Month: May 2019

Social Media Monitoring How To Select A Service

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The focus is on social media monitoring in this final article in the series on Selecting a Media Monitoring Service.

In earlier articles, Determining Your Media Monitoring Needs, Print News Monitoring vs. Online News Monitoring, and Broadcast Monitoring for TV and Radio News, I describe the various approaches to news monitoring.

Definition: Social Media Monitoring

The social web is a fast-growing and fast-changing “platform” for consumers to discuss companies and products.

Social media monitoring is the process of listening to online consumer reviews and conversations about your company, its brands and services.

The overarching goal of social media monitoring is to learn from listening – learn the consumer’s concerns about your company and its industry, and then use that knowledge to improve your products and services.

Social Media Monitoring Services

Your social media listening strategy should encompass all forms of word of mouth media and consumer discussion including but not limited to blogs, “complaint” sites, message boards, forums, Usenet news groups, and video sharing sites such as YouTube. You should also monitor social community sites like Facebook, MySpace and Linked-In, along with Twitter, the microblog.

Social media monitoring services monitor all forms of social media – but not all services monitor all media. The services use specialized software to aggregate social media postings from multiple sources, index all the content on a near-continuous basis, query the index using the client’s key words and identify consumer posts of interest, and then deliver the relevant posts to the client.

Since it’s impossible to predict where or when important market intelligence will “pop up” on the Web or where it will be republished, it’s important to monitor as much social media as possible.

Market Intelligence vs. Worthless Chatter

Social media overflows with inane chatter. If the Chipotle restaurant chain monitors social media, the overwhelming majority of mentions will be about “going to” the restaurant or “meeting (name)” at the restaurant – not very useful for market intelligence purposes.

Well-constructed search queries help minimize extraneous chatter. As an example, McDonald’s could focus social media monitoring on specific product names (brands) instead of the corporate name. Or it could use an “and not” operator in the Boolean query on common phrases like “going to” or “meet”. That type of clip avoidance strategy will likely delete a bit of worthwhile conversation, but will certainly minimize useless chatter to be reviewed.

If your company is using social media monitoring as a customer service tool, it’s important to see all mentions to sort out and act on complaints and compliments.

What should you be listening for?

As a starting point, monitor for your corporate name, your brands, the services you offer, and the names of key executives.

Initially, focus on identifying and anlyzing complaints, compliments and questions about your organization. Look for any serious issues that need to be corrected. Look for patterns or trends that are emerging – positive or negative. Initially, measurement of social media is not necessary, especially for small and mid-size companies. Later, you may want to expand your listening to encompass competitors and industry-specific issues – and also do some formal measurement of social media conversation.

Who in the organization should coordinate the listening?

The answer to “who should listen?” will emerge from the central reason or the combination of reasons your organization wants to monitor social media. Is it to find service complaints and rectify them? Then “customer service” should listen and react – often called “engagement” in social media circles.

Is the reason to identify issues with product performance? Then marketing or product development should be listening.

Is it to monitor corporate reputation? Then the public relations department should be listening.

In large corporations, multiple departments should be involved in the listening process.

How to listen?

Using free social media search engines can provide quite a good cross-section of word-of-mouth commentary by consumers on the Web. For blogs, try Technorati, Google Blogs and Ice Rocket. Searching multiple services causes a problem of duplicate content that you’ll need to filter out – something that commercial media monitoring services do automatically.

For message boards and forums (which may be even more important to monitor than blogs), try BoardReader which covers about 50,000 different online consumer discussion sites. The best way to start monitoring Facebook and Linked-In is to simply sign up as a member and enter search queries into each service’s search engine.

The downside of free search services is the time required to conduct the searches. It may not be the most productive use of in-house staff. Staff time is better used for analyzing, not searching. If there are a limited number of new posts each day, it may be acceptable to monitor less frequently. But at least occasional monitoring of social media is crucial to gain a better understanding of consumer issues and to protect your corporate reputation.

