Thursday, April 5, 2012
The informal résumé: Your social media presence.
Read my #drakesocial blog post on why and how to maintain a positive social media presence so you can land the job: http://bit.ly/Hig2yd
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Reflection on OneSocialMedia
OneSocialMedia
Kelsey Jones and Jeremy Anderberg from OneSocialMedia visited my #drakesocial class on March 6 and gave us great advice, insights and tips on social media.
I really enjoyed hearing about the three things businesses do wrong in social media:
1. Don't have a strategy. Businesses often do not think through their social media plan, or lack one completely. They don't consider how to build their social community or keep their fans/followers engaged. Businesses often don't know what content is relevant to share. They need to be thinking about all of these things and how to keep growing their community by engaging with niche groups and targeted audiences.
2. Over-promote. Businesses often over-promote their products and services on their social media platforms and don't know the importance of engaging with their communities. Over-promoting can come from not knowing what to post. Companies need to engage and broaden the scope of what the company is about while positioning themselves as an industry expert. They need to always be thinking of their audience - who will be going to their site, what content they want, etc. What tips can they give? What will people be searching for that relates to them? Jeremy and Kelsey said businesses can use competitor sites to get content ideas. Businesses need to have the patience to stick with social media; if they show their community that they are not just promoting themselves, they will gain their trust and be more likely to buy.
3. Don't know how or what to measure. Kelsey and Jeremy said it is very important to understand the traditional business "mind" when working in social media. You need to be able to show your boss or clients their return on investment. Here are some things you need to know about if you are in the social media industry: basics of SEO, email marketing, facebook and google ads, basic website knowledge including html and digital marketing and advertising. Through social media you are able to capture contact information, such as email addresses, which are extremely useful for marketing.
It was very powerful to hear what Kelsey and Jeremy had to say from their social media experience working for many clients. I also valued these other tips, especially because I hadn't thought of them before:
Thank you, OneSocialMedia for coming to speak! Say thanks to them as well by giving them a follow:
Follow OneSocialMedia
Follow Kelsey Jones
Follow Jeremy Anderberg
Kelsey Jones and Jeremy Anderberg from OneSocialMedia visited my #drakesocial class on March 6 and gave us great advice, insights and tips on social media.
I really enjoyed hearing about the three things businesses do wrong in social media:
1. Don't have a strategy. Businesses often do not think through their social media plan, or lack one completely. They don't consider how to build their social community or keep their fans/followers engaged. Businesses often don't know what content is relevant to share. They need to be thinking about all of these things and how to keep growing their community by engaging with niche groups and targeted audiences.
2. Over-promote. Businesses often over-promote their products and services on their social media platforms and don't know the importance of engaging with their communities. Over-promoting can come from not knowing what to post. Companies need to engage and broaden the scope of what the company is about while positioning themselves as an industry expert. They need to always be thinking of their audience - who will be going to their site, what content they want, etc. What tips can they give? What will people be searching for that relates to them? Jeremy and Kelsey said businesses can use competitor sites to get content ideas. Businesses need to have the patience to stick with social media; if they show their community that they are not just promoting themselves, they will gain their trust and be more likely to buy.
3. Don't know how or what to measure. Kelsey and Jeremy said it is very important to understand the traditional business "mind" when working in social media. You need to be able to show your boss or clients their return on investment. Here are some things you need to know about if you are in the social media industry: basics of SEO, email marketing, facebook and google ads, basic website knowledge including html and digital marketing and advertising. Through social media you are able to capture contact information, such as email addresses, which are extremely useful for marketing.
It was very powerful to hear what Kelsey and Jeremy had to say from their social media experience working for many clients. I also valued these other tips, especially because I hadn't thought of them before:
- Social media needs to incorporate all of the other traditional marketing pieces (press releases, radio interviews, etc.) in order to be successful, especially for small businesses. This includes adding social media information on business cards.
- "Visuals are the new status update." People are getting lazier, they don't want to read about it, they want to see it.
- If your business isn't too exciting, you have to be creative and have fun with your social media presence. This is what will catch your audience's attention and set you apart.
Thank you, OneSocialMedia for coming to speak! Say thanks to them as well by giving them a follow:
Follow OneSocialMedia
Follow Kelsey Jones
Follow Jeremy Anderberg
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Chat Your Heart Out!
