Archive for the ‘Build-A-Fan-Base’ Category

I use Google Analytics to track activity to and from my blog. Unfortunately, there are a lot of holes in that process, especially related to Twitter clickthroughs.

• First, some users bookmark the page, then revisit the site. These visitors are great because they found value in the site and are coming back for more. However, there is no way to tell if someone actually bookmarked the page or if something else happened.
• Other visitors arrive here by clicking on a link from a mobile Twitter application. Several of these applications remove the “referrer” information which causes another question mark when I go to check stats.
• If a visitor is using Internet Explorer and clicks through on a link from a site that uses a JavaScript popup, then the referrer information is lost. This sounds like a minor case but if you’re doing hardcore tracking to drill down on a marketing campaign’s ROI, this factor can be maddening.
• Lastly, if a visitor clicks on the Tweet Button and posts a link to Twitter, the URL is “automagically” shortened via Twitter’s link service (http://t.co). If a user clicks on a tweeted out link, you’ll know that the visitor came from Twitter but you won’t know where the link originated. Did a user get there from clicking on a Tweet Button link? Did someone cut and paste the blog post’s URL from the Web browser into a tweet? Inquiring minds want to know.

The Benefits

Before I started using this Google Analytics tracking technique, 16.8% of my traffic was showing up as “Direct Traffic.” After I started tracking Tweet Button clicks and Feedburner subscription clicks, that number went down to 13.45% and a new “Other” figure emerged.

This is awesome because now I can examine the behavior of visitors who click on the Tweet Button. Do Tweet Button visitors stay longer, visit more pages, or take key actions? Now I can answer some of these questions when before it was a mystery.

Because a good chunk of my blog’s traffic comes from Twitter interactions, you can see that the TweetButton clicks are in the site’s top 10 Traffic Sources. I can also see individual stats related to these visitors such as Bounce Rates, Time On Site, Goal Conversions and more.

The Hack

We’re going to address the last case with this next hack. In order for this to work, you won’t be able to use the standard Tweet Button plugin. We’ll have to add the button by hand.

1. Go to the Google URL Builder Tool page.
2. Enter your site’s URL.
3. Enter the Campaign Source, Medium, and Campaign Name. I used “Twitter”, “TweetButton”, and “Blogpost” respectively.
4. Click on the “Generate URL” button. This will build a link just below the button.
5. Copy the link. We’re mostly concerned with the end of the link, starting with the “?” mark.
6. Paste this code into your theme’s Header or Footer template files. I placed the code just before the < /head > tag in the Header.

   <script src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

7. Configure your Tweet Button HTML code as in this example (for WordPress.org blogs):

   <!--Twitter tweet button-->
    <a href="http://twitter.com/share"
    data-url="<?php the_permalink(); ?>?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=tweetbutton&utm_campaign=blogpost"
    data-via="jesseluna"
    data-text="<?php the_title(); ?>"
    data-related="niceblog:My Blogging Lab"
    data-count="vertical">Tweet</a>
   
   <!--/Twitter tweet button-->

   The main “hack” comes from the data-url parameter value where we add the Google Analytics formatted tracking parameters, just after the Permalink. This way, when Twitter shortens the link into it’s t.co format, the link value will contain the tracking information.

   In the above example, “data-via” is the Twitter user name that will appear on the tweet as “via .” “Data-text” is the text I want to display with the link.  In this case I’m displaying the post’s title.  “Data-related” is an optional related account that can be displayed. In this case I’m showing my blogging Lab account, @niceblog. The “data-count” value indicates how you want the button to appear on the screen. I chose a vertical format. You can see all the options on the Twitter Tweet Button blog page.

8. For WordPress.org blogs, paste the edited code into the Page, Single Post, and Main Index template files. I added the button just before the blog post content, after the title and date/author section of the templates. This will vary based on your preference and on other tweaks you’ve made to your theme.

I tried hacking Posterous and Tumblr blogs but the built in URL template tags kept blowing away the parameters once the Tweet Button was called. If you figure out how to do this please drop a comment and I’ll update this post.

Review

We just learned how to tack on a Google Analytics parameter to Tweet Button clicks on a WordPress.org blog. This will help you connect the dots on your online marketing and analysis activities.


If you find this useful, I’d be interested in how and why you would use it. Are you a marketing manager, a small business owner, or a code hacker? I’d love to find out.

Mom and pop coffee shops are being crushed by behemoth companies like Starbucks. Add on the worst recession since the Great Depression and you have a recipe for disaster. It takes extreme measures to compete in this business landscape.

