5 Tips to Bring New Life to Your Social Profiles

Posted on July 13, 2013 by admin

By Eric Siu
Published July 9, 2013

When was the last time you updated your social media profiles?

Are they starting to feel drab or dated?

Your social profiles may be in dire need of a refresh!

And are you sharing the types of updates tailored to the latest platform designs and suited for today’s social media marketing?

With recent changes to major platforms, you may be missing out on using some of the cool new options.

To freshen up your social media profiles and take advantage of the latest updates, implement any of the following five ideas.

#1: Optimize Your Google+ Profile for the Platform’s New Design

Google+ social profiles were recently redesigned. This represents a great opportunity to freshen up your Google+ profile and review your Google+ content strategy!

The new Google+ design features 1, 2 or 3 columns of content, depending on the device being used.

Here are a few tweaks you can make to spice up your new Google+ profile.

Add a new high-resolution cover image. The current Google+ design standards require an image that’s at least 480×270 pixels. However, since these images can be blown up for much larger display sizes in some browsers, this is a great opportunity to update your profile with a new high-resolution photo.

Add larger media to the items you post. Some picture and video “cards” (Google-speak for the individual items that appear in the stream) display across multiple columns, giving users greater exposure to them. While visitors can’t control which items appear wider than others, you can increase your odds of having your content featured by changing the size of the images and videos you share to be at least 480×270 pixels.

Here’s an example from HubSpot:

This image demonstrates what a full-width card looks like in the new Google+.

Add images to every post. The new Google+ design is all about visual content, so give Google what it wants by adding pictures or video files to every update you post. Visuals are a great way to make your profile appear more lively and engaging.

You’ll be taking advantage of the new features available with the new Google+ design and your profile will stand out above the others.

#2: Add Media to Your LinkedIn Profile

In December of last year, LinkedIn started rolling out the ability to add photos, videos and other types of rich media to profiles. But few eligible users are currently taking advantage of this opportunity!

If you’re serious about adding punch to both your personal and professional social profiles, adding media to your LinkedIn profile is an easy way to do it.

To see if you have access to these features, log into your profile and click the pencil icon found in the Edit Profile area of your Summary, Expertise and Experience sections. If you see a small icon labeled “Add Media,” you’ll be able to add rich media to create a freshened up professional profile on LinkedIn.

Note – LinkedIn is still rolling out this feature. If you don’t have access yet, be patient!

You’ll want to add some relevant rich media elements to your LinkedIn profile to look good and stand out.

#3: Add a Header Graphic to Your Twitter Feed

Twitter profile headers have been available for quite a while, though the large number of plain grey rectangles still evident on user profiles indicates that this feature hasn’t yet been widely adopted.

To give your Twitter profile a quick graphic boost, create a custom header that communicates your personality or your brand’s messaging. Here’s an example of a fun header graphic.

Coca Cola’s Twitter header combines images and popular brand iconography.

If you’d like to create your own Twitter header to freshen up your profile, check out the free Twitter Header Creator tool.

Make sure you’re Twitter profile page looks good and add an engaging header image.

#4: Upgrade to the “New Look” on Pinterest

Social media users have noted that Google+’s latest redesign makes it look more like Pinterest. And Pinterest has moved forward with its own redesign. Its new design features simplified navigation, larger “pins” and enhanced social sharing tools – elements that are bound to please users.

What’s interesting, though, is that instead of rolling out the new look to all users, it’s currently offered on an opt-in basis. To gain access to these features, you’ll need to click the Get it Now button that appears at the top of your profile upon login.

To view Pinterest’s new look, click the red Get it Now button that appears upon login.

Because updating only changes the way your profile looks to you, why bother taking this step, and how does it allow you to freshen up your own profile?

What’s special about the site’s redesign is how easy it makes the discovery of new Pinterest boards and pinners. By upgrading to the new look, you’ll be able to form new connections and source even more interesting pins, making your own profile a more interesting resource for your followers.

You’ll want to update your Pinterest experience by adopting the new design.

#5: Use Twitter Vines to Bring New Life to Your Account

One final way to freshen up your social profiles is to introduce Vine videos to your Twitter feed.

Vine videos are quick, looping videos that consist of six seconds maximum of video and audio content. As an example, take the popular “Ryan Gosling Won’t Eat His Cereal” Vine – a recent viral success:

This popular Vine shows how effective six seconds of film can be in connecting with your audience.

