PostRank Connect

Image via Wikipedia

I learned about PostRank Connect at the recent Monitoring Social Media conference in Boston and decided to give it a try as it meets my key criteria:

• It promises to provide me with insights about my content through the PostRank Analytics application (free, for now, when you sign-up for PostRank Connect).
• It promises to connect me with brands that could lead to mutually beneficial relationships.
• It is FREE.

How do you sign up?

Navigate to the sign-up page and enter standard information like your username, password, and location.  Now identify your content sources, your blogs and your social media accounts.  Important points:

• It is critical that you identify the attributes of your blogs as you set them up, making it easier to do the matching of brands and influencers.
• When you identify your blog you must also prove ownership, like you do with Google Analytics and other similar tools, by either adding a page, an image, or making a networking change through DNS.
• When you add a new contact source you can link it to a Twitter account.  Ideally you should also be able to tie in Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, and any number of other accounts as well.
• To achieve the best results you should use Google Analytics to your site.  This will enable you to see how engagement and traffic tie together.

Alright, what else?

Well, return to business as usual for a couple of days, running any planned campaigns or just letting the sites run as you normally do.  After a few days log back in, select the My Sites tab and then click upon the View Analytics button.  I set this up for a brand new community that I am very slowly tweaking and very slowly rolling out.    When I view analytics for this site I see the following:

You can view, side by side, the page view information and the social engagement information associated with this site.  If you scroll beneath this first chart you will also see all Facebook status updates and Twitter messages that are related to content or pages you are tracking for this site.  By default all blog posts (tracked via RSS feed) are tracked.  Other content must be added manually as part of the setup process.

Deeper analysis?

You can click upon the Analyze menu to download a CSV file which I am, at this point, unimpressed with.   You are not given the option to choose a date range or fields to include in the CSV file and the data, at least for my test site,was not useful.  I am looking for, and hoping to see, PostRank put a lot more into the reporting for this solution.  This offering is not significantly more powerful than Google Analytics alone.

My verdict?

The product is easy to set up and requires a minimal effort to interact with.  If you are already making use of Google Analytics and investing in Twitter and Facebook than you should give this product a try.  If you are not using Analytics, however, I would not both using this product.

John

Related Articles

• Analytics For Social Media (outspokenmedia.com)
• Social Graph, Influence and the Social Web | PostRank Blog (postrank.com)
• Which News Sites Get the Most Social Media Engagement? (adamsherk.com)
• PostRank adds Google Chrome extension and soft launches new service, PostRank Connect (techvibes.com)

Success being demonstrated by going local with mobile

Image via CrunchBase

I came across two great articles today that give interesting statistics about the growth of mobile-delivered-value at the local level.  I would urge you to check them both out.

• Local Ad Revenues Showing 19.6% CAGR Through 2014
  • Traditional advertising continues to stagnate while online advertising continues to increase.  By 2014 the expectation is that 25% of ad spending at the local level will be digital.
  • 55% of all ad spending is with local media.
  • At the local level online spending has increased from 10% of the overall spend to 15% this year.
• 10% of consumers driven in-store by mobile coupons
  • According to this study people prefer (45% of respondents) to receive these coupons via text messages (SMS). 
  • However, when the study looked at just the male population that found that “51 percent said they would prefer to find coupons themselves via an application (28 percent of the general pop.) ”  Similar to driving men want to find it themselves as opposed to asking for directions.

Local businesses, chambers of commerce, and local governments need to stay on top of these trends and understand the need to shift from traditional to online means.  Services such as Google Places, GoWalla, and Foursquare will play a large role, helping businesses deliver mobile coupons to people in the area,or better yet, checked into their stores.

John

VistaPrint is generating revenue through social media

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Want to learn more about Twitter? Check out Laura Fitton’s book, Twitter for Dummies (affiliate link):

Check out hy.ly for Twitter-based customer service (and more)

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Want to learn more about Twitter?  Check out Laura Fitton’s book, Twitter for Dummies (affiliate link):

Infographic: Government 2.0 in Massachusetts

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8 THINGS I WISH I KNEW BEFORE STARTING A BIZ

I just had to repost this great article from Don Rainey via Entrepreneurial Corner.  It speaks directly to leadership and the need to see your business through the lenses of the Social Ecosystem. Great read! Of course, the Homer Simpson/Letterman Top Ten was too good to resist. After all, Homer is always managing his life in the NOW (heheheh).