Newhall Coffee Roasting Company is using social media marketing Jujitsu to take on the challenge. It’s staying nimble, competing where it can win, and still staying true to its mission.

Background

Newhall Coffee Roasting Company started off as a couple of coffeehouses in the Santa Clarita Valley of California. The owners weren’t satisfied with the coffee they were buying from other roasters so they started roasting their own. Newhall Coffee is now one of the premier roasting companies in California.

The company sets aside a portion of its profits for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America in memory of the passing of the founder’s brother, Corey. Newhall has also recently launched a new program called Newhall Coffee For A Cause that helps qualified non-profits with fund raising efforts.

Social media is such an important part of the company marketing formula that, Ryan Barton, Newhall Coffee’s marketing manager, suggested we conduct the interview “social media style” via Twitter using a hashtagged (#CoffeeCause) conversation.

You can see the actual Twittter conversation by searching over the “#CoffeeCause hashtag.”

Interview with Newhall Coffee Roasting Company

Jesse (@jesseluna): Hi, I’m Jesse Luna. Thanks for agreeing to the interview. Can you tell us your name & role at NC please?

Newhall Coffee (@NewhallCoffee): Hey Jesse, I’m Ryan Barton, and I manage the integrated marketing campaigns here at Newhall Coffee.

J: Hi Ryan. There are 2 areas that I’d like to cover – NC’s use of social media & @CoffeeForACause. Q1: How did Newhall Coffee first jump into social media?

NC: It arose from the desire to make our online marketplace our online “big box retailer.” We started as a local coffee house. and we wanted to regain that sense of community — throughout the nation.

J: Interesting. Has NC used social media instead of pursuing some traditional distribution & branding methods?

NC: We allocate our resources to a variety of social media platforms rather than broad stroke marketing. We’d rather pursue targeted marketing efforts with higher yields than an imaginary market of “everyone.” You won’t find us buying ad space, but you will find us enjoying hand-to-hand grassroots efforts. We enjoy the interaction with customers at Costco and Sam’s Club road shows. Same goes for online conversations.

J: Q2: When first introduced to your brand, one thing that really stood out was the packaging. The packaging prominently displays social network logos. How did that decision come about?

NC: Adding social network logos and a URL (newhallcoffee.com/connect) was our way of inviting current customers to our online communities. We want to hear from you. You’re buying our coffee, now what else can we give you? On SM platforms, we’re offering loyalty discounts, we’re having events, etc. And we want to engage. Simply, it’s taking existing advocates, and hosting a community to find friends who share the same enthusiasm.

J: Thx. Topic #2: Tell me about @CoffeeForACause and what inspired it.

NC: Sure! @CoffeeForACause reflects a cause very close to our hearts. Our founder, @mitchmcmullen’s, brother passed due to leukemia. Due to his advocacy, Mitch was named Man of the Year by LLS twice. Corey’s blend was probably NCFaC in infancy – where blend sales were donated to LLS. Similarly, our Patriot Blend is a way for us to give back to our troops overseas. For every bag sold, we donate a cup of ‘american morale’ overseas.

So NCFaC was our way of helping charitable organizations raise funds through something more than magazines. We’re finding it’s easier to do when it’s a win/win — people want to support an org, and they love coffee. We know our community gave us our start (not big $ from Wall St.) so we’re dedicated to give back to our roots.

J: If people are interested in @CoffeeForACause, what’s the best way to get more information?

NC: They can visit www.NewhallCoffeeForACause.com for an overview and a 3-step sign-up form. It’s completely free to the organization and they get 40% back from every bag sold, so they can sign-up today, and start tomorrow. Or, they’re welcome to DM me at @NewhallCoffee and we can speak there freely.

J: Ryan, thanks for the interview. This will be written up as a blog post. Happy Roasting!

NC: My pleasure! And please feel free to share discount code “CoffeeCause” for 20% off at NewhallCoffee.com.

[End of Interview]
–
Let’s keep the conversation going. Was there anything in the interview that stood out in your mind? Have you seen other successful social media efforts by coffee shops?

Feel free to share via the Comments or “@” or DM me on Twitter.

One year ago today (July 4th, 2009), thousands mourned the death of Eric De La Cruz after he was unable to get a heart transplant in time. Eric’s sister, television journalist Veronica De La Cruz (@VeronicaDLCruz), had reached out to her Twitter network and started an historic campaign that would connect thousands, raise over one million dollars in three weeks, and play a significant role in the U.S. health care debate.

There are hundreds of stories like this on Twitter and each one revolves around a strong community. After being a part of the Eric De La Cruz campaign (#ERIC) and many other efforts, I have identified four key tips for building strong and lasting Twitter communities.