Making Vine videos doesn’t require much time or money, as six seconds isn’t nearly enough time to develop a complex storyline or plot.

Create your own Vine video as a fast and easy way to freshen up your Twitter feed and engage your audience with visual content.

Your Turn

Use these five creative ways to make your social profiles more appealing today. Social interaction will continue to evolve around your social profiles, so remember to keep an eye open for the next design changes and new ways to share engaging content.

What do you think? Can you think of any other ways to freshen up a boring, out-of-date social profile? Share your tips and recommendations in the comments below!

About the Author, Eric Siu

Eric Siu is an entrepreneur and internet marketer based in Los Angeles. He co-runs Storemapper, a store locator widget for e-commerce stores and other businesses. Other posts by Eric Siu

Cynicism, Irony and Sarcasm In Service Of Social Justice

Posted on June 30, 2013 by admin

Durable, strong and adaptable. This is how a 9 year old child is described who is available for purchase on a home shopping network. For $65 you can own a child that can work up to 18 hours a day for you. Luckily, this is just a spoof conceptualised by ad agency KBS+P for World Vision Canada. The parody of a home shopping network shows the perfectly coiffed hosts talk about the ever versatile, hard working and adaptable 9 year old child named Keweshi who can work all day for you.

World Vision are fighting child slavery by updating what a slavery auction must have looked like, fitting it into our TV home-shopping of modern times. Slavery might not be legal these days, but the daunting statistic that every year 1.2 million children are sold into slavery is the unfortunate reality behind the campaign.

– See more at: http://www.simplyzesty.com/Blog/Article/June-2013/9-Year-Old-Child-Available-For-Purchase-In-World-Vision-s-Latest-Campaign?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Simplyviral+%28Simply+Viral+%29#sthash.GohZ2kQ5.dpuf

No Child For Sale infographic by AndrewDavies.

5 Creative Ways to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog Posts

Posted on June 11, 2013 by admin

By Kimberly Reynolds
Published June 11, 2013

Do you want more traffic to your blog?

Are you struggling to catch the attention of more readers?

Does this sound familiar? You write an amazing piece of content. You made sure to craft an attention-grabbing headline. You share the link on Twitter, Facebook, even Google+.

Then you wait in breathless anticipation for your share count to skyrocket. Except it doesn’t.

Never fear, in this article you’ll find fresh ideas to generate buzz and get your posts noticed.

Use a two-pronged approach with a variety of platforms and different types of media to get your post shared. Image source: iStockPhoto.

Promote Your Article Across a “Wider” Variety of Platforms

Everyone is using Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn to promote their content. It’s tempting to focus only on these four networks because they have popularity and community numbers on their side.

However, you get a competitive advantage when you share your content on smaller or less well-known networks. These sites often have active, focused audiences and offer less competition for attention, so your content will stand out.

Here are some examples of smaller networks:

Quora.com—A question/answer-based website founded by two former Facebook employees. What makes Quora unique is that all content is created, edited and organized by its user community. The user base tends to be more business- and academic-oriented.
Tumblr—A microblogging site that recently made headlines when Yahoo! acquired it. Its user base tends to be younger and more “hip,” making it the perfect platform to share edgier, niche-based content.
Empire Avenue—Part social network, part social media marketing tool, Empire Avenue uses gamification to enable users to broadcast content across all of the other social networks. The primary members of EAv are small businesses, social media professionals and bloggers.

Intel on Empire Avenue.

Grab Viewer Interest With Different Types of Media

Sharing a link to your post isn’t enough to guarantee that it gets read. You need to give users a compelling reason to click your link.

Use one or more of these outside-the-box, creative methods to promote your posts with images, audio and video.

#1: Use Dubbler to Give a Short Audio Introduction

Available for iPhone and Android devices, Dubbler offers a simple way to record up to 60 seconds of audio on your phone, and then share it with other Dubbler community members.

Dubbler brings the simplicity and fun of audio to the social world. Record your voice, add a filter or photo and share with your friends.

The app includes voice filters and lets you add a cover image.

Spark interest in your blog post and record an audio message that communicates your excitement and passion about the content in a way that text or static images can’t.

Add an image, enter your blog post URL in the description and you’ve got a ready-made sound bite that can be shared with the Dubbler community, as well as Facebook and Twitter.

Add a link to your blog post. Record your teaser audio and share.

