by, Lesa Seibert, President, Xstreme Media
Social media and social networking sites are the Web's hottest trends. What is changing, is how social networks are being used by businesses and how social media is affecting branding and consumer interaction. The web has opened up a pipeline to consumers and any size business can take advantage of this opportunity. May businesses have seed wild success utilizing social media and others have failed miserably. Now is the time to get involved, if you're not already. If you are already involved, now is the time to build a social media strategy.
In our How To Build An Audience article last week, we looked at how to use social media to build an audience.
This week, we are going to look at how to measure and refine social media.
Take advantage of URL-shortening services when you post links on social media that provide analytics, such as the number of clicks and where those clicks originated. Some popular URL-shortening services are:
Another way to measure is if you offer a special code or sale via a social media platform and that is the only place it was available. By tracking how many people sign up or use the code, you can see if the offer was successful.
Next week we will look at keywords and how they play a role in social media.
Social media and social networking sites are the Web's hottest trends. What is changing, is how social networks are being used by businesses and how social media is affecting branding and consumer interaction. The web has opened up a pipeline to consumers and any size business can take advantage of this opportunity. May businesses have seed wild success utilizing social media and others have failed miserably. Now is the time to get involved, if you're not already. If you are already involved, now is the time to build a social media strategy.
In our How To Build An Audience article last week, we looked at how to use social media to build an audience.
This week, we are going to look at how to measure and refine social media.
Measure and Refine
Every Internet marketer will tell you that measuring social media is very difficult, if not impossible. They are somewhat wrong on that. It is true that social media is lagging behind when it comes to analytics, but that does not mean you can't measure success and failures.Take advantage of URL-shortening services when you post links on social media that provide analytics, such as the number of clicks and where those clicks originated. Some popular URL-shortening services are:
- Bit-ly - http://bit.ly
- Ow-ly - http://ow.ly
- Google shortener - http://goo.gl
Another way to measure is if you offer a special code or sale via a social media platform and that is the only place it was available. By tracking how many people sign up or use the code, you can see if the offer was successful.
Next week we will look at keywords and how they play a role in social media.
