As a pain management specialist, Jordan Sudberg knows the real meaning behind social media. This blog post will share the real behind-the-scenes story of how social media becomes part of the pain management process. How does social media work its magic to help people? And what are the long-term benefits of using social media?

The Real Meaning of Social Media

Social media is a powerful item that can be used to help people. It can help you reach your target market, and it can be used to personalize your message and get. You can target your audience more directly than traditional methods with digital marketing. You can input important information about your audience and use that information to shape your digital marketing campaigns. It makes it easy for you to reach the right people.

How Social Media Works

Social media is a process that helps you connect with people who are interested in your product or service. It can be used to help people learn more about your product or service, connect with you, and write content that can help others around the world hear your voice. It can also share pictures, videos, and other forms of content that can touch people’s hearts.

The Benefits of using Social Media

Social media is a powerful tool when it comes to marketing:

It helps you build relationships with people who are important to you.

It enables you to connect with people interested in your products or services.

It helps you connect with people who are important to you in a way that is different from traditional means of communication. For example, you can communicate with people who are important to them directly through social media.

Social media is a powerful tool for building relationships. It can help you save time and money while also generating leads.

Social media is a powerful tool for building relationships.

It can help you connect with people who are important to them in a different way from traditional ways of communication.

How to Use Social Media Safely

Social media is a powerful tool, but it can be dangerous when used incorrectly. In this blog post, Sudberg will share the real behind-the-scenes story of how social media becomes part of the pain management process. How does social media work its magic to help people? And what are the long-term benefits of using social media?

The Real Value of Social Media Today

Social media is important, but it is not the only value of social media. In this blog post, Sudberg will share the real behind-the-scenes story of how social media becomes part of the pain management process. How does social media work its magic to help people? And what are the long-term benefits of using social media?

As a pain management specialist, Jordan Sudberg knows the real meaning behind social media. This blog post will share the real behind-the-scenes story of how social media becomes part of the pain management process. How does social media work its magic to help people? And what are the long-term benefits of using social media?

Social media is important, but it is not the only value of social media. In this blog post, Sudberg will share the real the- suspicious story of how social media becomes part of the pain management process. How do social, digital marketing work its magic to help people? And what are the long-term benefits of using digital social marketing?

The post The Real Meaning Behind Social Media appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Introduction To Social Media Usage Within The Different Generations

How someone uses social media(like Facebook and Twitter)really depends on their overall preferences. It also depends on what the younger and older generations hope to gain by using platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Yes, Facebook and Twitter are very popular, but there are other platforms to consider too. Other places like Instagram, Youtube, and LinkedIn are also very popular. However, some of those platforms may not be popular for every generation, says Benjamin Harow.

An Example From Marketing

According to some marketing findings, it is usually those who are 55 and younger that tend to use those platforms (like LinkedIn and Instagram) more. That is not to say that those 65 and older do not use those platforms, but the numbers are generally much lower. This generation tends to prefer news content, like MSNBC and other news stations.

Some Of The Findings Through History

1) History shows that more than 80% of every generation do use these platforms at least once a day. Once again, the number of hours will greatly reduce as you get to those 65 and older.

2) Overall, most users prefer seeing images compared to a written text(except for when you are sending a text). It is worth noting that those 65 and older also fall into this category. There are many reasons for this(of course).

3) Everyone from the babyboomers to the GenZers uses Youtube at least once a day, sometimes many times a day (88% and higher). Nowhere on this list did they find that percent of those 65 and older use Youtube(to a great extent). Once again, not to say that those 65 and older do not use Youtube. The numbers are much lower compared to the others.

Media Usage and Why

Indeed, these platforms had once been associated with only the younger crowds, but a lot of this is changing. Every generation uses these platforms, but for different reasons. A brief survey was conducted and this is what the marketers found.

Keep in mind, that every generation uses these platforms for different reasons. However, the list below correlates with some of the basic commonalities that have been found. Most users want to talk to friends and family(new and old). Most users want to find a community with those who are like-minded. Now, most would assume that it’s the younger crowds that do this more often. However, they have found that those 65 and older use these platforms for the same reason. Some have lost some of their friends and family they grew up with. It is only natural to want to have a friend that has something in common. Some look for solutions to problems want some fresh entertainment, and others want to expand their networks for business and personal use.