#2: Create a 6-Second Preview of Your Post with Vine

Vine is an iPhone app that lets you create 6-second looping video shorts. A Vine video is a great way to give viewers a 6-second teaser about the blog post contents.

For example, this bicycle blog created a short Vine of one of their bikes and tweeted it with a link to their blog post about its features and availability.

Here is an example with the blog post URL in the video description:

Vine has an active and growing community to share with. Additionally, you can also share to Twitter and Facebook.

Since Vine is owned by Twitter, your video will display automatically when you tweet it, as well as provide a link to the blog post and specific hashtags.

There’s another benefit of using Vine. Tweets with Vine videos are four times more likely to be shared than standard video, according to research by Unruly.

#3: Create a SlideShare Overview of Your Post

SlideShare is more than a just a content-sharing platform.

With 51.6 million monthly visitors, SlideShare is a thriving community with five times as much traffic from business owners than Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

A presentation by Pam Moore, the Marketing Nut, demonstrates the cross-promotional opportunities between SlideShare and her blog. In this example, Pam created an overview of her blog post with the slides and then included a link back to her post in one of the presentation slides.

At the end of her post, she embedded the presentation, which links back to SlideShare and more of her content.

Pam put her links at the end of her presentation on her closing slide.

Your finished presentation will be visible and searchable from within SlideShare and you can extend its reach and share it to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and LinkedIn.

#4: Pin Your Post to a Pinterest Group Board

Pinterest allows you to pin on individual boards and collaborate by pinning to contributor boards. The benefit of pinning to a contributor board is increased exposure. When you pin to a contributor board, your fellow contributors see the pin and so do their followers. The more members and followers a group board has, the more people will see your pin.

Here are some tips for pinning your post to Pinterest:

Choose an interesting image from your blog post to pin
Make sure the title of your blog post is visible on the image you choose
Add keywords to the description
Use hashtags, if they’re relevant
If you mention someone in your blog post, you can @ mention them on Pinterest, too
Pinterest will add the URL to your blog post

A great way to increase exposure for your blog post.

#5: Instagram an Image From Your Post

Instagram has a constantly updating feed of images that is viewed by over 100 million monthly users. Sharing your main blog image, overlaid with the post title, is a great way to drive organic traffic to your blog. You can leverage the sheer volume of Instagram traffic by using the same blog post image that you shared to Pinterest. Instagram is also very hashtag-friendly! Here’s an easy way to post your picture to the Instagram community and beyond:

Save your blog image to Dropbox
Access Dropbox from your mobile device
Upload the image to Instagram
Add any relevant hashtags and the URL of your blog post to the caption, using Bitly to shorten and track click-throughs
Be sure to @ mention anyone you referred to in your post
Remember to share your Instagram image to Tumblr, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and Foursquare

Pro Tip: Twitter no longer displays the actual Instagram. Instead, it links to the image. You can use IFTTT to circumvent this issue. Here’s the recipe and here’s what the tweet will look like using IFTTT.

Get Creative When Promoting Your Blog Posts

There are many other creative ways to promote your blog post. Don’t be afraid to try something new!

Just because no one else is doing it doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea. Some tactics will resonate with your readers. Some will not. And that’s ok. The important thing is to keep innovating.

What do you think? Have you used any of these creative alternatives? Do you have another, outside-the-box idea for promoting your blog posts? Please let me know your suggestions in the comments below.

Image from iStockPhoto.

Tags: blog post, blog promotion, blog traffic, blogging, blogging strategy, dubbler, kim reynolds, marketing strategy, pinterest group board, slideshare, social media marketing, social networks, vine

About the Author, Kimberly Reynolds

Kim Reynolds has been a website developer and internet strategist since 1995. She now has her own social media agency called SocialNotz. Follow Kim on Twitter as @qrkim Other posts by Kimberly Reynolds »

How To Improve B2B Lead Generation On LinkedIn

Posted on November 15, 2012 by admin

Here’s a helpful checklist for optimizing your LinkedIn effectiveness. Seeing it all laid out makes the steps appear obvious, but then having a condition of workability usually does once everything is laid out and put in the proper order. Thanks to the folks at Simply Zesty for sharing the shortcuts.

Because of its focus, it’s been stated many times that LinkedIn is the perfect site for generating B2B & B2C leads. It was only at the beginning of the year when Hubspot found that when compared to Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn was 277% more effective for lead generation (Facebook was .77% while Twitter was .69%).