View my post on Twitter chats and how they are extremely beneficial to your personal brand and business.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Lava Row
We had the pleasure of hosting Lava Row's Nathan Wright and Norah Carroll in our last #drakesocial class. We learned about their business and views on social media trends.
Lava Row is a social media consulting, strategy and education firm based in Des Moines. I found the practices of the company interesting and liked how they focused on working with clients on the strategy of social media campaigns as opposed to actually being the ones implementing the plans for them. I think this is the ideal way to manage clients in the social media world, as implementing multiple plans could easily become overwhelming for a small staff.
(10 minute pause)
I just found myself four blog posts into Nathan Wright's blog before remembering that I need to write this reflection, oops! They just drew me in.
Anyway, another point that Nathan and Norah made that I found interesting was how important it is to be yourself on social media platforms. They said they were hired by companies for who they are as people, not just the company itself. That makes complete sense, especially in the nature of their work. But it applies to job searchers today as well - companies want to hire people for who they really are, and most are searching the internet for information they can find about you. It will be inevitable that your social media platforms will come up in the search and the company will look through them. Like so many wise have said, you cannot separate your personal life from your professional life on social media. You are who you are, and having multiple accounts or locked down privacy features gives off the message that you have something to hide. That's the wrong message you want to give to the company looking to hire you.
Pinterest is a hot topic these days, as it is rapidly growing and has become a dominant social media platform. Recent statistics show that Pinterest is retaining and engaging users two to three times as efficiently as Twitter was at a similar time in history. Pinterest is also driving serious traffic for some major brands - it drives more traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and MySpace combined. Lava Row agreed with Pinterest supporters and said it is a platform that all companies need to evaluate to see if it will be beneficial for them to use. What I'm looking forward to figuring out about this platform is how to engage male audiences - approximately 97 percent of Pinterest users are female. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, eventually drives them there. But first, the content has to be present that appeals to them.
Overall, I enjoyed hearing from Lava Row and am thankful they took the time to come in and speak. It was fun to hear about how a social media business works with clients first-hand and their views on today's social media trends... that change by the second.
Lava Row is a social media consulting, strategy and education firm based in Des Moines. I found the practices of the company interesting and liked how they focused on working with clients on the strategy of social media campaigns as opposed to actually being the ones implementing the plans for them. I think this is the ideal way to manage clients in the social media world, as implementing multiple plans could easily become overwhelming for a small staff.
(10 minute pause)
I just found myself four blog posts into Nathan Wright's blog before remembering that I need to write this reflection, oops! They just drew me in.
Anyway, another point that Nathan and Norah made that I found interesting was how important it is to be yourself on social media platforms. They said they were hired by companies for who they are as people, not just the company itself. That makes complete sense, especially in the nature of their work. But it applies to job searchers today as well - companies want to hire people for who they really are, and most are searching the internet for information they can find about you. It will be inevitable that your social media platforms will come up in the search and the company will look through them. Like so many wise have said, you cannot separate your personal life from your professional life on social media. You are who you are, and having multiple accounts or locked down privacy features gives off the message that you have something to hide. That's the wrong message you want to give to the company looking to hire you.
Pinterest is a hot topic these days, as it is rapidly growing and has become a dominant social media platform. Recent statistics show that Pinterest is retaining and engaging users two to three times as efficiently as Twitter was at a similar time in history. Pinterest is also driving serious traffic for some major brands - it drives more traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and MySpace combined. Lava Row agreed with Pinterest supporters and said it is a platform that all companies need to evaluate to see if it will be beneficial for them to use. What I'm looking forward to figuring out about this platform is how to engage male audiences - approximately 97 percent of Pinterest users are female. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, eventually drives them there. But first, the content has to be present that appeals to them.
Overall, I enjoyed hearing from Lava Row and am thankful they took the time to come in and speak. It was fun to hear about how a social media business works with clients first-hand and their views on today's social media trends... that change by the second.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Jethro's BBQ: Social Media Listening Assignment
What's being said about Jethro's BBQ
The majority of tweets on Twitter that mentioned Jethro's were about the great food and dining experience. Tweets mentioned a large variety of the foods Jethro's offers and many tweets included pictures. I was able to analyze tweets dated back to February 6. One Jethro's fan was excited to post a funny picture about the flying pig toys they received from the restaurant.