Bottom Line: free social media search engines may well meet your needs if you have just a few search terms, typically receive only a few new postings each day, are willing to invest the time to conduct searches on a regular schedule using multiple free services, and have no need for advanced services to measure the quantity, reach, and tone of the social media postings. Using free media monitoring tools, though not perfect, may be “good enough”. “Free”, however, is not truly free. The staff time investment must have an adequate return.

Commercial Social Media Monitoring Services

The paid subscription services for social media monitoring provide more comprehensive coverage, save staff time, and provide many bells & whistles including online clip archives to manage the social media posts, and automated quantitative and qualitative measurement of the posts.

Prominent social media monitoring services include Radian6, Alterian M2, Trackur, and Scout Labs. Presently, more than 50 companies compete in the social media monitoring and measurement space. There is a “wiki” of social media monitoring solutions at http://wiki.kenburbary.com/ that continually updates the growing number of social media monitoring services. The Yahoo! Directory also contains a comprehensive list of social media monitoring services.

Many of the well-established news monitoring services provide integrated social media monitoring. CyberAlert, for instance, in addition to its online news monitoring service, provides comprehensive daily coverage of 50+ million blogs; 100,000+ message boards, forums, complaint sites, and Usenet news groups; 200+ video sharing sites like YouTube; and all Twitter postings for the previous 24 hours.

Social media monitoring services vary considerably in their mission and in their deliverables. In screening the companies, it’s vital to match their market niche with your need. Doing your homework in advance to narrow down your vendor list is absolutely essential.

Assessing Social Media Monitoring Services

Questions to ask in assessing social media monitoring services:

What is the core goal of your service?

Who are your key customers? What internal department is the primary client contact point for your service?

What’s your service best at doing? Exactly what social media do you cover? How do you aggregate content? May I add social media of special interest to our company to those your company already monitors?

Do you cover “complaint” sites? Which ones? Do you monitor Twitter?

Do you cover and exactly what content do you harvest from Facebook, MySpace, and Linked-In? Is your search engine capable of performing Boolean queries? What Boolean operands does it use? Is it capable of using regular expressions? How many keywords may I use in my queries?

Does your service include a searchable archive of social media posts? What are its features? Ask for a demo of the archive.

How do you differ from (another service you are evaluating)?

Who is your best competitor? Why are you better than they are?

What enhancements do you plan to your service in the next 60 days? Six months? One year?

Many of the services offer a comprehensive demo or, even better, a “test drive” of the service. That’s unquestionably the best way to sort through the features and benefits of the various vendors.

Summary: Social Media Monitoring

As a new and rapidly evolving media, online consumer discussion and social communities form the “wild west” of monitoring. No solution is perfect. But for most every company, some social media monitoring solution is necessary. The temptation is to leap into social media at full speed. But, the “full service” solution of listening, measuring and engagement may not be the best solution to meet your needs. Determining your needs before contacting or meeting with vendors is the most effective way to start the process. Even with general specifications in hand, you’re far more apt to contract with an appropriate service – and not buy more than you need.

