Archive for the ‘TakeFive’ tag
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!
TakeFive with TweetReach – Brian Conway
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 Brian Conway, Account Supervisor for Weber Shandwick, about his experiences with social media and how his initial personal use of the medium lead to a deeper understanding for the impact and potential use it had for brands. He takes this insight with him into projects with current clients, such as American Airlines.
TweetReach: Let’s start with talking about how you got started using social media. Can you describe your first “ah-ha” moment?
Brian Conway: My initial experience with social media was in the mid-2000s for personal use when platforms like Facebook and Twitter had really only made a name for themselves as being unique to the individual experience. It wasn’t until 2008 or 2009 that I started paying much closer attention to how those same individual messages aggregate over time to form a larger brand picture that can be pretty — or pretty ugly. The fact that individuals suddenly had so much influence over a company’s brand reputation and strategic direction was a huge eye-opener for me— that was my “ah-ha” moment. This understanding has since influenced how I’ve approached some of the community management and crisis roles I’ve held for a variety of clients.
TweetReach:How have you seen your clients approach Twitter as part of their digital strategy?
Brain Conway: Broadly speaking about Weber Shandwick, the number of clientele using Twitter and other social media platforms has exploded tremendously in the last three or four years. Nearly all use Twitter for some kind of public engagement, and that ranges from corporate news to marketing announcements to social customer service. Others still use it for listening only. Message reach and response is always important, but what we encourage companies to look for are individual conversations, sentiment, and reach of positive messages. Brand-building or brand regress happens over time, so any corporate Twitter strategy needs to take ongoing listening into big consideration. From my personal experience, I’ve been very closely tied to American Airlines’ social media program since 2009, and Twitter has become a hugely invaluable engagement resource, as well as a strong component of its award-winning social customer service program.
TweetReach: How important is measurement of engagement on Twitter to your strategy with clients? Do you have specific goals and campaign metrics that you use to measure performance and success?
Brian Conway: Measurement of social engagement, be it Twitter or any other platform, is as crucial as your digital strategy. After all, a company doesn’t devote budget and time to a platform simply for the sake of grins, right? I often advocate for a well-balanced approach to quantitative and qualitative measurement for clients, and it all starts with goals. If your campaign goals focus squarely on follower growth or message reach as a measure of success, it’s very easy to track those KPIs quantitatively. But, we believe our clients need to know not just how many conversations there were, but what was actually said and what it means for the company’s business objectives.
TweetReach: Along those lines, let’s talk about the measurement of reach. How do you weigh the importance of the quantity of a campaign’s reach (the overall size of the potential audience) vs. the quality of that reach?
Brian Conway: As I mentioned, it’s very important to have a well-balanced mix of quantitative and qualitative analysis for any social media campaign, proactive or reactive. Again, it all comes back to goals and what kind of success you want to achieve for your organization. Some social campaigns may lend themselves more toward KPIs like audience reach, impressions, sales growth, volume of submissions, awareness-generation, volume of tweets using your hashtag, and the like. Other campaigns may focus more on engagement. Some important qualitative questions to ask: What message points resonated best with our followers? Did our posts trigger any unexpected conversations? How does this Twitter campaign help us prepare for the next one?
TweetReach: Do you have any examples of how analytics have helped you adjust or improve your social media activities? Has this ever happened in the middle of a campaign?
Brian Conway: In one instance for a former client, we had pre-determined the entire course of proactive messaging for the client’s social media campaign. Almost halfway into the campaign, our tracking and reporting revealed significant conversations around a storyline we hadn’t even considered, and it gave us cause to revise our messaging strategy to make sure we spoke more about this other storyline people obviously wanted to discuss. When we reported our findings to the client, we were met with some understandable skepticism about changing our strategy, but in the end, we showed that adaptability and commitment to listening can contribute to campaign success— which is exactly what we saw.
Brian assists with the coordination and management of digital/social media programs at varying levels of strategic corporate engagement, including brand reputation management, outreach strategy, new business development, and crisis monitoring and program implementation. Currently, Brian supports a number of Weber Shandwick clients’ social media programs, including American Airlines and Essilor of America. Among Brian’s primary expertise are community management and message engagement, proactive social campaign strategy, social media crisis comnunications, and blogger relations strategy.
TakeFive with TweetReach – Beverly Robertson
Beverly Robertson
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 Beverly Robertson, National Director of the Pregnancy & Newborn Health Education Center at the March of Dimes (find them on Twitter here). We spoke with her about the incredible opportunity social media presents to disseminate health information, particularly as it pertains to the March of Dimes mission: healthy pregnancies and healthy babies. Beverly hosts a Twitter chat with the hashtag #pregnancychat once a month, featuring revolving topics around health, pregnancy and babies. She also hosts ad hoc chats with the hashtag #preemiechats. More recently, The March of Dimes participated in a joint Twitter chat with the Center for Disease Control for Birth Defect Prevention Month (January) with the hashtag #1in33chat.
TweetReach: Welcome, Beverly! Let’s start with talking about how you got started using social media. Can you describe your first “ah-ha” moment?
Beverly Robertson: Actually, I was in India back in ’07 and saw so many young women texting. Watching them, it struck me: what a tremendous opportunity for delivering health information. When I came back, I looked into creating a texting program for the March of Dimes and it was prohibitively expensive. BUT Twitter was free, and women could access it through their phones if they wanted to. March of Dimes joined Twitter in August of 2007. My vision back then was to offer a pregnancy tip of the day. Everything has changed since then.
TweetReach: When did you start doing the Twitter Chats with March of Dimes? How important was measurement when you started them, and how has that evolved?
Beverly Robertson: We started doing chats on Twitter in April of 2010. In the beginning, I tracked stats as a matter of course– but we now rely on TweetReach to not only see our reach, but understand which topics resonate with our followers and what times of day are best to chat, as well as the importance of having guests.
