With the high amount of users on Facebook, YouTube, Flicker and other social network platforms it seems that some businesses are putting their money into the wrong areas of marketing? I am going to focus here on the Australian market as it the market I am interested in. There is great debate as to the value of internet advertising however one must understand the shift in culture of the use of the internet. Australians love Facebook with over 6 million users.  That is 30% of the population are using Facebook.  Google has also done some research into YouTube users in Australia.

This video not only highlights what changing in the culture but also should set alarms to your marketing campaign.

The trend in Social Media Marketing has seen a major shift in the way we do business. The keyword is “Social”.  Marketing to Social network users is something you done all your life and that is create conversation.  Twitter has become the conversation platform of recent times and soon to be released to the public Google Wave that makes claims to be an email killer.

Strategies

The most important strategy of Social Media Marketing is becoming a part of communities online. Make connections with other users and build a following that become interested in your product range and services.  This is not about selling directly as you do with other media but about participation in the media.

Creating a Facebook page and a YouTube channel will not bring people rushing to your door. It requires a strategy that will create interest in what you’re doing.  Take for example you sell Children’s clothing.  A couple of YouTube Video, a Web site and a Facebook page will not get you any business.

The strategy requires 1st an insight into the culture of Social Media. The culture is very astute and lean heavily on other users for advice and opinions.  If your products are not endorsed by the media then you have a lot of work to do to get it right.  They can fail your campaign in a matter of hours.

To create a conversation you need to be positive and supportive of the culture. By this I mean offer something of value that requires just a mouse click and then support that offer by creating conversation about it. An example might be you have a new range of children fashions just came into stock.  You have created an online catalogue and want to drive some traffic to the catalogue.  You may first post an item on Facebook Feed. “Can you see your child wearing this?”  with a link to the catalogue. This would work well with the target of people who have children and may lead to sales but it also becomes a little more complex.  What do the visitors do when they view your catalogue?

My idea that a well designed catalogue would allow users to vote on the question you asked?  “Can you see your child wearing this?”   Allow them to place an order for an item and make comments about their experience in dealing with you.  Take a look how eBay  allows users to participate with the seller or another example is Amazon.com and how you’re able to rate books and write reviews.

Get Referrals

When I first learned the craft of been a sales person the emphases was to prospect for new sales leads. One tactic was to ask a customer  “ Who do you know that may also need my service”.  Online is very similar because you have a resource of followers who would be happy to tell others of something that is good on the internet.  But this need to be easy for the user to do. Web 2 technologies make this very easy by adding share buttons to your pages for all the major social networks.  The visitor can quickly click the share button to post to their friends or followers.  I use Facebook that then aggregates it to FreindFeed  that then tweets it on twitter. There is a potential for over 100,000 people will get a copy of the links I post. 

To motivate visitors to use the share button comes back to what I wrote earlier. “Give something of value”  If the visitor agrees it has value to their network then they will be very eager to share it.  My fellow student who follow me on my Social media  have an interest in Internet studies. If I find an interesting post and share it others in my network they normally will follow up on the shared link.

Why?

Common Interest. The topic is what my peer group has an interest in.  This can also work for you.

Competitors

The interesting thing about Social media is the way in which they compete. There is still the normal motivation to be better than the competitor but also the use of competitor content to help you.  If you see something good then share it with your group even if it’s a competitors content. This builds trust with your user and adds to the “Social” aspect of the media.

Practice

Social media is very rarely an instant success although much has been written about the one who succeeded. But for each instant success there are millions who are making ground with their own strategy.  Normally it could take six month or more to see any real benefit in your efforts and there are many pitfalls.   But practice and persistence is the key to your success.  

Good Luck.

NOTE:  You could employ a strategist to building your online campaign.  Find someone who is qualified to advise you on the correct methods. Do not use the receptionist as Peter Fletcher point out just one problem in doing so.

Web analytics is something we should be well aware of when developing our website. Understanding what your visitors are doing

on your site can help you decide on changes that may need to be done. If visitors are coming to your site and not participating in your site then web analytics can help identify what happening and what can be done. The problem is that web server stats do not provide an accurate picture of this as there are several  known problems relating to the data generated by these reports.

• Hits count has no real meaning
• Visitor count are distorted by search engines, bots, spiders and other irrelevant pings
• The relationship of one table to another often do not match making it difficult to analyse
• Behaviour of a visitor not really the concern of the server log

The really only value of web server stats are to monitor errors or search engine visits.

There is several good software packages available.

VisiStat – Real-time tracking with graphical and intuitive reporting features.

Google Analytics – Mentioned in our first list, Google offers free analytics software. Includes tight integration with AdWords (see also: 27 Features that Make Google Analytics Best of Breed). Unlike some enterprise apps, the stats are usually on a delay of a few hours.

mviSPY – Real-time analytics that track conversions and visitor identities.

Webstats BASIC – A free analytics program that tracks visitors and trends and has exportable reports.

Webstats PRO – A full-featured analytics package that includes click path analysis, campaign tracking, and complete traffic monitoring capabilities.

LoadStats – Provides two different packages that include basic page view and visitor tracking along with geo-location, ad tracking, and more.

Opentracker.net – Real-time visitor monitoring and web statistics.

eWebAnalytics – Comprehensive, free package that tracks unique visitors, conversions, average click-paths, traffic history, bounce rates, and virtually everything else that you could want in an analytics solution.

MetaTraffic – Web analytics program that installs quickly and has the ability to track ad campaigns, downloads, and multimedia file traffic.

clickdensity – Heat maps with real-time visitor data to help you optimize your link and ad placement and enhance your site’s stickiness.

nextSTAT – Complete analytics package that includes graphical visitor detail path reports.

ClickTale – Watch movies of what your visitors do while on your site, view heatmaps and every interaction that a visitor has on your site including hovers, hesitations, and even which form fields are causing visitors to leave.

ClickHeat – A free click heatmap generator.

“Source Mashable”

Understanding your data

Understanding the data is the most important aspect to Web Analytics. The data can gain an insight into what your visitor is really doing on your site and enables you to make changes accordingly. An example of this is what are the visitors looking at and then what do they do next. If they leave the site then without making a purchase then you will know that you have to look at why are they leaving. There is no right or wrong answer to the question as different sites provide different solutions.

Thing you should look for in your data are

1. Where do your visitor go when they leave the site?  “Competitive Site?”
2. What page do they leave on?
3. How long do they stay on site?  “Less than 10 second is considered invalid data”
4. how many pages did they view?
5. What pages are getting viewed?
6. What pages are not getting viewed?
7. Is the visitor participating in your site? “Leaving comments, rating product”
8. Making purchases from your site

Dig Deep

Often you need to dig deep to find the answers your looking for in your data. This takes careful analysis by trained professionals that understand the workings of the internet and web analytics.  There can be lots of lies told in web data and true understanding is what makes this possible to find.

If you really need to understand what your visitors are doing on your site there are a small band of people who specialise in this field.

Good place to start is Web Analytics Association