A Quick Note
Please note, Twitter is one large community, so when I write “community” in this post I’m really talking about niche communities.

1) Follow community leaders

The best way to learn about amazing Twitter communities is to follow Twitter leaders and innovators. Following leaders helps understand the way they engage their communities and the larger dynamics of that particular community.

There are thousands of leaders who have had a significant impact on Twitter, in industries, and in society in general. Here are three community leaders:

Sarah Evans(@prsarahevans) – Founder of #Journchat, a Twitter chat organized to connect journalists, PR people, and bloggers. #Journchat has had tens of thousands of participants [my guesstimate] and has been in existence for almost two years. Journchat is even crossing over into mainstream media as it will be broadcast from NBC next month.

Mack Collier (@mackcollier) – Blogger and founder of #blogchat. #Blogchat has activated a large community of bloggers, with over 400 active participants per week and is growing.
Leslie Carothers (@tkpleslie) has been connecting members of the struggling furniture and interior design for the past two years.

2) Care and have a mission

Amazing Twitter communities start when the founders are passionate about a topic or cause. The topic may be promoting the furniture industry, sharing ideas between journalists, or helping to raise awareness for a cause. Chances are, the community will flounder without a strong reason for its existence.

Here are some examples of Twitter users who create community by caring:

Stacey Monk -(@staceymonk) has help created some of the most innovative and heartfelt fundraising efforts including Tweetsgiving.

Danny Brown – (@dannybrown) set up a network of tweeters that helped charities contribute via his #12for12 campaign.

Beth Kanter – (@kanter) has built a massive community of non-profit organizations that are promoting social change.

3) Reach Out

Community building on Twitter is a proactive behavior. Once you have a network of trusted friends, you can reach out to them and encourage them to reach out as well. The more powerful the intent of the community, the broader the reach.

The number of community members is not as important as the strength of the network. In the diagram above, the blue areas represent the “density” and connectedness of the trust network. The largest circle is the larger Twitter community, which may be listening but not necessarily engaged in the community.

Magic happens when different communities meet and support each other. At some point, the #ERIC group connected with a large number of Trent Reznor/Nine Inch Nails supporters and Trent (@trent_reznor) ended up joining and helping the cause in an amazing way.

4) Stay Connected

Twitter is a big place and it’s easy to get lost. The top three ways to stay connected are to use a hashtag when tweeting community-specific information, to set up a chat, and to use an avatar banner.

Hashtags
A hashtag is a combination of a “#” symbol in front of a short keyword or keyword phrase like #ERIC, #journchat, #tweetsgiving, #blogchat, or #12for12.

The hashtag is something Twitter users created and has since been adopted by Twitter. Twitter clients like Twitter Web and TweetDeck allow users to click on a hashtag then be linked to a search over other tweets using that hashtag. For example, if a tweet contains the “#blogchat” hashtag, clicking on it will take you to the #blogchat search results.

#Blogchat Search Column in TweetDeck

Hashtags become extremely powerful when community members start to monitor the hashtag content on a consistent basis. I monitor the #blogchat, #ERIC, #vlogchat, and the #WordPress hashtags and have them set up as different search columns in TweetDeck. This process allows even people who follow thousands of others to see the single conversation stream related to the hashtag.

Chats
Twitter chats are conversations held at regular times that use the related community’s hashtag. This Google Document lists over 150 Twitter chats and includes the names of the chat founders and the chat schedule. Chats help sustain long term community relationships.

Avatar banners
Avatar banners are the little graphics that are added to avatars to represent a cause or community. During the Iran election, thousands of people changed their avatars to have a greenish tint. During World Cup, I noticed a lot of country flags on avatars. For the #ERIC campaign, I created an avatar banner that also included the #ERIC hashtag. Once I started using the #ERIC banner on my avatar, others in the group created ways to easily distribute the banner and in a couple of weeks hundreds of people were wearing them.

Review

So if you are interested in starting your own strong Twitter community, you may want to follow Twitter leaders and learn, make sure you have a compelling reason to start a community in the first place, reach out and build your forces, and stay connected using things like hashtags, avatar banners, and scheduled chats.

Do you have any other tips for building an effective and strong Twitter community? Do you have any amazing stories that you would like to share about an existing community? I’d be honored if you left a Comment and shared with this blog’s community of readers.

It’s safe to say that there is no one formula for presenting social media to your company. The approaches will differ based on your position in the company, the company’s culture, formal presentation processes, probably on the size of your company, and the receptiveness of the industry to social media. But if you believe, as I do, that social media is here to stay and that your business can benefit from tapping into the social revolution, then you should find some helpful tips here for making your big pitch.