Social Networks Pluses And Minuses

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The number of users of social networks nowadays is really astonishing. Both developers and users have noticed it. Up-to-date masses often even dont imagine themselves without social networks and online communicating. But is this good or bad tendency? In this article we will try to help you answer this question.
Firtly, advantages:
1. Social networks give us communication, connections with many people. It is not a secret already, that virtual communication has become far more attractive for many people. And in modern society a lot of people are just lonely and for them virtual communication is essential.
2.A search for classmates, old friends. Social network allow us to discover old friends that have moved years ago, classmates and sometimes relatives we have lost contact with. We have a possibility ot communicate with them online and meet in in reality. Not long ago we could just dream of such possibilities.
3. Find new friends and meet new people. Social networks give everyone unbelievable dating possibilities. The big number of members in social network also allows everybody to discover friends according to their interests and hobbies.
4. Big possibilities for ad and job finding. Social networks can be easily used as bulletin boards and looking at the number of users, really good ones.
5.Interests. For many visitors social networks are the interesting spending of time. Such hobby is not a bad one and it gives users many possibilities for self-realization. In social networks people can be whoever they want and communicate without worries.
But of course, as nearly all popular phenomena social networks have their disadvantages too:
1. The information spread in social network can be connected by who ever, without users even being informed about it.
2. Contact information may be used for spam.
3. Sometimes social networks can even hurt families and close relatives. The explanation for this is simple: users, who are too interested in social networks spend there all free time and dont pay attention to their families. In such case, such hobby can spoil real life relationships.
4. The absence of control can damage the psychics of children. Parents should care with whom their children spend time in social networks.
5. Medics frequently say that social networks are dangerous because they cause the addiction, and it is really so. Many people can not spend a day without visiting the social network. The absence of internet becomes great problem and people got addicted to virtual communication. Especially if people have problems in their life, they spend a lot of time in social networks in this way replacing life with social networks.
On the whole, the attitude to social networks can differ depending on the people and concrete situation, but they have conquered a big section of internet and are still developing. Today many people just cant live without social networks and the quantity of their members is still growing nowadays. But the most important thing here is to find a golden mean: use all advantages that social networks offer people but dont forget about the real life also.

Words That stir An Emotional Response

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Words that provoke an Emotional Response – Marketing firms have an inside secret that aids them to create compelling content and advertisements. They know there are certain words in the English language that, when read, create an emotional response. The big names in marketing use those words every day to write compelling copy that increases the potential for higher sales volume.

Those words are words that create a specific positive thought, or pull on the emotional senses that each of us possess. They make certain suggestions that give us warm feelings about the products or services we review, and the security needed to trust the company involved. Those words also add a time constraint, another secret in marketing, which compel people to act before they “miss out” on something.

Absolutely accurate advantage aggressive already amazing approved attractive authentic bargain beautiful better big bonus celebrate challenge colourful colossal commanding complete confidential convenient crammed delivered dependable direct discount easily effective electrify enchanting endorsed enormous essential everlasting excellent exciting exclusive expand experienced expert exquisite extraordinary extravagant famous fantastic fascinating foolproof force foremost fortune full gallant genuine gift gigantic golden greatest guaranteed helpful highest honour huge hypnotise immaculate immediately impressive improved incredible indescribable informative inspect instructive interesting invincible largest latest lavishly liberal lifetime limited limitless lowest magic magnificent magnify mammoth matchless maximum miracle noble noted odd outperforms outstanding overpower personalised pioneer popular powerful practical preferred private professional profitable proven quality quickly radiant rare recommended reduced refundable reliable remarkable revealing revolutionary scarce scorecard seasoned secrets security selected sensational simplified sizable skilled solid sparkle special spirit startling stimulate strange strong sturdy substantial successful superior surprise tempting terrific tested timeless tremendous turbocharged ultimate unconditional unearth unique unlimited unparalleled unprecedented unsurpassed unusual urgent useful valuable wealth weird wonderful wondrous you.

Incorporating these lexis into your content will help generate the emotions needed to move potential customers from potential to customers. You need to inform your visitors while also giving them adequate reasons to act upon your information. By adding some of the words from above, you can add a time constraint to your offering that compels people to take advantage of it. Failure to add a time constraint can allow someone to bookmark your proposal and then forget about it. By adding a time constraint, you compel them to act now, not later. Why would you want to spend all that time in design to generate the emotions needed to compel a visitor to buy only to allow them to bookmark the site and forget about it? Implementing the psychologicla marketing strategies will set you well on your way to higher profits through heightened sales volume.
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I am a social media marketing professional and Managing Director of Panther Interactive Marketing a social media marketing agency http://www.socialmediastrategy.org.uk Panther was founded in 1994 & has clients across the UK, with a focus in the midlands – Nottingham, Derby, Leicester & London areas. Panther Interactive Marketing specialises in social media, social media marketing and social media networking as well as more traditional marketing methods. We help clients blend their social media into their overall marketing mix. Panther’s team help businesses grow in the UK and internationally with measurable ROI.

