This is the official blog of "Special Topics: PR Strategies," and the Dept. of Journalism and Mass Communications at Murray State University. Here, 16 enthusiastic, budding PR practitioners (a/k/a, Superstars) share their unique and well-informed perspectives on social media and the convergence of marketing, advertising and PR on the Web. Learn how to use the 'new' tools of the practice of PR.
As the semester winds down, I've been thinking about what I learned most this semester regarding content and my future profession. We all have social media for personal use but in recent years, social media has become necessary for companies who wish to stay relevant. Therefore an understanding of social media is more than necessary, it is VITAL for today's PR practitioners.
Let's face it... Whether you're using Twitter, which makes content short and simple, to Facebook posts (a little longer but still simple) or blog posts, which are undoubtedly more complex and involved but not rocket surgery...content can be confusing.
Click here to download this basic "Content Rationale Worksheet", a great first step to defining the type of content you want to create and giving you a nice direction for your content once you know the answers.
created by: Jay Baer
When you're developing a broad social media content strategy for larger organizations, you have to ask yourself many more questions, of course. Tune-in next week (cliffhanger, alert!) as I discuss some of these organizational, audience and content-related questions that may be helpful as you craft content in the future.
There's no denying it. Twitter has become one of the most popular tools in social media. More businesses are using Twitter to communicate and engage audiences than ever before. So, it's no surprise that Twitter has come up with its own way of measuring traffic called - Twitter Web Analytics. The application helps website owners understand the traffic they receive and their own web integration tools.
Twitter Analytics offer businesses three key benefits:
An understanding of how much of your content is being shared across the Twitter network,
The amount of traffic generated by Twitter to your Tweet Stream, and
The effectiveness of your company's social (Twitter) plugins
Consider using these proven applications to measure your own virality on Twitter:
Facebook is constantly changing, and hopefully, improving, especially when it comes to the effedctiveness of business pages. The latest updates to Facebook Insights provides an easier way to understand exactly what draws fans to interactions with brands on Timelines. Consider this breakdown of three new twists:
1. REACH: Businesses can nowtrack how specific posts affect "reach" and increase conversations about brands.
2. VIRALITY: You can now monitor the level of "virality," the total extension of each status update and all specific content (video, photos, links).
3. SHARING: Learn how many fans are ‘sharing’ your page and exactly where those shares are going.
Facebook Insights allows page administrators to view how many fans interact with their pages in real time now. This helps businesses and brands to recognize social media success - or Return on Investment (ROI).
Another new feature of the Timeline format - 'Talking about This' - helps businesses see what Facebook users are responding to. In some cases this shows page owners what they need to change in order to trend higher. Here's how Facebook has described the purpose of this new Insight feature:
“Insights provides Facebook Page admins and app developers with metrics on the performance of their Page or app. By understanding and analyzing trends within user growth and demographics, consumption of content, and creation of content, admins and developers are better equipped to improve their business with Facebook.”
Facebook Insights Snapshot
Thanks for visiting our post! Perhaps we've all gained a better "insight" into how Facebook tools for measuring interaction can work for us.
Web analyticsis the collection and reporting ofinternet datafor purposes of understanding web usage. It is also used for business and market research. It also shows the effectiveness of a website. Analytics can also track company’s results from traditional print advertising campaigns. It tracks the number of visitors to a website and can categorize them into groups such as gender, race, and geographical location. Google Analytics is used by 57% of the 10,000 most popular websites. Twitter is one of very many different sites that use Google analytics.
5 Ways to become a better marketer with web analytics
1. Measure offline data- All data should be measure online and offline.
2. Measure traffic sources- Find out how people are finding you. Find out which sources are driving the most traffic to the website. This will help you get a feel on if the social media is working or not.
3. Measure conversion rates- The first step is getting people to the website, once you’ve done that, then try to convert them into a lead or business is the next step. Offer convincing content and clear and straight to the point call-to-actions. This will help direct more traffic to the website, and help businesses develop more leads.
4. Ensure the data is clear- Don’t focus on just one metric. For example if you find you had high traffic in one area, look to see what drove people to that, and what type of information it was, and continue to develop material that is related to that subject.
5. Close the loop- Marketers are unsure where to put the most of their time, they should focus more on the things that are driving people/businesses to a website.
Below is a short video on Google analytics, Enjoy!
