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3 FREE Social Media Measurement Tools

February 23, 2015/by Corey Padveen

Free social media measurement tools are always a hot commodity for marketers.

If you’re like a lot of social media marketers, then you are often faced with significant hurdles when it comes to both measuring your results and receiving any sort of significant budget to make it easier. Luckily, there are options that exist to make your life much easier!

While there is a whole host of tools that exist on the paid side of the spectrum (some very affordable and others quite the opposite) it is always useful to start your endeavor into the world of social media measurement with some free tools. These are a few that can be particularly useful and provide quite a bit of insight.

Google Analytics

It might seem like Google Analytics does little more than track website traffic, but when you are using it properly, it can be one of your most valuable resources for measuring the success (and even revenue) of your social media strategy.

Between the social dashboard (under Acquisition) and the ability to set Goals and Filters from social networks, there is no shortage of what can be measured on Google Analytics. Use the system to better understand your social audience, identify which pieces of content are driving the most engagement (segmented by network) and even see which networks are driving the most revenue (either through direct sales or some sort of quantifiable action) in order to optimize your budget allocation.

Google Analytics does a whole lot more than simply track your visitors.

Simply Measured

Granted, there is a paid version of Simply Measured and it is certainly not the least expensive option on the market. But, the free reports offered by the service are amongst the most comprehensive and valuable of any free service on the web.

Perhaps one of the benefits of these free reports is the fact that they are not limited to only the most basic of networks. In addition to Facebook and Twitter, you can also generate reports for networks like Instagram, Vine, Google+ and even link to your Google Analytics reports and better understand your audience.

If ever there was a way to entice users to upgrade to a paid version, Simply Measured has figured it out by offering such detailed free reports that you almost need to see what more they could provide.

Social Mention

Though not a brand-specific analytics tool for social media, per se, Social Mention does provide detailed analytics around keywords (branded or otherwise) that can serve as valuable guidelines on creating content and participating in the social conversation.

Understanding what is being said about your brand, your competitors and your industry as a whole, and examining the audience discussing these topics is important to the practice of strategy optimization. As a free tool, Social Mention is one of the more valuable ones and one of the easiest to use. Simply jump in and start analyzing the conversation, then take the data you’ve pulled and apply what you have learned about content, trends and the audience to your strategies.

It should be noted that there are several niche tools that focus specifically on one network. For example, there is Tailwind for Pinterest, which offers a fairly extensive free trial, and Iconosquare for Instagram, but the three listed here will help you measure your social presence in its entirety as opposed to a network-by-network basis.

Are there any other tools – free or paid – that you like using? Tell us about them in the comments below or on Twitter!

5 Bitly Features You Probably Didn’t Know About

March 17, 2014/by Corey Padveen

Bitly is a great tool for shortening links and watching the clicks come in, but there are some great additional features as well.

When you hear someone mention Bitly, your immediate thought is something along the lines of, “Link shortening!” While Bitly is a great tool for shortening links and monitoring clicks, there are some additional Bitly features that are extremely valuable to the optimization of your activity on social media.

These four Bitly features are not universally known, but are definitely worth remembering.

Bitly Analytics

You account shows you how many clicks a particular link (or a version of a link) has garnered, and a lot of people think that the counting stops there. But for serious marketers who are looking to optimize their activity, there are Bitly insights a click away.

When you copy a link and paste it into a new tab or window with a small ‘+’ next to it, you are introduced to a world of insights about the activity that has taken place on that link. Similarly, if you have access to the link in your account, you can simply click on the ‘View stats’ link (shown above) and see the same insights.

See what Bitly analytics look like when you dive in!

Competitive Insights

What a lot of people don’t seem to realize is that these Bitly insights can be viewed by anyone. So next time you see a competitor using a Bitly link, copy it, add the ‘+’ mentioned above and take a look at the activity on their link.

These insights can provide you with some idea of how to position your product on social media, what demographics to target and how to optimize your content schedule for optimal exposure and click-through rate.

Custom Links

Data shows that social media users are generally more comfortable clicking on a link when they know where it is going. From a content marketing point-of-view, this means that your posts shouldn’t have cryptic, ambiguous calls-to-action like, “Want to Make Money?” or “Start Your Journey Here!” Instead, they should be clear and straightforward. The same goes for your links.