Once again, it all comes down to preference and the reason behind the use. These platforms are not segregated to the younger kids(like many initially thought). Those 65 and older are using it too, but some are just not using it as often compared to others, according to Benjamin Harow.

The post How The Older and Younger Generations Compare and Contrast Concerning Social Media Use appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

If your business is going to get the most from its social media tools, the most important thing you can do is invest in higher quality data. That, in turn, will help you deliver more meaningful content – creating a communications loop in which everyone wins.

Clean Up The Mess

Poor quality data is the result of several different issues. There’s social media manipulation, as noted above, and there’s also the problem of poorly maintained in-house data systems. In one report, only about half of all businesses said that their CRM/ERP data was clean. This prevents them from fully leveraging that data in their marketing efforts, but it’s also easily remedied when businesses invest in better software or in the manual labor to clean up errors and duplications. So much about these programs is supposedly automated, that they don’t undergo a lot of maintenance, and it’s time to remedy that situation.

Learn New Approaches

Cleaning up existing data goes a long way towards improving a company’s social media performance, but it’s not the only thing that can help. By taking e-learning courses on new social media management approaches, businesses can also pull higher quality data from current social media accounts. Businesses now have access to a wide range of social media-focused courses that can help them learn cutting edge social media strategies, as well as high level data and web analytics in order to understand and communicate the impact of each campaign.

Spotlight On Results

Poor returns on your social media efforts are a clear indicator that something isn’t right with your strategy and that you need to go back to the original data set and see if there’s a problem. Unfortunately, if you’ve never had an effective social media strategy, you may not know just how much better things could be. Some simple ways that you can tell your social media strategy isn’t working is if you’re seeing a reasonable amount of traffic on your accounts but it’s not leading to conversions; you’re simply not drawing in much traffic; or you’re not earning on PPC ads. Any one of these indicates a problem, but they can all also be remedied.

Based on the ways your social media marketing efforts are falling short, you’ll want to take several different steps including and beyond cleaning up your data sets because you need both quantitative and qualitative market research. Combining all of these data points can help your company get a better sense of what content is working, which groups are responding, and where you need to focus your attention. We know that content is king, but that content needs to be rooted in a deep understanding of your audience and of how different social platforms work.

As with any project, the quality of the data and the preparatory work you put in determines the results that come out on the other side, and despite its casual appearance, social media isn’t any different. You can’t construct content on the fly or based on a vague sense of what will draw clicks. Instead, your company needs to study up and get back to the drawing board with plenty of data and lead time to develop hard hitting campaigns.

The post Quality Is Key: How To Improve Your Brand’s Social Media Streams appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Yet despite the opportunity social media provides small businesses, only a small percentage actually realize their full potential on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.

But how do you know if you’re succeeding? A social media assessment is a good place to start.

The Difference Between an Assessment and an Audit

Before we dig into the details of how you can conduct a proper social media assessment, let’s get clear on one thing: We aren’t talking about an audit. (Which is the phraseology most businesses use.)

“It’s important to note that an assessment is not an audit,” mentions PinnacleART, a leader in comprehensive asset reliability and integrity programs.” An audit, in its simplest terms, is a pass or fail result that must be documented and enforced. An audit is built from the outcome of an inspection and demands actions from findings. An assessment refers to an evaluation.”

That’s all you’re trying to do here. You’re trying to assess whether or not your current approach to social media is working. And if it’s not, the assessment gives you an opportunity to make some constructive changes.

5 Tips for a Proper Social Media Assessment

Okay, now that we’ve laid the groundwork and set the expectation, let’s explain how you conduct a social media assessment.

1. Compile Your Info

Start by creating a spreadsheet with a few different columns. In one column, you copy and paste the account URL to your profile. This gives you a dedicated row for each platform (such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc.).

The other columns contain information that you deem to be important – like followers, engagement, demographics, and other important KPIs and metrics.

This spreadsheet provides a basic overview of your channels. It can be updated over time so that you can track your performance with each new assessment.

2. Check the Basics

There are certain basics that need to be analyzed during every social media assessment. You’re checking the following items just to be sure that nothing has slipped through the cracks:

• Profile picture
• Bio information
• Website URL
• Headers
• Etc.