In the world of startups, success or failure can be hard to consistently predict. One thing that’s sure, however, is that anyone who starts a business is changed by the process. The continual challenges of meeting the opportunities and issues that arise make it fun and always interesting. I think it is why many people continue to start businesses regardless of the (easier) alternatives presented by employment for somebody else.

Having started a few businesses in my life, I view some of the lessons of the experience as intuitive and others much less so. Given the time and money involved in learning these lessons, none could be characterized as cheap.

They all changed my worldview, though. And they all changed me as a person. I’m glad I learned these lessons, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish that I knew them originally.

Here are the eight things I wish I knew when I started my first business.

1. Things take longer than you ever imagine – Everything that involves people, resources, tasks and coordination takes longer than you ever think it should take to get done. It isn’t about developing patience, as patience doesn’t really help you keep driving things forward. It is about being realistic in your planning and management.

2. Items that do succeed tend to do so quickly – I have seen more successes — products, projects, employees, etc. — start strongly than slowly. The great salesperson or employee is great from the first day. The strong employees contribute immediately. The product that is going to be a hit gets strong, initial reactions from customers.

3. People will let you down – This will happen in ways you can’t even imagine when you start out. It can range from inattentiveness and laziness to fraud and theft. You’ll see it all from the people you meet along the way.  Your faith in people or belief in them can be a dangerous thing. As Pres. Reagan put it, “Trust, but verify.” Blind faith will get your butt kicked again and again. Love and reward your employees, but don’t have too much confidence in them.

4. Good employees are really hard to find – A solid worker isn’t just difficult to find, he or she is really difficult to find. And they’re the first ones to leave. The truth is that 10 percent of the world is competent – and you’re looking for that 10 percent in every hire.

It’s hard to do consistently. And that’s why organizations that do it with frequency have such strong reputations. If you want to build a business predicated largely on finding, getting and keeping quality employees to succeed, you should understand that premise will be your greatest risk. Finding a market and profitably selling to it (usually the greatest risks) will take a back seat. Better yet, pursue a business that needs some reasonable percentage of employees to be really good.

5. Your bad employees rarely quit – For one thing, poor performers aren’t really all that motivated to look, as that might involve actual performance. For another, no one else is likely to recruit them. Your marginal and weak employees are with you for life unless you move proactively. In many years of running businesses, the only time this wasn’t true was during the dot-com bubble. At that time, every idiot could get a 15 percent to 20 percent raise here in Northern Virginia by changing jobs. And they did. Aside from that blessed time, weak employees are your most “loyal.”

6. You will be lucky and unlucky -In the fullness of time, you will be assuredly lucky and unlucky. And sometimes, things that appear to be bad luck will turn out to be good — the weak salesperson who turned down your job offer — or vice versa. You will have ups and downs, and you will win or lose things that you don’t deserve to win or lose. You will be unlucky and lucky, you just may never know when.

7. Avoid the myth and misery of sunk cost – See the item above about succeeding quickly. Don’t chain yourself to the anchors you lovingly create in pursuit of success. If it isn’t working for you or the business, let it go. Understand that it isn’t good money after bad money, it is all bad money. Fire that salesperson, let that manager go, stop selling that product, get used to moving on. You’ll make a lot of decisions in running a business. Accept that not all of them will be right.

8. Fill the pipe, always fill the pipe – The difference between good times and bad times is often reflected in how many of the opportunities, customers, etc. end up closing successfully. In good times, more deals close from a normal opportunity pipeline. In bad times, less deals close from the pipeline. So, fill the pipeline of opportunities, and always look to add to the pipeline.   Deals don’t close for a million reasons. Your only defense is to fill the pipe.

Companies still don’t get social media ROI, but do it anyway

Great post with great information. If you have time make sure to give this a read.

 Most companies these days do social media today (In a recent survey, nearly 72% of marketers say they use social media – see survey below). Now, don’t get me wrong, I know the tangible benefits that social media brings to a company, but not having clear goals before engaging in social media nor having an accurate way to measure it is probably one of the main reasons for companies to abandon social media when they find “it’s not working”! Companie … Read More

via Mario Sundar

So many great applications, so little time

The pace of change in our industry keeps my head spinning.    While more complete reviews will come in the future I wanted to point out how a couple of our early innovators are working to impact how you execute your social business efforts.  Their efforts could impact the course of business for the next decade and you should keep your eyes and ears open.