One of the best features when it comes to Bitly is that you do not have to be a webmaster to customize your links. Sure, there are options to fully-customize (go to the Advanced section in your Bitly account’s Settings) but you can also simply customize the ending of your link.

Instead of a messy bit.ly/abc123-style link, you can click on the pencil next to your link (see it in the image above?) and customize it! Of course, if someone else has already taken your customized link, you’ll have to think of something else, but the more specific you are the better. For example, in the link above you’ll see that we changed it to t2SocialBlog so that people know they are clicking through to our blog and not some spam-filled webpage.

Networking

Wether you are sharing links with your public community (hence the ability to make links public) or you are creating bundles on Bitly to share with your personal networks, Bitly offers you the ability to be social right from your link shortening dashboard.

One of the great features of Bitly is that it is, essentially, a content curation tool as much as it is a link shortener. By building a community and actively participating in it, you might find that you can access a bundle with some great new content or resources and add to your sea of most-visited websites.

Real-Time Media Map

One of the cooler tools that exists out there today is Bitly’s Real-Time Media Map. Though it is still working it’s way into the market (only showing information for the United States right now) it is a very unique, fun and informative resource.

Start by choosing the type of media you want to peruse (say for example magazines or newspapers) then see what accounts are being shared most actively in different states in real-time. You can track the hottest accounts and keep up-to-date with the most popular stories as they are shared with Bitly links.

As this tool evolves, it will certainly become something worth leveraging for your own insights and strategies.

Next time you find yourself shortening a link with Bitly, remember that the information you receive is much more than some data on the number of clicks you have had. What link shortening service do you use? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Why You Aren’t Finding Success with Your Social Media Tools

February 5, 2014/by Corey Padveen

Social media tools can be very helpful, but only if they are being used correctly.

This week, I have the privilege of presenting a few sessions at the Social Media Strategies Summit in Las Vegas, one of which discusses some of the best tools in the market when it comes to mining and understanding your analytics. I thought I would share some insight into what I have noticed when it comes to why so many people – from marketers to business owners – are having trouble when it comes to getting the most out of their social media tools.

The Tool Is Not Right For You

Sometimes a tool can look great and a company representative can do a fantastic job of pitching it’s benefits for your brand. This might make you sign up for a trial or even buy into it. You might find, after some time, that it isn’t doing all of the amazing things you thought it would. Maybe it’s just not that into you.

Tools – from freeware to enterprise levels – are designed to accomplish certain, specific goals. They are not right for every brand despite them looking like they have a universal applicability.

It’s important to take advantage of the trial versions of these tools in order to get an honest look at what they can do for you, and whether or not it is the right fit for your goals.

You’re Trying to Do Too Much with It

For many applications and technologies, there are a few things that they do exceptionally well. On the other hand, there are a few things that they might not do too well, or even not do at all. That’s ok – these tools are not technological miracles.

Many tools are designed to provide a solution to a specific problem. Sometimes additional functionality is added, but the core benefit of the program is to help users overcome a specific obstacle. It might take a combination of technologies in order to effectively do everything you want to do with social.

The thing we need to keep in mind is that there is no one-tool-to-rule-them-all solution out there. (At least not yet.) There are some great ones, but it might take a few of those working in tandem in order to properly execute a comprehensive strategy.

You Haven’t Taken the Time to Master the Application

This is the biggest issue that users face when it comes to not succeeding with these tools. All too often, people see one of these technologies, think that it is the perfect fit for their brand, sign up for it and wait for it to ‘work its magic’. That’s a recipe for disaster, plain and simple.

These tools take an investment of more than money, they take time. This is particularly true for enterprise level tools. If you are not willing to devote the time necessary to really understanding and properly using a tool, then it will never do all of the things you want it to.

Before making the investment in one or many of these social media tools, ask yourself if you are really going to take the time that is necessary to making it work for you. If you simply can’t afford to put that time into it, then save yourself a sunk cost and look for something else.

Social media tools can be huge complements to a social business strategy, but they need to be treated with respect and fully understood in order for users to get the most out of them.

What are some of your favorite social media tools? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

5 Great Social Media Monitoring Tools

July 30, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media monitoring is important to managing your brand’s presence and reputation online.

Social media monitoring can be a powerful activity in your arsenal when it comes to reputation and brand management online. Being able to join in the conversation as it is taking place is invaluable, particularly when you can join in with conversation about not only your brand, but your competitors and your industry as well.