Take a quick look at these elements to make sure there aren’t any spelling errors, missing details, or inaccurate information.

3. Study Your Best Content

Now we get to the heart of a good social media assessment. This is where you study your best content and analyze it to figure out how you can reshape your content strategy to get better results.

Make a spreadsheet and go through the last 20-50 pieces of content you’ve shared. Now track the impressions, clicks, comments, and shares for each. With enough data, you’ll start to see which posts perform well and which don’t. For example, you may discover that short-form video is doing really well but 500-word blog posts aren’t.

4. Study the Competition

It’s also helpful to study your two or three biggest competitors in the space. Run the same exact content analysis for their previous 20-50 posts. Which pieces are working well for them? How can you take these same concepts and create superior content to share with your followers?

5. Grade These Items

Based on what you know about your own social profiles, as well as the leaders in your industry, go through and grade every element of your social strategy. You can use an A-F scale, a 1-10 scale, or whatever else makes you happy. Just make sure you’re analyzing things like:

• Page/profile optimization
• Visual content
• Written copy
• Comments and engagement
• Responsiveness to comments and messages
• Branding consistency
• Use of messenger/chatbots
• Follower growth
• Paid advertising
• Post frequency
• Content mix
• Live video
• Etc.

The more you dig into these elements individually, the better your overall strategy will become.

Take Your Social Media Strategy to the Next Level

Having some social media presence is better than having none. But for many brands, their social media strategy does nothing but zap time and resources. In order to make this a high returning component of your larger marketing strategy, you need to get serious about reaching and engaging the right people. Hopefully a proper assessment puts you on the right path moving forward.

The post How to Conduct a Social Media Assessment appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Provide Consistency

From a branding standpoint, Instagram users love to see consistency. That’s exactly what the Samsung Galaxy Note 11 does on their Instagram account. When you begin your account, decide on a theme that you can stick with. If your account is brand-new, spend a little bit of time putting together a bio that captures the essence of your company. Then, add a handful of photos and videos that accurately reflect your brand.

For your profile image, choose your company’s logo or a professional photo. Incorporate the colours of your brand into your profile so that your followers can easily recognize your posts. Don’t forget to make your account public so that people have an easy time finding and viewing your content.  You can also buy Instagram Impressions to help get you started.

Understand Who Your Audience Is and What Makes Them Tick

Spend time researching your target market, learning as much as you can about their interests. Focusing your account around a specific niche will make this process a lot easier. When you create content that is targeted to a specific audience, it is simpler to get people to engage. When gathering demographic information about your followers, research how old they are, whether they are male or female, where they live, what languages they speak, and when they are most likely to be online. Information like this can help you tailor your content to your specific audience.

Follow A Set Schedule

The more consistent you are with updating your account, the easier it will be for your followers to spot your content. Come up with a schedule for when you want to post new content. Then, stick as closely as you can to that schedule. The only exception is if you don’t have anything good to post. Instead of posting mediocre content, it is best to wait until you have something worthwhile to share. Quality trumps quantity every time on Instagram. If you are consistent with posting, however, you should be able to dramatically grow your following while at the same time increasing engagement.

Get Involved with Your Audience

The whole point of having an Instagram account is to interact with your followers. The more you engage with them, the more likely you are to build trust. By helping people get to know your company, you can increase the likelihood of them doing business with you. If you want to bring more attention to your brand, try holding a contest or giveaway. This gives you a chance to provide your followers with something of value while at the same time connecting with other users. Another way to boost engagement is by asking direct questions when you post new content. Getting feedback from your followers lets them know that you care about what they think.

Put Hashtags to Good Use

When you post something new on Instagram, you can include as many as 30 hashtags. These hashtags provide an essential way to get your content in front of new people. More than that, they also provide an opportunity to boost engagement. If you choose the right hashtags and get people to engage with your content, your posts could get featured on the Explore page, dramatically boosting their visibility. Don’t feel like you must use all 30 tags. It is better to have a few highly targeted tags than it is to throw random tags on your post in the hopes that they will help you get noticed. The most important thing to remember is that your tags should be relevant. Posting irrelevant hashtags on your content can lead to a shadow ban.

