a guide to social media

guided toursSTEVE GOLDNERA Guide to Social MediaW h a t Tools Are WorthPaying For?So, you wantto get social?You realizeyourbusi-ness cannot live without it. Kudos to you for hav-ing a strategyand a planand for not justputtingupFacebookand Twitterpages.But now yourealizehowtime-consumingit will be to driverealmeasurablesuccess. So let me tell you how we determinedthe righttools to help us drive our social mediapractice.First,thinkaboutyourcoreoperations.We deter-mined that we had three prime objectives:disseminatingcontent(bothownedand curatedmedia),identifyinginfluencers(to yieldearnedmedia), and capturing per-formancemetrics.CONTENTDISSEMINATIONIt makessense to startwith a communicationsstrate-gy and to addresscontenttools. Contentis core to yoursocialendeavors.It is the vehicleto get yourstory outand to engagewith yourtargetaudience.Consider hav-inga blogaplaceto seedyourownedmediaso thatyoucan use othersocialchannelstodirectpeopletoyourstory. I use WordPress. It is intuitive, and it startsoutat no cost.I recommendthiscontentmanagementsystemfor its simplicityand versatility.Anothergoodbloggingplatformis Blogger.Blogs aren'tthe onlyplatformsfordisseminatingcontent.Blogsaren'ttheonlyplatformsfordisseminatingcontent.Facebook,Instagram,YouTube,SlideShare,Pinterest,and Twitterare all leading platformsfor con-tentsharing.Withall thesefreeoptions,it's not likelyyou'llchooseto pay for anotheroptionthough ONE-site. Jive, andLithiumallow you to own allfunctional-ity anddata,unlikeFacebookand Google-n.6EC0NTENTMAG.COMguided toursSocialMediaMonitoringandMetricsAppinionsBrandwatchCompetecomScoreeCairn,Inc.InsideViewKloutKredMeltwaterPeerlndexQuantcastRadian6SocialRadarSysomosWildfireContentDisseminationAwarenessBuddyMediaDisqusFacebookHootSuiteHubSpotInstagramJiveLinkedlnLithiumMeetupNorthSocialONEsiteShoutletTel I gentTwitterTwitpicYouTubeOther Social ToolsBitlyEnterprisePromotedPostsGigyaStumbleUponUstreamAndonceyouhaveyourcontentplatformsdetermined,I suggestyouuse asocial media publishing tool. Examples are Awareness, Shoutlet, and HootSuite,justtonameafew.Thesepublishingtoolsallowyoutoschedulepostsacrossmanysocialchannels, manageresponses,andviewmetricsonimpressionsandreach.Theyareextremelyhelpful;notonlydotheymanagetheworkflowofpostingandresponding,buttheyalsofine-tuneyourcommunicationstoopti-mize sharing andengagement.SOCIALMEDIAMONITORINGNext, you will needa social mediamonitoringtool. There is no perfectmoni-toring tool, but I highly recommend you use one. When deciding which one is bestforyou, it is importantto understand how each tool collects data.Doesitcollecteverythingoutthereorjustarepresentativesample?Also,determinehow youaregoing to use thedata. Areyoumerelyrecordingmeasurableresultstoassessyoursuccess and judge your social implementations over time,or are you looking to monitorconversationsto drive ac-tionableinteraction?Success in social media means optimizing the sharing ofyour brand. So when you think about getting your brandandcontentshared, where do you get the biggest bang? This is an old marketingquestion;it'sone thatcaused powerfulPR agencies to emergea while back. Butin the digital world, things are a bit different.A noncelebrity, nonpower journalistcanactuallyhavemuchinfluence.You needa tooltoidentifypowerusers. Themost popularone is Klout. But I think these are not as great as their hype. Here'swhy. Take a most influentialsocial media personalityRobertScoble. His KloutandKredscoresare89and972, respectively.Allareextremelyhighrelativetothescaleforeach platform.Butwhatifyouarea brandin thefashion,healthyeating, or consumer packaged goods categories? Scoble has little influence in theseverticals. In order to address influencethat looks at influenceas a topical query, Isuggest looking into Appinions and Kred.SOCIALMEDIAMETRICSThereis oneotherbitofinformationthatI oftenneedtoknow: What is the number of unique visitors to a specific site?BothQuantcastandCompetegive youa good bitof freein-formationinthisregard.Granted,itisnotasaccurateanddetailedas comScore, but it is free.And last, but not least, is the tool I need but do not have: anopen social media dashboard. It will come, butit is notavailable yet. It is impor-tanttobeabletotellexecutiveshowthingsareperforminginonereport,onescreen shot. Today, we do this by gluing together data from a number of sourcesmany ofthem were mentionedearlier. This requiresa decentamountofmanualeffort.As social media matures, I expect to see a platformthat can take disparatedata, correlate it, and produce one meaningfulreport. 63SEPTEMBER2013ECONTENT7