Using social media for marketing and monetisation
19 May 2009
A Twitter case study from Econsultancy
Ashley Friedlein, CEO, Econsultancy
Our ambition was to become world class twits
Key questions
*How* exactly should we be using Twitter? Could Twitter drive significant traffic for us? How would we measure its value (quantitative and qualitative)? – Is the effort commercially viable?
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What we’ve been doing
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What did we do to start with?
We set up both personal and Econsultancy Twitter accounts (@econsultancy)
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A few tips on getting followers…
We actively encouraged users to follow us through signatures, site footers, email footers, business cards (treat like a URL) We actively tracked and responded to people who talked about us – we follow them, they follow us Personal and company Twitter accounts Tweet this working very well to get new followers Ten Tips for Twitter Kawasaki opens his bag of Twitter tricks
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What did we do next?
We created a Live Twitter feed showing in real time on our home page what people are saying about Econsultancy (unmoderated!)
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And then…?
We created a Tweet this button allowing our readers to help market our blog articles
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And then…?
We created a ‘Twitter Buzz’ feed for each post
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How we measure the value
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Google Analytics
Shortened URLs (like Bit.ly, tinyurl etc.) are currently excluded from stats
2 easy ways to track social networks in Google Analytics
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Twitter Buzz
Quality vs. Quantity…? Followers vs. retweets?
10 ways to measure social media success
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Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
The big prize…
Monetising Social Media Case Study – on Slideshare
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The results?
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Scores on the doors
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Social Media vs. SEO - traffic
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Social Media vs. SEO - commerce
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Average value/visit by digital marketing channel
Email SEO Affiliate Links
Social Media Paid Search
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The $64,000 question?
How far can social media drive SEO?
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And plenty of useful conversations – 13 types of tweets
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1. The customer service tweet
When emails and telephones fail you, there’s always the option of hurling something at us in Twitter… @PBizzle: @Econsultancy - rang a few hours ago to find out why i'm locked out of your site, someone gonna call me back at some point? His next tweet was much better... @PBizzle: @econsultancy - that was quick, thanks for calling! :)
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2. The product development tweet
The Beastie Boys once asked ‘So What’cha Want?’ and you can now tell them via Twitter. @Rehan: @Econsultancy Could you make it easier to view larger versions of the charts at http://bit.ly/BiEbS (expand) (e.g. http://tinyurl.com/dzaw2y (expand))? Thanks @daxhamman: @econsultancy Client is looking for an RFP template to select a 3rd party ad-server - can you help?
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3. The usability tweet
Since we relaunched our website in December we’ve had more than our fair share of tweets pointing out issues and bugs. @rob_knight: @Econsultancy any idea why I'm getting a 'change rejected' error when i try to comment on that blog post? @steveblamey: @Econsultancy On the logo trick, I liked that too, but its a pain when reading posts on my mobile. Takes up half the screen.
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4. The business development tweet
The entry-level price for an Econsultancy subscription has always been maintained at a very low price point, but at £195 it’s not low enough for everybody. @divamarketing: @Econsultancy Have you ever considered offering a student rate for membership? Would love to join but fee out of my price range.
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5. The referral tweet
Retweets rock, but there are more direct forms of referral too. Everybody loves a discount, and we definitely love to see recommendations like these two… @baggsy: RT: @econsultancy £100 discount for Twitter followers onEconsultancy's Mobile Marketing training course: http://bit.ly/l @trainingpress: Grants for Econsultancy's digital marketing courses now available to business http://tinyurl.com/aj5k3j
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6. The media opportunity tweet
It’s fantastic to be asked by the media to contribute an opinion for an article. Twitter is another way of contacting people for comment, as the tweet-savvy chaps at Marketing did earlier in the week: @marketinguk: @Econsultancy We met with blogger who said PRs would die out as they couldn't make brand messages work in blogosphere. Your view?
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7. The ‘fix your s**t up’ tweet
Perhaps Twitter is one more reason why sub editors should be worrying about their futures… @henweb: @Econsultancy Disappointing use of spell check there... teh? ration? Tut tut! : )
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8. The “are you quite sure about that” tweet
It is good practice for journalists to avoid pinning their flags onto masts, especially when those masts are built out of data, and even more so when sample sizes and datasets are not known. Here’s an example, following an article we wrote earlier that we failed to sufficiently distance ourselves from: @pgolding: @Econsultancy this story keeps circulating but stats can't be correct - e.g. opera not even on the list and how can android be 6% already?
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9. The crowdsourced content tweet
We published an article that listed a bunch of charities on Twitter. As with many lists, you tend to miss a few obvious candidates @JoBrodie: @Econsultancy @AsthmaUK is another UK #charity on Twitter, please would you add to your list? http://tinyurl.com/azk22w (expand) Thank you :)
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10. The event feedback tweet
We run a lot of events and are seeing an increasing number of before and after tweets, allowing us to monitor both anticipation and feedback. Many people say good things… @jk_totalmanager: eConsultancy Digital Cream today very well attended event, lots of interesting people and useful ideas to share and learn - worthwhile day Then again you can’t please everybody all the time! @tomnixon: "Looking forward to the 13:00 - 14:00 session at this conference (AKA lunch)"
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11. The you suck tweet
Sometimes amusing, other times more serious, and always worth reading. More often than not they are helpful. @steve_e: Oh Econsultancy. Rubbish site down message, make it friendly!! 'The system is down for maintenance as of 15:29 GMT. It'll be back shortly.'
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12. The ego massage tweet
Other tweets are simply there to rub our backs when we need it most. suzanne_tennant: In the middle of a brilliant presentation from @econsultancy... learning so much about ways to use Twitter! :-) 6 days ago from
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13. The I want to steal your content tweet
Ah yes, blessed non-members that email our reports around tend not to go public with it. Others, however, are a bit more brazen about asking for this sort of thing... @Clare: RT Does anyone have a copy of the econsultancy Internet Statistics Compendium please :) ? I won't tell anyone who 'leant' it to me !
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Thanks for your time
Econsultancy is a global independent community-based publisher, focused on best practice digital marketing and ecommerce. Our hub has 80,000+ members worldwide from clients, agencies and suppliers. We help our members build their internal capabilities via a combination of research reports and how-to guides, training and development, face-to-face conferences, forums and professional networking. Our resources have helped members learn, make better decisions, build business cases, find the best suppliers, accelerate their careers and lead the way in best practice and innovation. Join Econsultancy today at http://econsultancy.com
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