Getting more followers on Instagram is relatively easy if you are willing to put in the effort. Posting high-quality content on a consistent basis will naturally result in more engagement. This, in turn, can make it easier for other people to find your content, allowing you to grow your account.

The post How to Dramatically Increase Your Instagram Following appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

So, if you have 1,000 visitors to a web page and 200 of them fill out a form, then 20 of them actually purchase the product in question, you have a 20 percent action rate (200 of the 1,000 filled out the form … they took the action) and a two percent conversion rate (20 of the 1,000 actually “converted” to a customer.)

Search engine optimization and e-commerce experts like this motor vehicle lawyer live in this math. They know how many visitors to a given site or page it takes to produce one action. They then know how many of those actions they need to produce one conversion. They focus their energies then on two areas:

• Drive the requisite numbers to the page to result in the projected conversions for their business’s success
• Optimize the site or page so it takes fewer visitors and/or actions to achieve the same outcome

The more efficient the action and conversion rates on the back side of the site or page, the less work there is on the front side to get people there. So, in essence, this math is a microcosm of an effective business: Reduce costs and maximize revenue.

Your challenge this week is to determine what your action rate and conversion rate for your website, landing page or even social sites are. Then you can start reducing costs and maximizing revenue to optimize what you’re doing.

The post Good Digital Marketing = Good Math appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

That being said, one of the biggest–and most important–social media platforms is Instagram, which has been growing consistently over the years and becoming a brand favorite for advertising and engaging with customers.

But with so much competition, it can be hard to garner the audience you need to succeed on Instagram. Fortunately, some services can help you make your Instagram account more popular as well as boost your engagement statistics. Here are a few of the best Instagram services on the market today:

1. Magic Social

To get followers interested in your Instagram account, you will need to post consistently and create eye-catching content that matches your brand; unfortunately, even doing this doesn’t guarantee that you’ll become popular.

If you want your products to sell, then you’ll need lots of followers–and the faster you can acquire them, the better. That’s why Magic Social is such a great service–because Magic Social helps you acquire and reach Authentic Followers from your target demographic.

2. SocialSteeze

According to Hackernoon’s Best Instagram Tools list, SocialSteeze is a great resource because “not all services that say they’ll help you get followers can get you real ones. That’s what makes SocialSteeze standout. It’s a tool that helps you get real followers for Instagram, making it easy to get more followers, grow your Instagram, and in turn, grow your business.”

3. Hashtagsforlikes

If you have an Instagram account, you’ve probably come across–or are at least aware of–hashtags. Hashtags are integral to getting discovered on Instagram, and using trending and niche hashtags can make a significant impact on your business.

Unfortunately, it can take a long time to do an ample amount of hashtag research–especially when you could be focusing on running your business. And that is why services like Hashtagsforlikes exist; The team of experts at Hashtagsforlikes does the grunt work for you so that you have more time to focus on the day to day operations of the business.

4. Later

One of the biggest challenges in running an Instagram account is that you can’t schedule and automate future posts. Well, that is, until now–with ‘Later,’ you can schedule posts in advance, which makes it easier to manage your social media campaigns. Also, you can use this service from your desktop, which means that if you have large files to upload on your phone or if you prefer working off of a larger screen, then posting on Instagram will be easier for you.

5. The Millennial Marketers

Another great Instagram growth service is The Millennial Marketers. What makes this service stand out is that when you work with The Millennial Marketers, you are working with an actual team of people who interact on your behalf. So if you prefer to do things yourself, but don’t have the time to interact regularly, you can hire someone who’ll do this for you instead of using AI technology, like many services in the space choose to do.

6. Social Media 55

If you’re not sure where to begin with your Instagram account, or if you want it managed in every way–from photo shoots to marketing–then Social Media 55 is a service you might want to look in to. According to Fit Small Business, “Social Media 55 offers ‘à la carte’ packages for Instagram marketing needs. Instagram marketing starts at $199 per month, and Instagram profiles creation starts at $99. It offers photography shoots for $99 per month and graphic design starting at $125 per hour. Its advertising services start at $50 per ad, and its influencer marketing starts at $99 per month.” Even though it may seem like a lot to pay, this is way cheaper than hiring your own social media manager.