The band Timeflies played a show at People's Court in Des Moines yesterday, and sent out a tweet asking fans for suggestions on where to eat. Three individuals replied with suggestions for Jethro's. One even claimed it was the best BBQ in the state.
One of my favorite tweets about Jethro's:
One Jethro's fan was inspired to create his own chicken waffle fry nachos:
Negative tweets about Jethro's were rare. One customer praised the BBQ rub, but claimed the waitress had man hands and used the hashtag #notattractive. Another said she was very excited to be at Jethro's, but wasn't very excited for the 40 minute wait.
Facebook had similar messages.
One upset customer posted on JethrosBBQDrake's page:
And just to make a quick note on that - it looks pretty bad that whoever runs that page did not respond to that individual. It gives the impression that Jethro's doesn't care about customer service. Another fan asked if Adam Emmenecker completed his own challenge, and that post did not have a response either.
On the Jethro's BBQ page they created a post asking fans what their favorite thing at Jethro's is that warms them up. Several fans posted their favorite foods, with one suggesting they wished they delivered.
Although this page does better at interacting with fans, in some cases there is a lack of response that is not ideal. Here is an example of such a post:
#Hashtags
#Jethros is the only hashtag that was prevalent among tweets. #yum or #yummy was also used a few times, but would be a waste of time to monitor, as it is a very broad hashtag.
Foursquare
There are four pages of tips about Jethro's on Foursquare. They are all good tips and on many hundreds have completed them. There are a lot of good sources that have posted tips, including the Travel Channel, Drake University and Des Moines Metromix. Two of the tips are included below and were chosen because they included appealing pictures. There are a total of 34 pictures for Foursquare users to view.
2,231 people have checked into Jethro's BBQ, for a total of 4,849 check ins.
Socialmention.com
I searched the term "Jethros" and found it had one percent strength. This means there is a one percent chance that this term is being discussed on social media. It is calculated by the number of phrase mentions in the last 24 hours divided by the total number of possible mentions. The analysis showed an 8:1 sentiment, which is the ratio of generally positive to generally negative social media posts. There was a measurement of 42 percent passion. Passion is defined as the likelihood that the users who are talking about the brand will do so repeatedly. This high score indicates there is a small group of passionate advocates that talk about the brand in a positive way often. There was a 36 percent measurement of reach, indicating that Jethros does have a decent range of influence in the social media world. It's the number of unique authors referencing Jethros divided by the total number of mentions.
It showed there was an average of one tweet about Jethros per hour, the last mention was four hours ago, there are 268 unique authors and six retweets.
The hashtag usage confirms what I found on Twitter - not many people who tweet about Jethro's use hashtags. It was also very interesting to browse the top sites for sources about Jethros posts.
The competition (via twittercounter.com and monitor.wildfireapp.com)
I compared Jethro's to Woody's Smoke Shack, Smokey D's BBQ and Flying Mango.
Stats:
Jethro's
1,969 followers
2,130 following
1,371 tweets
#111,493 of top 100 twitter users
Woody's Smoke Shack
1,661 followers
1,582 following
573 tweets
#122,235 of top 100 twitter users
Smokey D's BBQ
1,623 followers
1,240 following
670 tweets
#124,311 of top 100 twitter users
Flying Mango
Flying Mango does not have a Twitter account.
Here is a summary of the Facebook account comparison:
As you can see, Jethro's greatest competitor is Smokey D's BBQ. It has more likes than Jethro's with 2,377 over Jethro's 1,803. It's rank is also higher at 829,576, with Jethro's being at 1,002,615. However, you can see that over the last three months the Jethro's Facebook account has had a significantly higher amount of growth than the Smokey D's account, which is good.
10 terms Jethro's BBQ should be monitoring on social media:
These social media terms will help Jethro's find opportunities to interact with social media users and promote their brand. They can also learn from what their competitors are doing, whether it's how they interact with their fans on social media or what coupon deals they have going on.
Conclusion
I enjoyed monitoring social media for Jethro's and was very happy to find that they are doing a pretty good job. Most fan's posts are positive which provides a huge benefit to their brand and products. Word-of-mouth via social media sites is huge. However, Jethro's could do a better job of interacting with fans on both Facebook and Twitter. They need to respond to fans/customers as often as possible, making a point to interact with those who create negative posts.
