If you have been told once, you’ve been told a hundred times…you have to be involved with social media marketing. It’s the wave of the future; it’s the new paradigm for customer engagement, blah, blah blah. So you’re out there tweeting, posting status updates on Facebook, Digging, Diigoing, Stumbling and posting content on YouTube.

But do you know how well you are doing with all of these social media tactics? Are you monitoring the effects of your social media outreach?

Many times the effects of this outreach can go beyond simply driving traffic to your site. You have to monitor and measure the social chatter. Do you know if most of the time people are mentioning your business or brand in a positive, neutral or negative manner? How about the number of unique people talking about you? Would you like to have a way to know precisely who is talking about you across the social web?

That sounds hard you say. That sounds expensive you think. Oh ye of little faith. If you are not ready to invest in a pricy monitoring tool, you can easily use a free social monitoring tool called SocialMention. SocialMention will aggregate all “mentions” across the social web including social networks, news and blog posts into a single social media dashboard.

Before we show you how, let’s discuss a few reasons why you should do this. Monitoring what people are saying (or not saying) about your brand will do several things:

1. Let you know immediately if you have an image problem, a problem that can be addressed in several ways, including, you guessed it, with social media.
2. Let you see if you have any brand evangelists or grumpy customers, people you can reach out to with a “thank you” or “how can we do better”.  Again, you can do this via social media.
3. Let you see where people are who are talking about your brand. Are most of the mentions on Facebook, Twitter or somewhere else? Very helpful when you are planning a social media campaign.
4. And finally, let you see at a glance if your social media campaign is paying off with more and better mentions.

How to use SocialMention

Start by typing your company name or brand in the search field. Sit back and wait for the results. That’s it. But if you want to get the most out of this social media monitoring powerhouse tool, read on.

The Anatomy of a SocialMention Page

At the very top, you can select to view all results or only those that come from blogs, news, or  comments, etc.

On the right hand side, are tools to allow you to export data or grab an RSS feed

In the middle, you see all the results which you can sort by data or source. Additionally you can see the results just for the past month, the past week, or even the past hour.

Along the left hand side you’ll see two sections: Stats and Filters. If you roll over one of the stats boxes such as “sentiment” you’ll see a nifty popup that will explain what the number means.

The filters will show you at glance things such as the top keywords people are using, the top users who are talking about and well as how many mentions are in that “filter.” Want to see just the mentions for a single keyword or user? A single click of the filter will show you just the results you want.

Click around to see how things changes. You will see that the stats (strength, sentiment, passion, and reach) will change each time you dig deeper. This is important. It shows you how a particular segment feels about the brand and as we mentioned in a previous post, segmenting data is very useful.

Other things SocialMention can Tell You

Ever wonder what keywords most people are using in their social media conversations? Or the top hashtags they’re using in Twitter?

It can even help you measure ROI…sort of. What’s it worth to you to have lots of people talking about your brand in a positive manner? What’s it worth to you to easily spot the people who talk about you the most? What’s it worth to you see those people spread your message? I’m not going to lie. Determining ROI with social media can still be a lot of art and a lot less science but having some numbers to work with that you can use to compare against customers and sales per campaign will start to make social media ROI more concrete.

Additionally you can use it for competitive intelligence. Monitor your competitor’s brand and see if you can gain some insight into how they are connecting with their customers.

Shortly after taking over Carolina’s position as marketing intern, I found myself ‘tweeting’ the current trends, writing press releases and even composing email campaigns for some of our clients. Tapping into our available technology resources (Digg,Twitter,Flickr) not only allows for  quick information access, but also creates a sense of community with others also engaged in social media. The best thing about it is that it doesn’t exclude anyone, so everyone gets invited to the party!

One of the duties handed over to me was to gain 1,000+ followers on Twitter. Much easier said than done! I must say though, of all Twitter resources available to help in my ‘tweeting’ ventures, Hootsuite has helped me most. I recommend it to anyone who is engaged in more than one social media website. Trust me, it will simplify your life more than you know.

Between attending school full-time and interning here at Juicy Results, I have the unique opportunity to analyze the method of communicating by means of technology. The Internet is changing the way we conduct our daily conversations. Rather than turning on the television or walking outside for the daily newspaper, I can be found checking my Facebook status on my iPhone while eating breakfast simultaneously. Like several others my age, I have fallen prey to modern technology and do not wish to be rescued.

One of the reasons I have fallen in love with this new way of communicating is simply because of the fact that it allows me, well as anyone else interested (even Grandma and Grandpa!), to hold the position of an Internet marketer. Like I said before, social networking does not discriminate, it allows for anyone and everyone (with computer access) to participate.

