How do you measure the ROI ?

We get asked all the time how we measure just how effective the social media campaigns we run for clients actually are... This is a great blog post which might give some insights into the mythical ROI measures. Of course, we use analytics tools to gain some idea of where our clients are positioned, but fresh opinion is always welcome...

http://robertbochnak.wordpress.com/#!

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Tablet Users More Attentive to video ads...

Very interesting for social media clients. We always advise considering YouTube ads - it's now the second biggest search engine, after all.

Food for thought...

Tablet Users More Attentive, Tablet Ads Generate Better Recall, IPG's Manatt | Andy Plesser

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Keeping Your Reputation Out of the Jaws of Social Media

On line reputation management is becoming a big issue as the socialweb marches on. Here is another great article which makes some very good points.

Keeping Your Reputation Out of the Jaws of Social Media | Small Agency Diary - Advertising Age

This is why it's so important to take expert advice from a specialist social media consultancy when you design and implement your own social media strategy.

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4 pro tips for online reputation management and social media

Another great post on the importance of Social media and on line reputation management. This has been brought into sharp focus for many of our clients this year by the sorry tale of KFC South Africa and the inept way ity deals with the massive quality control issues which bedevil this particular fast-food operation across the country.
Check out these tips forsuccessful brand management and if you're going to outsource your social media,make sure you use a specialist business or consultancy. Many folks do digital, but not many do just social media.

Nomsindo - We Create Conversations

4 pro tips for online reputation management and social media | memeburn

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Social Media Integration - Maximise Your Online Business Potential

You have a website, and you get leads and information from this,perhaps even some data, and you might be thinking    "why do I need social media?"  and that's a good question. After all, what else can integrating social media into your business online presence do for your organisation? How about this...

• Customer service. You can interact with your customers in real time on social media, answering any enquiries or complaints and building on line communities. This gets people engaged with your business.
• Invite people you've searched for to connect with you.Offer them incentives, coupons and discounts. It's a great way to seek out new business. 
• Generate new sales leads by looking for users who tweet or post about your business area or product.
• Add your social media 'handles' to your brochures and website and ask people to connect with you. Position yourself as *the* expert in your field of business
• Recruit new staff by using social media to advertise. You can even use social media sites like LinkedIn for the application and CV submission process. It's also a great way to head-hunt the right people as you can search through on line profiles.
• Monitor your competitors.You can watch to see what they're up to and engage with their customers. Do it better than they do!
• Promote new products across all your on line sites. Increase the reach of your campaign.
• Use stats and analytics tools to direct your marketing and tell you where your business is coming from. Big data can give you loads of useful information you perhaps didn't know about your business area.

If you use a bit of blue sky thinking you could probably think of many more reasons to integrate social media into your business, but whatever you do,get some good advice from a specialist social media consultant and make sure you maximise the potential of social media.

It is really great when you start to see folks using the social media 'buttons' on your website to tweet you and post to Facebook. Or connect with you via LinkedIn or leave a tip about you on FourSquare. But make sure you set up your website to tweet and Facebook and Google+1  automatically whenever you make any changes.

 Maximise your business potential with fully integrated social media. Let Nomsindo become your social media partners. We Create Conversations...

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How to design your social media marketing campaign

You know how it goes...you pick up the paper, surprised by it's weight. When you open it up, out tumbles a huge wad of advertising leaflets. We've all been there! The problem for businesses who still use this form of advertising is that hardly anybody reads them. The recycling bins are full of Pizza take-away menus, supermarket deals leaflets, furniture store sales flyers... etc etc. Is your business still advertising using the print medium? If so, you are probably wasting your money, and this sort of advertising doesn't come cheap by any means.. And in this day and age,it's becoming increasingly irrelevant...

                                                               (photo from hloom.com)

Social media has worked its way into every part of our lives.It is ubiquitous, and more to the ppoint, it is where people go to find things they want to buy and services they need. They just don't want to plough through all of the bits of paper cluttering up the house. If your marketing campaign is to reach people who want your services or products, then social media is where you just have to be. And more to the point, you need to pick your platforms very carefully according to your target audience. There is no point taking time to participate on a social space which is not the home of your target market. This is where good advice is essential. There is always a cost to social media, be it time or outsourcing it to somebody to do.

                                                         (image from library.ohiou.edu)

Take expert advice on the design of your marketing campaign on social media. This should include design, inception, integration with your website, creating conversations, management, detailed monthly analytics on line reputation management and brand protection. 

Whilst expert advice is never cheap, it could save you money in the long run if you get your social media activity right first time and managed for you effectively and efficiently. Many web design and digital media consultancies claim to be able to advise on social media, but you wouldn't ask an orthopedic surgeon to deliver your baby would you? Pick a specialist social media consultancy to advise you. It will be money well spent...they can advise you on every aspect of your marketing campaign and provide you with a real return on your investment (ROI). This is important because there is lots of available data which will help you with the direction and fine-tuning of your marketing and put you right at the heart of where you need to be - on your potential customers' social media feeds..

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Online Reputation Management - Protect your Brand

Recent food health scares have burst over social media like an atomic bomb. Horse meat scares have done the rounds on twitter and facebook and the other platforms and some big names have come under attack due to the way they did or did not handle adverse publicity on social media.  And it's not just food. HMV went bust in the UK thanks mainly to some terrible social media coverage which they failed to deal with. Hello Peter and other complaints sites are full of complaints against both big and small business (including St Elmo's Pizzaway and KFC South Africa which seem to attract more than their fair share of gripes).

If you care about your brand,you need to be alert to these complaints. If you value your on line reputation, you need to deal with them. The internet has a very long memory and Google searches will bring up these complaints,putting off potential customers from wanting to do business with you).

An online complaint on social media will quickly spread. This is called Amplification as the bad news for your business is spread from user to user and all their followers. The potential reach of one bad news tweet can very soon stretch into the hundreds of thousands in next to no time, irreparably damaging your brand.

However, these complaints do offer you a fantastic opportunity to engage with your customers and to turn complaints into satisfied folks who will even recommend you to their families and friends, winning you new business. You just need to be alert to the dangers and the opportunities because the long memory of the internet search engines can be made to work in your favour.

So don't just sanitise your Facebook page of any bad news. Don't ignore negative tweets, and don't use cut and paste responses to complaints on sites like Hello Peter,but instead take the opportunity to placate your dissatisfied customers and turn them into good friends, winning extra sales in the process. It is hard work. It needs some investment in social media and a good specialist consultant to give you advice. Consider outsourcing this work to a specialist social media consultancy because they will know exactly how to look after your brand and your reputation.

Here is a great article about how brand rescue and online reputation management is becoming a big challenge to many businesses and individuals

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