While those stats sound great, most people tend to be unsure about what steps to take to generate leads. The thing is that lead generation isn’t limited to either your personal or your company page, it’s an amalgamation of both. One misconception about B2B lead generation is that it’s only about generating new leads, it’s also about maintaining the ones you already have and ensuring that you’re presenting yourself in the best possible light. So if you have a personal page or lucky enough to have both.

Have a Complete Profile & Company Page

Very obvious, but it’s surprising the number of people who don’t take the time to complete their profile. The more information you provide about yourself and your company, the more likely people are going to reach out to you when they view your profile. With the new profile update, LinkedIn has broken down these sections further and allows more customisation. Remember you can put in things like course scores, volunteer work, projects worked on and organisations you’re with so take some time out to complete these and give potential business leads something to work with.

There have been a number of changes made to LinkedIn company pages in recent times. Tips on how you can improve it and get the most out of them can be found here. Those wanting to fine-tune their profile can find a similar guide here.

Place Keywords In Your Descriptions

When you’re filling out your profile, personal or company, it’s a good idea to place a number of industry keywords into your description. While company profiles have specialities – keywords that describe your company – it’s a good idea to place some of these in your company description as well so LinkedIn search engine will have an easier time finding you.

Avoid jargon or high-end words and instead use terms that people would search for. It can be a little difficult to achieve this without compromising your description, but you can avoid that by writing out the description first and then adjusting it slightly to include these keywords.

Know Your Audience

While it’s clear that LinkedIn caters towards professionals, the real strength of the site is that you can find out more details about your connections and followers. Thanks to the new profile design, you can now get a breakdown of what industries your connections are based in. While it doesn’t provide you with a list of specific people, it’s a good way of finding out who going to see your posts if you have a large number of followers.

Company pages go into far greater detail, showing you an accurate breakdown of your audience by industry, location and profession.

Share Valuable Content

The same applies to Facebook and Twitter so why should it not apply to LinkedIn too. LinkedIn Today is becoming one of the most popular areas for news consumption (thanks to the company’s redesign) and as a result, the content posted by its users follows suit. Make sure the content you’re posting, either on your personal or business page, is useful and relevant to your audience.

Don’t Wait Until You Need Something

You know how annoying it is when someone only talks to you when they’re looking for something. Whatever you do, don’t be that person, it’s annoying and people will question why they’re even connected with you if you’re not offering something. Instead, offer assistance whenever the situation presents it, provide helpful answers and be useful to your connections and the wider community.

Use LinkedIn Answers

LinkedIn Answers tends to be a section that is often overlooked, yet provides a wealth of information for professionals. While you can ask your own questions, the real benefit is having the opportunity to answer questions on subjects you know, it gives you the chance to show off your expertise and knowledge. Browse through the questions in your area and even if it’s already been answered, contribute to the discussion. This will build up confidence and get you into the habit of answering.

Research Groups

There’s nothing worse than taking a scattergun approach to joining groups so before you request to be apart of a marketing or technology group, do a little bit of research first and see whether it fits your needs. What’s usually discussed? What sectors are its members from? Is there anyone you know that’s a member? What’s their opinion on it? The aim of joining any group is to give yourself a platform for you to showcase your knowledge so join groups that you can participate in and learn from.

Advanced Search

Another often overlooked feature of the site are the advanced search tools which delve deep into the site and finds the people you’re looking for. While there are a number of search features that are only available for premium users – seniority level and experience are just two – there is more than enough different criteria to carry out an extensive search. This is handy if you’re looking for 2nd or 3rd connections from a particular sector.

Use Targeted Updates

Both personal and company pages give you the option to let certain status updates be visible to a particular audience. While personal profiles give you a simplistic option (you can choose whether just your connections see an update or everyone), company profiles allow you to target more specific demographics. Different audiences respond to different things so if you can, send out two or more different updates to cater for them. It may require a little more thought from your end, but the results are worth it.

Make A Note Of Those Viewing Your Profile

LinkedIn now notifies you when somebody views your profile, similar to how Facebook updates you, and this can work in your favour. While it can be weird to see who has been looking at your profile, you should take a note of those that have. Who are they? What industry are they in? Where are they based? Do you share any mutual connections? It can sometimes be worth reaching out to these people if either of you share common interests.

