Join us for our biweekly demo of TweetReach Pro!
Interested in learning more about TweetReach? Join us for our biweekly demo of TweetReach Pro.
TweetReach can help you measure the reach of brands, campaigns and events on Twitter. It’s a dead simple way to discover how far your message has traveled, what tweets are getting the most traction, and who’s influencing the conversation around your brand or product. Our demos usually take 15-20 minutes followed by an open Q&A session. Attendees will receive a discount code at the end.
Pick the date that works the best for you, and we’ll see you there! Register here, and be sure to select your preferred date from the drop-down menu:
Wednesday, April 24 | 12pm-12:30pm EDT
Wednesday, May 8 | 12pm-12:30pm EDT
Wednesday, May 22 | 12pm-12:30pm EDT
Wednesday, June 5 | 12pm-12:30pm EDT
Wednesday, June 19 | 12pm-12:30pm EDT
Photo courtesy Powerhouse Museum Collection
Miss a conference? 5 tips for getting the most out of the hashtag on Twitter
We’ve covered how to get the most out of a conference using hashtags as both an attendee and as the host before, but what if you planned to go to a conference and missed it, or can’t afford the trip?
- Go to the conference website and check someone’s feed that you know attended to see what hashtags were used; this will cover all the bases if either source missed one
- Search those hashtags to see what the main conference chatter was about:
- Making connections: maybe someone you have a good relationship with connected with someone else you’d like an intro to
- Notes from presentations/keynotes: find links to SlideShares and recordings
- Photos: get a feel for what events were like
- Observations about the location: if you’re planning to attend in the future, you can remember the restaurants, bars and other sites attendees recommended
- If you’re familiar with the area and you know in advance you’re going to miss the conference, consider tweeting out some suggestions for places to go eat and socialize on the hashtag(s)
- See if someone made a Storify of the conference, or consider making one yourself and tweet out the link with the conference hashtag(s)
- Run a free TweetReach snapshot report for the main hashtag to see top contributors (you might want to follow them) and what the most retweeted tweets were. Be sure to do this as soon as the conference ends so you can get the best information. (And if you want more, you can buy a full report for $20, no account necessary.)
- Ask if anyone has a link to a blog post about the conference from past years; that way you can really get a complete picture of how it changes year over year
Did we miss any good tips? Leave ‘em in the comments.
This Week in Social Analytics #46
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
News on Social Media is Ready for Prime-time [INFOGRAPHIC] [from Social Media Today; written by Tatiana Aders]
“Adaptation to the social media news channel by a mainstream and pragmatic audience indicates that this technology has already ‘crossed the chasm’ in the innovation adoption lifecycle. Simply put, the social media news channel is poised for majority adoption.”
Twitter Now Rivals Facebook as Teens’ Most Important Social Network [from Marketing Charts; written by Marketing Charts staff]
“The trends favor Twitter, though: compared to the last survey, conducted in the Fall of 2012, the proportion of teens naming Facebook as their most important has dropped 9% points, while those naming Twitter have grown by 3% points.”
Britons spend 62m hours a day on social media – that’s an average one hour for EVERY adult and child [from The Independent; written by Pat Hurst]
“Of the UK’s estimated 26 million Twitter users, almost a third (31%) spend more than an hour a day on the network, while 14% – more than 3.6 million people – say their daily usage exceeds two hours.”
New London-based soap opera replaces TV episodes with Twitter [from The Telegraph; written by Alice Vincent]
“Seven Sisters, which launches later this month, removes the show aspect from the traditional soap opera format, and instead narrates the love triangles and family spats in its characters’ lives through social media. Its audience will follow the various plot strands through Instagram, Facebook and Twitter updates, with extra information available on an app and in blog posts.”
A new form of entertainment. Will you ‘tune in’?
Twitter Use Drives Up, LinkedIn Stalls in the UK [from eMarketer; written by eMarketer staff]
“Twitter saw the biggest bump in penetration since February 2011, more than doubling from 13% to 28%. And while nearly half of those ages 18 to 24 used Twitter—the highest penetration level of all the age groups—the 35-to-44 age group had the second-highest penetration rate, at one-third of internet users.”
Only a Third of the World’s Population is Online [from Statista; written by Felix Richter]
“‘For every person online, there are two who are not. By the end of the decade, everyone on Earth will be connected. #NewDigitalAge’
The above statement was tweeted by Google chairman Eric Schmidt on Saturday, April 13. Given Schmidt’s prominence and the boldness of his claim, it naturally sparked a lively discussion as to whether it would be possible (and desirable) for the entire world population to be online by 2020.”