TweetReach: What has surprised you the most about the chats? What about the data you get from measuring them?
Beverly Robertson: The most surprising thing is the interactivity- no, not even that- it’s the openness with which our followers not only share their personal triumphs and trials, but their gratitude to us as an organization. Also, don’t host a chat at 3pm ET; people are at the bus stop picking up their kids! Simple really, but it was not on my radar. The most interesting thing (not really surprising) about the data is it how far a simple retweet will go with the right people with a large following. On a side note, beyond the chat reports, I love reading the Tracker reports. It is sometimes surprising to see who is talking about the Foundation and the reach the conversation has.
TweetReach: There are many different ways to measure activity, but how does March of Dimes gauge your success?
Beverly Robertson: We look at reach numbers, of course, but also the number of contributors and growth year over year. I absolutely go back to compare the numbers over time and analyze the strengths, weaknesses, and growth opportunities of the chats– and make changes based on them.
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.
TweetReach: The last chat you held in December was on hyperemesis gravidarum, which the Duchess of Cambridge was recently diagnosed with. How do you typically choose chat topics? Did you find more engagement with this one since it related to a recent news event involving a well-known figure?
Beverly Robertson: Some of our chat topics are planned in advance based on a specific monthly activity (November is Prematurity Awareness Month, for example) while other are more spontaneous, like the hyperemesis one (Editor’s note: The March of Dimes held a Twitter chat on December 5, 2012, on the topic of hypermesis gravidarum, or severe, chronic and debilitating morning sickness). With the flu being so bad this year, we are planning a chat on Flu During Pregnancy on Feb 1st. I also see what people are talking about in my streams, or ask outright what topics our followers would like to have covered. I did not find that the hyperemesis chat was better because it was in the news. I think a better lead time and more promotional opportunity is more critical to success than celebrity hype.
TweetReach: Thank you for taking the time to talk with us and share your thoughts and findings, Beverly!
Beverly Robertson is the National Director of the Pregnancy & Newborn Health Education Center at the March of Dimes. Under her leadership, The Center provides information in both English and Spanish via tradional, written and online inquiries as well as through social networking.
She is heavily vested in new media, leading the social media mission messaging team: tweeting on @marchofdimes, and @babytips as well as managing the blogging team for News Moms Need and Nacersano blog. She holds webinars, workshops and speaks at many conferences on the benefits of social media and the need to engage the public, as well as the importance of Hispanic Outreach. She keeps a watchful eye on non-profit uses for new technology.
Beverly has a MLS degree from Rutgers University, an MA in history, and an archival certificate from New York University. She has a BA in Spanish from Ohio State University.
TakeFive with TweetReach – Jim Kneer
Welcome back to TakeFive with TweetReach, our ongoing interview series with influential members of the Twitter measurement universe. This week, we’re happy to highlight Jim Kneer, New Media Specialist for the NBA Champion Miami HEAT basketball team. Coming off a terrific championship season and an Olympic gold medal for Team USA player and Miami HEAT forward Lebron James, we thought it would be a great time to get Jim’s views on Twitter measurement.
TweetReach: Welcome Jim! Can you describe your role in the HEAT organization? How have you used social media, specifically Twitter, as a part of your social media strategy for the team?
Jim Kneer: Our New Media team is the eyes and ears of HEAT fans around the globe. Our job is to connect with as many HEAT fans as we can. We create relationships with our younger fans that will evolve into a strong brand loyalty. We view Twitter as the first true means of establishing two-way communication with our fans.
Our franchise is just entering our 25th season, so we are a relatively young franchise. We are just starting to see our first generation of life-long HEAT fans reach fiscal maturity. It is our goal to take advantage of the amazing team we have to build our fan base and social media, and Twitter specifically, allows us to reach out and communicate with fans.
We use Twitter to provide real-time coverage of all HEAT related news and events. Our New Media team covers all HEAT practices, games and provides behind-the-scenes coverage of HEAT related events.
TweetReach: How important is measurement of engagement on Twitter to your strategy? Do you have specific goals and campaign metrics that you use to measure performance and success?
Jim Kneer: Measurement of social media engagement is key for us. While we may not have specific goals for each initiative we undertake, engagement metrics play a key role in our future initiatives. We like to look at the performance of our tweets and use that data to tailor our coverage to the areas we get the most engagement. We always want to deliver the content our fans want the most.
We also like to use this data to determine time of posting. We want our posts to generate a lot of replies and we try to provide as many answers as time and scheduling allow. Conversely, pictures and posts that will generate a lot of re-tweets are often made during our “off hours” since less attention is required.
TweetReach: Has your social media measurement strategy changed as you’ve gone from the regular season, to the playoffs, to the champion series, to the off-season?
Jim Kneer: During the season, we utilize a lot of the measurements to build our strategy. Each regular season, we find a different tweeting “sweet spot.” Some years we see more interactions of pictures, some years it may be statistical information that gets the best response. Our job during the regular season is to perfect our strategy. Socially, we do not want to be become a nuisance.
I come from an email marketing background. Email marketing has always been referred to as “permission-based marketing.” Moving over to social media, I always treat it as “privilege-based marketing.” We have been lucky to earn a spot in our fans’ timelines and newsfeeds. We treat this as a privilege. We try to avoid straight sales pitches, instead offering exclusive first looks or first opportunities to buy. This gives our sales pitches a more exclusive, offer-based characteristic.
Once we hit the post-season, we intensify our social media efforts. We know that our fans’ appetite for information increases and we begin traveling to away games to help provide coverage to which they may not otherwise have access. This coverage increases each round, as fans want more and more information. During the 2012 NBA Finals, we sent two staff members to Oklahoma City to cover everything, and we were rewarded with a really comprehensive behind the scenes look at the team during our title run.