7 Jarvee

Jarvee is a service that maximizes the exposure of your posts by enabling post-scheduling. Jarvee is also capable of following users for your account, as well as automating likes and comments on user content. These features up your engagement, helping you gain more followers in a relatively short amount of time.

These are some of the best Instagram services you can use to improve your business’s presence online. Are there any other services that have worked for you in the past? Let us know in the comments below!

The post The Best Instagram Services On The Market Today appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Now, I don’t mean that every post you share should be a quote.

That is a good way to lose your followers’ interest quickly. But adding quotes into your posting schedule can help you boost followers, increase engagement and enhance your social media presence.

What types of quotes should you add?

Start Adding in Your Own Quotes First

If you want to start gaining traction to a blog or guest post, it’s a good idea to insert usable quotes into your posts. These quotes may be inserted during the editing process, and you can even use a plugin to help readers share posts easily on their preferred social media platform.

These quotes may help boost your social media presence, but they’ll also help lead people to your content.

When you have in-depth content that’s worth reading, you’ll find that there are quotes readily available for you to use.

Say you wrote a post on how to unlock your iCloud account. This post may have:

• Statistical quotes that always have a lot of shares
• Success rate figures

Overlook your content, and pick out quotes from your personal experience that may help others.

Add Famous Quotes into the Mix

What I like about quotes is that they’re freely available on many sites. You’ll find a lot of sites that have quote images that you can use, too. Remember, a lot of these quotes can be freely used, and when posted on social media, they’ll be a strong part of your social media strategy.

A few resources for great quotes include:

• Quotery
• Brainy Quote
• Good Reads

If you want to add a little more incentive for people to leave a comment and engage with your post, add in a question in the comments section. “Have you ever felt/experienced this before?” Something that people can respond to and start a conversation about.

Powerful Quotes That Are Easy to Forget About

Powerful quotes can come from a variety of sources, but a lot of people go for the low-hanging fruit, which are the famous quotes. You can find great quotes all around you, but you need to know where the find them.

A few sources of powerful quotes are:

• Statistics
• Personal insights
• Customer testimonials
• Information or quotes from industry leaders
• Blog snippets
• Trends in the industry

Now, let’s assume that you run a fitness social media account. This is a great example because fitness is such a versatile industry. You’ll be able to add in a lot of statistics. Let’s assume a new study was conducted, finding that the average person loses 1% of body fat per month when they do some new, awesome exercise.

“You can add this information into a quote, or you can quote an industry leader that has reached a new world record or milestone,” Luca Torzulli from CouponBuffer says.

Funny quotes, especially from industry leaders, also work very well.

The post Can Quotes Help Boost Social Media Engagement? appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

But keeping your audience engaged can be a challenge. Here are five ways to boost engagement on Instagram.

1. Post Things Your Audience Actually Wants to See

What’s the first rule of marketing? Know your audience. When you know your audience, you know exactly what type of content to post. You know what they like and dislike. You know their habits, and you know their culture.

Having this information means that you can post content that will appeal to their likes, desires and senses.

Let’s say that you run a vape store like VapeActive. You might post photos of young adults using the vaporizers you sell in different settings, like while hiking with friends, playing guitar, or hanging out with the dog. Everything from the models used in the photos to the clothes their wearing and the things going on in the background. should be catered to your target audience.

2. Focus on Your Stories

Instagram Stories has been around for quite a while now, but many brands are still ignoring this feature. Posting to your stories is a great way to boost engagement, and it’s really easy to come up with content.

When people open the Instagram app, the first thing they see is a list of stories right above the first post in their feed. That’s a prime location for your content. And when people click on the first story on their list, Instagram will automatically move on to the next user’s story.

Stories disappear within 24 hours, so followers are more inclined to view them. Your followers also crave authenticity, so giving them a behind-the-scenes look at the office or a peek into your life can boost engagement considerably.

3. Engage with Your Followers

You get what you give. If you’re not engaging with your followers, don’t expect them to engage with you.

Like and comment on follower posts. Don’t forget to reply to comments on your own posts. Taking the time to interact with your followers will show that you’re genuinely interested in them. In turn, your followers will be genuinely interested in your content.