However, simply scouring the net for mentions of your brand and keywords is going to take quite a bit longer than you might have time for. Therefore, identifying high-quality social media monitoring tools is important to a successful listening strategy.

Of course, there are tools like Radian6 and Sysomos that can be cost-prohibitive, but the five social media monitoring tools below are inexpensive, efficient and will do a great job assisting you with your monitoring activities.

Yext

Yext is among the best tools for merchants, particularly local sellers.

There are not too many social media monitoring tools that allow users to listen in on conversation taking place on review sites and see how their brand is being perceived on both a local and global level. The ability to amalgamate all of your reviews, ratings and user comments is both time-saving and a fantastic advantage.

Reputation.com

Reputation management on social media is of ever-growing importance. Considering the trust people have in recommendations they read online, preventing any damage to your reputation is virtually invaluable.

Reputation.com is designed to help you manage your brand’s reputation across a number of channels on the web. One of the best features of this tool is the ability to find out what is being said and how your brand is being perceived on a local level.

Brandwatch

With a built-in spam filter, Brandwatch is among the more user-friendly social media monitoring tools around.

Users can put together a set of keywords, start a search on relevant networks, and the tool will automatically filter out results that are less than ideal so that you receive nothing more than the best, most relevant results for your searches.

Tweetbeep

Tweetbeep monitors the Twittersphere to pick up on conversations that are relevant to you and your brand.

This free tool allows users to insert keywords related to their brands, competitors and their industry and receive notifications when conversations using those keywords start up on Twitter. This is great when you need to focus on other priorities and only need to be alerted when a conversation is happening.

Put simply, “Tweetbeep is like Google Alerts for Twitter.”

BrandsEye

There are dozens of reports that can be generated using BrandsEye, including whether or not a marketing campaign was effective and where conversations are coming from most.

The reporting capabilities with BrandsEye are the real gem with this tool. Some great data can be gathered and analyzed to optimize future social media and online marketing campaigns for your brand.

Incorporating one or more of these tools will certainly boost the effectiveness and value of your social media monitoring activities. Try them out and tell us what you think of them in the comments below or on Twitter!

Pinterest Marketing: 7 Useful Tools

April 9, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Pinterest marketing recently received a boost with the integration of backend analytics on Pinterest. These 7 tools can further benefit your Pinterest marketing strategy.

Little by little, Pinterest is becoming more business friendly. First, there was the launch of business pages, and recently there was the announcement of integrated insights for businesses. This is an exciting time for Pinterest marketing, and for those evangelists, here are some great tools to help boost your Pinterest marketing efforts.

1. Piqora

Formerly known as Pinfluencer, Piqora is a fantastic tool when it comes to Pinterest marketing. With Piqora, users can build campaigns, track results, obtain more in-depth insights than those provided by basic analytics and measure both your influence in your community and the influence others have on their communities. This is an excellent tool for those serious about Pinterest marketing.

2. Pinpuff

Ever wonder how influential you are to your Pinterest community? Pinpuff is a fairly simple and easy-to-use tool that lets you know how influential you are to your community on Pinterest. Similar to the influence-measuring features in Piqora but without all of the technical elements.

3. Shopinterest

We have mentioned how to create catalogues in Pinterest, but what if you took your Pinterest marketing a step further and allowed your followers to not only see products you offer, but purchase them? Shopinterest, in beta at the moment, is currently offering users the ability to build stores and sell goods to engaged users – for free!

4. Reachli

Reachli is great not only for Pinterest, but any form of visual marketing. The tool allows you to build your campaigns and market them across a variety of networks. You can then closely track the progress of your campaigns with the broad analytics offered in the backend, and adjust your campaigns according to where you see the most success.

5. Pinalytics

A great tool that takes the insights offered for free in the backend of your own profile and applies them broadly across the entirety of the social network. Use Pinalytics to search for a keyword, term or user and see all of the trending activity and analytics that go with that search. This is a great tool to see what topics are garnering high levels of engagement.

6. HelloInsights

This great Pinterest tool provides you with a set of helpful insights that allow you to ‘pin intelligently’. Use the information to find out what is working, what isn’t and where, when and with whom you are getting the best results.

