Friday, February 10, 2012

Twitter is what Twitter does




Twitter is one of the top three social media channels being used by B2B marketers. The other two are Linkedin, and Facebook. According to BtoB Magazine 67% B2B marketers are using Twitter as one of the most-used form of social media marketing.

When asked to cite about their social media channel, B2B marketers responded that Twitter was only the top channel for 13% where users “pay attention”, despite being used by 67% of the marketers. The marketers in the survey saw Twitter as a way to support website traffic and event promotions.

About 75% of B2B marketers who participated in the survey said they do not measure the 
ROI of their social marketing programs. Why are social media marketers not measuring the effectiveness of Twitter? 

It poses a lot of questions for clients 
and the value they should be receiving from Tweeting. Twitter is a useful means of marketing your companies brand and product.

It is important to establish 
a plan-of-action that measures the effectiveness of Twitter. One source for measuring is a Klout Score. Klout Score measures influence based on data that drives action.

Klout Score consists of: 
True Reach: How many people you influence 
Amplification: How much you influence them  
Network Impact: The influence of your network 


The True Reach measure the response (ReTweets) of people engaging with content. The Amplification measures sharing the message. The Network Impact is measured by key business partners and how they respond to your content. These are strong metric indicators to show the value of Tweeting.

The key to Twitter is creating a strong network of industry buyers who want to be the first to know about your innovative technologies or a new product launch or an upcoming event. Choose your network wisely. If you’re Tweeting for business, be professional. The content you provide says a lot  about who your company is and why Twitters should follow your business.

In Tweeting more is less. An effect brand message tells the message in a simple and direct way. 140 characters is the limit established for a single tweet. Manage followers who are most influential to the success of your business. The best way to use Tweeter is to actively participate in the conversation.

Like anything else, Twitter doesn’t work if you don’t use it to its full capabilities.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Social Media Marketing


Is Responsive Web Design the best solution for Social Media Marketing?


The debate is on. There’s been a lot of hype about Responsive Web Design - RWD. With the emergence of multiple media devices creating techniques of flexible web design that is liquid, elastic and scalable is vital for today’s Social Media Marketing.

There is definitely a need for RWD. Whether it’s the best solution depends on what you are trying to achieve at what cost. Is it worth the time and effort?

With RWD, elastic layouts put a maximum and minimum width to create a dynamic look. Understanding of how all elements interact with each component, content, visual elements including CSS media Queries are important in the creative and marketing strategy.

For instance in sites that reconfigure from Web (1680 x 1050) to a tablet (1024 x768) to a Smartphone (320 x 480), there is a need for responsive web design that sets parameters for designers to follow. It’s important that the designer build items that are sustainable.

RWD relies on CSS media queries for media device compatibility. Unfortunately, most mobile devices aren’t compatible with CSS media queries and some don’t support scripting or plug-ins.

It becomes problematic to create one design that adapts to every emerging media device. There are compatibility issues, image size consideration, and memory limitations, processing time and network adaptation problems.

There are a lot of considerations in this process including more code and continuous updates. Mobile internet-speed is slower than desktop speed.

From a clients’ perspective, it is important to note there is a cost and time issue to resolve compatibility issues. It takes more time to create multiple designs for the content and it requires an App interface to Social Media Sites.

Clients should understand that there’s a greater emphasis on amount of content and the way it’s presented in RWD. What works for desktop web design may not work the same for mobile devices. In the mobile sense, more is less and less is more, more or less.

An argument can be made to eliminate unforeseen problems by designing separately for mobile and desktop. Perhaps this should be a consideration of the RWD.

Yes, there is a need to set known variables to present information in a logical manner that makes sense to the end user. As CSS helps manage document content from presentation and accessibility, the future will provide a new vehicle with rules that manage and regulate how competing manufacturers design their media devices.

Is RWD the best solution for Social Media Marketing? It’s the best way to understand the medium and content in various configurations. Hopefully, it will provide guidelines and help define how people connect with information.

In the end, the value-added of RWD is the end-user experience.