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Social media management, monitoring, and analytics
07/12/2011 By 3 Comments
sendible social media management

sendible social media managementManaging social media can be tough for individuals and small businesses. You need to post status updates, find people to interact with, track results from interactions, monitor what people are saying about your business, and many other things depending on your needs. Sendible is a service that markets themselves as “Social Media Management for Small Businesses,” and let me tell you they couldn’t be more accurate. Sendible makes organizing your social networks easy. It does almost everything a small business needs out of a social media management solution and has a great selection of premium plans that scale perfectly with your marketing needs.

First and foremost: Sendible works with a ton of social networks as well as Google analytics.

Social Networks

  • Facebook
  • Facebook fan pages
  • Facebook groups
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Google Buzz
  • Ping
  • Plurk
  • Bebo
  • BrightKite
  • Flickr
  • MobyPicture
  • Scribd
  • Slide Share
  • Foursquare

Blogs

  • Blogspot
  • WordPress.com
  • WordPress (self hosted)
  • SquareSpace
  • MovableType
  • Ning
  • Posterous
  • Tumblr
  • TypePad
  • If you don’t have a blog you can even quickly set one up with Sendible!

Bookmarking Services

  • Delicious
  • Diigo
  • Identi.ca
  • Instapaper
  • Read it Later

A lot of social media services post to many different accounts, so what makes Sendible better? Ultimate customization. You can send stuff to Facebook as a status update, wall post, image upload, or even as a note.  You can create auto messages for Facebook birthdays, Twitter replies, rss feeds, email auto responders, and more. Contacts can be easily imported from AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, Mail.com, Yahoo, or you own contact list. Why would you want to import contacts? Because Sendible can also do email campaigns! Oh yeah, you can run SMS campaigns too.

Have a lot of different accounts to manage for the same social networks? Most social media management tools make it difficult to send out updates exactly how you want them. Sendible has a very easy fix for this problem. You can create “groups” of accounts. For instance I have one group set up so I can send messages to my business Twitter and Fanpage. I have another group that sends messages to my personal Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr as well as one that goes to just Twitter and Posterous (and I have Posterous set up to go even more places).

Reports

One thing that really attracted me to Sendible is the ability to create simple, easy to understand reports as well as Google analytic integration. There are reports for messages sent, clicks, retweets, comments, and traffic those updates drove to your website. You can also create reports for mentions of your company or topics/keywords you choose. The graphs are very easy to read and provide the information a consultant or small business needs without overwhelming you with stats that have funny names and ratios and scores/ratings that are just flat out confusing.

On the go social media management

The main reason I originally used Sendible: iPhone app. There are very few social media management services that have good mobile functionality. I’ve tried everything under the sun. Most iPhone apps only have a few social networks and features that limit your options. Sendible’s iPhone app gives you all the flexibility of posting that the website does. It’s not ideal for reading streams and couldn’t replace a full fledged Twitter or Facebook client, but it takes the pain in the butt out of trying to coordinate updates on a bunch of different social networks while you’re on the go.

Service

Sendible has great customer service. I mentioned on Twitter I was trying their project and they responded to me to say thanks and let them know if I had questions. I also submitted a request for scheduled RSS feeds to have more time frames to choose from. It was originally only able to choose how many hours apart you want the updates to go. I asked to have time frames instead of set schedule. For example being able to choose 2-4 hours between update as opposed to every 2 hours or every 4 hours. They responded and the feature was implemented the next day.

Pricing

The pricing structure is different than most of the other social media management services I’ve tried. At first it seems odd, but then you realize the setup gives you the opportunity to only pay for services you need. A lot of other companies have all or nothing packages. You either pay more than you want and get services you don’t need, or you get it cheap but you are missing a few key elements. Sending an update to a service costs a token, and each package comes with a certain number of tokens. There are also limits on the number of social networks you can connect, the number of contacts you can have in your email list, the number of groups you can create, and the number of keywords you can set up searches for.

All the limits may seem daunting but this setup is what makes Sendible so scaleable. The basic package starts with 400 message tokens, 15 social network connections, 500 contacts, 5 groups, and 15 keywords for only $9.99. The largest package provides 150,000 message tokens, 1200 social networks, 150,000 contacts, 1500 groups, 1200 keywords and 30 users for $399.99. There are also pay as you go packages as well as white label options for a setup fee.