7. Pinstamatic

Ever wonder why some people have better boards than everyone else? With Pinstamatic, you can be right on top with your competition. This tool allows you to customize your boards to maximize engagement with add-ons like quotations, music maps and much more!

These are just a few of the great tools out there that should help with your Pinterest marketing. Pinterest is still an evolving tool, so keep your eyes open for new changes and updates that are geared to help marketers.

What tools do you use when it comes to maximizing your Pinterest marketing strategy? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media: Week-in-Review, April 6, 2013

April 6, 2013/by Corey Padveen

In case you missed some of the topics we covered this week, here is the social media week-in-review!

Pinterest Marketing: Need-toKnow Updates [INFOGRAPHIC]

With the recent Pinterest updates, there is quite a bit social marketers need to be aware of. This infographic does an excellent job of outlining what new features exist, what features have been removed from the photo-sharing network, and how marketers should adapt to these changes.

Social Media SEO: The New Backlink Strategy

When it comes to SEO, social media is of ever-growing importance. Link-building has long been one of the foundational pillars of successful SEO, and with a proper social strategy in place, you can take your link-building to the next level.

10 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools

Success in social marketing is all about having an effective strategy in place, but tools can be a great compliment to your program. These 10 free social media monitoring tools can help you maxiomize your efforts in social marketing, and expand your reach considerably.

Social Media Case Study: Gillette

In 2010, with the World Cup right around the corner, Gillette wanted to attract a new customer base in Italy – males under the age of 25. They knew that social was important, and aimed to expand their presence in this new market using YouTube. The results were outstanding and we highlight some of the key lessons for marketers in this week’s social media case study.

Social Equity: Social Media and SEO

Linking your social media strategy to your SEO efforts can have dramatic effect when it comes to Social Equity. In this week’s Social Equity segment, we look at the value added to your business as a result of having highly correlated social media and SEO strategies.

Have a look through some of these great articles and enjoy your weekend!

10 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools

April 3, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media is all about listening to what people are saying about you, and monitoring your brand online. These 10 free tools are a great asset for any social media marketer.

While all of these tools feature paid and enterprise versions, the basic, free versions contain a wealth of information and are fantastic resources for any marketer looking to optimize his or her social media marketing.

1. HootSuite

Many people know about HootSuite. And for anyone who has used it, it should come as no surprise that it sits on top of this list. There are plenty of neat listening and monitoring features available in HootSuite, including the ability to listen to keywords and geo-target your monitoring to see what people are saying in a given radius.

2. TwentyFeet

Ever wonder how you can optimize your social media activity for maximum results? TwentyFeet is a great tool to help you get there. TwentyFeet aggregates your social media activity and mentions from a number of social media channels and helps you determine where your social efforts are paying off and where you could use some help.

3. PeerIndex

PeerIndex is a great tool for those looking to build up their influence in certain categories. The tool helps users determine their level of authority in different niches based on conversations taking place and the level of engagement a brand has with its fans.

4. SocialMention

With regards to free listening tools, SocialMention is among the best. This tool allows you to listen for your brand, company, product, service, competitors or industry keyword mentions across a multitude of social media channels. Data is pulled from dozens of social media services to give you the most accurate, real-time information.

5. SocialPointer

Engagement with your audience is crucial to the success of a social media program, and SocialPointer allows you to track mentions of your brand on different channels and respond to your audience in real-time. This is a great tool for those engaging in social care (social media customer service).

6. HowSociable

Ever wonder if your social media marketing efforts are enough? HowSociable measures your social media activity and provides you with a score to help you determine whether or not you or your brand are engaging enough on social media to be successful.

7. Brand Monitor

For every conversation you find about your brand, there may be hundreds if not thousands more taking place across the social sphere. Brand Monitor helps you track all of the mentions of your brand on different social networks to give you a better feel of how the conversation is taking place and where you should be involving yourself to improve your brand’s online reputation.

8. Kred/Klout

Kred and Klout are two scoring services that review your social media activity, engagement, influence, authority, etc. and provide you with a score that tells you how you rank compared to others on social media.

9. SocialBro

SocialBro is a great tool when it comes to determining your influence and success on Twitter. The insights offered drill deep into your follower lists and provide helpful analytics to determine if your Twitter marketing is paying off, if you are targeting the right audiences and whom you influence.

