by Scott Howard | Jan 16, 2014 | ScLoHo's Web World
Let’s review:
3 Social Media Success Tips for 2014:
- Focus on the Best Metrics for Your Business.
- Listen to Others, but Determine Your Path
- Devote enough Resources to Make it Worthwhile.
This 3 part series is based on my 10 months of working in the Social Media trenches full time as a Social Media Professional for a $50 million internet retailer. During the previous 10 years, I had been active in Social Media Marketing in addition to 20+ years in the Media Marketing and Advertising worlds.
Finding someone who can create a Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Tumbler account for your business is easy. Finding someone who understands and follows timeless relationship marketing principles is a lot harder. Combining the two is nearly impossible.
This is not a job for an intern.
This is not a job for someone with questionable ethics, lifestyle or maturity.
That being said, you also need to find someone who can speak for your brand and has a keen sense of customer service and empathy, while also looking out for the best interests of your company.
You will need to pay this person a decent wage, or outsource it to a company of professionals. (The company I recently joined has this as a service we provide. Contact me for details.)
Back to last year.
Our company had an eCommerce department of 6. Each of us had our areas of expertise including: affiliate marketing, email, social media, graphic design, our department geek, and a director to head up our division. We also worked closely with the merchandising team and marketing team.
All of us had decent salaries and perks. We also had budgets for spending. My Social Media budget included $50,000 I could give away via contests; and $80,000 in paid social media ads. Actual amounts varied from month to month. Remember our estimated annual revenue was $50 million, and social media was only a tiny fraction of what we did. Our biggest spend in my department was email marketing and Search Engine Optimization and Marketing for our 30,000+ products.
These dollar figures are all relative to the total revenue of the company and the focus on Internet driven sales. While I say they are an Internet retailer, they also have a thriving but shrinking catalog based business that has been around for decades. They know their future is on the web.
If your business is not web based, then you need to make appropriate investments in other areas of marketing too.
The key to any of this social media marketing, or any marketing, for that matter, is to be where your customers are and use appropriate people and resources.
Your thoughts, questions, and comments are always welcome.
by Scott Howard | Jan 9, 2014 | ScLoHo's Web World
Here’s the tips I shared last time:
3 Social Media Success Tips for 2014:
- Focus on the Best Metrics for Your Business.
- Listen to Others, but Determine Your Path
- Devote enough Resources to Make it Worthwhile.
Today, let’s explore number two.
Before I took the social media position I had in 2013, I had plenty of my own thoughts on what to do, based on observation and my own experience.
As a consumer, I did not really like Facebook. Constant changes in their privacy and layout and I really didn’t want to deal with it. Twitter was my best friend. Pinterest was for other people.
Then I was hired to make these social media platforms work for a $50 million Internet retailer.
I had to set aside my own personal preferences and focus on what would work best for our company.
That means focusing on where our customers were, and how they wanted to engage.
Facebook and Pinterest were my top dogs, while Twitter was pushed to the bottom.
My advice is to do some digging and find a few others who are “Experts” on the social media platform you are using. Then decide how their advice and wisdom applies to your business.
You’ll find conflicting advice, which is good, because you need to learn what works for YOU.
Subscribe to a couple of newsletters that will keep you up to date on Facebook changes.
In 2013 I had to change my Facebook tactics a couple of times due to changes Facebook made in their Timeline and Newsfeed algorithms.
When I left my position, I wrote a multi-page guidebook for my temporary replacements on how to continue building the successes I was creating.
Unfortunately, they didn’t follow it, and they reverted back to their old ways, and I have seen the results.
My last month with their company was November. The number of people their Facebook posts reached each week was over 300,000 when I was there. At least half the posts reached 12,000 or more. One in November reached 58,560 resulting in 1544 clicks and 941 likes, comments and shares. Reaching 20,000, 30,000 , or 40,000 or more with a single post on Facebook was achievable, but only because I adapted my tactics to accommodate the changes that Facebook was making.
I just looked at their December numbers and their best post reached only 14,704 people resulting in 63 clicks and 170 likes, comments, and shares. The weekly reach has dropped 90% simply because they are not following the advice and guidance I left them.
The advice and guidance I left for my former co-workers might help them right now if they implement it, but odds are in a few months, it will need to change again because Facebook is going to continue to change.
You don’t need to be a guru-expert-know-it-all on Facebook (or any social media), BUT you do need to keep up with what is going on so you can be the guru-expert-know-it-all for your company on Facebook or any social media that you use.
A couple more notes.
Along with listening to others, take a look at what your competitors are doing. I discovered that we were the number two business of our type on social media and after a few months I took us to number one in terms of engagement.
Also look at the social media activities of companies that are not your competitors, but serve the same customers you do. Learn from observing what they are doing.
Finally, if all of this is overwhelming, feel free to contact me.
The company I now work for has a Digital/Interactive Media division which includes a Social Media concierge service which will work hand in hand with your business for a small fee, freeing you up to focus on your area of expertise instead of all this Social Media marketing.