Our off-season strategy is to provide relevant content when it occurs, but more so to focus on increasing our interactions with fans. We try to reply to as many relevant mentions as we can, while also increasing the amount of interactive tweets we send out.
TweetReach: What’s your opinion on the “second-screen experience” during televised games? Have you seen more consumers actively engaging via Twitter during games and how do you make the most of that for the team?
Jim Kneer: During the regular season, we work very closely with our broadcast partner, Sun Sports/Fox Sports Florida. Last off-season, we had a series of social-broadcast meetings and were able to develop a very interactive broadcast. We developed a Facebook Friday component to help draw viewers to our broadcasts, especially when our local broadcast is up against a national broadcast of the game.
We also got our broadcasters Eric Reid and Tony Fiorentino on Twitter and they were able to interact with fans and answer some questions live during all broadcasts. Additionally, we created a dedicated hashtag to track all comments.
Fans were also actively engaged in twitter polls for the pregame spotlights as well as the poll question for games. We wanted to create a very social feel for our broadcasts and are very happy where they stand after our first season.
TweetReach: Can you describe one of your more successful social media efforts? Were there specific measurement goals you wanted to achieve and how did the campaign perform? Any lessons learned you can share with our audience?
Jim Kneer: I think one of our most successful efforts this year was the unveiling of our new “Black is Back” uniform. We knew this would generate buzz, but the scope of the appeal was amazing. We were able to reach over 4.5 million unique accounts and generate almost 17 million impressions.
We also made a big social media push for the release of our Miami Floridians throwback jersey. This effort reached over 5.8 million unique people and total impressions reached 13 million.
I think the most important thing we took from these campaigns was that we needed to be ready and able to take advantage of these situations the moment they arise. Once we noticed the feedback, the posts, and tweets we were receiving, we really ramped up our efforts. We learned that by monitoring early reaction to a post you can really ride the positive public sentiment and stay ahead of the curve.
TweetReach: Thanks, Jim!
TakeFive with TweetReach – Michele Hinojosa
Welcome back to TakeFive with TweetReach, our ongoing interview series with notable members of the social media analytics and measurement community. This week we’re thrilled to welcome Michele Hinojosa, a self-confessed analytics geek and Director of Digital Analytics at Red Door Interactive.
TweetReach: Welcome Michele! Let’s start with talking about how you got started with social analytics. What got you interested in measuring social?
Michele Hinojosa: I first got into digital measurement through web and advertising analytics at Kelley Blue Book. As I started expanding my horizons and wanting to learn more about the digital analytics industry, I started joining in conversations in social media — the Yahoo Web Analytics group, Linked In, Quora, but especially Twitter. For me, social analytics started mostly as a curiosity, just playing around with different solutions and analysing social traffic to my little blog, or analysing the social media behaviour of the online web analytics community through the #measure hashtag.
Now, at Red Door Interactive, my team of Digital Analysts and I get to help clients understand the impact of conversations they’re having with customers, including on the website, in social media or through a variety of acquisition channels.
TweetReach: What metrics are most important for your job and your company? What should we be measuring? Beyond that, is there anything we shouldn’t be measuring? Are there any “bad” metrics?
Michele Hinojosa: I don’t think there are “bad” metrics per se, just less useful ones. There is an evolution as companies grow from a simple like/follower approach to looking more at business impact. This isn’t really surprising, given a lot of companies also embark on social “because we should”, but without strategy or goals for doing so. Ideally, companies should embark on social initiatives with clear goals (e.g., decrease call center volume, drive sales, drive traffic to the website, save on other marketing budgets, etc) and understand what, in a perfect world, you would want to measure. From there, figure out if you can. Do you have the right toolsets? The necessary data integration? If not, come up with something that gets you close, or gives you directional insight while you build out the rest. I’m not saying wait until everything is perfect before you do anything, but make sure you know where you want to get before you start working towards it.
TweetReach: What are your recommendations for someone just getting started with social analytics? What should they do first? What are some important considerations?
Michele Hinojosa: For an analyst thinking about diving into social media, they need to first get involved in social media themselves. I don’t think you can measure what you don’t understand, and getting involved in a variety of social channels is key to understanding them. (And no, just having a Facebook account doesn’t count.) Each channel is different and the goals of being involved are different. I try new social channels all the time. They may prove to not be “my kind of thing” (and no one can possibly keep up with all of them and hold down a job, too!) but at least play around and see what they offer, how the channels differ and how they might be used for different goals or different businesses.
There are key books I would recommend reading – John Lovett’s “Social Media Metrics Secrets”, Jim Sterne’s “Social Media Metrics” and Olivier Blanchard’s “Social Media ROI” (and converse with these guys on Twitter! They are great guys and are always up for a good conversation.) Not to mention a myriad of blogs out there.
From there, start doing it, even if you just start by analysing your own accounts. Better yet, find a local business or non-profit to help (so you can attempt to tie to actual business metrics.) You’ll learn more from doing (and, let’s be honest, making mistakes) than you ever will from a book.
But it’s important to keep in mind social media is just one marketing channel. It’s great to have an interest in social analytics, but like other areas, it needs to be kept in context of the overall business and marketing efforts.
TweetReach: Let’s talk about consistency in measurement. There are a tremendous number of tools and approaches used to measure social media performance, which can produce results that are difficult to compare. Do you see the industry evolving towards a more standardized set of metrics or do you think we’ll continue to see a lot of variety and experimentation?
Michele Hinojosa: I’m going to give the very on-the-fence answer: Both. While social analytics often starts as just “likes” and “followers” for companies, pretty soon executives (and hopefully, good analysts!) are trying to tie this to actual business value, and look at social media in the context of other marketing initiatives. Profit or revenue driven are standardised and can apply across all channels, including social. However, let’s be honest: sometimes that’s hard to measure! It involves tying together different data sources, understanding attribution, and trying to measure what may sometimes be unmeasurable. (Do I know that you bought my product after you saw your best friend’s Facebook post raving about it? Maybe not.) But while the answers won’t be perfect, companies have to try to get as close as they can.