I use the $20 plan which I’ve found to be perfect for a consultant that manages a couple handfuls of different networks. There are more than enough tokens, social networks, and groups to meet my needs. I couldn’t get everything I get through Sendible anywhere for the same price or less, I’ve looked.

Cons

While Sendible is definitely worth trying, there are a few small things that could be improved. The email campaign tools are pretty basic. There aren’t any pretty templates like Mailchimp and other stand alone email campaign services offer. You have the standard set of editing tools you would see in Word or other writing programs, but nothing to write home about.  The iPhone app is a little bit clunky. Sending a message takes more than typing an update and hitting post, but the flexibility of sending the post anywhere however you want definitely makes up for the minor drawback.

Summary

There are several difficulties in measuring social media effectiveness. Sendible eliminates these difficulties. It is easy to use, network channels are easy to setup, they offer efficient on the go management, and offer several pricing tiers that cover everything from bloggers, to small businesses, to large scale marketing companies. If you’re still searching for the right social media management tool I would definitely consider giving Sendible a try.

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Give meaning to Twitter’s #FollowFriday with Klout
06/15/2011 By 3 Comments
klout +k

ff value“Follow Friday” has become diluted, and I think Klout +K can save it. #FollowFriday (#ff) is the weekly  Twitter practice of  suggesting people to follow. You simply add the #FF tag to a tweet with a users @name in it. Klout +K is a new feature that lets people vouch for someone as an influencer of a topic. As Twitter continues to grow follow Friday becomes even more diluted. People tweet out giant lists of names that mean nothing to the people reading them. Or they choose a bunch of people that they don’t follow in hopes of getting a follow in return. I think Klout can save follow Friday and bring its value back.

I rarely participate in follow Friday. If I do participate I usually only tweet one or two people and I give a description of why I gave that user a #ff. It also takes a little time because I have to pick the tweep and figure out what to say about them. I have been looking for a way to get more people to add value back to the weekly tradition. I think Klout’s new +K ability can do it because it helps narrow down a specific reason to follow someone.

klout +kKlout is a service that gives people a rank based on their social networking and sphere of influence. It’s designed to be able to easily find people that are knowledgeable  in certain topics. Until now Klout has been entirely based on a computer’s analysis. Klout made recent changes to add human input to scores. They call this new ability +K. To use it you have to have a Klout account, which is as easy as signing in with Facebook or Twitter. You get 5 +K to give away each day. When you look at users there is a list of topics that Klout thinks they have influence in. You can choose any topic and give it a +K, similar to a Facebook like.

Ok, so how is this going to save #FF? This Friday I plan to incorporate +K into my #ff tweet. I will choose who I want to give the #followfriday and look them up on Klout. Then I’ll look at their list of topics and pick one I think sutis them best. I’ll give them the +K for that topic and tweet it out with and #ff added to the tweet. I have’t decided if I will modify the tweet in any way or just add the #ff. I would appreciate feedback on that.

Can Klout really save follow Friday? I don’t know if it can or not. I know that at least this will reduce a #ff tweet to one person per tweet, restrict the total amount of #ff to 5, and provide context as to why I chose them. The fact I gave them one of my 5 +K should also add further validation that this person is worthy to be followed.

Do you think Klout +K can help follow Friday (plz click link to vote in Facebook poll)?  Maybe it will add the value back to #followfriday or maybe it won’t do anything, we’ll see. I challenge you to give it a shot this Friday and see what happens.

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Filed Under: Digital Tools, Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Sprout Social: Social media analytics and monitoring tool
06/01/2011 By 6 Comments
social media analytics

social media analyticsThere are many social media tools to monitor accounts, create analytic reports, and manage your Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and other social networks in general. Most of these tools tend to be expensive for small businesses. They also usually have features beyond what most small businesses need for basic monitoring and analytics as well. Sprout Social is a social media tool that allows you to monitor your social networks and keep track of who your engaging with at a price businesses can afford.

Sprout offers two different plans. The first plan is cheap at only $9 per month. It is very well suited for private consultants or small businesses that aren’t location dependent. The second plan is considerably more expensive at $49 per month(still pretty cheap). It is great for location based businesses such as restaurants and retail stores. It is also good for social media managers since it can create custom branded reports. Each plan has social media monitoring and analytic capabilities, the expensive plan just offers a couple more networks and capabilities.