Using Twitter as a nonprofit
We talked to Beverly Robertson of the March of Dimes about using social media as a nonprofit in one of our TakeFives earlier this year, and here’s what she had to say:
“TweetReach: Do you feel the approach or reliance on social platforms is different for a nonprofit organization? What would you recommend to one that is just starting on their social strategy, or is uncertain of how to even begin?
Beverly Robertson: Social Media is critical not only for delivering mission messaging, but in introducing the organization to a new audience, as well as keeping track of what people are saying about you and your mission. It also is critical to take the opportunity to thank your donors and volunteers publicly for all of their hard work and support. I cannot tell you what a tremendous response we get for doing that. My recommendation is jump in, but listen before you speak.”
If you’re a nonprofit who would like to get more out of social media, here are some tips to get started on Twitter:
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Listen before you speak: see what other non-profits have to say in their Twitter profiles and down their timelines before you jump into tweeting.
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Listening to other accounts can give you a good idea of etiquette and basic interactions, but be sure to use your organization’s voice and be human
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Find supporters and follow them. Interact where it’s appropriate: proactively answer questions and provide links to more information
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If someone is spreading misinformation about your organization on Twitter, you have options:
a. Address them and gently correct the information, sharing a link for them/those following the conversation to read more
b. Send out a tweet from your own account that does not directly address the account spreading the misinformation, but corrects it Either way, try to avoid getting into a verbal battle with someone on Twitter. Neither party ever looks good.
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Take major issues offline: if someone comes to you on Twitter with a big problem, make sure you’re mutually following one another and then DM an email address where a deeper discussion can take place
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Check for hashtags related to your cause and monitor them; this is one way to track what’s being said about your organization
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If there aren’t any obvious ones, create a hashtag and start using it. Encourage your supporters to pick it up as well.
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Regularly monitor search results for the name of your organization, both the version you have for Twitter (such as @marchofdimes) and any iterations of the name without the handle: March of Dimes, MoD, etc. (Use Twitter’s search, create columns in TweetDeck and even run a free snapshot report with us.)
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Consider hosting a tweet chat. Those interested in supporting your cause could find you through another’s timeline or the chat hashtag, and will have a chance to interact with and follow you, as well as ask questions.
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Finally, be sure you have easy-to-find, working social buttons on your website! Supporters won’t know where to find you if you don’t tell them.
Want more information on how nonprofits used social media in 2012? Check out the infographic below featured on Mashable (and if you have any tips for us, leave them in the comments!):
This Week in Social Analytics #45
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
Social Behavior: The BIG GAME — A Study with SurveyMonkey [from iAcquire; written by Norris A. A. Rowley Jr.]
“From 2011-2012 time spent on social media has increased by roughly 30 billion minutes (or 37%). You may have thought Facebook increased the most, however there was a 4% dip in user visiting the site. However, Pinterest’s visits increased by 1000% (that is a whole lot of pins). This is a useful insight because it shows the social media market is not solely Facebook, a social media strategy needs to be holistic and flexible.”
The Lean Analytics Cycle: Metrics > Hypothesis > Experiment > Act [from Occam's Razor; written by Avinash Kaushik]
“We are far too enamored with data collection and reporting the standard metrics we love because others love them because someone else said they were nice so many years ago.”
Definitely falls under long reads, but it’s a good, detailed approach to setting up analytics beyond the easiest (and often most meaningless) metrics.
Twitter’s Big Challenge: Too Much Twitter [from Wired; written by Mat Honan]
“Discover needs to get far better at surfacing the most interesting things from your own timeline that happened since you last looked at Twitter. Imagine if instead of showing interesting things from all around Twitter, Discover focused on your own timeline and showed you the most interesting and important things since you last checked Twitter. It could display the tweets by people you follow that were the most retweeted and the most favorited. It could show the links that came up the most often over the past hour (or two hours, or four hours or whatever) on your timeline, or that had people talking. If two or three of the people you follow message each other back and forth for multiple tweets, it should put that conversation in front of you, starting with the first tweet (especially if more people join in).”
Social Media and Multitasking Go Hand in Hand [from eMarketer; written by eMarketer staff]
“Social network multitaskers on both Facebook and Twitter were most likely to log on to accounts when they were planted in front of the TV; more than eight in 10 Facebook users and about two-thirds of Twitter users used social networks while channel surfing. But the two networks were also extremely popular while traveling and among those who were supposed to be working.”