On the other hand, new social channels crop up every day, and while these too need to be tied to profit, they’ll also have their own in-network metrics that marketers and analysts will keep track of, and use to understand behaviour. (After all, somewhere there’s a 12-year-old in his garage creating something that will blow Zuckerberg off the map.)
Ultimately, social needs to be tied to business objectives like any other initiative, but the methods we use to do this will get more sophisticated, and I think there’s a lot more experimentation still to come.
TweetReach: We’re hearing a lot about influence right now; everyone wants to measure influence and target influencers. What are your thoughts on measuring influence in social media? What’s the best way to determine who is influential for a particular campaign or initiative?
Michele Hinojosa: Influence is a great example of where social analytics has room to grow. What businesses care about is who influences sales (or leads, or referrals, or whatever your business objectives.) Social tools are measuring “influence” on retweets, or Facebook likes, or video views. I can understand why businesses want to understand who their influencers are, but I think we need to keep in mind the limitations of a lot of current measures of influence — they’re likely not measuring influencers of the business metric they actually care about. That’s when it will be truly useful.
At the same time, I worry about the uses that current influence metrics are put to. I can see a use in using influence to prioritise, for example, response to requests. (For the same reason that food critics get the best cut of meat, those with online influence can have a big impact if they have a negative experience, and I can understand companies wanting to provide excellent service.) But I hope it’s not used as a metric of “you’re not worthy of my time.” Simply put, I can see using influence to determine who to respond to first, but not who to respond to at all.
I also worry about the use of influence in areas such as recruiting. I hope companies make their decisions off more than one number, and look at a candidate or potential consultant’s actual track record, results and skills.
I think these concerns just speak to the overall reality with a lot of social media metrics today — they can be useful in context, but as one standalone metric, we may sometimes attach too much significance, without enough consideration, analysis and scrutiny.
TweetReach: Thanks, Michele!
Michele Hinojosa is a self-confessed analytics geek. She is currently the Director of Digital Analytics at Red Door Interactive, responsible for leading a team of analysts to produce actionable insights and recommendations to optimize clients’ online initiatives. As the Manager of Web Analytics for Kelley Blue Book, she and her team were responsible for forecasting, analyzing, testing and optimizing KBB.com and its associated businesses.
Michele holds degrees in Law and Psychology from the University of Melbourne (Australia) but is currently located in Southern California. As a certified group fitness instructor, she is as fanatical about Les Mills group fitness programs and cycling as she is about data.
Michele enjoys reading, writing and thinking about analytics and engaging with the web analytics community via Twitter. You can read her thoughts at michelehinojosa.com or @michelehinojosa.
TakeFive with TweetReach – Holly Homer
Welcome back to TakeFive with TweetReach, our ongoing interview series with notable members of the social media analytics and measurement community.
This week we’re happy to welcome Holly Homer, writer of June Cleaver Nirvana, founding partner at Business 2 Blogger, and operator of several websites devoted to her home in Texas, including the popular She is Dallas.
TweetReach: Welcome Holly! Let’s start with talking about how you got started using social media. Can you describe your first “ah-ha” moment?
Holly Homer: I had been blogging for a year or so when Twitter started to become popular among bloggers, but I was Twitter-resistant. I was happily using Plurk. Plurk was great because it was similar to Twitter, but the comments nested so you could follow a full conversation. The Plurk timeline showed a conversation topic and how many people had responded below. I was mocking my friends on Twitter and lamenting how random and pointless Twitter was when one of them said, “Who cares how great Plurk is if everyone is on Twitter.” That was the moment I realized that the key to social media was the social part. I got over my Twitter issues and have grown to find its random nature charming.
TweetReach: How important was measurement in your initial strategy and how has that evolved?
Holly Homer: Initially, I had no strategy. I am a mom blogger. I am posting pictures of my kids and telling silly suburban stories. As my readership grew, I started getting approached by others to write about something on their agenda. Back then, blogging was (and is now to a lesser degree) in no-man’s-land. No one wanted to pay for me to do things because it was unchartered territory, but they still wanted me to do things… just for free. I figured out really quickly that if I ever expected to be paid for blogging, I was going to have to figure out how to prove my worth. I started learning about SEO, Google Analytics, StumbleUpon, Alexa, Twitter and Facebook to help define my sphere of influence.
As my sphere of influence grew, I was getting more and more email pitches. Some mornings I would wake up to an inbox with 5 or 6 new ways I could write about a company in exchange for a product or service. None of these pitches fit my blog, but that didn’t mean they weren’t good opportunities for another blogger so I passed them on to my blogging friends. This went on for a few months and I thought, “Someone needs to organize all this!”. That is when I had the idea for Business 2 Blogger. I bought the URL and sat on it for nearly a year as I tried to avoid taking on another project. In the meantime, I found some partners and in February of 2010 we launched the site that matches companies with bloggers. It is based on the HARO model where businesses tell us what type of bloggers they need and how many and we pass that information on in an email to our blogger members. The interested bloggers “apply” for the opportunity and a match is made.
The information I had learned about how to justify my own worth was now being used to help other bloggers find writing opportunities. I am a big believer in online karma.
TweetReach: What metrics are most important for your job and/or your company?
Holly Homer: Each and every campaign we run at Business 2 Blogger is different. People are looking for different things for different reasons, but all of them have to justify a budget. The better the match, the more effective the message will be within a sphere of influence. BUT we still have to define a sphere of influence. In campaign responses, bloggers self-report traffic but in all of our paid campaigns, we verify with Alexa ranking, Compete score, Twitter metrics, Facebook likes and Klout to try and achieve the most objective picture of actual influence.
