How To Use Social Media Monitoring Tools For Outreach Marketing

Social media is all about engagement. Because of this, it is the perfect tool for outreach marketing efforts. Outreach marketing is the practice of seeking out individuals or organizations that have a shared interest in what you or your company has to offer. Sometimes, it is used in conjunction with direct sales, but often times it is used for more larger goals such as branding.

Generally speaking, when planning an outreach marketing campaign online there are two main areas that are important to define before you begin; your target audience, and your method of engagement. Picking the right audience is vital to successful outreach marketing. Engagement is at the core of  outreach marketing, the right type of engagement can make or break a campaign.

Defining keywords & audiences

When using social media monitoring tools for any marketing effort choosing the right keywords is an important step. When using social media monitoring tools to aid outreach marketing, choosing your keywords and targeting the right audience goes hand in hand. I like to break my keywords down into two sets, primary keywords and secondary keywords.

Primary keywords are terms that are directly related to the industry that you are in. For example, if you sell cat food, then you would use “cat food” as a primary keyword. You can expand on primary keywords by adding adjectives, such as, “dry cat food”, or “canned cat food”.

When choosing primary keywords, remember not to use your specific brand name. The point of outreach marketing is to target users that have never heard of your company before. Primary keywords are vital to finding the broadest base of audience. However, if you operate in a large ambiguous market, then you may need to refine your monitoring with secondary keywords.

Secondary keywords are still related to your market, but may not include your exact product descriptions. Back to the cat food example – you might want to refine your monitoring to “hungry cat” or “feeding the cats”. Using secondary keywords are useful at targeting your audience.

Engagement strategies

Targeting your audience with the right keywords is only half the battle. Now, we need to find an effective strategy for engaging each user. Responding to users with, “Hey awesome! You like cat food? Visit our web site!” isn’t going to cut it. Proper engagement needs to contain either one of two things a “click” factor or a “response” factor.

A click factor is an incentive for the user to click through a link. Some click factors might be pointing the user to a specific product that could solve a problem. “Oh whats that your kitty is overweight? Try some of our diet cat food.” Another click factor is combining contest marketing with your response. “Tired of buying cat food? Enter our contest to win a year supply!”

A response factor is an incentive for the user to respond and engage in dialog. This strategy is perfect for putting a personal touch on a brand. One of the easiest ways that you can utilize a response factor is to ask a question. “Whats your cat’s favorite thing to eat?” Utilizing the response factor is perfect for branding; however, it can require more time and engagement because the goal is having a valued dialog.

When executing outreach marketing in social media, social media monitoring tools can be very helpful. Defining your target audience and keywords is the first step. Breaking your keywords down into primary and secondary keywords can help refine and target your audience. Developing a strategy for engagement is vital. Combining both “click” and “response” incentives are important when engaging. So the next time you are looking for a new branding or buzz building strategy, consider combining outreach marketing with social media monitoring tools.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

This article is published by Search Engine Land, click here to read the original article.

A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2010

Stats are important –but on their own, they don’t tell us much
Stats on social networks are important, but don’t rely on them alone. Data is like fire, it can be used for good and bad, proper insight and analysis is always required. Beyond that, you’ll often see conflicting stats across the industry as everyone has different methodologies, as a result, this listing will help you to see the greater trends –not numbers without context.

How to interpret stats
Numbers don’t tell us much without insight and interpretation, in fact, you’re going to see conflicting numbers of usage from many of the agencies and social networks themselves. The key is to look at trend movements, don’t focus on the specific numbers but the changes to them over time. Put more weight on active unique users in the last 30 days vs overall registered, in fact, the actual active conversion rate will often range from 10-40% of actual users sticking around and using the social network, so don’t be fooled by puffed numbers. No single metric is a good indicator, you have to evaluate the usage from multiple dimensions, so you also have to factor in what are users doing, time on site, interaction, and of course, did they end up buying, recommending products, or improving their lives.

This article is published by web-strategist, click here to read the whole article.

How to Get the Best Out of Your Online Social Networking

New resources are created and new things are invented on the internet and people/smart businesses utilize them to make millions of dollars online. There was a time when everyone was talking about making millions using mini sites. Now, social networking is something that is helping people generate more sales than they had ever imagined before. If you want to give your business a powerful push and increase your sales significantly, you need to start networking now.

How Many Days will it Take You to Succeed and See Results?

Remember, there is no shortcut to success. You have to remain consistent in your efforts. Businesses that have succeeded online didn’t become successful overnight. If you rush and start adding friends and sending messages haphazardly, you will soon destroy your image. It is important that your reputation remains intact on social media to enjoy business growth and success.