Use Endorsements

For those who uses LinkedIn on a daily basis, you’ll know that endorsements have always been one of the key features on the platform. The idea is that if your peers and people that you have worked with in the past are saying you’re good at what you do then you must be worth hiring or doing business with. The old way of endorsing was pretty simple and didn’t do much except allow people to write nice things about you that would then appear on your profile.

You’ll see with the new LinkedIn profile design that endorsements are now a key part of the site and they have been given a number of new features that allow people to effectively score you across your skill sets. With endorsements starting to pop into the news feed, it’s an excellent way for people to find out about you and increase the amount of business that comes your way.

Place Follow Buttons On Your Site

When people first stumble across your LinkedIn profile, they may not be ready to do business with you so it is important that you stay relevant and have them follow your company. To follow a company means that you get all of their updates coming into your feed, and when you do go looking for a product or service, there is a very good chance they will have you in their mind.

You can pick up follows organically on the site (in the same way you would get Twitter followers or Facebook likes), but the fastest way to get followers is to add a simple follow button to your website.

Use LinkedIn InMail

Most of the connecting, finding new business or looking for jobs on LinkedIn happens through people within your network, but users often get frustrated when they want to contact somebody for business reasons that they are not connected to. The reason that LinkedIn doesn’t allow you to message any user you want to is to cut down on spam and the number of people who are constantly sending messages. However, it’s smart enough to realise that this is a massive money making opportunity, which is why it introduced inMail.

inMail comes in many different forms and you can choose your one here. You can buy credits (they cost about $80 for 10, but do get cheaper the more you buy) and those credits allow you to send messages to anyone you want. Once you have inMail, it means that you can get in touch with pretty much anybody you want to and can start to drive new business through the platform.

Opinions & Guides

– MathMarketing looks at how B2B firms can use LinkedIn to generate leads for their business.
– Marketing software service Marketo speak to Neal Schaffer about B2B lead generation on LinkedIn and the best ways for businesses to take advantage.
– Oktopost looks at the major differences between B2C and B2B lead generation and why taking a one-size-fits all approach is dangerous.
– MarketingSherpa gets seven experts to give their tips for B2B lead generation across social media.
– Social Media B2B shows how focusing on multimedia

The Quick & Easy Guide To Social Media Scheduling

Posted on November 15, 2012 by admin

Here’s an excellent primer on keeping your social media campaigns and conversations alive and vital.

Social media is a tool that has immediacy at its very foundation. Its direct nature and lack of restrictions makes it valuable to businesses who are looking for cheaper and faster ways to communicate with their audience. Regular communication with your fans and followers is vital if you want to grow your audience and develop a good reputation online and reaching a potential global audience makes this more desirable.

However, this has presented its own set of problems. For one, you can’t be around your computer or have access there will be occasions where you’ll be out of the office, or away for the entire day and have content you want to share.

Also, while we have now have access to a global audience, unless you’re a major company that has offices in different parts of the world, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to reach all of your audience at prominent times. When you’re under pressure to maintain a consistent social media presence, this can be testing when you’ve many other things to be concentrating on.

Therefore, one of the best solutions you can have is to schedule content in advanced. This way, you can cover yourself for times you’re not on your accounts, giving you more time to concentrate on other jobs. However, while scheduling is a useful feature, you shouldn’t rely on it exclusively. You will need real-time posts to deal with mentions, comments or for posting content that is time sensitive so a mixture of the two is preferable.

Preparing Content

Clock symbol via Infinity Kim of The Noun Project

What type of content you schedule is important as there are certain posts that are better to post immediately instead of later. When you’re preparing content, the first thing you should consider is the shelf life of a post. Will it still be relevant in a few hours time? Is it something that users will want to come back to? To use an example, a news story about Instagram’s new profiles would be relevant for a few hours, but will quickly become old news. However, a feature post or guide relating to it would last much longer.

Once you’ve that settled, who your audience is the next thing you should consider. Sending it at a time where they will all see it is so you will need to consider where they’re based and factor that in. If you have two difference audiences, one local and the other in a different part of the world, it’s best to post one straight away and schedule the second for later on. What times work the best can be found out through trial and error so schedule posts, use a URL shortener – so you can find out how many times a link has been clicked – and experiment.

The third thing is coming up with an advanced schedule of your posts. This is to say when exactly these posts are going to be published so when you have the times sorted out, make a schedule where you decide exactly what times you post something online and stick to it. You can either write the schedule down or create a spreadsheet or Google Calendar (with reminders) telling you when to post. Not only is consistency important, but you want to make sure your audience is given the best possible opportunity to see your posts.