When I manage a blogger campaign, my weekly reports include URLs of blog posts written about my client and TweetReach numbers surrounding the promotion’s keywords, the client’s Twitter profile and any related hashtags. I am in LOVE with TweetReach trackers. I buy extra trackers like I buy shoes – a girl needs one for every occasion! Clients appreciate the numbers (and fancy graphs), but it is extremely helpful to me in finding those bloggers who go the extra mile. The extra mile isn’t exclusive to Twitter and often the people at the top of my TweetReach report are also the bloggers who tagged several extra times on Facebook or wrote an extra blog post. They can’t help it and they are the people you want on your next promotion.
TweetReach: Does size matter? David Armano has written about the importance of topical influence. What do you think? How important is the size of someone’s social graph vs. their influence in a particular topical area?
Holly Homer: Size TOTALLY matters. Social media influence is about influence. To influence there needs to be an audience. I hear people claim that they have a “small, but engaged audience”. Just because I have a large number of followers doesn’t mean I don’t have an “engaged” core. This argument is easily won by a TweetReach report. Let’s leave out number of impressions for argument sake and look at number of retweets, recruitment of others to a conversation and number of responses. I will take the blogger with the 5,000 followers almost every time. The fact that someone HAS 5,000 followers shows a serious level of engagement.
TweetReach: Any social media pet peeves? What practices irritate you the most when you look at the state of the industry?
Holly Homer: UGH. I take poor social media skills personally and feel compelled to gently correct. Bad Twitter affects us all. Take the example of the auto-direct message. The fact that 80% (my guess) of people on Twitter now send one out when I follow them has rendered the Twitter DM useless. Who wants to wade through all that spam willingly? People forget that there are OTHER people on the other end of Twitter. Twitter is like a huge networking cocktail party. Introduce yourself, shake a few hands, listen to a few stories and skip the hard sell.
TweetReach: Great advice. Thanks, Holly!
Holly Homer writes June Cleaver Nirvana, runs several websites devoted to her home in Texas including She is Dallas, and is a founding partner at Business 2 Blogger. She is the mom of three boys who occasionally slips away to the nearest casino for a poker tournament. Follow her on Twitter as @Texasholly.
TakeFive with TweetReach – Laura Beck
Welcome back to TakeFive with TweetReach, our ongoing interview series with notable members of the social media analytics and measurement community. This week we’re delighted to welcome Laura Beck, Founder of stripedshirt.com and a 20-year PR professional, where she has consistently focused her energy on helping create awareness and buzz for early stage technology companies.
TweetReach: Welcome Laura! Let’s start with talking about how you got started using social media. Can you describe you first “ah-ha” moment?
Laura Beck: I’ve been on LinkedIn since mid-2008, and always have and continue to think of that as more my online rolodex; my contacts database. But, I got hooked on Facebook early, and hard, and it’s been consistent. I joined a year prior, in mid-2007 more for personal networking, keeping in touch with friends, planning high school and college reunions, seeing regular snapshots of the lives of the people I care about. But, my ah-ha moment on social media, I guess, was CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) in January 2009, when my hand was forced to join Twitter: some press friends were scolding me for not being on yet and threatened to make @fakelaurabeck and tweet away. I had to defend my Twitter turf, get my handle, and start to participate. And, while scary at first, holy cow to a fantastic way to engage with people in quick, direct ways.
TweetReach: How important was measurement in your initial strategy and how has that evolved?
Laura Beck: Initially, Twitter was play time and wasn’t about measurement at all. It was a science experiment — to see if you could reach someone, if they’d respond, if people would pass on something you tweeted. That quickly has evolved to Twitter being as critical and legit a communications channel and an information channel as blogs, online publications, even print publications. So along those lines, when you are doing public relations these days — for a client or for yourself — you best know the impact of every hit, every mention. That includes Twitter, blogs, even LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr — IF you could measure all these, and figure out the impact, the reach.
TweetReach: Let’s talk about consistency in measurement. Agencies and marketers have had to use a variety of tools and metrics to analyze the performance of their social media efforts, resulting in inconsistent results. How important is the ability to measure and report on social media results in a consistent way to you and your clients?
Laura Beck: Holy cow, it’s the holy grail. Even being able to measure and report at all with some sort of metrics, even if inconsistent, not apples to apples. Anything at all is something. We’ve been talking about this for years — and now it’s 20 years later. We’ve never been able to crack the code, get beyond “ad equivalency” or circulation as a basis for value, for the worth of a hit or a mention. And those approaches have been archaic for print publications for years, let alone online outlets, let alone blogs, let alone a tweet. This is the holy grail, but no one’s found the cup yet.
TweetReach: Olivier Blanchard and others have written about the need to look at social media measurement in the context of a broader business measurement strategy. What do you think? Is measuring social media success useful by itself?
Laura Beck: For the past 2-3 years, I’ve considered all things social media “just another channel.” Seriously. My business always, ultimately is PUBLIC relations. Not press. It’s about reaching and influencing the publics, a company’s targets (whether customers, or partners, investors, employees, etc.) positively, and moving them to action. A blog post, a tweet, a Facebook update, a YouTube video — any of these may do the trick. They are another channel to positively reach a target. Therefore, all things social better be part of the whole marketing mix. And therefore, all things social should be measured, considered, and factored in along with all business measurement. Something social may just directly create a sale, and you can be darn sure all things social indirectly affect sales, awareness, perception of a company, a brand, an individual — positively or negatively.
TweetReach: Traditionally media success has been measured using reach, impressions, exposure. How important are these metrics when looking at social media campaigns? What else to you need to measure?