Let’s now discuss some important factors that will help you get the best out of online social networking:

Communicate with Your Network – Tell Them You Really Exist:

Let’s say you were having a good time with some of your friends. However, one friend is quiet. When you asked him what happened, he began to talk about the greatness of his business. Well, you were least interested in his business as you were there to relax and have fun. However, your friend just kept talking about promotions and advertisement.

Sounds irritating, right?

Well, this is how your online network will feel if you will continue to post links to your products and discount offers. So, avoid spamming, always! The purpose of online social networking is to meet people, get to know them, understand their needs and offer help whenever possible. So, you need to talk to people and let them you know you exist and you are not a link posting machine.

Listen to Them – They will Listen to You in Return:

If you want to be heard, you should start listening to what people are saying. When anyone communicates or posts a picture, you should reply or write a nice comment. After all, this is what social networking is all about, right? If you will listen to them, they will listen to you as well and take interest in whatever you will write.

Observe Your Network:

You need to observe the behavior of your network in terms of what sort of content they post. You need to also post similar stuff to get them interested in your content.

Never Hesitate to Offer Assistance:

A lot of people tend to ask questions, instead of searching for solutions in search engines. When someone asks a question and you know the answer, this is a great opportunity to interact with them.

Start Promoting Your Products Strategically:

Once you become familiar with your network and after people get to know you, you may slowly and strategically talk about your products. If you have managed to win their trust, they will check out your products and recommend them too.

Be Cool…

You have got to stay calm and cool when you start online social networking. It might take some time before you see some results, but you will be more than satisfied with the results if you manage to build a network of friends that trusts you.

This article is published by socialmediatoday, please read the original article here.

E-commerce Spending Declined For The First Year Ever In 2009

[tweetmeme source=”itimarketing”]

written by Gavin O’Malley is a reporter for Online Media Daily.

Thanks to the ongoing recession, 2009 will go down as the first negative growth year in the history of U.S. e-commerce. That’s according to comScore’s 2009 U.S. Digital Year in Review, which saw etail spending decrease 2% year-over-year to $209.6 billion.

Weighing down the broader numbers, travel e-commerce spending dropped 5% in 2009 to $79.8 billion, while retail — non-travel — e-commerce spending actually remained flat at $129.8 billion.

In stark contrast, most of the last decade was filled with annual retail growth rates in excess of 20% annually, which tapered off by 2008 when the economy began to buckle.

“2009 on the whole fared significantly worse than the previous year with year-over-year growth rates remaining negative throughout most of the year,” according to comScore.

That said, the 2009 holiday season represented a bright spot in this largely negative year for e-commerce as it marked a return to positive growth rates, with both November and December showing gains of a few percentage points. Yet, this growth could be attributed to more favorable year-over-year comparisons versus the disastrous 2008 holiday season.

Though few and far between, 2009 did have its winners. In particular, the books and magazines category showed an impressive 12% growth rate, bolstered by category-wide price-cutting and the release of numerous high-profile bestsellers.

Computer software purchases were up 7% online, followed by sport and fitness — up 6% — and jewelry and watches — up 4%.

In the search category, Microsoft sites grew from an 8.3% to 10.7% share of all search queries — with nearly all of that growth coming in the second half of 2009 subsequent to the software giant launching Bing.

Overall, the U.S. core search market grew 16% in 2009, driven by a 6% gain in unique searchers and a 10% gain in searchers per searcher.

Despite its well-established leadership position, Google Sites’ search query volume still managed to grow 21%, driven both by gains in searches per searcher — up 10% — and unique searchers — up 9%.

Led by Facebook and Twitter, social networking established itself as a serious pastime among many Americans. Social networking activity now accounts for 11% of all time spent online, while 4 out of 5 Web users visited one network or another in December.

Facebook finished the year with 112 million visitors in December — up 105% year-over-year. Twitter finished with nearly 20 million visitors — up from just 2 million visitors from the previous year. In addition to its surging membership, Facebook grew substantially across nearly every performance metric in 2009. Unique visitors, page views, and total time spent all increased by a factor of two or more. For more information about the demographic compositions of social networking, read the original article here.

In 2009, U.S. Internet users viewed a total of 4.3 trillion display ads — standard and non-standard IAB ads, including both static and rich media, but not video — representing a growth rate of 21% versus a year ago.

These gains were driven by an 8% increase in the number of people exposed to display ads online, and a 12% increase in average frequency.

Mobile phone network providers AT&T and Verizon ranked as the top U.S. online display advertisers in 2009 — with 84.3 billion impressions and 56.8 billion impressions, respectively.

With regard to online video, 19% more people in the U.S. viewed more videos for longer periods of time in 2009. In December, a full 86% of the total U.S. online population viewed video content.

“2009 on the whole fared significantly worse than the previous year with year-over-year growth rates remaining negative throughout most of the year,” according to comScore.
This interview is published by Online Media Daily, read the original article here.