Basic Sprout Social Plan

  • Dashboard to send, schedule, or feed RSS messages to Twitter, Facebook, Facebook pages, and Linkedin.
  • Customizable inbox that brings replies, mentions, and comments from Twitter, Facebook, pages, and Linkedin all into the same place.
  • Keyword searches across Twitter and the web to find relevant articles and people to follow.
  • Analytic reports for Twitter and Facebook that breaks down age, sex, clicked links, mentions, and new followers.
  • “Address Book” that keeps track of conversations you have with people on Twitter, lets you make notes about them, and add personal information.

social media monitoringPremium Sprout Social Plan

  • Everything the basic plan provides
  • Add Foursquare and Gowalla monitoring and analytics.
  • Narrow down keyword and profile searches by location.
  • Add Google analytics to track traffic to your website from your social networking efforts.
  • Check-in alerts by SMS (300 per month).
  • Custom branded reports.

The only problem with the plans is the cost discrepancy between the two. Personally I only need the Google analytics on top of the basic service. It’s hard to justify an extra $40 for one extra service. I’ve been told there will be a mid level plan coming in the near future.

Pros:

  • Interface is very simple and easy to use.
  • Reports are not overwhelming with a bunch of analytics and numbers that don’t tell most small businesses anything.
  • Addition of Google analytic overly provides analytic service that is usually only available in inexpensive social media monitoring services.
  • Basic CRM helps keep track of conversations you’ve had with various contacts and flag items for future follow up.
  • Awesome support. I mean awesome. They respond quickly to any problems and are open to suggestions.

Cons:

  • There are currently only the two options. I need the Google analytics, but not the Foursquare or Gowalla tools. This makes it difficult to justify $40 extra dollars for one feature. I’ve been told by representatives there is a mid level plan coming out in the near future.
  • You are limited to only bit.ly shortening service and Twitpic or Yfrog image service. If you don’t use these services it won’t track stats for clicks or image views (links may be tracked but not entirely accurate).
  • Currently only one Twitter can be attached to an identity. I’ve been told you will be able to attach more to a single identity in the future.
  • Search features are pretty limited in features. There are some better options out there but I wouldn’t throw Sprout out because of it.

I have struggled to find a social media monitoring program that fit all my needs. Most of what I’ve tried has been way too expensive for a private consultants needs, offered more options than I needed, or didn’t offer enough options for the price. Many focus on specific networks like Facebook or Twitter; or types of campaigns like coupon or event. Sprout offers one of the most robust set of tools and I recommend it if you are struggling to find a good social media analytic tool.

 

 

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Filed Under: Digital Tools, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Social media campaign scheduler for small business and organizations
05/09/2011 By 1 Comment
Roost social media scheduling

Scheduling social media campaigns is important for businesses that don’t have a lot of free time to run to their computer every hour and post updates. Business owners need a quick and easy way to schedule social media updates for an extended period of time. This frees up time and makes it easy to focus on responding to followers and fans. Roost is a free solution that makes it quick and easy to schedule social media campaigns.

Once you sign up for Roost you can connect 3 social media acocunts. Right now you can use Twitter, Facebook profile, or Facebook page. I’ve been told more networks will be available in the future. The primary screen is the dashboard. The dashboard is a quick way to see what you’ve posted, what you have scheduled, and what social media site it got posted to.You can filter the timeline by sent/unsent, specific campaigns, and types of updates (links, questions, quotes, status updates). If you haven’t posted any updates with Roost you won’t see anything in your posts column.

social media scheduling dashboardQuickly scheduling social media campaigns is what Roost is all about. When you create a social media campaign  Roost walks  you through a 5 step process. First you simply choose which social media sites you would like the updates to be posted. Next your choose the time frame you want your campaign to run. You can set the number of days for the campaign to run, what date to begin, and the time of day range you want the updates to be posted in.

The third step of the social media campaign creator is choosing the content you want posted. Roost presents a wizard that makes it very easy to quickly create the content you want posted. There is a section for links, status updates, quotes, questions, and photos. There is also a “my circle” section that I’ll get into later. Roost recommends 9 updates consisting of: 2 links, 3 status updates, 1 quote, 2 questions, and 1 photo. In the future I believe the total recommended updates will be based on your time frame, but as of now it always recommends 9.

To add links you can use your own chosen links, or you can go through Roosts lists of RSS feeds and choose some links real quick. Under your settings you can add your own RSS feeds. You can add them to your own group or the existing groups. From there you can also turn off any of Roosts existing link groups.

social media scheduling wizardThe status updates section is pretty straight forward. You simply enter your updates and click add like you would with any social media dashboard. The add quotes section is similar to the status update sections. There is a link to a free site that’s easy to navigate and find a quote to copy and paste real quick. The question fields are once again just like the status update section. Splitting status updates like this is great because it prompts you for types of updates which makes it easy to set up a social media campaign really quick.

