of the day and what days). Do not schedule an important message to go out at
Part 7 (cont.)
4:45pm on a Friday because most people are shutting down both their computers and
Bathing Suit or
their brains. When is the best time for a message to reach you on the weekends? Test
Swimsuit? Test your
various times and keep a record of engagement levels as they fluctuate. If there are Social Messaging
not specific times that perform wildly better than others; that’s OK. Perhaps you can at By Steve Parker, Jr.
least rule out low engagement times.

Quick tip: Try Hootsuite’s Auto Schedule for a few weeks to see if engagement
increases. If you have several Twitter handles or Facebook pages, try using auto
schedule for just one of them. Schedule the others as you normally would.

Third, analyze your data.
All of this testing is designed to get you to an end goal – a greater ROI for social
messaging. Once you have tested social messaging, you can use the data you have
collected to optimize for the greatest level of engagement.

Here is an example of what I mean: After testing “bathing suit” versus “swimsuit,”
Client X observed that social messaging with the word “swimsuit” got 64% more likes
and 25% more comments. It’s safe to say Client X can take “bathing suit” out of its
social media messaging mix. Next Client X saw that posts containing swimsuit did best
at 2pm in conjunction with a photo of a travel destination. Therefore, Client X now has
“
“ All of this
testing is
designed to get
you to an end
“
goal – a greater
ROI for social
messaging”

an optimal time to capture the community’s attention. How can Client X best capitalize
on this? Perhaps it’s with a series of photos, asking the community for user-generated
content or announcing a contest. The possibilities are endless.

Engagement is the first step in analyzing social data but by no means the last. Next
comes measuring your key performance indicators, whether it is click-throughs, sign-
ups or lead generation. If you do not yet know what your social KPIs should be, read
this. If you have no idea how to measure a social KPI, read this.

Remember: Testing is essential for any social media campaign–paid or unpaid. The
less influencing variables in your test, the better your insight into performance will be.


We all know that familiar feeling; summer is ending and it’s time to put on your Keds
and go back to school. You’ve spent the summer doing awesome, social things and
Part 8
now you’re wondering where you’ll go from here. But believe us – there’s nothing
Stay Studious:
worse than forgetting about your social strategy once you’ve begun. That’s why we’ve
Ongoing Social
written this final piece of the Sink or Swim series about ongoing social optimization. Optimization
To be truly successful in social media marketing, you have to be the 3 Cs: creative, By Steve Parker, Jr.
careful and… consistent. Consistency is a huge part of being successful because you
have to give your customers an idea of what to expect from your brand. Consistency
means having:

A clear, unified voice;

“
Regular and reliable updates

Therefore, you can’t start your social strategy hot and heavy and then cool off. In fact,
if you feel that time management is going to be an issue going in, then starting with
two updates a week on Facebook and two tweets a day on Twitter might be enough.
If you begin with an update on Facebook every day, five tweets a day every week and “To be truly
pinning fresh content on Pinterest every day, it’s important that you keep this up.
successful in
Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you are keeping up with your content and
maintaining a great consistency, but you’re still lacking in engagement. This is when
ongoing social optimization comes in. We have already gone through virtually every
step of optimization, but let’s recap the most important information to keep it fresh in
your mind:

1. Keep up with new social media platforms. In order to assess if they are right for
social media
marketing, you
have to be the
3 Cs: creative,
careful and
“
your brand, do some research about the demographics and different mediums used (is
consistent”
it predominantly aggregated content? video?).

2. Keep your finger on the pulse of what your customers are saying. Use social media
monitoring tools (free or otherwise) in order to find out what your online reputation is.
You cannot change perception until you are made fully aware.

3. Test messaging, photos and various kinds of content for both paid and non-paid
social media content. Compile your data at the end of every week/month/campaign
and analyze to see what performed well, what created the most KPI completions and
what needs improvement (or scrapping).


4. Align your social strategy with your overall business goals. Put a plan into place that
Part 8 (cont.)
helps you achieve these goals and set yourself up for success. Tracking capabilities
Stay Studious:
exist on almost every facet of social media and can be assigned ROI. Do not settle for
Ongoing Social
a social media expert/guru/ninja that tells you otherwise. Optimization
5. Capture all the data available in order to make better decisions about your targeting,
messaging and social media goals, as so much of social media is dependent on
outside factors.

Most importantly, remember to stay flexible. Social media is ever-changing and so too
should be your strategy. So jump on in–it’s time to sink or swim.

“ “Social media is ever-changing
and so too should be your
“
strategy”


Like what you read and
want to learn more?

ASQ Contributors Steve Parker, Jr. and Jeff Adelson-Yan are also the Managing
Partners and Co-Founders of Levelwing. Levelwing creates data-driven business
intelligence and digital marketing solutions, mining and analyzing data to help
businesses operate with greater clarity and profitability.

Find out how you can benefit from Levelwing’s services by visiting:
www.levelwing.com/services


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