eKnowWaytions

Alright. How shall we start this? Shall we say congrats? finally?! respect?! or simply: it was time! god damn it!

I started this post about 2 weeks ago and thought I finish it when coming back from Tenerife. But now, within 24 hours, a German online marketing maganzine published something about this topic and Aaron Wall did as well. Furthermore a German SEO Blog just started the SEO Votings 2009 and asked for the “SEO Word of the year”. So let’s get this one out! You might guess already, it’s all about Social Media. Social Media as part of SEO or as add on or whatever one might call it. Measurement and so on!

Adzine, the German Online Markting Magazine, published an interview with a Online Marketing Agency. Bottom line: social media makes about 10% of everyday business. More an more clients want social media but underestimate the effort (let’s just make a quick fanpage or add some friends…). And, also important, social media is NOT only facebook, bebo, VZ or those big networks! A, in my oppinion, funny statement: There is NO social media strategy! Bad wording, I’d say :-) But, obviously, it was thought to explain that the agency has no 08/15 strategy for everyone – it’s all tailor made – and that makes sense :-) Next cool statement: ‘NOT every company website needs a corporate blog’ – word! Aaaand, last thing from this article: CPC campaigns within social networks are considered to be a part of social media work!

Aaron Wall is looking on Social Media from the measurement point of view. Do we need seperate measurements? Nope! There are already measurement methods for online marketing disciplines – why create new ones? Some nice ideas over there (I really recommend having a look at this article) like:

1. Increased Revenue

This measurement is straightforward. What was the level of business the client was doing before the social media campaign, and what is the level they are doing afterwards? Has it dropped, stayed the same, or risen?

2. Competitive Advantage

Has the client gained competitive advantage?

Do a before/after comparison against competitors. Is the client doing better in Compete/Alexa/etc than their competitors after they ran the social media campaign?

Have the competitors run social media campaigns? Can you do a similar before/after comparison on their success, or lack thereof?

3. Increased Visitor Numbers

Are there more visitors now than there were before the campaign started? Break the visitors down by channel using referral data. Who are they? Where are they from? Are they the right demographic?

4. Reach/Spreading The Word

Perhaps the most difficult aspect to measure. Research companies, like Neilsen, use Buzz Metrics and Blog Pulse to measure how many people are talking about a brand or company.

Similarly, Google Trends can be used to pinpoint spikes in attention across the net. Is your message/brand mentioned more often after the campaign? Are there more mentions across blogs, Twitter, Facebook, mainstream media?

5. Search Activity

Do more people search on a clients brand after the social media campaign? Do they use queries relating to the clients message, products or services?

6. Primary Market Research

Big companies tend to do this more so than smaller companies. Run field studies, focus groups, and interviews to determine the level of brand awareness.

7. Links

Has the client received more links? This is one of the huge value propositions of social media, especially when combined with SEO. Social media can be such a powerful link building method, second to none.

Furthermore Aaron asks why a Social Media Marketer should do all this and, of course, answers it already: Companies are going to spend more and more money on this – and they want to know what for… (funny: the video in Aaron’s post).

Last thing I mentioned before. SEO Voting 2009 - Word of the year within SEO: Multiple choice answers: “Twitter” and “Social Media”…not much more to say :)

So looks like Social Media has finally arrived in SEO’s minds - now it’s time to change concepts (as google might eleminate it’s page rank social media might become more important quite soon – new ways of increasing traffic will be needed – i’m already looking forward for new spam methods :-/ ).

Alright. How shall we start this? Shall we say congrats? finally?! respect?! or simply: it was time! god damn it! I started this post about 2 weeks ago and thought I finish it when coming back from Tenerife. But now, within 24 hours, a German online marketing maganzine published something about this topic and Aaron Wall did as well. Furthermore a German SEO Blog just started the SEO Votings 2009 and asked for the "SEO Word of the year". So let's get this one out! You might guess already, it's all about Social Media. Social Media as part of SEO or as add on or whatever one might call it. Measurement and so on! Adzine, the German Online Markting Magazine, published an interview with a Online Marketing Agency. Bottom line: social media makes about 10% of everyday business. More an more clients want social media but underestimate the effort (let's just make a quick fanpage or add some friends...). And, also important, social media is NOT only facebook, bebo, VZ or those big networks! A, in my oppinion, funny st

Related posts:

1. Social Media Benjamins: Value!
2. SEO & Social Media: Social Search, Twitter Lists
3. What the F**K is Social Media? One year later
4. sorry, i don’t like you | social media spam
5. The only social media coaching you ever need.

Tags: SEO, Social Media

This entry was posted on Samstag, Oktober 24th, 2009 at 13:25. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.