Photo updates are slightly different. You can upload a photo, choose a photo from Facebook, or copy and past the URL of a photo. Depending on which social media sites you choose to update your photos will be uploaded to twitpic and/or Facebook album. The copy URL option is a great easily share your own Flickr images or find free creative commons images to use.

“My Circle” is an interesting twist on the social media dashboard. You can connect with other people using roost. Both of you can add “share requests” to your inner circle. If someone in your inner circle has asked for a request you can add that post to your cue. I haven’t had the opportunity to test the inner circle yet. If you join please let me know as I would like to test this option and find out more about it.

After you add all the posts you want to your campaign it’s time to name it. If you are promoting an event, sale, or other specific thing you may want to name it accordingly. If you are just scheduling generic social media updates using the default date range is the quickest and easiest way to go.

roost facebook frameBefore you finalize your campaign there is a “Promotions” option. This helps Roost stand out from similar products because it allows you to sort of brand the links you send out. What it does is create an iframe for the links in your tweets. When someone clicks the link they will see a bar at the top of this screen. From here they can easily like your page or re-share it. This adds a layer of interaction that makes it easy for your community to quickly interact with you.

Scheduling social media updates can free up a lot of time, but be careful. You don’t want people thinking you’re a social media cyborg. Check all of your social media sites a least once a day if not more. Since you’re not focused on creating content you can find new prospects to engage with and reply to any responses to your updates.

I spoke to the product manager for Roost on the phone for a while. He is very vested in the project and has great things planned for it. I have been told the current services will remain free forever. They are planning deeper features to be added in the future as part of premium plans. I’m told these plans will still be very affordable. Some possible updates that were mentioned is keeping track of activity around updates on each social media site. This will make it easy to see what is gaining traction and what is wasting time. There are a lot of other updates but this is the one I think will really make Roost pop.

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Filed Under: Digital Tools, Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

3 QR code uses for everyday life
04/27/2011 By 2 Comments
qr code camera phone

QR codes are the talk of the business community. All you need is a camera phone and a code reader app. It’s  incredibly easy to generate qr codes. With all the excitement it’s easy to get caught up in business uses and ignore the personal implications of QR codes. After you generate your QR codes and apply them to your business try these 3 practical QR code applications.

1. Keep track of valuables

qr code camera phoneHave you ever lost your smart phone, lap top, camera or other digital valuables? This is a great time to use QR codes. A year ago I got out of my car and my iPhone fell to the ground as I walked into a store. I didn’t realize it was missing until it was too late. Fortunately the person that found it actually called to give it back. However, when I got it back the browser had been to many porn and spam sites. All my contacts and emails were also exposed. I turned pass codes on to secure my info but that created another problem: if I lose the phone people can’t find my contacts.

Recently I generated QR codes to retrofit my business cards before gong to SXSW. I had way more stickers than I needed so I was looking for other ways to use them. I looked down at my iPhone and over at my luggage. They are all now adorned with QR codes generated in about 1 minute. There are already libraries using QR codes to keep track of things.

2. Protect your vehicle

Ok, you can’t actually “protect” your vehicle with a QR code, but it can help identify the owner. When someone runs into a parked car they (hopefully) leave a note on the window with their name and information. If you generate a QR code for you car someone can scan it and instantly contact you. This way you can take care of a small accident right then rather than trying to contact someone after the fact. It can also be helpful if someone needs you to move your car and isn’t sure who the owner is. In 2010 the EPA was already talking about adding QR codes to vehicles, albeit for other reasons.

3. Organize storage

My basement is full of boxes. Boxes for Christmas, Halloween, old stuff I haven’t seen in years, and a rather random assortment of things. I can tell you what’s down there but I might not be able to find it very quick. Imagine if each box in your basement has a QR code on it. You scan the code and a list of everything in the box pops up. I wish these codes were around when I was moving but it’s never too late to start.

There are a few QR generator camera phone apps. Download one that allows you to generate a QR code from text. Type in a list of what’s in the box, generate the QR code, and email it to yourself. Then just print it off and stick it to the box. Viola, your cluttered storage area is now slightly more organized.

What else can I do with QR codes in my every day life?

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