For pols, Tumblr is trending [from Politico; written by Kevin Cirilli]
“This is Tumblr’s moment,” Gregory Galant, CEO of Sawhorse Media, told POLITICO. “It’s almost equivalent to when Truman realized that he could address the nation directly on television to make a presidential address – here’s a new form of media to reach an audience.”
Case Study: How Content Diffuses Through Different Social Networks [from Social Media Today; written by Dr. Scott Hendrickson]
“Tumblr’s reaction was unique, with slow momentum building during the first few hours after the shareholder call, but quickly speeding up when as people created ‘re-bloggable’ content about the news. Rather than an event-response reaction such as Twitter, or a considered reaction, as with blogs, the reaction of the audience on Tumblr accelerates as the type of content Tumblrs reblog appears in the network.”
9 tips for watching TV on Twitter
Live-blogging has spawned a new generation of itself, and the cool kids these days are live-Tweeting and Tumbling while they watch their favorite shows. Sound like something you’d like to get in on? We’ve got some suggestions to help get you started using Twitter while you watch TV.
After all, 4 in 5 Americans multitask while they’re watching TV now, did you know?
From Marketing Charts
If you want to be one of them, here are some tips for getting social while watching your favorite shows:
- Check for an official show or episode hashtag. Using this, you can join in the voices of the multitude – or minority – watching. It’s easy to connect with like-minded people this way. You can find these hashtags by searching for an official show handle by typing the show name into Twitter search, and then go to that account to see what hashtag(s) they use. If there’s no official account, or they’re not using hashtags, click through other search results to see what other people are using.
- If a hashtag doesn’t already exist, make up your own. People who follow you who watch the show might join in, and it can spread from there. Or someone who follows you who doesn’t even watch the show might start, because they know someone else who watches it.
- You might want to announce ahead of time if you’re going to be live-tweeting a show, and that you’ll be using a hashtag, just in case anyone wants to mute it if they’re not interested.
- Do not tweet spoilers. Ever. Remember that not everyone is watching live, and you don’t want to be the one who ruins the ending for everyone else.
- Interact with other people talking about the show, replying to and retweeting them when appropriate.
- Mention official accounts for the show, the actors or the characters. You never know when you might get a retweet, and those accounts often have a large following. You can find them by searching Twitter for the show name and choosing the official account that pops up with a verified checkmark, or by going to the show’s website – they all have their social profiles prominently displayed.
- Follow people you have an interesting interaction with – that’s what being social is all about, after all. You may find some new friends.
- For big events where you might have people over to be social IRL too – like a Super Bowl party or Oscar party – post pictures of your setup, and include guest’s handles in your tweets.
- Share your content from other networks like Tumblr and Instagram. But be careful of auto-sharing everything you post elsewhere; those who follow you in multiple places might get bothered by the redundancy and decide to unfollow you. It’s great to cross-post some, but be selective.
Do you tweet while you watch TV? Got any tips we missed? Tell us how you do it in the comments below.
TakeFive with TweetReach – Richard Janes
Welcome back to TakeFive with TweetReach, our ongoing interview series with influential members of the Twitter measurement universe. This week, we’re excited to speak with Richard Janes, Co-Founder and CEO of Fanology Social, a social media studio that utilizes storytelling to engage fans of celebrities and brands, such as Pretty Little Liars star Shay Mitchell.
TweetReach: We’ve got one question we like to start everyone off with, to see all the different pathways people take into social media: How you got started with social media as a whole? Can you describe your first “ah-ha” moment?
Richard Janes: My background is in producing, directing and writing movies and TV. I had the opportunity to write for big studios such as Disney, saw my directorial debut distributed theatrically around the world and won an Emmy by the age of 25. My career was growing quickly– until the dreaded writer’s strike of 2007. Being a new kid on the block, fresh off the boat from England, my trajectory came to a quick stop.
We started holding Sunday brunches for our friends who had been laid off or directly affected by the strike. It was inevitable that our conversations would come back to the internet, the need for new distribution, power distribution amongst the “creatives” and, of course, the power of social media. My brain began to churn on the technology that was being born around us.
That year, looking to stay active, I produced a web series called Dorm Life. Initially, we exclusively distributed through Hulu. Since the show was based on a college dorm floor, it made complete sense to jump on social media. There, we had the freedom to creatively market and distribute the show. The feed and two-way conversation that developed between the show’s characters and fans was incredible– that’s when I had my “ah-ha” moment.
It become overly clear to me that social media just might be the answer to all the discussions our group of friends was having. During a backyard dinner party, Fanology Social was born. It took a few years to raise our seed money, but in 2010 we opened the doors to Fanology HQ providing social media services to celebrities and brands.
