http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jure-klepic/the-elegance-of-tellagenc_b_2189152.html

This article discusses a new product that was rolled out to Twitter this fall. It discusses how just because you are 'liked' on Facebook or 'retweeted' on Twitter, this just means the person is in agreement or has interest and not necessarily that the person is going to take any action. The Tellagence product can analyze conversation relationships in social media. Meaning that they can look at the businesses goals and where they are looking to target. It evaluates where the business already is reaching and analyze where to go from there based on what others are talking about and who they are talking with. It boils down to marketing to the right people who will take action instead of just 'everybody'.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2223884/How-to-Measure-the-Social-Success-of-Content-Marketing

This article discusses measuring the content of Facebook and Twitter. It covers onsite and offsite metrics. Onsite metrics would be things that are happening on your own site. Offsite metrics would be items related to your site that are not necessarily happening on your site. These can be measured by looking at engagement (communications, endorsements, distributions) and by exposure (reach # at a post level). This article also states that Facebook is much easier to measure than Twitter. Twitter is a much more manual process and it is very difficult to drill down to exactly how many people you may actually be reaching.

http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3428-social-media-marketing-tool.html

This article discusses a product offered by a company called SumAll. SumAll's product lumps all key data sets together to form a unified view that eliminates data silos. This product is still in beta stages as the article states. Its basic service is free and can track most social media channels activities. They recently added Instagram to their services. They are able to track which pictures performed well and increased revenue.

Different metrics need to be measured to monitor the success of your social media. Event tracking tracks the behavior of website visitors by tracking the actions that they take. Identify which social actions generate the most traffic. There are programs available to see what posts generated the most quality clicks. Track the path of visitors on the site. This will prove the most valuable content and will aid in the decision when the time comes to update the site. There is social reporting available that lets you know what the visitors are sharing and where they are sharing it. Use of content analytics is important. This can show what the sites top content is, how often people visit and how long they stay. Real time alerts are available which helps to keep up with what is happening on the sites as well as bring awareness to any traffic spikes. Real time reporting is also available which reports activity as it is happening. There are many vendors that provide metric tools to measure a businesses social media marketing. Some come at a cost while others are free.  

As of 11/23/12, Target has 20,934,476 likes. They make at least one post per day, in which there were several a day the closer we got to Black Friday. The Facebook page has a Black Friday section where fans can go in and guess what products will be on sale on black Friday. Keeping them engaged and having fun! Another way the Facebook page is keeping the fans engaged is their 'Give with Target' section which encourages their fans to vote for schools. In turn, depending on the amount of votes, Target will provide the schools with gift cards. There are several sweepstakes where fans can win Target gift cards, which keeps things fun and rewarding if they win! The Wedding section advertises Target's wedding registry and has a URL to their wedding catalog. Overall, Facebook page is informational and fun, which will keep the fans coming back.

Target has 484,904 Twitter followers. They tweet a few times a day. They include items such as sales information, product information, reminders (for instance that they were open on Thanksgiving) and notifications (for example about their new Android app). They also tweet fun stuff for their followers such as sweepstakes information (which draws them over to their Facebook site) and trivia. I have also seen notes of thanks and congratulations. They cover the bases of providing information, engaging the customer and making it personal.

Although Pinterest is a newer form of social media, I think Target has a good grasp on it. They currently have 17,527 followers. They keep their boards up to date, for example, they are ready for the holidays with several boards pertaining to Christmas and many items are 'pinned' daily across the boards.  They include informational and 'how to' content for their followers.

Target has 10,357 followers on You Tube. The content located out there is mostly commercials with some informational videos. I think this is their least beneficial form of social media. They could potentially add different informational videos by department promoting the different products sold in that department to make it a more useful form of social media.

I have to admit, I have this app on my iPad and do think it is very beneficial. This app will send text alerts that include deals and coupons that are sent directly to your smart device. Within the app you can find your local store, check the availability of products, refill a prescription. You can also look at the weeky ad. It includes a  bar scanner for pricing. You will also find daily deals here. This is a fantastic way of keeping their customers connected and making things very convenient for them which will draw them into your store.

I think Target's goals are:

• Keep customers updated on special deals -- Communicate with them
• Keep customers engaged and coming back to their sites
• Keep customers connected to them
• Make it easy for customers - example: refill prescription via mobile app, get daily deals, check item availability
• Advertise their products

I think Target's Customer's goals are:

• Stay informed:
• sales
• new items
• Win prizes & have fun
• play the sweepstakes games for free gift cards
• answer the trivia questions

I definitely feel that Target does a wonderful job addressing the customers goals in their social media marketing. They have very active Facebook and Twitter accounts. They do a great job in keeping their customers informed of any upcoming specials and sales with frequent posts. You are able to reach all of their social media channels from their main website as well as from each of the different channels. They make it very easy on their customers to be able to obtain product information, store location information, the latest weekly ad when they are on the go via their mobile app keeping the customer connected even while they are away from their computer. A very cool thing that I observed on Twitter on Black Friday was Target responding to their customers tweets. I thought that was very 'personal'. Which is definitely a thumbs up for how they handle their social media. They also are keeping their customers engaged and coming back with the sweepstakes that they have on Facebook and the other little fun things like trivia on Twitter.  Lastly, I especially enjoyed Target's Pinterest boards. They not only had a lot of product out there, but there was also a good amount of informational and 'how to' items pinned. So with this falls into the category of them not just pushing their products, but providing other helpful, meaningful content as well.  Overall, Target is doing it right!