Don’t be too greedy for likes and comments.

4. Find Inspiration

One of the most challenging aspects of running a successful social media account is finding fresh, appealing content to post. It’s important to stay creative and find sources of inspiration for future posts.

Follow other interesting accounts and draw on their posts for inspiration. Look for influencers in your industry or niche, and keep track of their updates. Their posts can give you some hints and ideas for your own posts.

When you find interesting posts, simply tap the bookmark icon to save it to your collections for later use.

5.  Use the Right Hashtags

Hashtags are everything on Instagram, but you also have to be careful of the hashtags you use. Some hashtags have been banned on Instagram, so make sure that you do a quick search before using any hashtags you’re considering.

If you use a banned hashtag, it could cause your photo not to show up on any hashtags you use.

Look at posts from influencers in your industry and use the same hashtags they use.

The post 5 Ways to Boost Engagement on Instagram appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

In measuring social’s impact on consideration and conversion, Google Analytics defaults to last-touch attribution, which provides a very narrow view and gives minimal credit to the channel. However, we can create segments that measure the behavior of social media users and compare them to users who do not touch social in order to gain valuable insight as to how each marketing channel impacts our KPI. You can do this type of control group analysis for any group of users by creating Custom Segments.

Creating Custom Segments

We will initially add two custom segments to your Google Analytics account in order to obtain the data that we will be analyzing in our example. These segments will include a GA Default Social User segment and a NOT: Default Social User segment, which matches how Google Analytics tracks social. Default Social Media Users is a segment created on Google Analytics that captures website visitors that have interacted with your various social media channels. We use this segment to compare behavior to that of non-social media visitors, providing valuable insight. If you are tagging your links, you can leverage that information by adding additional custom segments that align to your tagging structure’s key objectives.

Adding ‘GA Default Social Users’ Segment

Step 1: Start with going to Acquisition – Social – Network Referrals. First, we want to see what your segment is pulling for social reporting. To do this, hover over your social channels and take note of each social source.

Step 2: Now we want to create our custom segment. Click add segment at the top of the page, then new segment, and enter the name as GA Default Social Users.

Step 3: Go to Advanced Conditions. First, change Sessions to Users in the first drop down menu. Note that this is extremely important to remember for each social channel that we add. Then select Source in the dropdown menu (under Acquisition). Select “contains” from the second and type your social source. Click preview and look at the list to see what comes up.

Step 4: Then add OR source “contains” the next source for the same social channel. If a source is on the list, you must add it. Test this and check to see that the numbers match. For example, you might need to add “exactly matches” Twitter so it doesn’t bring in other data (i.e. Twitterific, etc.). Test this and make sure this matches the numbers on our Twitter list.

Step 5: Repeat for each social referral source until the numbers for the All Sessions segment and the GA Default Social Users segments match exactly.

Step 6: Once all your social media referral sources have been added, click Save.

Adding ‘NOT: Default Social Users’ Segment

Step 1: Copy the segment you created above by clicking Add Segment, then finding the segment on the list and clicking actions to the right of the segment. Click copy. Label your segment and then change the ‘Include’ dropdown to ‘Exclude.’

Step 2: Click Save.

Analyzing Consideration

Now let’s talk about running some analysis. A Control Group Analysis is a type of deep-dive analysis where we isolate all customers who have touched our social channels to compare them against customers who have not on our key performance indicators. Comparisons allow us to show where social is best aligned for future investments and strategy development. The steps below outline how to measure how social is impacting consideration.

Step 1: Select the segments above that you want to view and compare. Click ‘Add Segment’ at the top of the page. In this example, we will select the GA Default Social Users segment and the NOT GA Default Social Users segment. Then, click Apply.

Step 2: Review all metrics that indicate Consideration including Pageviews, Sessions, and Users. Look for any noticeable differences, correlations, and discrepancies between the segments. For example, if there was a sharp increase in April among social media users and no increase for non-social media users, then we could make the conclusion that something on social media caused that increase as opposed to an outside confounding variable. Do this for all of your KPI.

Step 3: Check whether or not there were any sharp increases/decreases (outliers) in any of the categories that you noted in Step 2 that may have skewed the averages, making your findings less significant. If you see an outlier, compare that to the monthly average.

