Bridging the Gap to Social Media Marketing

Once upon a time two friends had an idea! What if you could secure freelancers in an online marketplace, similar to Amazon or Ebay. The idea was novel but needed and thus Fiverr was born. Fiverr has grown to be a marketing dream for some especially in the terms of social media marketing. For only $5.00 users can get a variety of services such as getting a YouTube video "blown up fast" or get a website social campaign marketed to over 3 million fans. In the case of many small businesses, this type of cheap marketing is invaluable.

While social media is free, to older generations it can be a bit daunting. Sites like Fiverr which connect buyers and sellers in a service marketplace have proven effective in lessening the learning curve of social media marketing. As with anything that seems too good too be true, there is often a catch. For Fiverr consumers that catch may be a less than stellar product. You can avoid that by check reviews and comments from others who have purchased from a particular seller. There are also forums where you can post specifically what you are looking for and be directed to a seller who is potentially the best for the job. 

It is easy to get caught up on Fiverr, buying "likes" or "fans" but end consumers should remember while social media marketing is a numbers game, the old adage quality vs. quantity does indeed apply. 

Get out your Ruler! Measuring Social Marketing!

We are building a social media campaign as part of our final project. A component of that project includes measuring the success of our social media campaign. As a whole I only know about Facebook's metrics so I did some research on social media metrics and I shall share what I found.

Social media measurement can be broken down into two main categories, ongoing analytics and campaign-focused metrics. Ongoing analytics tracks the overall feel about a brand, topic, or company. It tracks what is being said about the topic at hand. Campaign-focused metrics reflect the success of targeted marketing. For instance, companies send YouTube gurus products for free to try with the expectation that the guru will share their honest thoughts about the product. The companies may then issue a unique coupon code to specific Gurus. That code is traceable. Guru A may have only had 27 customers redeem her coupon code and Guru B may have had 78 redemptions. Guru B's marketing campaign may appear to be more successful but it would depend on what the company is tracking. If 70 of Guru B's customers and 7 of Guru A's customers are already customers of the site Guru B's campaign was successful at retention. If the campaign's goal were to solicit new customers, Guru A's campaign was most successful. Other factors would also go into play such as subscriber counts and video views but both campaigns could be considered successful which is why it is important to identify the goal of the campaign prior to initiating it. 

Social Media Measurement suggests that there are 5 steps to measuring social media marketing.

1) Determine Social Media Goals - Identify the goals of your campaign. Goals may be different across every platform.

2) Create Metrics to Measure These Goals - Identify what metrics are relevant to your goals and track them. Be specific. 

3) Measure - Now that you've identified your goals and metrics to track them, you must now locate the tools to bring those metrics to life. 

4) Monitor and Report - Track your tool's measurements and make conclusions based on what you've learned. 

5) Adjust and Repeat - Determine what was successful. What didn't work? Take that information and revamp your social campaigns and get back out there and try again!

Good Luck!