The fourth and final thing to do is to create a space online where you can source content from. This is something that your entire company can get involved in. Create a new Google doc file (word or spreadsheet) and ask that everyone posts any interesting content they find on it. It’s better to index it under certain headings (social media, marketing, technology, etc.) and to place the date it was published as well in case time is a factor.

This way, you’ve sourced a number of interesting articles and content without having to do much work although don’t rely too much on others to do your work.

Social Media Tools

With that said, there are a number of different tools that will help you out with scheduling content. Finding which one works best for you depends on your needs and what type of social media channels you use, but there are a number of great tools out there to choose from.

Facebook
Anyone who is a regular user of Facebook pages would probably know that the site has its own scheduler for you to take advantage of. Not only can you update your posts on desktop, but you can do it through the Facebook pages app too. Anytime you’re writing a post (make sure it’s in the voice of the page and not your own personal account), you will notice a clock icon at the bottom. Clicking on it will let you schedule the date and time your post will go online.

Tweetdeck
The old reliable for when you’re handling multiple streams and accounts, everyone pretty much knows what Tweetdeck has to offer, one of those features is scheduling tweets. If you haven’t been put off by the numerous changes Twitter has made to it over the last few months, then you’ll find it useful.

Hootsuite
A great alternative if Tweetdeck has put you off. Hootsuite offers the same features as Tweetdeck, but what it has to separate it from other products is its AutoSchedule feature. It will choose the best times for your tweet or post to be published.

Hubspot
If you’re having problems organising content to post or you become inconsistent with posting, Hubspot’s solution might be what you’re looking for. It created its own handy social media scheduler which can be used for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. The scheduler in question is a Excel spreadsheet, but it’s a great way of gathering your thoughts and arranging all your content into one easy space. You have to use it in conjunction with another publishing tool like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite, but it’s great if you want that extra level of organisation.

Buffer
The original auto scheduler and one that has gained a lot of fans since it was first released, Buffer lets you queue up posts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and App.net and automatically posts them for you throughout the day. The service will space out your posts and post them during times your followers will see it. It’s available for major browsers and smartphones meaning it’s can be used no matter where you are.

Sprout Social
Another scheduler that has garnered a lot of praise, Sprout Social’s primary purpose is a social media monitoring tool, but it also allows its users to schedule posts and messages on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. As well as being able to queue up posts and cross-post content, it also allows you to integrate RSS feeds for sharing, allowing you to queue up content easily.

If your social media responsibilities are broken down between three or more people, then Sprout Social is a tool definitely worth looking into.

Tweriod
Another good auto scheduler tool for Twitter, Tweriod analyses your tweets and your followers’ tweets to determine the best times for you to tweet. The service is free if you have less than 1,000 followers, however. After that, the cost ranges from $4 a month for accounts with 1,001 – 4,999 followers to $15 a month for accounts with over 50,000 followers.

Social Media Metrics – Separating Vanity From Valuable

Posted on November 15, 2012 by admin

Thanks to Simply Zesty for an introduction to metrics to pay attention to, especially when getting started.

No matter what industry you’re in, data will always play a key part. Data provides certainly and cold, hard facts that can help businesses thrive. It’s no surprise that by their very nature, the Web and social media have sped up the progress of analytic tools, becoming faster and more accurate. It’s why the majority of social media sites offer up their own analytics tools and why there are many so many are looking for real stats to work from.

Yet sometimes having a lot of data at your fingertips can be a hindrance. Our analytics can be filled with so much data that it can be difficult to determine what data is useful. It can be dangerous to take one metric on its own at face value so a combination of different metrics can help paint a picture of how well your social media activity is going.

Type of Metrics

There are a number of different engagement types out there, but here are the ones you should keep in mind when you’re devising a strategy.

Engagement
Perhaps the most important metric you can find, knowing the type of engagement levels is paramount to success on social media. These are the conversations, the likes, the retweets, the mentions and shares that happen online around your brand and page.

Some sites provide an engagement figure for you to work from, but it’s usually better to look beyond that and analyse each post in particular. How many people commented? Did anyone share it? What was the quality of comments like? Has the post sparked a discussion? Delving into how people interact can provide greater results, as you’ll discover what topics resonate with your fans.