We are completely enjoying the ride: telling stories, creating conversations and engaging audiences. Our clients’ fans now total over 60 million on Facebook and 28 million on Twitter.
TweetReach: You’re active in the entertainment industry. How are others in your industry embracing social media and measurement? How is your approach different from everyone else?
Richard Janes: Our traditional entertainment industry accounts are responsible for 50% of our business, however, I would argue that all our clients are embracing the idea of being entertainment providers to communicate their message through social media. As far as the traditional entertainment industry goes we are still at an embryonic stage of social media use. There appear to be three main buckets that our competitors fall into:
1. The agency that is focused on looking after celebrities and either driving all their social media traffic to a celebrities website where they monazite via low CPM adverts, or
2. The social media factory with hundreds of celebrity clients where they have a set formula that doesn’t deviate with each client, but at least it gets the celebrity building their audience.
3. Traditional ad agencies that approach social media as they do traditional advertising with the focus on the sell rather than the building of meaningful relationships.
What makes us different is that we are 100% focused on social media; we develop client-specific strategy and content (copy, graphics, videos and experiences) for each platform. First and foremost we are entertainment providers who have spent decades building content that evokes an emotional response providing continual value to the end user.
TweetReach: You engage clients like Shay Mitchell from Pretty Little Liars—both she and her show have a huge fan base that’s active on Twitter. How do you measure fan engagement around her and her character? What measurement benchmarks are important to you, and how do you use TweetReach to get them?
Richard Janes: Shay Mitchell is a great example of an actress who really ‘gets’ social media. She understands that she is where she is- and will achieve her lofty goals- ONLY as a result of her fans continued support.
Shay is really a dream client for us.
As part of our strategy, we support her in weekly Twitter parties around the show, which drives huge interaction from her fan base. For the season finale, our hashtag #PLLayWithShay received over 96,000 tweets, 177,000,000 impressions and trended worldwide for nearly two hours.
The average Twitter party runs an hour and after we are able to track the success through TweetReach Analytics. We love the immediacy of TweetReach!
As far as the benchmarks we use to measure success, it really varies from client to client and partner to partner. With our celebrity clients they have so many brand partners (from the TV shows and studios through to magazines, talk shows, and product lines they endorse) we have to have access to a wide variety of trustworthy data so that we can meet any of their insight requests at a give time.
From a brand perspective like Live Nation, it’s all about the click through to buy tickets. But with Toyota, there isn’t the expectation that a click on a link is going to directly result in the purchase of a new Pruis C. Not yet anyway!
TweetReach: How do you look at and think about the mix of different social media networks when designing your social strategy—are you looking at incorporating more than just Twitter? What kind of different approaches might you take with different platforms, and what lessons do you think you can take with you from Twitter?
Richard Janes: We work across social media from Google+ Hangout’s with Jillian Michaels and Ashley Tisdale to Twitter parties with Shay Mitchell and Jesse McCartney, all the way through to a Redit AMA with Morgan Spurlock.
The key for us is developing a strong narrative on each platform that caters to each platform’s strengths and takes the fan on a journey, rather than through random updates where social media fatigue can set it. As far as immediate interaction, Twitter is the king and multiple updates work great in creating a two-way conversation, be it with a celebrity’s Twitter party, or working as a customer service tool for some of the IOS gaming companies we work with. When it comes to Facebook we have to be a lot more focused on our client’s updates; with Google+ SEO is making a big difference.
TweetReach: Have you looked at social media success or failure in other industries for pointers on how to apply best practices in your work? Any good examples?
Richard Janes: 100%, we are all pioneers and there is no point in having tunnel vision with the way we do business. We are constantly on the lookout for innovative work and you never know where that may come from: a massive agency with a huge budget, or a local musician who has come up with a great way to get all his friends turning up to a gig.
TweetReach: Good examples of social media work?
Richard Janes: Hummm …a good place to start is our website ;-)
TweetReach: Haha fantastic, Richard! Thanks for talking to us. And we’ll keep watching to see where Fanology Social takes its clients next!
This Week in Social Analytics #44
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
Facebook to See Three in 10 Mobile Display Dollars This Year [from eMarketer]
“Both Facebook and Twitter have benefited from their use of so-called native ad formats that are seamlessly integrated within the core user experiences of their respective products. The resulting ability for both companies to deliver mobile ad impressions at much higher volume than many traditional ad publishers has helped them capture market share very quickly.”