Laura Beck: I think these measures are just as important in social as in any marketing campaign. But again, holy heck are they hard to measure, quantify, and value. Overall impact is still both a volume and a value game, and hopefully we are getting to a world where it’s the value that matters -– reaching the right people, versus thousands of people where you hope something sticks with a few. So while sheer reach and overall exposure are important — blog readership, twitter followers, how many times something was retweeted — again, with social, where you can be laser-precise, I’m hoping we are getting to a place where the measure of success of a marketing campaign could be clearly tracked down to who was reached and what action they took. Literally, really measuring “conversions” versus just impressions. Whereas PR has almost always been air cover for sales, with social, we have the opportunity to be the ground team, too.
TweetReach: Let’s talk about the measurement of reach – how do you weigh the importance of the quantity of a campaign’s reach – the overall size of the potential audience – vs the quality of that reach? Both are important, but how do you help your clients understand the difference and the impact?
Laura Beck: This is what I’m getting at above, a bit. And my personal theory, at least in Twitter, is that ideally a brand wants to find, mine and engage on an ongoing basis with 100 true fans. Period. If you can find the right people with the right power of influence, and mine them (get to know them, get them to know and care about your brand), and then engage with them on an ongoing basis, have real conversations — boom — you have success. They are brand advocates, they pass on their love for your brand to their networks, and it’s genuine, and pure, and “third party.” This is what I think the future of social COULD be, and wow, would it be more valuable, time efficient, respectful to all and end a lot of the echo chamber stuff we have flying around right now with just volumes and volumes of information and the same content recycled. But, we have to all work together to prove it out, and have some case studies and examples of it working. THAT will help companies believe and take on this approach as well.
TweetReach: Thanks for your thoughts and time, Laura!
After 18+ years working for PR agencies, Laura Beck is focused on independent marketing and PR consulting as well as running her own commerce business, www.stripedshirt.com. Until May 2010, she ran the Austin Texas office of Porter Novelli for nearly 10 years, opening it at the very end of the dot com bubble in 2000 at 29 years old. Under Laura’s leadership, the office grew to staff 16 people and serviced upwards to 25 clients at a time. Laura’s focus for the office and personal passion has been largely technology start ups, working with entrepreneurs to bring their dreams to life, gain critical visibility, create positive buzz. That continues now as an independent consultant.
Laura’s expertise — and love — lies in client counsel, project management, strategic program development, media relations and staff development. Laura prides herself with being active on the press front lines every day and loves nothing better than successfully placing a good story, which she still does regularly, all the way up the line to New York Times profiles, and Wall Street Journal reviews. In fact, Laura was named one of PR Source’s 35 Top Tech Communicators of 2008, as so voted by the media.
Prior to her 10+ years with Porter Novelli in Austin, she was with the Boston office of the agency. Before that, Laura was with Lois Paul & Partners. She began the 18-year agency stretch at Weber Group, now Weber Shandwick. Laura is a decade-long Austin Texas resident now, but her Boston roots will always run deep with love for her Boston College alma mater, and the Red Sox, so much so that one of her two little Texas-born daughters sports the middle name Fenway. You can bet all these Boston colors, and many more, are represented by stripedshirt.
TakeFive with TweetReach – Jen Grant
Welcome to TakeFive with TweetReach, our ongoing series where we talk with notable members of the social media analytics and measurement community, pulling together insight, commentary and conversation around all things measurement. As always, please let us know what you think!
This week we’re happy to welcome Jen Grant, Director of Social Media for Intrapromote, a boutique search and social media marketing agency for some of the world’s biggest brands.
TweetReach: Welcome Jen! Let’s kick it off with a question about measurement. How important was measurement in your initial strategy for social media marketing and how has that evolved?
Jen Grant: The importance of measurement and proving ROI has become incredibly more important as our clients’ social media strategies have evolved. Primarily because more internal stakeholders are involved and excited to see results, but also because campaigns are maturing and we need to constantly adjust tactics for higher success rates.
TweetReach: What about about consistency in measurement? Agencies and marketers have had to use a variety of tools and metrics to analyze the performance of their social media efforts, resulting in inconsistent results. How important is the ability to measure and report on social media results in a consistent way to your agency and your clients?
Jen Grant: Consistency is extremely important! You’d be surprised at all the small details that make big differences when measuring social activities. Are you pulling numbers and running reports from Twitter on Mondays instead of Fridays? It makes a difference because Twitter’s API only holds data for 5 days and unless your brand is just as engaged over the weekends as it is on the weekdays, your numbers will be considerably lower.
Its also important to compare apples to apples. One simple way to do so is to compare the best piece of content from any given week.
TweetReach: For many, social media has enabled us to become more engaged with our communities. Most of us are in constant communication with our constituents, every day. How do you see integrating analytics and measurement into every-day social media activity. Is it important? How do you see this happening/evolving?
Jen Grant: One thing that social media analytics has helped me do is identify strategic partners within my social graph. I’m a firm believer in not making decisions solely on numbers alone, but I tend to get pretty strategic and scientific when I’m focused on a certain goal. I do extensive evaluations of people who I choose to engage with and consider “influencers”. Many of the considerations are subjective, but when I need to see reliable data and numbers, I rely on TweetReach.
TweetReach: Do you have any secret techniques, tools, or other Jedi strategies that you can share with our readers? Any best practices for getting greater reach for your content?
Jen Grant: Go by your gut. Do the legwork and research, but if your gut is telling you to go a certain direction, follow it — you’re almost always right.
TweetReach: Traditionally media success has been measured using reach, impressions, exposure. How important are these metrics when looking at social media campaigns? What else to you need to measure?
Jen Grant: The main reason I started presenting results in this format was because it was the only thing stakeholders were comfortable with and could relate to. After months of saying a brand’s “@mentions” had reached X, I had to throw in the towel, speak their language and make relative comparisons.
Other important measurements are engagement on blogs and other social networks, open rate of email subscribers, click through on campaign activities and overall engagement percentage.