I’ll start by sharing my personal experience pitching social media to my previous boss then share responses from across different social networking channels. Just so you know, I think my presentation barely made it to first base. The tips I mention below include “corrections” for things I left out of my presentation. Those bits of extra wisdom plus crowdsourced responses should help your presentation go much further than mine and hopefully you’ll knock a homer.

I hope you’ll stick around and add your experiences and feedback in the Comments section below.

The Pitch
It was 2008 and I was pitching social media to the company’s CEO.

It was lonely standing up there in the conference room. It was just the CEO, me, and the glow of the projector displaying my Power Point presentation. But I knew that folding social media into the fiber of the company was the right path. I presented the benefits and massive opportunities of social media, examples of other companies doing amazing things with it, and showed him Tony Hsieh’s (Zappos CEO) Twitter stream to help him visualize what top-down involvement looked like.

Presentation Tips
My personal tips for pitching social media to a boss are:

1. Get help from other colleagues. Two or more people pitching a new project is much more convincing than one lone voice. I chose to present on my own after getting lukewarm feedback from potential allies.
2. Schedule a time for the pitch. This conveys the message that you have something serious and important to discuss and it avoids interruptions.
3. Create a formal presentation. I suggest a Power Point or a written proposal. This will give you a clear framework and keep you on track in case your nerves set in. I used Guy Kawasaki’s “10/20/30″ Power Point presentation guidelines to select the presentation structure.
4. Primarily, answer the question “What problems will social media solve?” This was the first question I was asked and my answer was a bit shaky. My presentation had focused on the benefits and opportunities, not as much on problem-solving. The CEO and I ended up coming up with potential problem-busting uses during the meeting.
5. Present the benefits of using social media from different company perspectives. If you are a marketing person, your inclination may be to only focus on the marketing opportunities. Don’t stop there. You can approach social media from an HR, customer service, IT, and sales perspectives as well. During the meeting, we discussed using social media as part of the Web site process improvement cycle.
6. Recommend a concrete plan of action. Ask for resources (time, people, and money) to accomplish an objective and get a commitment. Make sure you recommend a SMART objective – one that is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based.

As a result of the pitch, I was given time to do some “experimenting” with social media. This was less of a commitment than I had hoped for, but was resolved to make the most out of the opportunity. This would require patience since I had already been very active on Twitter and knew what could be accomplished. A year and a half later I designed and help implement a blogging infrastructure and all product managers are now blogging and sharing great content with customers and the Blogosphere.

Other “Pitch” Stories and Approaches

As I closed up the blogging project, I wondered how other people fared making a similar social media pitch. I jumped on my social networks and asked them. I went to Twitter, Facebook, Aardvark, and LinkedIn and posted the question:

Note: This was the question posted to LinkedIn. The Twitter version was much shorter as was the Aardvark version. I blogged about using LinkedIn and Aardvark for doing in depth Internet research earlier this month (includes a video demonstration).


Crowdsourced Responses

There were many different approaches to pitching social media. Here are some of the responses:

Present a binder containing examples of all the things that are being said about the company, industry, products – even about your boss – on social media. Also include some LI Q&A, tweets, blogs etc. by employees, key customers, competitors.

This can be a real eye-opener that brings home the lesson that the train has left the station, and though you can’t control the chatter, you can be influencing the discussion – but only if you get in there and play.

Some great examples to include are situations where a customer was upset or misinformed about something, and got satisfaction through a social media response.

-Rob Duncan, www.robduncan.com, via LinkedIn

Developing a tracking system for social media is imperative for measuring the efforts put in by your social media manager and ROI. While it may not always be concrete numbers, there is something to be said for sentiment, reach, and passion for a company.

- JNR from San Diego

I have never had to pitch my boss on social media, but I have had to pitch social media to very stubborn and old fashioned people before.

I really like Rob’s suggestion of showing examples of where people have talked about your company. When ever I have done that for potential clients, they are very impressed. It helps them to see the vision of what social media is.

I posted a link below of a great video by Socialnomics that I’ve found to be pretty effective. It displays a bunch of impressive statistics on how social media is here to stay.

-Chad Mustard, Owner Blue Helm Communications, www.bluehelm.com, via LinkedIn

A couple [of] suggestions based on my 4+ years experience pitching blogs/SM to clients.