Subway's Facebook page has 18,180,621 likes as of today. Wow, that is impressive! SocialBakers list subway the #27 overall brand on Facebook according to kizata.com. Postings include advertising their specials, to fund raisers for certain causes, fun surveys and contests. Customer's can check out Freshbuzz which directs their customer to specials in their area and links to their other forms of social media. Customers can also read their news feed, check out events in the events section, watch videos, use The Flavorizor (to build their sandwich) and take polls from Facebook page. They do a great job of making the Facebook page attractive and keeping it current.

There are currently 818,428 Subway followers on Twitter. Tweets include responses to customer's questions, promotions of Subway products, customer service responses, congratulatory messages and contest announcements. Subway has a very active Twitter account with several tweets per day. I follow Subway on Twitter and feel that they do a good job at keeping the customer informed on specials and products. I have also seen Happy Birthday messages and congratulatory messages, which adds that extra personal touch that is all so important in any marketing venture.

As of today, there are 1,112 Subway You Tube subscribers with 13,786,859 views. The You Tube following seems to be the least active of the three types of social media marketing avenues that they utilize. From You Tube the customer can view the latest commercials and videos sponsored by Subway. The latest craze seems to be their commercials with "Todd" ~ yes, you have seen him, the adult with a child's voice. To improve the content posted to this site, if they added informational videos about nutrition and exercising they might be able to pick up another crowd of visitors since a big part of Subway is about eating right.  

From my perspective, I believe Subway's goals for social media marketing are:

• Advertising their products
• Communication with their customers
• Keeping their customers informed
• Engaging customers

I think Subway's customers goals are to gain information on Subway's menu items, obtain information on Subway's specials and to place orders online so that they are ready for pickup when they arrive at the location.

I truly believe that Subway does a fantastic job addressing the customers goals in their social media marketing. They have a very active Facebook page and Twitter account. They do a great job in keeping their customers informed of any upcoming specials with frequent posts as well as very inviting photos of what they are advertising. There is an area on their Facebook site that takes you to the Freshbuzz, which is an area where you enter your zip code and any local specials appear. Freshbuzz also includes links to Subway's You Tube site, an area to follow them on Twitter, another section where you can enter your email information so that you can receive emails with special offers. Twitter also addresses their customer's goals, they do tweet about their specials and their menu items which keeps the customer informed. From the Facebook main page, there is a link to Subway's website where all kinds of nutritional information is housed. The customer can locate nutrition information on all of their menu items as well as use the meal builder to construct their meal. From there the customer can also place their orders. The commercials on the You Tube site keep the customer informed as well.

This week's assignment was primarily focused around Twitter. You can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/themillers15. However, I will admit, I am not a social media fan, so there probably won't be many Tweets from me!

Rank 3 Organizations using Twitter:

Three organizations that I followed for this assignment were Kohl's, Bath and Body Works and Starbucks. It's very difficult to determine who was at the top of my list between Kohl's and Bath and Body Works. They both do an outstanding job. Both of these companies Tweet regularly (several times a day). They are exceptional at advertising their sales and any promotions that are going on at the moment.  They definately don't let you forget that they exist. I guess if I had to pick one to be on top it would be Bath and Body Works. The only reason being that they add very 'pretty' pictures to their tweets where as Kohl's is more generic looking. Not nearly as attractive. As far as Starbuck's goes, they were definately in last place. I think I saw one tweet from them all week. Which really surprised me. I don't think that they were effective at all.

Guidelines for effective use of Twitter:

I think some good guidlines for effectively using Twitter would be: keep them simple and clear, tweet often, consider what you are posting prior to posting it, try to post some fun things that are not just marketing related and lastly interact with your followers!

Is Twitter for your organization?

In thinking about this, it is very difficult to come up with an organization that could not benefit from use of Twitter. The only thing I can come up with is a business where their clientele is of the older generation. I say this because a very low percent of older folks are not what is referred to as being 'connected'. The key to using any form of social media really is the connectivity factor. So I think what it boils down to is if you are in business, have a product to sell and your clients are 'connected' a business would be well suited for Twitter.
 
Other Social Network Platforms:

Yelp
According to Yelp's website: Yelp is an online urban city guide that helps people find cool places to eat, shop, drink, relax and play, based on the informed opinions of a vibrant and active community of locals in the know. Yelp is the fun and easy way to find, review and talk about what's great — and not so great — in your world. From a consumer perspective, this is a wonderful site. Being able to get reviews easily is excellant! I think Yelp has the potential to benefit or hurt a business depending on how well you do your 'thing' as a business. I think it can help a business greatly if they get really good reviews by consumers.

Pinterest
According to Wikipedia: Pinterest is a pinboard-style social photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, hobbies, and more. I think this could be very helpful from a marketing perspective because the consumer can see what other people have pinned, get ideas and go out and buy the products. I think the photo aspect of this concept is great. From a user perspective I think this is a great site to inspire people.

Foursquare
This is an app that is loaded to a smart device and uses the GPS functionality for your location. According to Foursquare themselves their users use Foursquare to share and save the places that they visit. When the user is trying to figure out what to do next, Foursquare gives you personalized recommendations and deals based on where the user, their friends, and people with similar tastes have been. Very beneficial to both consumer and the marketer. From a marketing perspective this app will draw business right to your door. From a consumer perspective, you can get deals from just 'checking in' to a location.