Sunday, October 30, 2011

Linking social media activities to revenue

This SmartBlogs guest post by Eva Schmatz, president of market research firm Summus, Limited, argues that the best way to justify the social media's use to the C-suite is to focus on cost savings through customer service. According to the post, "The communications benefits will then follow."

I'm not sure I fully agree, but I do recognize that cost justifying the use of social media by making a direct link to revenue generation is an uphill battle at best. It is interesting to note that the challenge of linking actions to revenue is similar for traditional media advertising and public relations efforts.

http://smartblogs.com/socialmedia/2011/10/28/how-to-make-the-business-case-for-social-media/

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Google provides data to governments

According to this Mashable post, the US and other countries request, and receive, data from Google.


http://mashable.com/2011/10/25/us-data-google/

Sunday, October 23, 2011

800 million active Facebook users

It looks like Facebook is up to 800 million active users according to this Mashable post. It also contains a number of other interesting, and important, statistics.

http://mashable.com/2011/10/21/facebook-infographic/

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

12 social media tools for business

Here are some interesting social media tools that can be used by businesses, courtest of Social Media Examiner. Thanks to Dr. Joy Roach for posting the link to the MSU Marketing majors and alumni Facebook group.

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/12-social-media-tools-recommended-by-the-pros/

Friday, October 14, 2011

Facebook and Small Businesses

RT: Joy Roach -- Interesting article about small businesses and Facebook from USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2011-09-16/facebook-small-business-sandberg/50419654/1

Thank you, Joy, for calling this to our attention.

Let me make the following points about the article:

* With 750 million Facebook users, it looks like Facebook is going to be in the middle of social media marketing for the forseeable future.

* This article provides the following excellent example of how small businesses can use Facebook advertising -- "A wedding photographer, for instance, could advertise just to women in a specific ZIP code who list on Facebook that they are engaged. A movie chain could talk just to film fans."

* This is another example from the article -- "Sarah Loveland, owner of Daddies Board Shop, a skateboard shop in Portland, Ore., began using paid advertising with Facebook in 2010, in hopes of growing her business more quickly. She targeted fans of extreme sports and friends of those who ride skateboards and longboards. The result: She says her business shot up, and she attributes much of it to Facebook."

* The article also suggests that 10,000 fans is a majic number for small businesses that want to grow and reach a wider community. I don't know if 10,000 is the right number, but it seems to be reasonable target.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Occam's Razor post on social media metrics

This is an excellent blog post on social media metrics. Thanks to Daniel Fukuhara for calling it to my attention in our Social Media and Marketing class Facebook group.

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/best-social-media-metrics-conversation-amplification-applause-economic-value/

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Content that goes viral

This is an excellent blog post on content that is likely to go viral:

http://socialtriggers.com/craft-contagious-content/

A new measure of engagement from Facebook

The number of "Likes" has been seen as a key measure of engagement for Facebook pages. Now there is a new one - "People Talking About"

http://mashable.com/2011/10/09/top-facebook-brands-talking-about/?WT.mc_id=obinsite

Monday, October 10, 2011

Optimizing social media for search engine optimization

This blog post from the Search Engine Marketing group provides excellent advice on optimizing social media for search engine optimization (SEO)

http://sem-group.net/search-engine-optimization-blog/seo/how-to-optimize-7-popular-social-media-profiles-for-seo/

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Social media and the organizational chart

Where do community managers (and other social media types) fit on the organizational chart? Do they fit in "the PR department? Marketing? Customer service? What skills do they need?" This blog post from WOMMA asks the question.

http://womma.org/word/2011/10/05/executives-and-community-managers-%E2%80%93-not-so-different/

Social media data and anecdotes

This LA Times article provides some good data on the use of social media for marketing purposes and provides some anecdotes about companies that have successfully used it.
Thanks to our our former graduate student, Laeeq Khan, now completing his Ph.D. at Michigan State University, for forwarding it to Department Chair Dr. Terry Holmes.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-smallbiz-social-20111003,0,4430023.story?page=1