Companies around the world are just now tuning in to the power and benefits of social media as a marketing tool for their businesses. Social media provides both business and consumers the ability to interact and actively participate in the “community of brands”. Social media as a marketing channel provides customers the ability to participate in building or even breaking brands, while giving businesses valuable marketing intelligence on their products and services. Social media sites give consumers the ability to to show other interested consumers how they are using a particular product and benefiting from it, creating powerful word of mouth viral marketing.
Effective social media marketing provides a mechanism for companies to spread the word about their products and services quickly and creatively and empowers consumers to respond quickly about those products and services, creating one of the most revolutionary customer feedback loops for consumers and brands alike.
Forums, online communities, blogs, live casts, social bookmarking sites, user review sites, multimedia sharing, micro blogging, and social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. With all the new technology out there, it is vital for businesses to track the ROI of all of their marketing activities, including their brand reputations’. Companies are scrambling to ensure that their expenditures in social media can be justified as sound investments that will, in fact, add to the company’s bottom line in a definitive way. While measuring the ROI of social media marketing is crucial, it has proven to be somewhat tricky as the total measured benefit of the channel goes far beyond the more traditional measurements of ROI in marketing and media.
As the medium has grown, tools to track its effectiveness for business have started to emerge. Most companies are seeing beyond the “shiny new toy effect” of social media and are looking for ways to demonstrate to their shareholders that these activities are worthwhile, to manage their brand reputations and build market share worldwide.
Here is a list of some of the applications that are available for businesses to measure and manage their social media activities and brand reputations online today:
- Collective Intellect – collects real time market information, providing insight into consumer opinions for marketing professionals.
- Buzz Logic – helps businesses see what social media sites are generating high interest or buzz, so it can advertise there.
- Buddy Media Platform – a simple way for both companies and advertising agencies to manage and track their social media efforts.
- Alterian Social Media – provides software for public relations and marketing companies to measure, track and monitor businesses rate of success in social media.
- Radian 6 – currently the market leader in social media monitoring, they offer a platform to “listen, measure, and engage with customers across the entire social web”.
- Brands Eye – online reputation monitoring tool.
Social media is here to stay. It allows consumers to play an active role in the marketplace providing business targeted feedback for their products. It is important for businesses to track this feedback to make sure it is meeting the needs of the customer. As the demand for social media grows, business will need to find tools to help monitor them as they grow with this exciting new technology.
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Bill,
Great post! SocialTALK is another platform that allows marketers to measure their social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, Movable Type and WordPress (we’re adding more platforms soon). SocialTALK is geared toward companies with a presence in multiple social media outlets, as well as multiple stakeholders involved in campaigns. There is a real-time analytics tab that allows marketers to view and compare results for multiple campaigns/posts over time. Would love to show you how it works sometime.
Thanks,
Meg Sinclair
Syncapse
Hey
I know you are probably busy, so I will not waste too much of your time. I appreciate you taking the time to read my email.
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My proposal is to write a high quality guest blog post for your website. It will be about importing wholesale products from China and selling them through various venues on the internet. Of course, it will be 100% unique and I will never publish it anywhere else. I just ask that you will allow me to keep a link back to my website. Obviously, if your not happy with the quality of the post, then you do not have to post it. All I ask is for the opportunity. If you can do that for me, then I will greatly appreciate it.
Perfect timing for this post. We’re looking at the best way to use our time and what tools to focus on as we enter into social media marketing- Thanks for sharing.
Great post! SocialTALK is another platform that allows marketers to measure their social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, Movable Type and WordPress (we’re adding more platforms soon).
Hm – I guess when it ocmes to hsareholders these measurements might have value – for anyone else I’d say it is the results that count. Especially in netowrk marketing it is building relationships which ultimately gives you the success you aspire for – so many things on theinternet as well as in real life will depends on who you are and where you want to go.
Frieke Karlovits
Really glad to come across a post that discussed Social Media Marketing and it’s importance at length. Special thanks for providing the list. of applications. Social Media is certainly going to stay because of it’s multiple benefits. Businesses will have to come up with new and innovative tools if they want to grow and survive in this highly competitive age.
I find it particularly important as a photographer to utilize social media to its fullest extent. The list of tools your provided will certainly help solidify my efforts. Much thanks.
It is a very nice experience to go through this highly informative blog. I specially like the part where you have written about applications used to measure social media activities of a website.
Social media is great to biult relationships with the potential cutomers, but you need to be sure that selling isn’t aggresive, cause people mostly don’t like it in social media
SocialFlow not only provides analytics that allows you to view the impact of your social medial messaging it also gives you the ability to deliver your messages through twitter efficiently while making sure you deliver it at the best time to reach your audience.
Someone said that facebook ads would be profitable just like the previous adwords,is that true?
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