Comments on: SES San Jose: Social Media Analysis and Tracking

By: LJ Jones

LJ Jones — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:36:50 +0000

Large or small, brands need to be participating in the conversation. True participation will give great insight into what is actually going on in social media with your brand. It will help you to understand how the landscape is changing and what you as a brand can do about it. Participation is a great place for smaller brands with smaller budgets to start.

By: Edmund Wong

Edmund Wong — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 23:07:08 +0000

I agree with Tom’s points about how smaller brands participate in social media.

While the case study summarized above that I presented at SES is for a global brand, we also work with smaller or lesser known brands in social media.

Typically, we start work with clients by doing a strategic social media audit, which is the first step Tom describes.

In addition to those findings, it’s also important to take into account the client’s business objectives. For example, are they looking to social media as a brand advocacy or brand protection vehicle? In the case I shared, it was brand protection and a little “indirect” advocacy.

But for lesser known brands, it’s often about increasing brand awareness and consideration…with tight budgets. A common program we put together for such clients is WOM influencer outreach. As with all our socia media programs at iCrossing, we develop a measurement framework to track the effectivenss of such “buzz marketing.” You’re right that they all may not be as “complex” as what I presented at SES. But, you’d also be surprised what can be developed with free or low-cost tools.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:24:17 +0000

Tom, that’s a good point and it’s an issue for a lot of the larger SEM conferences. They tend to put big names up to impress the audience when only a fraction of the audience represents big companies.

With the vast number of small businesses, you’d think there would be a small business track at SES. Hmmmmm.

By: Tom Pick

Tom Pick — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:27:09 +0000

This is a very informative post, but the complexity applies more to large, household-name type companies than local businesses or smaller b2b companies.

For many smaller companies, the issue isn’t so much about monitoring and directing the conversation as simply getting it started. So the first step is often figuring out who is writing about your technology/business area and your competitors. Then create relationships and participate in conversations, focusing on adding value first.

Again, this is a great checklist, but the sophistication displayed here shouldn’t disuade smaller companies from trying much simpler programs to enhance their recognition and credibility through social media.

By: SES social media measurement round up | Liberate Media - social media and online PR consultancy

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:46:05 +0000

[...] seen, there are a whole host of informative posts on the measuring success in a web 2.0 world and

By: locspoc

locspoc — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 07:23:56 +0000

i’m new to this stuff, so it’s a bit overwhelming but thank you for posting such a detailed checklist, this is awesome!

By: Ivan Nunez

Ivan Nunez — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:26:14 +0000

Thank you for sharing your meetings notes. In my view, your posting begins to outline a primer of social media marketing. Within my own company, we are very interested in uncovering how to implement and track results of social media strategies. Our approach has been humble and centered around learning to participate in the space, listening and tracking visit to our site from blogs or our Facebook page. There are excellent insights in this posting that will help us expand our strategy.