Step 4: After you review your KPI for major insights that stick out, look deeper into consideration. Look for trends and major increases/decreases. Check the months of your social campaigns to see if there was any impact in consideration. I recommend running a month-to-month analysis on a separate spreadsheet, tracking your KPI’s velocity and acceleration.

The formula for velocity is V= (M₀-M₁)/M₁ and measures the percent change from one month to the next. Acceleration, or deceleration, is the rate of change from one month to the next and is measured by the formula, A = (V_o-V₁)/abs(V₁).

Step 5: Review changes in site engagement by looking at average session duration, average page views per users, average sessions per user, % new sessions, and the bounce rate. Was there specific content that may have caused users to be more engaged on the site? How does that compare to those non-social media users who came through another marketing channel and likely are not viewing the same content? If you want to take a deeper look, check to see if there are any major differences in content being viewed by each segment.

Step 6: Adjust your digital strategy as necessary to optimize consideration.

Analyzing Conversions

In order to determine the effectiveness of your digital presence or advertising campaign, a strong understanding of goal conversions in Google Analytics is crucial. The primary objective in digital marketing is to lead users toward your conversion points.

Step 1: Ensure proper set up of Goals in Google Analytics. The way in which you set up and track your goal conversions and events is critical in providing your company with the most valuable data. Track and analyze your company’s performance using measures that are tailored to your primary goals and objectives. We should only define goal conversions when there is a clear customer behavior that reflects interest in your services or supports your site’s objectives. If goals are not already set-up, follow this link for Instructions on how to set up goals in Google Analytics: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1032415?hl=en

Step 2: Go to Conversions – then Goals.

Step 3: Compare the conversion rates, locations, and paths of your segments. What was the impact of advertising campaigns that you ran in driving conversions? Specifically, are there any differences between the segments in the types of conversions that are happening? This could give you more insight into your audiences. Consider the calls to action for campaigns and whether you saw any significant changes due to your strategy.

Step 4: Adjust your digital strategy as necessary to optimize conversions.

The post Google Analytics: How to Use Custom Segments to Up-Level Your Reporting appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Reality Check

The reality is that sales are not the ONLY goal marketers are held accountable for. Marketers are also responsible for driving brand awareness, engagement, and growing the prospect pipeline. These goals are traditionally classified as “top of the funnel” actions.

Unfortunately, “Top -Of -Funnel” does not get a ton of budget love and, therefore, the unique value that each channel represents in the sales cycle is often passed over in favor of the sales sweet spot.

Let’s Do Some Mixing

Have you tried mixing it up with your budget allocation by channel? By now, most marketers understand that each channel offers it’s own unique value in the sales cycle. Some channels are great at generating awareness, but not so great at converting that awareness to a sale. Other channels prime the customer experience in such a way that these customers retain better than others. And of course, the channels that convert into sales are well known and leveraged.

What if instead of loading up the highest converting channels with 100% of the budget, you moved a small portion into a channel that delivers on awareness, and another modest portion over to a higher retention channel.

Pipedream right? I mean if you can’t produce that goal cost per acquisition (CPA), it’s not going to be approved.

What if you were then able to demonstrate that the prospect pipeline grew 40%, with a modest 3% increase in budget? What if 28% of your clients retain at a higher rate? How much would both of those results add to the bottom line?

What Could Be the Impact?

How would these results impact the average revenue per customer? What if you were able to demonstrate a value that extended beyond the front-end CPA? In the end, the CPA is the ultimate metric for determining the value of a campaign, but it is worth understanding the full scope of each channel’s value.

The marketing channel mix offers the opportunity to explore the potential value offered by different marketing channels.

The secret to mixing it up with success is to have a specific goal to measure the effectiveness of your intent in each channel. Understand what you are targeting with each channel in your mix and ensure that CPA is the secondary goal of measurement.

Just like a ton of clicks does not always translate to conversion, a super efficient CPA does not always make the most efficient Cost Per Client/Customer.

The key is to test if increasing retention rates, or increasing prospects in the top of the funnel (or whatever you have elected to test), offers a more comprehensive value proposition. In other words, will a minimal increase in these actions result in more efficient average revenue per customer?