1. I’ve had much more success sitting with decision makers, one or two at a time, in front of a computer, actually showing them what can be done on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. I agree with others here that showing mentions of your company are powerful – even more powerful if you show them these mentions in real time on one of the monitoring sites. For people who aren’t engaged in SM on a regular basis, it all sounds strange and highly theoretical when discussed in a meeting. You have to make it real.
2. Be crystal clear about your SM objectives. If you’re not sure what purpose SM serves in your organization, discussing engagement tactics and even strategy are premature. SM can support many organizational goals – branding, thought leadership, SEO, customer loyalty, lead generation, etc. The top people may not understand SM, but they understand more leads, happier customers, more prominent brands. I think it’s much better to internally position SM as a tool to support initiatives rather than an initiative in itself.

-Brad Shorr, Director of Content Marketing, Straight North, www.straightnorth.com, via LinkedIn

…In order to “sell” my boss on social media it was pretty easy conceptually, just drive traffic from these social media activities to our website. Actually delivering on the results is the hardest part.

…

It’s just getting past that first hump that is the hardest part when you’re relatively unknown in the SM world. Getting the first visitors are always the hardest, but it is something that can provide exponential gains with growth.

…

So the best way to start out is to set some obtainable goals, go ahead with your plan, measure the results and control the expectations with your boss.

-Chris Rizzo, from a Michigan data center, Online Tech, via LinkedIn.

Present the rationale backwards. Start with the benefit of social networking (interaction with brand, profit generation, lead generation, etc.) and leave the execution to the end. Most people can get bogged down in explaining how social networking works which can be a heavy learning curve for some non-tech savvy people.

-Ed M., Hoboken, NJ, via Aardvark

I’ve presented twitter as a valuable primer for research by searching for tags, organizing the results into columns, and highlight key phrases in peoples’ posts. This enabled my boss to see it as both qualitative and quantitative, but also synthesized into something that seemed meaningful, just by providing simple headings like “many women feel guilty when taking time for themselves” with supporting tweets below. Make it look substantial, but highly organized. Avoid the overwhelming clutter appearance of social media. That’s what they’re afraid of.

-Michael Kiser Innovation/Interactive consultant in Chicago, via Aardvark

Review

We’ve seen my approach to pitching social media, some of my tips, and several other approaches. If you’re about to make a big pitch to your boss, department, or to a potential client, I hope these approaches and techniques help you in your endeavor.

I’d also like to send a big THANK YOU to everyone who responded to my question and shared and contributed to the research for this post.

Have you pitched social media to an executive? As always, I would be honored to hear your stories via the Comments.

Facebook Pages allow businesses and individuals to create rich branded pages within Facebook. Every major brand in the world is running to build engaging and “sticky” pages on Facebook, because that’s where the people are.

Are your customers, non-profit supporters, constituents, and neighbors on Facebook? You betcha. So why not give them an opportunity to connect with you and your brand?

This tutorial will show you how to get started on building your own Facebook Page (I refer to them as “Fan Pages” in the video). This is Part One of the Facebook Fan Page project so make sure you bookmark this page, subscribe to the email blog posts, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed to keep track of further developments.

Your feedback is golden. I love Comments like a fat kid loves cake.

And don’t forget to view the full Transcript below.

Transcript

#Vlogchat was created tonight on Twitter out of the #BlogChat after party on June 6, 2010.

The same thing tends to happen every week just after the official #BlogChat hour – little groups of video bloggers clump together and start talking about video. I suggested we start a #vlogchat hashtag and nine of us did.

If you’re not familiar with Twitter chats, they are conversations between many people that include a common hashtag keyword. In this case the hashtag will be “#vlogchat”. The hashtag allows people to view other hashtagged tweets Twitter Web, Twitter Search or via a third party tool like TweetChat or Tweetdeck.

Why #Vlogchat?

1. YouTube is the number two Web site in the world. Video is having a massive impact on world cultures
2. There are incredible things going on in video technology every day, including captioning
3. Video is an important element for all blogs
4. There’s a natural cross-over for filmmakers who may not think of themselves as bloggers
5. So we can also support each other on YouTube and other video channels
6. Because video is Fun!

When is #Vlogchat?

For now, we’ll have #vlogchat right after #blogchat. #Blogchat starts at 8pm Central time. So #vlogchat will start at 9pm Central time and it will run for one hour.

What’s Next?

I’m still going to be an active participant in #blogchat then will facilitate #vlogchat immediately afterward.

Are you a vlogger? Do you have a suggestion for next week’s #vlogchat? Leave a comment below with your #vlogchat topic suggestion and I’ll tweet out the selected topic next Saturday. I love Comments so don’t hold back!