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Tools to Drive Your Social Media Editorial Calendar by Designated Editor

Driving and Planning Your Social Media Editorial Calendar

Do you find Social Media overwhelming … and making you crazy?

Designated Editor’s Suzanne McDonald shared sanity-saving tools to engage and increase social media effectiveness with the Yankee International Association of Business Communicators in Greater Boston last night. Here are a few highlights.

Social Media challenges we’ll address

  • What should an editorial calendar look like?
  • How to discover influencers?
  • How to be more efficient?
  • How to measure and boost ROI?
  • How to integrate across platforms?

 

4 elements of social media planning

Stage 1 Your audience & influencers

Stage 2 Find & leverage the right tools

Stage 3 Integrate social media channels

Stage 4 Social media optimization & metrics

Tools

HubSpot, Compendium, WordPress Editorial Calendar plugin

 

Stage 1 Audience & influencers

  • Who might be your best advocates?
  • What are their defining characteristics?
  • What are they looking for?
  • Are you using the right vocabulary?

Tools

Google Trends, Google Alerts, Google Keyword Tool

Influencer detection tools

Wildfire leaderboard, Technorati blog tool, Twiangulate, Klout Twitter plugin

 

Stage 2 Use the right strategic tools

  • Editorial calendars
  • Blogs: Yours and others’
  • Email newsletters
  • Search marketing best practices

Tools

 Samepoint, OMGili, Icerocket, Cision EdCals

 

Stage 3 Integrate social media channels

  • Claim social profiles: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, SlideShare, Pinterest, Google+ etc.
  • Determine most relevant social channels
  • Monitor, engage & integrate
  • Sentiment analysis
  • Weave your content across platforms

Tools

Whathashtag, Twitalyzer, Twilert, Twitrratr

 

Stage 4 Social media optimization & metrics

  • Be more efficient
  • Be more effective
  • Optimize for performance
  • Calculate your ROI

Tools

Hootsuite, Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, bit.ly, Twittercounter, SproutSocial

 

Many thanks to Yankee International Association of Business Communicators President Linda Sanders for the opportunity to share these insights.

Looking for a speaker for your event or organization? Check out myriad new media topics Suzanne McDonald has presented.

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Group Deals Begin to Grow up: Tips for Retailers, Restaurants From South by Southwest Interactive

How can small businesses benefit from group deals like Groupon?

Kara Nortman Senior Vice President of Publishing CityGrid Media

Kara Nortman, CityGrid Media

One of the best South by Southwest Interactive 2012 talks was jam-packed with lessons, tips, and stats on the state of group buying. With fatigue setting in on both sides of the equation, consumers and merchants, how can everyone get what they want?

Kara Nortman, senior VP of publishing at CityGrid Media, took the stage solo and wowed everyone attending.

Here are some highlights

Group Deals Are Killing Your Small Business: How small businesses can uniquely and effectively tap into group deals as a key piece of a smart overall marketing strategy.

Have you heard about Groupon?

Create a more effective group deal strategy

  • SMBs and deal sites are at odds … SMBs must show clear return on investment. Businesses are being more critical
  • Prior to 2008 there were 2 personas: enjoy a high-price experience (get-what-you-pay-for) and the couponer
  • Prepaid transactions are not dead. Consumers will get more relevant deals through them
  • Deal sites need to provide their clients with great analytics
  •  Correlating behavior with credit card data is commencing, but it still needs consumers’ trust with data and privacy
    • Proximity marketing and credit are going to be the most exciting developments in next few years

Deal sites to consider

Think Near

  • Pulls in demand patterns, weather, traffic, and events reports. It allows you to auto-generate 5-10 campaigns each week for each business
  • Targets local, high-quality customers
  • Became bigger than Groupon in NYC

Savored

  • Targets high-quality restaurants and has focuses on experience and high value – creating a clear brand can help your deals succeed
  • Forces users to commit to reservations and align them with restaurants’ slow times. Offer 30% off with no embarrassing coupons
  • Encourages diners to post pictures of their receipts that shows their discount

Punchcard

  • Aims to collect who loyal customers are without merchant cooperation, then present to the business owner
  • Users take photos of receipts to collect data for PunchCard
  • Targets low-frequency and high-spend customers

The truth is in the numbers: Group deals statistics

  • 44% subscribe to 4 or more deal services – often causes user fatigue
  • 44% of daily-deal customers will come back, but some might have already been customers
  • 66% of people let their deals expire before redeeming
  • A third of all Americans shopped on Small Business Saturday and saw 23% boost into small shops. This is Amex taking a long-term approach
  • 15% of Punchcard customers generate 50% of revenue – you consolidate loyalty cards and even redeem at businesses that don’t offer cards
  • 20%-30% of Groupon’s 10,000 employees are in sales
  • Studies show it didn’t matter whether you offered 50% off or less, the majority just want some discount and will convert

Thanks to @mauriciopina, @journalynn, @DeeSwartz, and @lorennoel for sharing their insights!