Mix it up and let me know!

The post It’s All In The Mix appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

The Model

In Part 1, we focused on creating a multiple regression model in order to better understand what factors are the best predictors of social ROI. We used five key variables involved in the customer journey, including 1) awareness 2) engagement 3) consideration 4) conversion and 5) customer retention. We analyzed how these variables play a significant role in driving ROI, and further, how this data can be useful in your testing. A solid understanding of this model is an essential component of diving deeper into your analytics and providing a more efficient allocation of your resources. In doing so, you can more accurately evaluate the impact that social is making on ROI and compare it across different spectrums. By allocating more resources to what is working and less to what is not working, you can achieve better and faster results.

We will now take a closer look at how you can transfer your understanding of the model in order to gain the best possible insights available. That being said, if you would like a comprehensive understanding of this approach, please read the first part of this blog series.

Bias

The goal in marketing is to achieve the greatest possible results with the least amount of effort, achieving maximum efficiency. Therefore, we want to reduce bias as much as possible without sacrificing efficiency. Omitted variable bias presents itself in some form in almost all models. In order to reduce potential bias, we must isolate certain variables or run tests on uniform samples. However, it is nearly impossible to perform a perfectly unbiased test without incredible effort and wasted resources.

Let’s say you want to achieve maximum precision with minimum effort in order to establish a deeper understanding of your campaign data; you’re looking to find the most probable and insightful explanations. Control group testing is the best method to achieving that goal.

In control group testing, we can control for unobservable differences between the samples that could influence ROI by approaching it with a difference-in-difference strategy (fixed effects). By comparing the change in certain behavioral variables of social media users to non-social media users, we can control for unobservable differences, and thus, reduce potential bias.

Control Group Testing

Let’s now approach this from a combined economic and marketing perspective – balancing precision with efficiency. In order to understand what variables are triggering events, you must isolate these variables with control testing. First, ask yourself what it is that you want to know. What is the problem you are trying to solve with data? In our case, let’s look at understanding the role that social media plays on driving ROI. We can run this test on Google Analytics by using Advanced Segments. In order to utilize control group testing, start by creating Advanced Segments to capture all of your website users who have interacted with your social media channels to see how they are behaving in comparison to those who have not. Additionally, you can create additional segments to compare each channel individually in terms of user behavior. To further investigate, we could also obtain data and compare the effects across different social channels.

User Analysis

The manner in which you analyze your data is very important. The most effective way to approach this is to use your data to answer questions. Are users who are coming from social media engaging on the website at a higher rate than users who don’t visit your social channels (i.e., spending more time, viewing more pages and coming back more often)? Are users who engage with your social media driving more conversions than others? Specifically, which conversion points are social users reacting more favorably to? What are the patterns and trends? How does this correlate with your posting structure? Structuring useful conversion points provides a strong source of data and allows for ROI measurement. Look at whether users coming from social media are converting at a higher rate than those not coming from social media.

Campaign Analysis

Look at the effects of a marketing campaign on both your social audience and non-social audience. Are users on social media reacting more favorably and driving more conversions that those who do not interact with your social media channels, indicating a higher quality audience and higher potential for ROI? In order to compare the effects between both samples, obtain both pre- and post-campaign data for your social user segment and non-social user segment. Measure the difference between pre- and post-campaign conversion rates for both samples. Finally, compare the difference between social users and non-social users to see which audience deserves more advertising spend. You can perform this analysis between many other different audiences, channels, and campaigns.

Link Tagging

You can further analyze users and campaigns with link tagging. However, you must have a defined and consistent tagging structure in place. You can use Google URL Builder as a link tracking tool to see what type of users, content, and distribution channels are driving the most conversions. Link tagging makes it possible to test and measure the effect of different variables on social media ROI.

Conclusion

In sum, it is important to look at an economic view of your campaign results, all while ensuring efficiency by avoiding time-killing tactics. Ultimately, the primary goal of digital analytics is to achieve the greatest possible results with the least amount of effort by putting more energy into what is working and less into what is not working. It cannot be stressed enough: work smarter, not harder!

The post Testing, Testing: The Economics of Social Conversions, Part 2 appeared first on Social Media Explorer.