Measuring Social Media

The following are a few things you can do to measure the effectiveness of social media.  You can track most of the metrics below from Google Analytics, which is a free tool.  These metrics that you can monitor once visitors arrive are:

• Frequency of visits
• Depth of visit
• Conversions
• Unique visitors
• Time spend on site
• Total time spent per user

If you can afford, you will want to monitor the standard search metrics such as: Clicks, impressions, click throu rate, conversion rates, revenue, etc.  Another to consider is SEM Director.  It allows you to assign values to particular actions on the web site once visitors arrive from search. i.e. number of page views, form submission, clicking on a particular link, an internal search, etc.

Whether your goal is to push sales, drive engagement, or to increase awareness, the following are some social metrics to consider as well:

• Content Consumption
• Who is talking about you
• Profile Engagement
• Subscribing to a RSS feed
• Emailing posts
• Social Bookmarking

One thing to consider before you engage with social media is to assign monetary values to your metrics, especially if your end goal is not revenue conversions.

Best Practices of Blogging

This post is inspired by this marketing on the Internet course.  I have never blogged prior to this class and have had many questions such as:  How long should the posts be, what the best practices of blogging, etc are.  The following are my research along with my take-aways:

• Align Posts With Your Keyword. Do try to make your titles and opening paragraphs keyword rich.  This will attract readers/followers.
• How Long Should Your Posts Be? It is recommended keeping your blogs between 4-6 paragraphs.  If your posts are too long, your followers may decide to read them at a later time and not come back. 
• Create Visual Interest. Posts will have more impact if they have photos, videos, event basic html formatting of some sort.  This will attract more followers/readers.
• Do Allow Comments. Comments are a great way to solicit feedback, find out what critics are saying and respond to them, and let your community advocate for you.  You can always delete offensive or spam-y posts.

How about you?  What has worked for you and will you continue blogging after this course?