We offer social media courses and training to businesses from large multinationals to small home based businesses. We also have a wide range of packaged and bespoke social media services that we offer at very competitive rates.

We also run a UK focused Social media

Marketing

Web ‘monster job board’ which is packed with social media, marketing and digital marketing jobs http://www.marketingjobsuk.uk.com

Smo To Help Make Your Website More Friendly

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SMO stands for social media optimization. It is a method in which the content of the web page is made attractive that could possibly attract the viewers from various social networking websites and can hold them for a longer time. This process is basically adopted to improve the rank of the website and increase the traffic on the web page. This is basically done through social networking activities across the internet. There are various companies who inherit social media optimization tools to improve the social appearance of their companies. The rising traffic on a web page is a sign of increasing sale and hence the importance of diverting traffic from networking websites. One can develop their business by enhancing the visibility of their web page and with the help of social media optimization.

SMO can be divided into two categories. Social media is the one in which social news, polling tools, sharing buttons are added. Beside this, images and videos of third party are also included. The other one is mostly a promotional activity. In this category, blogs, comments on blogs, group discussion, updates and other social networking tools are used to promote a website.

Social media optimization is a technique in which the social networking, video sharing, photo sharing are used as a tool to make the website familiar and to engage more people on the website and its various features. There are various companies that use media tools to make their web page popular. Through this medium, they eventually create awareness about their product and company among the net surfers.

Social networking tools are used to increase the traffic on the web page that could lead to improve the rank of the website. Social media optimization is a tool that is used by companies for brand building and brand promotion and is also used for building a healthy business relationship with the customers and thus to build up customer relationship. In social media optimization, the content of the web page is spread on the net making the web page more valuable for the internet users. This is a medium through which you can make your website friendlier by increasing the number of viewers. Use of active content, attractive design and use of tools like updating your readers, enhancing chatting, posting blogs, uploading press releases and keeping your viewers updated make your website rank high and increase the web traffic.

Professional Social Media Marketing Company

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Copyright (c) 2014 Yadonia Group

Social media is an incredibly popular platform that has gained exponentially over the last decade. Not only has the change included different markets of people, but the streams of marketing have also increased in terms of the amount of sites that people use for social media. One place that social media has also grown in importance is with marketing and advertising for businesses. Therefore, many new companies have been created to help those who need help with social media. Unfortunately, not all of them are as reputable as they claim to be. If you are looking for help with your online presence, here are some tips that will help you find the best professional social media marketing company for your business.

What Platform Will They Use For You?

There are a variety of different social media platforms that your company can use. Facebook, Twitter, Goole+, Instagram, Vine, the list truly goes on. However, many companies often have a preference that they choose to work on in order to make the most of their marketing. It’s important that you find out what platform the companies looks to use for your marketing. Furthermore, make sure that they do the proper analysis to ensure that you have viewers on those outlets as well.

What Is Their Previous Experience?

Before you decide on a specific company, be sure to consider their previous experience and who they’ve worked with before. You can ask for a list of references, in order to assure that the company is as professional as they probably claim to be. Furthermore, talking to other companies will help you get a better idea as to whether or not they have worked in the proper industries that are going to be applicable to your specific business. After all, they likely won’t be the best option for you if they don’t know anything about your specific industry or target market.

What Is Their Personal Guarantee?

Some companies may steer away from personal guarantees, but that can be a major red flag. After all, what do they have to lose in offering this? Instead, by getting a personal guarantee from a company, you can rest assured knowing that the professional social media marketing company you are working with will do all that they can to see your success. Rather than simply doing all they can to sign you as a client, just to drop you later on after you’ve signed on the dotted line.

Your business can likely benefit greatly from social media. But if you don’t feel comfortable with your ability to use the right programs, or if you simply don’t have time to keep up with everything, be sure to use the tips mentioned here when looking to hire the perfect marketing company for your social media platform.

Alaa Abu Maizar, working as executive manager at Yadonia Group which is a professionalsocial media marketing company that are helping companies to connect with their audiences through social media marketing. Visit our website at http://www.yadonia.com for more information.