TweetReach: Does size matter? David Armano has written about the importance of topical influence. What do you think? How important is the size of of someone’s social graph vs their influence in a particular topical area?
Jen Grant: I think size is relative. Someone’s reach is far more important. Also, since our agency is founded in search, the factors being considered by Google and Bing’s algorithms are even more important. We’ve done considerable research and confirmed the importance of many qualities held by influencers are rarely considered in traditional measurement.
TweetReach: Any examples of how analytics have helped you tweak a campaign or program for the better?
Jen Grant: Absolutely. We continuously compare reach and impressions for Blogger Outreach campaigns and tweak our selection process based on findings.
TweetReach: Any social media pet peeves? What practices irritate you the most when you look at the state of the industry?
Jen Grant: Social media pet peeve? Here goes – I’m just gonna put it out there – Klout scores!! I welcome anyone from Klout to call and explain their stuff to me, but after hours of evaluation and numerous conversations with industry insiders, I still can’t find any accuracy between what my Klout score and analysis is vs. what is happening in real life. The concept is great, but the data is always wrong (for me and my clients).
TweetReach: Thanks for your insights, Jen!
Jen Grant is Director of Social Media for Intrapromote and has been immersed in social media for almost 10 years. Jen is a social media expert having positively demonstrated the business value of Twitter, Facebook and various social media tools and applications and excels in blog marketing techniques. Her experience encompasses business development, sales and sales management, marketing, operations, staff development, coaching and mentoring, merchandising, and setting a high standard for customer satisfaction.
Jen creates and implements proven social media strategies at corporate levels to connect businesses with consumers and expand brand awareness across multiple industries. Her experience in building marketing strategies that are scalable and can be executed for brands that have many subsidiaries or locations is an invaluable asset to Intrapromote’s customers.
Venturing into new territory can evoke fear in clients. By walking through both listening and engaging strategies and marking the progress with milestones and KPIs, Jen helps social media clients realize the far-reaching benefit of social media as a marketing tool.
TakeFive with TweetReach – Sarah Reynolds
Welcome back to TakeFive with TweetReach, our ongoing series where we discuss social media analytics and measurement with notable members of the community, pulling together insight and commentary on all things measurement. As always, we welcome your suggestions for interviewees and questions.
This week, we’re excited to talk with Sarah Reynolds, Senior Social Media Manager at ICED Media, an online strategy and marketing company in New York City. She’s also the voice behind @KmartFashion.
TweetReach: Welcome Sarah! Let’s start with talking about how you got started using social media. Can you describe you first “ah-ha” moment?
Sarah Reynolds: My first work experience in social media was very brand heavy with limited off topic conversation. My current position at ICED Media was my first foray in representing large, established brands. Now that I am part of an organization that has led non-traditional advertising for over ten years, I’ve learned how to apply my traditional background with my company’s expertise to establish a strong voice for a national brand that is both conversational and informative.
My first “ah ha” moment was when I realized I had humanized a brand. I had broken down the barrier between advertising and the consumer by infusing my content with my honest personality. Despite the size and reputation of the client I work with, I’ve made their online presence very personal and accessible. I’ve even been invited to meet some of my fans and followers in person! Social media often gets a doomsday type stigma — something along the lines of people will stop actually interacting in person, and instead, will only relay on handles, profiles, texting and chat boxes to keep in touch. I think my experience is a small example of the power of social media on human interaction and how it actually brings us closer. Since when did people want to become friends with a brand, or sit down and have coffee with a brand, or be interested in how they are feeling or what they are wearing? Social media can accomplish that if you insert some human touch and genuine traits that others can feel comfortable relating to.
TweetReach: Is ROI for Twitter campaigns achievable? There are many different ways to measure activity, but how do you gauge your success, or help your clients do the same? What’s missing from the equation?
Sarah Reynolds: Although ROI is possible via Twitter campaigns, all brands should be familiar with the quantitative and qualitative aspects of social media. Tracking a campaign’s reach and ROI are just as important as building a loyal follower base and engaging in impactful conversations. The job of an agency like ICED Media is to combine best in class tools and technologies with our ultimate objective of delivering the best results for our clients. Whether driving revenue is your ultimate goal, you should be always be monitoring reach and ROI. These measures are good proxies for determining the efficacy of your messages and how they relate to the number of responses, overall traffic, and conversions/sales. It’s important to keep an eye on all these moving parts to help analyze how your tweets are performing against certain metrics. I find that the timing, content and specificity of my tweets have a direct correlation to certain reach/ROI related metrics.
TweetReach: What’s your favorite example of a successful social media campaign? How important was measurement of the metrics around the campaign to its success?
Sarah Reynolds: We recently transformed one of our client’s Twitter handles into a personal concierge service during a heavily attended two week-long event in NYC. We provided a free delivery service for a select group of social media influencers in the fashion industry. When these users reached out to our client’s Twitter profile to request a delivery, our profile was exposed to all of their followers, reaching our targeted demographic. We tracked the reach and impressions based on our interactions with our concierge users, plus any organic requests that we received based on our initial engagement. This was a successful campaign because it provided a group of valuable influencers with a free service, leading to positive sentiments toward our client, and it reached a large group of qualified followers.
TweetReach: Where do you go for measurement and analytics-related news and insight — any particular website, blogs, forums, etc. that are of particular value?
Sarah Reynolds: Due to the flux of social media, it is important to stay up to date with as many blogs as possible, but personally I like to read www.adage.com for a general overview of advertising news and www.mashable.com for social media tools and best practices. The Twitter timeline has also become an excellent source for real-time information.
TweetReach: Do you have any secret techniques, tools, or other Jedi strategies that you can share with our readers? Any best practices for getting greater reach for your content?