Even if you don’t use us, I bet I can offer some ideas for you to improve what you are doing.
I’ll have part 3 in this series next week.
by Scott Howard | Jan 2, 2014 | ScLoHo's Web World
Time to spill some beans.
I spent most of last year running the social media output for a $50 million Internet retailer.
From February 2013 through November 2013, if it appeared on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Tumbler, or one of our blogs, I was the one responsible for creating, editing, posting, communicating, and improving the social media content for our 5 brands.
Before I arrived, they had various people handle different portions of the various brands with varying results.
Let’s give you the 3 Social Media Success Tips for 2014 and then you can decide if you want to continue reading.
- Focus on the Best Metrics for Your Business.
- Listen to Others, but Determine Your Path
- Devote enough Resources to Make it Worthwhile.
When I was hired, I was given a 2 page list of about 40 or 60 things to do. I really don’t remember how many, and it’s not important anymore.
Most of those items were not equally important and some we needed to stop wasting time doing.
What caught my attention was that they wanted to grow the number of Twitter Followers from 18,000 to 30,000, and grow the number of Facebook fans from 50,000 to 100,000 in 2013.
While I thought this was stupid, and I’ll tell you why in a moment, I decided to tackle the challenge.
I had a budget I could spend, and was expected to spend on various items. There was a monthly budget for Facebook ads which were being used to get new fans, or Likes as they are now called. I had between $1000 and $10,000 a month to spend. For awhile I also had a monthly budget of $3,000 to increase Twitter Followers.
I also had budgets for contests which varied each month.
My first goal was to reduce the cost per Like on Facebook to under $1.00. It was creeping up to over $3.00 before I made some changes.
I doubled our Facebook numbers in 3 weeks at the cost per Like of less than 20 cents.
How?
I increased the targets for our ads. I included other countries besides the United States that had a high number of English language speaking residents. Instead of seeing a weekly increase of 500 or 600 likes, It jumped to 10,000, 15,000 and 20,000 new Facebook Likes or fans. I pulled the plug after reaching 100,000.
Was it worth it?
Yes, but just to prove a point and make an impression. I proved we could lower the cost of getting a new Facebook Like and double our numbers, and it didn’t take a year, just a matter of weeks. That was the point I wanted to make. And the impression I wanted to create to anyone who visited our Facebook page was that we had a significant number of fans and were a major player in our industry.
My next step was to focus on quality not quantity, since I already hit that Grand Slam.
Gaining all of those overseas fans did not increase our overseas sales. Shipping costs killed us. Our average order was less than $100 and when shipping costs as much or more than the products, that often kills the shopping cart.
So I changed my goals to measure engagement. On Facebook that includes Likes on Posts, Comments on Posts, and Shares of Posts.
We also started following the conversion status of our social media activity and made a startling discovery or two.
I was unable to justify using Twitter in the way we had been using it and certainly could not justify spending money to gain more followers.
Of all the social media platforms we used, Pinterest was driving the most traffic to our website and the most sales. Twitter was virtually nonexistent, even with over 20,000 followers.
I began cleaning up our Twitter followers by unfollowing spam/junk accounts, and targeted accounts that followed our competitors. But they had the same spam/junk accounts following them too. Twitter should have been turned over to our customer service staff as a communication tool.
When I left my position, we had around 3000 Pinterest Followers, which accounted for nearly 60% of our website visits from Social Media.
Facebook, with 130,000 Fans, accounted for only 30% of our website visits from Social Media or less.
The other 10 to 20% of our social media activity that drew people to our websites each month varied between activity on Twitter, YouTube, our blogs, and other minor social media channels.
Back to those 3 Social Media Success Tips for 2014:
- Focus on the Best Metrics for Your Business.
- Listen to Others, but Determine Your Path
- Devote enough Resources to Make it Worthwhile.
I changed the metrics we should measure to set higher standards.
I listened to numerous sources for advice and I’ll share more about that in the future.
I had a budget to spend and time to spend on Social Media. If you want a serious return on your efforts with anything in life, you need to invest enough resources.
More to come. Your questions and thoughts are always welcome.
by Scott Howard | Dec 19, 2013 | ScLoHo's Web World
Over the years I have watched and participated in the growth of Social Media, especially Twitter.
While Indiana is not often thought of as a hot bed of social media, we have a pretty good representation, both professionals and non-pros.
Fort Wayne native Amy Stark decided a few years ago to promote our state’s social media status and launched what has become an annual tradition, the Indiana Social Media Summit and the competition known as the Indiana Social Media Smackdown.
Amy now lives in the Indianapolis area and that’s where she held the 1st Smackdown in 2009.
In 2010, 2011, and 2012 there were also simultaneous events in other Indiana cities.
This year, the main event is coming to Fort Wayne and you are invited to attend at lunchtime on December 27th.
Attending or not, we need you to vote.
