Social Media analytics | RAISE YOUR SHARE

92% of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as word-of-mouth or recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising—an increase of 18 percent since 2007, according to a study from Nielsen, a leading global provider of information and insights into what consumers watch and buy. *

Many marketers have put considerable effort into enticing fans to join their communities on Facebook, google+, Twitter and Pinterest. And why do fans accept the invitation? They are extending their approval and loyalty, but they are also expecting exclusive offers, invitations or opportunities to participate in promotions. What have you done lately to retain those fans, show appreciation and inspire word of mouth recommendations from your fans and followers?

CoupSmart, (full disclosure: Raise Your Share provides sales & marketing for the company) is all about the science of social couponing. According to CoupSmart, 58% of consumers cite coupons as the top reason to follow a brand on Twitter and Facebook. That means your posts, your pics, and your poems– they’re all fine and dandy, but (per usual) it’s money that really talks. Realize that there’s been a one-third increase in coupon usage since 2007. That’s huge.

So what’s the big deal? Why social coupons?

More consumers now than ever are pre-shopping. That is, they’re making decisions before they even leave the comfort of their home or office. In today’s faced-paced world, people know what they want, where to go, and how much they’re going to spend before they shop, and that’s all heavily dependent on where the deals are. According to CoupSmart’s research, the percentage of consumers searching online for coupons before making a decision on what to buy and where to shop doubled in 2011 to– wait for it– 64%.

CoupSmart offers a simple and straightforward concept

(1) Offer an exclusive deal, (2) make it worthwhile for the consumer and (3) make it available only for a limited time. It sounds simple, and it is. CoupSmart’s tech makes it so. Like all things social, the key is to let your strategy work for you. Services like CoupSmart are delivered to your fans on Facebook. Automated analytics work with you to track who responds, how often, and which offers they redeem, providing a sense of accountability for where, exactly, marketing dollars are going. The key is turning the passive observer into an active user – a fan into a customer. Offering an exclusive offer to your fans, which, in turn, allows them to make a word of mouth recommendation by sharing the offer, satisfies your fan’s expectations and gives them a way of including their friends too! Everybody wins.

Contact Raise Your Share for more information about what CoupSmart can do for you. Want to learn more about couponing with social media? Follow CoupSmart’s blog now.

* Nielsen Global Trust in Advertising and Brand Messages report, 2011

Nowadays, just having a Facebook or Twitter page isn’t enough. If your business is “about” social, it’s about upkeep, attention, infiltration, and relevance. Guessing, experimenting, and straight-up repetition is the shots-in-the-dark methodology for too many social media campaigns. Interacting with customers and growing your fan base is a full-time job … and a science. Reaching people comes down to measuring and interpreting.

According to Boot Camp Digital, 72% of businesses don’t know how to measure their ROI. There’s no point in allocating marketing dollars to social media when you don’t have a clue if it’s working or not. The key to calculating ROI is measuring your activity, and the activity of those who visit your site(s). Thankfully, there are platforms out there to keep up with the progress of your pages. The question is, which one is right for you?

Truth is – most are awesome. Think of SM analytics as a cocktail – a balanced blend of flavors, spirits, and garnishes. When considering which platforms to utilize, think in terms of threes.

Basic 3-ingredient recipe ~

1) Plain and Simple Flavors: Google Analytics

It’s free! Google’s platform is the industry standard, not only because we google, but because we also love not paying for tools. Analytics measures everything from sales for e-commerce businesses to content and social feed analytics. What’s popular? What’s performing? What’s not? How do visitors interact with the features on your site? This is analytics 101.

2) Birds-eye Spirits: TweetStats

Monitoring your tweets is underrated. Twitter is relatively simple to keep an eye on using a separate platform to keep things clean and clear. TweetStats is a free platform that allows you to monitor and measure tweet density and tweets per day/week/month. It also allows you to examine those numbers in relation to your competition. How do you compare with similar businesses in your field?

3) The Wildcard Garnish: CrazyEgg

It’s not free (ranging from $10-100/month) but may be worth the extra change. The best feature CrazyEgg offers is “heat maps.” Aside from standard bookkeeping features available with free platforms like Google Analytics and Flurry, CrazyEgg shows you what pages people are viewing, which parts of those pages their focusing on, how much (and to where) surfers are scrolling, and where they’re clicking. This platform doesn’t just function as a tool for knowing what your fans are interested in, it also serves as a great way to reexamine your design. Are people focusing on the parts of your pages you want them to pay attention to? CrazyEgg puts a whole new spin on traditional graph-and-stat analytics.

A solid analytics recipe employs a traditional measurement tool with basic traffic information via charts and graphs, a Twitter-specific platform and some additional third-party platform that works a new angle on data analysis to provide for a more well-informed and dynamic examination of activity. Cheers!

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