Also, I apologize for the crappy formatting on here... it drives me crazy too.
The majority of tweets on Twitter that mentioned Jethro's were about the great food and dining experience. Tweets mentioned a large variety of the foods Jethro's offers and many tweets included pictures. I was able to analyze tweets dated back to February 6. One Jethro's fan was excited to post a funny picture about the flying pig toys they received from the restaurant.
The band Timeflies played a show at People's Court in Des Moines yesterday, and sent out a tweet asking fans for suggestions on where to eat. Three individuals replied with suggestions for Jethro's. One even claimed it was the best BBQ in the state.
One of my favorite tweets about Jethro's:
Negative tweets about Jethro's were rare. One customer praised the BBQ rub, but claimed the waitress had man hands and used the hashtag #notattractive. Another said she was very excited to be at Jethro's, but wasn't very excited for the 40 minute wait.
Facebook had similar messages.
One upset customer posted on JethrosBBQDrake's page:
On the Jethro's BBQ page they created a post asking fans what their favorite thing at Jethro's is that warms them up. Several fans posted their favorite foods, with one suggesting they wished they delivered.
Although this page does better at interacting with fans, in some cases there is a lack of response that is not ideal. Here is an example of such a post:
#Hashtags
#Jethros is the only hashtag that was prevalent among tweets. #yum or #yummy was also used a few times, but would be a waste of time to monitor, as it is a very broad hashtag.
Foursquare
There are four pages of tips about Jethro's on Foursquare. They are all good tips and on many hundreds have completed them. There are a lot of good sources that have posted tips, including the Travel Channel, Drake University and Des Moines Metromix. Two of the tips are included below and were chosen because they included appealing pictures. There are a total of 34 pictures for Foursquare users to view.
2,231 people have checked into Jethro's BBQ, for a total of 4,849 check ins.
Socialmention.com
I searched the term "Jethros" and found it had one percent strength. This means there is a one percent chance that this term is being discussed on social media. It is calculated by the number of phrase mentions in the last 24 hours divided by the total number of possible mentions. The analysis showed an 8:1 sentiment, which is the ratio of generally positive to generally negative social media posts. There was a measurement of 42 percent passion. Passion is defined as the likelihood that the users who are talking about the brand will do so repeatedly. This high score indicates there is a small group of passionate advocates that talk about the brand in a positive way often. There was a 36 percent measurement of reach, indicating that Jethros does have a decent range of influence in the social media world. It's the number of unique authors referencing Jethros divided by the total number of mentions.
It showed there was an average of one tweet about Jethros per hour, the last mention was four hours ago, there are 268 unique authors and six retweets.
The competition (via twittercounter.com and monitor.wildfireapp.com)
I compared Jethro's to Woody's Smoke Shack, Smokey D's BBQ and Flying Mango.
Stats:
Jethro's
1,969 followers
2,130 following
1,371 tweets
#111,493 of top 100 twitter users
Woody's Smoke Shack
1,661 followers
1,582 following
573 tweets
#122,235 of top 100 twitter users
Smokey D's BBQ
1,623 followers
1,240 following
670 tweets
#124,311 of top 100 twitter users
Flying Mango
Flying Mango does not have a Twitter account.
Here is a summary of the Facebook account comparison:
10 terms Jethro's BBQ should be monitoring on social media:
- Jethros
- BBQ
- Catering
- Des Moines restaurants
- Drake
- Barbeque
- Jethro's
- Woody's Smoke Shack
- Smokey D's BBQ
- Flying Mango
These social media terms will help Jethro's find opportunities to interact with social media users and promote their brand. They can also learn from what their competitors are doing, whether it's how they interact with their fans on social media or what coupon deals they have going on.
Conclusion
I enjoyed monitoring social media for Jethro's and was very happy to find that they are doing a pretty good job. Most fan's posts are positive which provides a huge benefit to their brand and products. Word-of-mouth via social media sites is huge. However, Jethro's could do a better job of interacting with fans on both Facebook and Twitter. They need to respond to fans/customers as often as possible, making a point to interact with those who create negative posts.