10. Topsy

Topsy is a real-time social media search engine. Configure your account to pull data only relevant to your industry, brand, product, competitors, etc. and receive plenty of real-time information that you can use to improve the success of your social media marketing.

As we always point out, these tools are a great asset to compliment your social media strategy, but real success is ultimately going to come from a well developed and properly implemented social media strategy. Tools alone cannot run a social media program. People are out there talking and you need to be able to use these tools to listen and then properly engage with your audience.

Which of these tools have you used? Which ones are you going to try? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Twitter Marketing: 7 Tools to Maximize Your Success

March 25, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Twitter marketing is greatly improved with the help of certain tools, but it is important to remember that your strategy is what drives your overall success.

Twitter celebrated their seventh anniversary late last week, and we thought it would be fitting to open this week with a discussion of Twitter marketing tools, and what seven of the best tools are when it comes to your success with regards to Twitter marketing.

Before we delve in to the list, however, it is important to note that Twitter marketing tools are great when you have a strategy in place, but you cannot expect your efforts to succeed with the tools alone. These are complimentary tools to simplify the Twitter marketing process and help you maximize your success on Twitter in the most efficient way possible. What is important to keep in mind is that you need to utilize the information that these tools provide and incorporate that into your strategy in order to reap the most benefits. Now, with that disclaimer in place, here are seven of the best tools to help you optimize your Twitter marketing.

1. Followerwonk

Followerwonk is Twitter lists on steroids. Imagine the ability to delve deep into Twitter profiles, analyze leads and segment those leads based on the information you extrapolate. That is the Followerwonk specialty. Furthermore, you have the ability to track followers and watch ongoing statistics and insights as they are gathered in order to keep your Twitter marketing efforts up to date.

With Followerwonk, you can compare, analyze, track and sort your followers in order to keep your Twitter profile as organized as possible and increase the efficiency of your marketing.

2. Tweriod

We recently posted an article detailing some of the best times to post to social networks. Tweriod is all about your best time to post on Twitter. It takes a sample of your followers, analyzes their activity and provides you with a detailed report on when to post to your Twitter feed to maximize your exposure.

3. SocialBro

SocialBro, in similar fashion to Tweriod, produces reports to help you optimize your Twitter marketing. Where SocialBro differs, however, is in the depth of these reports. The pro version of SocialBro provides detailed insights about your followers, your community, your lists – you name it, SocialBro has reports for it.

The in-depth analysis in the SocialBro reports also tell you about your influencers and whom you are influencing. Using this feature, you can monitor your Twitter clout and see where your efforts to build up your reputation are paying off.

4. Twitonomy

Twitonomy is a Twitter analytics tool to help you analyze and modify your internal Twitter strategy. The tool breaks down your activity on the social network and provides you with insights to help you increase the efficiency and appearance of your profile.

Furthermore, it is a great tool when it comes to cleaning out your profile and keeping your following list as professional and targeted as possible.

5. TwileShare

Ever wanted to share more on Twitter? Sure, you can upload photos and now, with Vine, some short videos, but to get the most out of sharing on Twitter, TwileShare is your go-to.

With TwileShare, you can share plenty of content (e.g. photos, PDFs, ebooks, documents, etc.) and monitor statistics to see how that content is being shared and viewed on the network.

This is a great tool for those looking to look deeper into their viral exposure on Twitter.

6. Twilert

Social listening is crucial for brands looking to manage their reputation using social media. Twilert allows you to monitor mentions of your brand, service, competitors, etc. and receive a digest email letting you know what those mentions are. For those looking for a simple, easy-to-use and free listening tool, Twilert is one of the best ones around.

7. Twitter Counter

Twitter Counter has a free version and a pro version. For all things Twitter profile-related, Twitter Counter is an amazing tool. It shows you the growth of your account, insights into your activity, the average activity on your account and your place on Twitter relative to others.

Of course, the pro version of Twitter Counter has plenty more to offer as far as in-depth insights into your account.

These are just a few of the great tools that exist when it comes to maximizing your internal Twitter marketing efforts. As we noted above, Twitter marketing is all about strategy. These tools are intended to add to your existing efforts, not replace them entirely. Understanding Twitter and how to approach the network from a marketing perspective is worth much more than any tool can give you. But with this knowledge, these tools will make the job that much easier.

What tools do you use when it comes to Twitter marketing? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

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