For most social media analytics, this figure is made up of likes, shares and comments and while it’s fine to take this figure at face value, but sometimes a deeper analysis is required.

Reach
Basically how many people are able to see your posts when you first publish something, making this the second most important metric for a business. More importantly, you’ll be able to see whether your audience is growing or not. Again, you shouldn’t use this figure at face value simply because reach only tells part of a story (for one, it doesn’t tell how many people actually engaged with your content), but using it in conjunction with engagement figures can tell you how much of your audience is actively engaging with your content.

Views/Time Spent
Mainly for visual mediums like slides, images and videos, views basically tells you how many people have watched or looked at your video. For the most part, YouTube relies upon this metric to say whether a video has become a success or not, but it’s introduced another new metric which shows you how many minutes were spent watching a particular video.

Referrals
Mainly for those using web tools like Google Analytics, referrals tells you where your traffic is coming from, be it from search engines, social media and third-party sites. The aim for any site is to ensure that more people stay on the site so looking at this figure alongside the amount of time spent on your site. If you’re using a particular site to drive traffic (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.), this is a good way to see what content works and engages with users the most. It’s better to compare it with two different sites as you could have vastly different audiences for each.

Another area worth looking at is the bounce rate (the percentage of visitors who enter the site and immediately leave). A high bounce rate is common for blogs and any content posted via social media as it means that people are only visiting your site for that particular link.

Sentiment analysis
A recently formed metric, this looks beyond the hard data and measures the overall mood of people on social media. This metric is imperfect at best as there hasn’t been a sophisticated enough algorithm to properly measure this. The best to currently measure this, provided you aren’t overwhelmed with mentions every day, is to take each tweet/comment individually and determine whether’s it’s positive, negative or neutral. Tools like Social Mention can calculate this for free, but it’s best not to rely on this method too much.

Share of Voice
Another metric that’s been around for a while, but has received a new lease of life through social media, Share of Voice refers to how many times your mentioned is mentioned in comparison to other brands who are in the same category. Calculating it is by dividing the number of conversations or mentions of your brand by total overall mentions. A number of tools like Radian6 offer features that can calculate this for you

Danger Of Vanity Over Real Metrics

While there are a lot of metrics to choose from, it’s important to know which ones are worth noting and which ones are just nice to look at. Some of the figures that are thrown about in social media tend to be vanity metrics – those that look nice or sound important, but provide little overall value.

A good example would be Facebook, pretty much everyone knows that using likes as a way of measuring success is shortsighted at best. Instead, you focus more on engagement metrics like “People Talking About This” and combine them with other metrics to get a better idea of how you’re progressing.

Social Media Metrics

Facebook
As mentioned earlier, don’t resort to likes as a way of measuring success. Instead what you should focus on is engagement figures like “People talking about this” and delve into insights. For each post that you publish on the site, you will also get figures for engaged users, the reach and the overall virality (those who created stories out of your post).

LinkedIn
While LinkedIn provides the usual impressions and engagement statistics, one features that you should keep an eye on as well is follower demographics, most specifically function. This shows you exactly what industries your audience is in, which gives you an idea as to what content will resonate with them. Region and industry can come in useful too, but since your audience will be looking for content that relates to their positions, it’s better to plot your updates this way.

YouTube
The number of views your video gets is still king, but you should also take into consideration the other metrics at your disposal. One that will be very useful in determining the success of your videos will be the “estimated minutes watched” section. Dividing this number by the number of views your video has received should give you an idea as to whether people are watching the full video or not.

Google Analytics
If you’re new to Google analysis or just want to simplify the experience, there are a few metrics you should focus on. The first should be traffic sources. This can be broken down into four main sections, search traffic (from Google. etc.), referral traffic (from social media, third-party sites), direct traffic and campaigns. If your traffic from search is high (more than 70%), you may want to address it as any changes to Google’s search algorithm will hurt you badly.

The second is visitor count which comes up when you first login to analytics. While this can be a vanity metric at the best of times, you should monitor it for any notable change in the number of people visiting your site. If a change occurred because you modified your site or tried a different social media strategy, then the results will begin to show themselves here.

The other factors to take into account is average time on page/site and bounce rate. The latter tells you what percentage of people who visit your site leave without viewing a second page on your site. If the bounce rate is high and the time spent on your site is low, you might want to reconsider the type of content you’re putting out there.