Sarah Reynolds: The industry is too new for Jedi strategies — Yoda does not exist in the space yet; social media is the Wild West right now. So no Jedi tricks per se, but certainly some suggestions of things I’ve discovered. First, start by exploring your direct competitors’ profiles to gain insight on what type of content works vs. content that seems forced/too branded. Then, outline your goals for each platform, regardless of whether you aim to drive ROI, create a brand personality, or to simply provide customer service. Once you have an idea of what works for your target audience and you have your goals outlined, experiment with a mix of unbranded and branded messaging, this will help you understand what type of content your audience is more receptive to engaging with.
TweetReach: Thanks so much for your time and insight, Sarah!
Sarah Reynolds is the Senior Social Media Manager at ICED Media, an online strategy and marketing company in New York City. She oversees the overall online strategy for two Kmart apparel platforms, Kmart Fashion and Stylesip. This includes copy editing, customer service, creative design, and paid media campaigns. She’s also the voice behind @KmartFashion. She graduated from NYU in three years with a degree from Gallatin School of Individualized Study where she focused on the current and historical effects of advertising, marketing, and art on society. She enjoys being tweeted.
TakeFive with TweetReach – Erin Boudreau
Welcome to TakeFive with TweetReach, our ongoing interview series where we chat with notable members of the social media analytics and measurement community, pulling together insight and commentary on all things measurement. As always, we welcome your suggestions for interviewees and questions.
This week, we’re excited to talk with Erin Boudreau, the founder of TweeParties, Inc., a social media marketing company aimed at helping businesses plan, promote, host and analyze Twitter parties and chats.
TweetReach: Welcome Erin! Let’s start with talking about how you got started using social media. Can you describe you first “ah-ha” moment?
Erin Boudreau: I had been using social media for both personal use and at another job. I was logged on at the end of the day, and I saw a tweet fly by announcing a Twitter party. I wanted to learn more about such events, but found that there wasn’t really one source to go to for up-to-date information. I realized that having live events on both Twitter and Facebook could be really useful for a business, and if more businesses knew about them, they might catch on better. My ‘ah-ha’ moment came when I realized there was no one out there trying to be that Twitter party source.
TweetReach: How important was measurement in your initial strategy and how has that evolved?
Erin Boudreau: I thought it would be important to offer measurement to our clients, but I quickly realized that providing this information was not only vital to analyzing a campaign, but also important in securing future work. If I am approached by a firm I’ve never worked for before, one of the first things they want to know is our past performance. All of them have an idea about the numbers they are trying to reach, and if I can show them what we have done for others in the form of detailed reports and charts, they realize that we do have what it takes to help run a successful event.
TweetReach: So, with TweeParties, you have built a unique way to use Twitter to pull together people around an event, or even to help promote a brand. How have you seen your approach engage users around a particular topic? And, how important is measurement of the results important to your customers’ success with their Twitter parties and chats?
Erin Boudreau: People use social media to learn more about topics, people, and organizations that are of interest to them and that can influence their lives positively in some way. If we organize an event that is not only free to attend, but that also includes an interesting or informative topic, guest experts to answer questions, and special offers and even giveaways — we usually get a positive response from those who felt the time spent taking part in such an event was time very well spent. To be able to measure the performance of a hashtag during such an event not only gives our clients an indication about how successful the event was, it also gives us a starting point and allows us to see how any future changes impact subsequent events. If we change the format next time — add more prizes, make it an open forum, include an expert — and the numbers are much greater than the first time around, then we know we’re on to something. Measuring hashtag performance helps us get closer to giving people the types of events they are eager and excited to attend, and in return, helps build more buzz for a brand.
TweetReach: Olivier Blanchard has written about the need to look at social media measurement in the context of a broader business measurement strategy. What do you think? Is measuring social media success useful by itself?
Erin Boudreau: I think it’s a good start. We not only track the number of impressions, reach and frequency of a hashtag, we also take a look at how our users responded to our calls to action: how many new followers or ‘likes’ a client receives; how many participants signed up for a newsletter or took part in a special offer (such as free shipping or a coupon/discount). We also look at web site traffic to judge how many people followed a link that was tweeted during an event. So there are many pieces to the puzzle, and analytics is an important, vital piece.
TweetReach: Do you have any secret techniques, tools, or other Jedi strategies that you can share with our readers? Any best practices for getting greater reach for your content?
Erin Boudreau: Make sure your content is well-written, useful for your target audience, entertaining and interesting. Also, special offers (coupons, discounts, freebies, etc.) really do seem to go a long way.
TweetReach: Does size matter? David Armano has written about the importance of topical influence. What do you think?
Erin Boudreau: I think that it’s more important to find your niche. If we throw a Twitter party for a new company that sells products for pets, it’s better to have 100 pet owners/bloggers/enthusiasts attend than 500 people who might attend just to win a gift card but who don’t have a pet and aren’t really interested in the company’s products or the topic at hand. I would rather have a small group of followers who are really enthused about our content than a million who follow with the hope that we’ll follow back and who aren’t really interested in hearing our message or exchanging ideas and building a relationship.
TweetReach: Any examples of how analytics have helped you tweak a campaign or program for the better?
Erin Boudreau: I think most importantly, we can see exactly who is tweeting or retweeting our links — what social circles they’re circulating in — and to reach out to other influencers who might not be aware of our events, if needed. For example, if a tweet is being sent frequently we might be glad to see a large number of impressions, but if only a couple different users are the ones doing the tweeting, we might need to modify the campaign and seek the involvement of other users to broaden our reach.
TweetReach: Thanks for your time, Erin!
Erin Boudreau is the founder of TweeParties, Inc., a social media marketing company aimed at helping businesses plan, promote, host and analyze Twitter parties and chats. She has more than 10 years of experience in marketing, print and web design. Erin lives and works in the Chicago suburbs.