This low-barrier entrance to social media is definitely something that we, at Juicy Results, are taking full advantage of and you should too! The benefits largely outweigh the burdens. So what are you waiting for? Get the conversation started in cyberspace. Start ‘tweeting’, blogging, bookmarking, networking and soon you too will develop an online presence that will attract others to your undeniably charismatic uniqueness.
Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and add us to your Facebook family to catch Juicy Results’ updates and see what we’re up to.

This ability to discover new places and spread the word about your favorite places makes Foursquare a natural marketing and promotion tool for food and entertainment venues that thrive on foot traffic.

Most small businesses I meet ask me some variation of the same question, “how do I use this to market my business?” Until now, the answer has really been only about advertising your “deals” and offering incentives to the “mayor” of your location. The person who checks in the most at a location eventually becomes the mayor, and a deal is an advertisement that is served to someone who checks in within a radius of the advertiser (think two-for-one or a 20% off).

Yesterday, the New York Times reported on the new tools Foursquare is rolling out for small business marketing. They provide real interaction with your customers.

The article does a great job of exampling how businesses can use the tools to get new customers and increase the loyalty of their most frequent visitors, so I won’t go down that road.

Instead, I’ll make an observation about what Foursquare has the ability to turn into. Each time we show a client the power of Google Analytics, and the stats it provides them about who is visiting their website, how they’re finding it, and what they’re doing during the visit, their eyes get really big with possibility. I’ve even heard them speculate what it would be like to have this kind of data on their in-store traffic patterns.

Well, if you see what the Foursquare tools look like, you’ll see what I am getting at. You can have rich and powerful data on your in-store traffic just like Google Analytics gives you about your website traffic. And, just like we optimize websites based on traffic data, you can begin optimizing your menus, hours, specials, sales, ticket prices and staffing levels in new ways.

Check out Foursquare and the new small business marketing tools. Have fun inventing new ways to promote and optimize your business.

A content asset is really just some piece of content that you can use as a business tool, either by monetizing it directly (purchasable book) or using it to attract new customers (free article). Often, this content asset is repackaged and distributed in numerous formats and mediums. Think about how a movie is first released on the big screen, broken down into small parts for trailers and web previews, then taken to DVD, then presented on TV. Each time the asset is used, it’s just a variation of the original working in some other way.

On the web, content assets are typically articles, e-books, podcasts or videos. These anchor content assets can be broken up into smaller chunks and used as blog posts, tweets, You Tube shorts, email blasts and even search engine ads. The point is, you develop it once, and if it’s a valuable tool to generate new business, you’re going to want to break it up and use it across as many mediums and channels as you think you can without diminishing its value.

The above examples show how large content assets can be divided and distributed. Additionally, content assets can be aggregated and then distributed. There have been numerous books published recently that are simply large collections of blog posts edited and assembled in a thematic or chronological way.

if you’re involved in search engine optimization, what you’re optimizing are your content assets. If you’re involved in social media marketing, you’re likely using bite size ideas that come from a larger article or white paper, which are also content assets. And, if you’re creating a podcast or You Tube videos, those too can be used in an array of ways on the web to generate more business.

Inventory your site or file server and see what kind content assets you have in your inventory that can be taken advantage of to generate new business. Think: create once, reuse many times.

It looks like you are already giving special offers to Facebook fans as well as giving fans a sneak peak of new designs. We recommend posting a link to the exact product or collection you are highlighting rather than sending a user to the home page.

Yes! The beauty of the web as a consumer is instant gratification and effortless transactions. When you include a link with a tweet, status update or an email, the assumption of the user is that the link will be the most clear and specific place to go in relation to accompanying text. You may not realize this assumption exists, but it does.

I could undoubtedly cite a number of studies that support the innefectiveness of home page links compared to deep and specific landing pages in advertising, but I think some examples will convey the basic principle much better.

A Bad Example of a Promotional Tweet or Update:
New store hours at all locations: [insert home page link here]

A Better Example of a Promotional Tweet or Update:
All [insert store name] locations open two hours later! [insert link to specific page announcing the change]

An Even Better Example of a Promotional Tweet or Update:
Work late? All [insert store name] locations open two hours later! 10% off during our extended hours this week only: [insert link to specific page announcing the change and terms of the offer]

Notice that we got more specific with each example, and more focused on the benefit of paying attention to the user. By the last tweet, we’ve given the user incentive to remember and act on this information right away.

Let’s check out one more example.

A Bad Example of a Promotional Tweet or Update:
Lasik Surgery from $800 per eye [link to home page of eye center]

A Better Example of a Promotional Tweet or Update:
Wearing glasses to the beach today? Learn how Lasik can change your life: [link to benefits or testimonials about Lasik]

An Even Better Example of a Promotional Tweet or Update
Wearing glasses to the beach today? Never again with our Summer Lasik Special, starting at $800 per eye [insert link to promotion page of the special]

I hope this article will sharpen your social media promotions. Remember the glut of information user’s are experiencing while using Twitter and Facebook, and don’t sabotage your efforts by making them think more than they have to.