What Does That Second Screen Mean for Viewers and Advertisers? [from AdWeek; written by Lucia Moses]
Social television does more than just give people something to collectively chatter about on a social network; it engages them emotionally:
“When people used Facebook, Twitter or GetGlue while watching TV, their emotional engagement was 1.3 times higher than that of solo TV viewers.”
This has a lot of different implications for advertisers.
Twitter Relaunches Its Twitter For Business Site With More Content, New Video [from Marketing Land; written by Matt McGee]
“Twitter has also published a new video that, in my opinion, is the most effective messaging the company has offered yet for businesses — not just why, but also how to do business on Twitter. It’s basic and meant for beginners, but there’s a lot of information packed into a little more than two minutes.”
More from Twitter Dev: Mobile app deep linking and new cards [from Twitter's Developers blog; written by Jason Costa]
A breakdown of Twitter’s new card capabilities, straight from the development team.
4 Types of Content Consumption (Research) | Content Marketing: How We Use Multiple Devices [from Heidi Cohen's blog; written by Heidi Cohen]
“Social Spider-Webbing is the opposite of Investigative Spider-Webbing in that it’s extroverted. Focused on sharing and connecting, it allows viewers to connect with others (both friends and like minded individuals) while watching live events and television shows.
Overwhelmingly social spider webbing makes solitary content consumption a social activity. More than two out of five respondents use it to connect with others. About a third use it habitually. About one in four chooses social spider webbing to enhance their enjoyment of their content consumption.”
You can find the link to the full study here.
And before you ban Facebook at the office:
Social Media: Not the Productivity Killer You Thought? [from Inc; written by Francesca Louise Fenzi]
“This tiny group of social network butterflies, however, ranked as the most efficient. Employees who belonged to more than five social networks had a 1.6 percent higher sales conversion than their counterparts and a 2.8 percent lower average call time.
While the data is interesting, it’s next to impossible to determine causation. But Mike Houseman, the managing director of Evolv, posits that performance may be linked to the sociability of employees who belong to several online networks.”
Join us to learn more about TweetReach!
Interested in learning more about TweetReach Pro and our other Twitter analytics offerings? We’re holding two webinar demos next week, conveniently scheduled for our customers outside of the United States. Anyone is welcome to attend, of course!
Sign up for one of these short demos where we’ll tell you more about TweetReach Pro, our historical analytics, and our snapshot reports. To register, just follow the one of the links below:
Let us know if you have any questions. We look forward to having you there!
Photo courtesy Public Domain Pictures
TweetReach Tip: Find & engage influencers on Twitter with TweetReach Trackers
We’ve already covered how to find influencers when you run a TweetReach snapshot report, but how about on a Tracker? They are set up a little differently. On a Tracker, you’ll want to check out the Top Contributors section, obviously:
In this case, we’re looking at a Tracker for Canadian astronaut and current Commander of the International Space Station (ISS) Chris Hadfield, tracking his Twitter handle @Cmdr_Hadfield. In this case, the contributors will be people who are retweeting, mentioning and talking to Commander Hadfield on Twitter. This shows you in a glance who is doing that and generating the most impressions from it.
Looking more closely at contributors is also a great way to connect with those who are influential in your industry, or about the topic (or account) you’re tracking. This shows you who to follow and talk to in a specific industry or around a certain topic. You can do this by clicking on any username anywhere in your Tracker, which will take you to our contributor detail page, which includes more information about the account and how much that person has contributed to the topic you’re tracking. It looks like this:
You can see that this account is engaged with Commander Hadfield’s – they’re the top contributor behind Hadfield himself – and generated a respectable amount of retweets for a tweet they sent out showcasing the recent turnover in ISS command. You can also see more detailed information about the account, such as how many tweets and impressions they’ve contributed mentioning or retweeting Commander Hadfield, as well as their average retweet rate, amplification, and more.
Aside from Top Contributors, you will also want to look at the Highest Exposure and Most Retweeted tweet listing sections:
Pictured: Tweet with the highest exposure
Pictured: most retweeted tweets for this Tracker
Watch to see which users show up in your Tracker’s most popular tweet with any regularity; these are definitely people to connect with – if you aren’t already connected – because they’re interested in your content and they get a lot of attention from whatever they’re putting out into their own stream. These accounts are great to engage with by following back, having conversations with, and retweeting interesting content, if that’s appropriate for your brand or approach. You can also engage by seeing if they take part in Twitter chats, and if they’re about a relevant topic or industry, join in. This will lead you to more likeminded people to connect with.
How do you use your Trackers and reports to find influencers? Tell us your story in the comments below!