“Big-Picture” of Multi-Channel Social Measurement

Facebook’s “Insights” tab or Twitter’s “Activity Dashboard,” are few examples how the social networks are gradually accepting the importance of measurement for the social marketers. However, majority of the marketers struggle to get the “Big-Picture” of their social media data analysis. To get the view of their social landscape, often they find it challenging to standardize the metrics or analyzing the data in context. To conclude with the deeper insight of any complex social media data, there are few fundamental rules for multi-channel measurement.

The list of social networks that are relevant to marketers is long and diverse. One of the biggest problems that marketers face with multi-channel analysis is having access to all of their data across all platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, etc.

Most of the social media analyst measure and report on Facebook and Twitter. However, to get the big-picture, you should analyze at least six networks. This breadth of reporting equates to a lot of time and energy in compiling the data and filtering out the noise. The data aggregation process is about balance, gathering as much context as possible and put it in the most simple and practical format possible.

Putting metrics from various channels in context is crucial to understanding social performance and gaining useful, tactical insights. The problem is that the growth in number of social channels makes it hard to consolidate and standardize reporting. The key to putting this massive amount of data in context is standardization. By standardizing terminologies around similar metrics, you will be able to look at activity and engagement in a simple format and with full context. For example, instead of Facebook Fans and Pinterest or Twitter Followers, use a term like “Audience.”

Once you standardize your terminologies, focus on benchmarking the methodology. The most effective and commonly used benchmarking methods for social media marketers are: taking at-least three periods as an average and apples-to-apples comparison of these periods like pre-campaign performance measurement to the post-campaign monthly reports. Just average the last three months to benchmark the most recent efforts and you will get a solid rolling average. With this type of comparison, it makes the most sense to focus on rates and ratios. You should focus on measuring things like growth rate and engagement rate. This approach will allow you to normalize over time periods without worrying about the scale differences.

Data has become a central need for social media marketers. No longer are aggregate totals enough. Marketers need complete, practical measurement that allows them to review all of their activities. Multi-channel analysis is the key to this holistic approach while each puzzle piece is crucial. It’s the complete picture that helps social media marketers do their best work in terms of taking a corrective measure during a mass-media campaign.

LinkedIn as the Content Marketing Hub

LinkedIn is gradually becoming a hub for professional content. 1.5 million publishers are actively using LinkedIn “Share” button on their sites to send content into the LinkedIn platform. There were 184 million unique visitors worldwide to LinkedIn in Q3 of 2013. According to a recent survey, “Content Managers spend 8 hours each week consuming professionally relevant content. 61% of them consider that professional content is necessary for success. 91% of them are using it weekly for professionally relevant content vs. 64% for online news sites and only 29% for Twitter and 27% for Facebook.”

Some quick facts about LinkedIn marketing:

Unique content: Create content that sparks the discussion. Increase the frequency of updates and publish unique content via LinkedIn. The opportunity to build programs around LinkedIn leverages content to drive engagement life-cycles and stimulate organic community building. Members are more likely to share professional content that builds their professional brands, strengthens their professional networks, or helps them sell to their networks.

Popular content: Emphasize on sharing popular content types such as new research, breaking industry news, case studies, content produced by business leaders, etc.

Sponsored updates: LinkedIn sponsored updates can increase the visibility of the content by many folds.

Optimized employee profile: An optimized employee profile can boost the visibility of the company and its content in the search results—both on and off the network. That’s because search engines like Google scour pages and URLs for keywords, and LinkedIn profiles offer many opportunities to embed keywords, such as within the LinkedIn URL, other URLs listed on personal profiles, job titles and descriptions, and content links the profile holder includes.

LinkedIn influencers: Connect with the LinkedIn influencers. Take advantage of discovery modules within LinkedIn to help you find more relevant content based on the people you’re following and the posts you’re reading.

Display ads: Make use of LinkedIn Premium Display Advertising and integrate display ads.

Follow company ads: Use “Follow Company Ads” to deliver personalized messages on the homepages of your target audience, establishing the relevance of your business to these members and building your Follower audience.

Make use of “Pulse”: Using LinkedIn Pulse, access full articles and rich graphics, from a wealth of resources and more than 750 publishers. Start liking the most relevant and share a few periodically.

Showcase pages: With “Showcase Pages”, you can build a presence and present a unique voice for every important part of your business. By creating dedicated pages for your more prominent brands, businesses, and initiatives using “Showcase Pages,” you can extend your LinkedIn presence.

Attract more followers: Cultivate a larger following with a multi-channel approach. Encourage employees to add a link to the company page in their email signatures and add a Follow button to your website.

Follow the 4-1-1 Rule: The 4-1-1 Rule was coined by Tippingpoint Labs and Joe Pulizzi of the Content Marketing Institute, originally created for Twitter. It can successfully be applied to company’s content marketing strategy using LinkedIn. The rule states: “For every one self-serving tweet, you should retweet one relevant tweet and most importantly share four pieces of relevant content written by others.” Instead of constantly bombarding your followers with demos, webinars, and whitepaper downloads, create a cadence of helpful insights relevant to your audience.

LinkedIn groups: Create more focused groups for the services and products category, encourage members to actively participate, and get aligned for community success.

Track the success/failure: Keep a track of your “Content Marketing Score” and the “Trending Content” to qualify your content marketing efforts on LinkedIn.

Impact of a case-study in building brand credibility

A case-study may be defined as an analysis of a given scenario or a situation that often regarded as a challenge for an establishment. A case-study gives a solution to a problem which might be technical or non-technical. It is often seen that case-studies play an important role in establishing a strong opinion about finding the ways to solve a business challenge. Manufacturing giants and business service providers are mostly benefited by the facts they share about their products/services through these studies.

In current business scenario, case studies are not just limited to any management curriculum. They are widely used for brand-building activities. These studies often help the business giants to establish themselves as the thought leaders in their respective segment. The main challenge in designing a case study could be inspiring the reader to make a favorable decision. Even tiny little things like the design and layout could impact readers' decision making process. The content has to provide potential customers, investors and/or partners the information they require to make buying or investment decisions. It should also showcase the first-hand experience with a company, product or service and hence build credibility. The case evaluates the effectiveness of a product or service. Hence, the writer should be careful in delivering message through this new form of journalism that complements traditional mediums of advertising.

A case study can also help introducing a new product or service with impact extending the value of advertising message with in-depth and content-rich coverage. An effective message will surely generate the desired impact. Designing an influential case-study involves lots of research on how others have defined the situation. If the situation is common then the challenge is more as you will also have to deal with a competitive scenario and you have to establish the facts in favor of your product/service. Interviewing the key resources in developing the case helps you establish the facts. These skilled resources can be quoted directly to present it in more convincing way.

Detailed analysis of all the information collected plays a significant role in ascertaining your overall statement that you are well-versed with the situation. Finally, conclude the study in such a way that it gives a fruitful solution to the situation described. The whole purpose of designing a case can not be successful without a clear and crisp message. A message that directly influences your potential customers, investors and/or partners to make a investment decision.

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