There are several categories and the rules are pretty simple at: http://www.formstack.com/forms/?1349505-VxEkVN6Z2v
Here’s some of the folks I know personally from Fort Wayne that you can vote for:
Most Influential Dame:
Amber Recker @amrecker
Anita Homco @aHomco
Most INfluential Dude:
Andrew Hoffman @bethelink
Scott Howard @ScLoHo (That’s me)
Dave Goode @davebgoode
Most INfluential Up & Comer:
Mark Carboni @CarboCooks
Nicest Social Media Peep:
Aaron Brown @impact52
Ashley Motia @ajmotia
Most Ethical Social Media Peep or Company:
Joe Noorthoek @JoeNoorth
Ken Bugajski @drkensf
Grooviest Campaign or Presence:
Sheryl Brown @BionicSocialite
Bravas Food Trucks @BravasFood
Downtown Improvement District @fwdid
Visit Fort Wayne @VisitFortWayne
Fort Wayne Speaks @FortWayneSpeaks
These are just the Fort Wayne folks that I know. There are lots of other friends who have been honored with a nomination who are not from Fort Wayne.
Voting ends soon.
Here’a a video recap from the 1st 4 years:
by Scott Howard | Dec 19, 2013 | ScLoHo's Web World
It started as a smartphone revolution.
Then the tablets arrived and it became the norm.
Mobile.
It’s the way we connect to the internet that is not on a desktop or laptop computer.
It’s also those apps that are on your phone or tablet.
A company that I used to work for that is not mobile friendly which they really need to change.
I reviewed the data.
Google Analytics actually divides the data into 3 device categories, Desktop (which would include laptops), Mobile, and Tablets.
Desktop visits over the past 30 days produced 87% of Sales.
Tablet visits produced 10% of Sales
Mobile (smartphone) produced 3% of Sales.
At 1st glance, this looks like they don’t need to build a mobile version of their website.
But wait.
Desktop is the standard and Mobile and Tablet are the future. And for some, the future is now. But hang on, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Look at this from another direction.
Only 63% of their web traffic is coming from Desktop. 14% is coming from Tablets. 23% is Mobile (smartphone)
And what happens when people get to the website? They look around, they view different pages and some buy.
Average number of pages viewed from a Desktop is just over 7. From a Tablet is just under 7. From Mobile (smartphone) is barely 3 pages.
Let me boil this data down to a nice, rich broth for you to sip on.
Desktop is working fine, but the number of people coming to their website on some other device is growing. If you have a tablet, you may be doing okay but from Mobile (smartphone), they are losing money.
If they could apply the desktop conversion rate to mobile and tablet, they would have made 33% more sales during the past 30 days.
I realize that this is a big investment. But it is also a critical investment.
When I compared the above numbers to a year ago, I discovered that visits from Desktop had dropped 15%, while visits from tablets have increase 66% and Mobile (smartphone) visits increased 98%.
This is an internet based retailer that puts a lot of effort and dollars into internet marketing with emails and social media.
Email and Social Media that is being read and viewed by consumers on Mobile devices.
I leave you with a video from Erik Qualman:
by Scott Howard | Oct 26, 2013 | ScLoHo's Web World
I am impressed by the folks at BufferApp.com.
Today they were hacked.
We’ve heard plenty of horror stories about privacy breaches resulting in identity theft and the like when a business or organization gets hacked, and yet rarely do they reach out to alert you. It seems like they are usually trying to cover it up.
I happened to be online and saw tweets from a couple friends warning that Buffer was hacked, so I looked into it and they were right.
Buffer was on top of it, on a Saturday afternoon, using social media to get the word out.
And they also emailed their users:
Hi there,
I wanted to get in touch to apologize for the awful experience we’ve caused many of you on your weekend. Buffer was hacked around 1 hour ago, and many of you may have experienced spam posts sent from you via Buffer. I can only understand how angry and disappointed you must be right now.
Not everyone who has signed up for Buffer has been affected, but you may want to check on your accounts. We’re working hard to fix this problem right now and we’re expecting to have everything back to normal shortly.
We’re posting continual updates on the Buffer Facebook page and the Buffer Twitter page to keep you in the loop on everything.
The best steps for you to take right now and important information for you:
Remove any postings from your Facebook page or Twitter page that look like spam
Keep an eye on Buffer’s Twitter page and Facebook page
Your Buffer passwords are not affected
No billing or payment information was affected or exposed
All Facebook posts sent via Buffer have been temporarily hidden and will reappear once we’ve resolved this situation
I am incredibly sorry this has happened and affected you and your company. We’re working around the clock right now to get this resolved and we’ll continue to post updates on Facebook and Twitter.
If you have any questions at all, please respond to this email. Understandably, a lot of people have emailed us, so we might take a short while to get back to everyone, but we will respond to every single email.
– Joel and the Buffer team
Some companies use Buffer to schedule their social media posts and there are both free and paid accounts available. I use it for my personal twitter account only. I changed a couple passwords to be safe and will wait until Sunday to use Buffer again, but that’s just a minor inconvenience.
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