Also, I apologize for the crappy formatting on here... it drives me crazy too.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
TweetReach
Tool: TweetReach
Website: http://tweetreach.com/
Reviewer: Christine Setsodi
What it does: Measures how far your tweet travels and tells you who's talking about it, how many people saw it and who those people are.
My take: This tool would be very useful for measuring real-time results of a Twitter campaign. You could analyze the use of a hashtag, brand name, events being promoting, etc. However, although the tool is free, it would cost if the tweet goes very far. For example, I checked how far a few celebrity's tweets went and in order to get the full report I'd have to pay. It will analyze and give results for the first 50 tweets, though. Overall, it's pretty cool because you can actually monitor the impact of your efforts.
Website: http://tweetreach.com/
Reviewer: Christine Setsodi
What it does: Measures how far your tweet travels and tells you who's talking about it, how many people saw it and who those people are.
My take: This tool would be very useful for measuring real-time results of a Twitter campaign. You could analyze the use of a hashtag, brand name, events being promoting, etc. However, although the tool is free, it would cost if the tweet goes very far. For example, I checked how far a few celebrity's tweets went and in order to get the full report I'd have to pay. It will analyze and give results for the first 50 tweets, though. Overall, it's pretty cool because you can actually monitor the impact of your efforts.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Des Moines Foursquare Badge
My #drakesocial class is trying to earn a Foursquare badge for Des Moines by creating a list with the best venues that Foursquare users should visit. I think it's pretty exciting and will give Des Moines a chance to show off how great it really is! We enjoyed picking venues as a class that we felt really represented the uniqueness of Des Moines.
The blog post that inspired us: http://bit.ly/xvFN5r
The site where you can post your comments with ideas on what we should include on the list: http://bit.ly/xdNQcS
The list itself: http://4sq.com/DesMoinesBadge - make sure to follow it!
We have been promoting our list through the #drakesocial blog, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and our own blogs. Currently, 150 people are following the list. We are second behind the Baltimore list, which has 331 followers. We even created a picture for others to share:
We have reached out specifically to influential social media users, including business and community leaders, and asked them to follow and recommend following our list. I think that we should continue to share our list with others through these mediums tied with our #drakesocial hashtag. If others haven't already, we could also promote our list through LinkedIn by posting a status update. We could also create a discussion within an appropriate group about our project to get others specifically interested in social media, Foursquare, traveling, etc. interested in what we're doing.
If we really wanted to get crazy, we could promote the list more at Drake by requesting the Times-Delphic to write an article about it and could also put up some posters around campus. They could be put up in Olmsted, Meredith and Spikes. We could also create table tents for the dining facilities.
It would also be pretty cool if we created a YouTube video to go along with our current promotions. We could go to all of the venues we put on our list and actually show how great they are. This would be entertaining and also generate excitement, which could encourage others to share the video, hopefully ultimately resulting in more followers for our list.
Do you have any other ideas? Let me know!
Yeah Des Moines!
The blog post that inspired us: http://bit.ly/xvFN5r
The site where you can post your comments with ideas on what we should include on the list: http://bit.ly/xdNQcS
The list itself: http://4sq.com/DesMoinesBadge - make sure to follow it!
We have been promoting our list through the #drakesocial blog, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and our own blogs. Currently, 150 people are following the list. We are second behind the Baltimore list, which has 331 followers. We even created a picture for others to share:
We have reached out specifically to influential social media users, including business and community leaders, and asked them to follow and recommend following our list. I think that we should continue to share our list with others through these mediums tied with our #drakesocial hashtag. If others haven't already, we could also promote our list through LinkedIn by posting a status update. We could also create a discussion within an appropriate group about our project to get others specifically interested in social media, Foursquare, traveling, etc. interested in what we're doing.
If we really wanted to get crazy, we could promote the list more at Drake by requesting the Times-Delphic to write an article about it and could also put up some posters around campus. They could be put up in Olmsted, Meredith and Spikes. We could also create table tents for the dining facilities.
It would also be pretty cool if we created a YouTube video to go along with our current promotions. We could go to all of the venues we put on our list and actually show how great they are. This would be entertaining and also generate excitement, which could encourage others to share the video, hopefully ultimately resulting in more followers for our list.
Do you have any other ideas? Let me know!
Yeah Des Moines!
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