A Facebook Win, a Facebook Fail, and Edamame Noodles

July7^th,2010 | Social Media

I’ve had several interactions with businesses on Facebook lately that have given me some examples of what to do, and what NOT to do, with social media marketing.

First example: my local grocery store.

The Facebook Win

I hate grocery shopping with a passion. I hate grocery shopping so much that my fiance enacted a no-talking policy for the 20 minutes after I get home from the store, because I chew his ear off with complaints.

Have you heard the music they play at the grocery store? Can you believe the surly teenage employees? And don’t get me started on the elderly drivers.

Then I stopped going to chain stores and started going to Stauffers of Kissel Hill a locally-owned grocery with a wide selection of baked goods and other prepared foods. This cut down on my grocery shopping stress, but I still run into snags from time to time. Read more »

Vanity Fair’s Twitter Chick List Sparks Controversy

January8^th,2010 | General, Social Media

Vanity Fair recently published an article titled “America’s Tweethearts,” listing six women as some of the Twitter celebrities to appear in recent years. Accompanying the article was a photo of the six women clad in trench coats and stiletto heels.

After seeing countless magazines attempt this kind of “round-up” feature on Twitter users, I paid the article little attention. I scanned the photo caption for names I recognized, then got back to my own Twitter feed.

The next day, I stumbled across a blog post from Felicia Day, one of the women highlighted in the article.

Felicia’s Response

“When I was first approached to do the shoot,” Felicia wrote, “I was very excited. The photography in the magazine has always been the best in the business, and the fact that they were interested in doing a piece about Twitter and New Media gave me hope that a magazine firmly in the ‘establishment’ was interested in exploring the subject in a new light.

“And then during breakfast I saw some weird Twitter comments go by…and then I read the article…and oh, gosh. Really?!” Read more »

How To Measure Social Media Marketing ROI In Three Steps

November16^th,2009 | Social Media

Internet marketers have declared social media the best thing since sliced bread. But measuring social media’s return of investment, or ROI, is a challenge for many business owners.

Some say social media is just too new to start gathering ROI data. Others say social media’s greatest value to businesses is its ability to create conversations, and it’s nearly impossible to track the ROI of those conversations over time.

So  how are businesses to know if their social media strategies are working? Is it really impossible to measure social media’s ROI?

In a word, no. Businesses can measure social media’s ROI, but it requires:

1. Setting specific goals for each level of customer interaction
2. Determining how to collect data, analyze it and identify correlations
3. Using that data to calculate ROI

Defining Social Media ROI

For many business owners, the goal is obvious: to improve sales. But sales can be generated in a wide number of ways.

Don Bartholomew of Fleishman-Hillard’s Digital Research Group has identified four ways that are particularly relevant to social media: Read more »