Nimble

Jon Ferrara created a company called Goldmine a couple of decades ago.  Goldmine was one of the first, if not the first, truly networkable business solution.  Yes, these were dark days when machines were isolated from one another and collaboration took place through large floppy disks.  Jon has come back to once again impact how we think about business solutions with his new Social CRM solution, Nimble.  It is still in early access mode but here are a couple of things to get you thinking:

• Nimble is building the core Social CRM capabilities as well as a marketplace around which value-added resellers (VARs) can extend and solve their customer’s unique problems.
• Similar to Gist, Nimble will pull in communications from all of your channels for all people in your system.  Your emails, your Twitter, and Facebook updates, Foursquare and Gowalla check-ins, right in front of you for that person.
• Unlike Gist, you can respond back to the person from within the system, via email, Twitter, Facebook, and others.   The beauty, of course, is that you never have to leave this one system to get your job done.

I’ll let you know how well this vision is executed as I have a chance to dig in.

Mike Muhney’s Secret Venture

Mike Muhney is the co-creator of Act!, one of the earliest contact management systems, one that is still popular today.  His venture, which is running in top-secret mode will amaze you.  I can’t share more, not yet, but did want you to know that something very cool (yes, I have seen it) is going to be available soon.  It will absolutely change the way you think about….   Well, can’t say more… Not yet anyway.

Too general?  Maybe…  Nimble is in an early stage, as is Project X (my code name for Mike’s secret project).  However, both solutions seek to change the way we think about managing relationships to meet our organization’s goals.  Both are radical departures from the past.  Both will impact your organization in the years to come…. Stay tuned.

John

If you need help from The Lab, give me a call.

Keeping Social Business front and center with the Meebo Bar

As I began to design and construct my web site for The Lab it was important for me to keep social business, social networking, front and center.  The conversations that are taking place on Twitter, Facebook, and my blog are equally important to those on my business web site.  The solution for my site was the Meebo bar.

What is the Meebo bar?

Meebo, for those that are unfamiliar with the service, provides an inexpensive (freemium) web chat service.  The Meebo bar is simply a toolbar that displays at the bottom of your web pages (just above the browser’s status bar), always visible, that provides social functionality to your site’s visitors.

It’s also free and integrates easily with most blogs and other web sites by placing JavaScript code at the top and bottom of the page.

There are several benefits to the Meebo bar, including:

• Any page can be shared with your visitors network.  They can literally click on the Share Page icon and share your page with their friends through email, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook, and/or Google Buzz.
• You setup, through an easy to use interface (no programming required), which buttons show up in the toolbar.  The buttons include:
  • Access to your other social networks like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr.  Users can, from the toolbar, easily see what other conversations are taking place in these channels.  Your entire message, and those of your connections on all the other channels, are visible to your web site’s visitors.   I am hoping to see more functionality for these access points as time goes on (access to photos of your site fans, ability to retweet and DM, etc..).
  • Access to common sharing platforms like Digg and Stumbleupon.  Your visitors can share your content with the world, helping spread the word. My only complaint is that I would love to see a broader set of sharing options as there are other great sharing sites available.
  • Chat.  If you a Meebo account setup, your site’s visitors can chat with you, when they want to, about information on your site.  The chat capabilities are fairly weak, but enough to get you started.
• Statistics.  Which buttons are used most often?  Again, would love to see richer statistics, but for free, nice.
• Did I mention it’s free?

There are other alternatives, like Wibiya, that provide this type of toolbar functionality. They are actually a bit stronger in terms of functionality, but I was unable to get the bar to work consistently in Internet Explorer 8 browsers (worked great in Firefox and Chrome).

If you are not yet adding these capabilities to your site consider if now is the time.

John

If you need help from The Lab, give me a call.

Do you know what Salesforce Chatter is?

While this video is from Salesforce and has some marketing it does a nice job of explaining what Salesforce Chatter is and why it’s interesting.  Many of you may already know this but I am also betting many more do not.  Note that I have no involvement with Salesforce, just with providing useful information.

Hope you found this useful.

John

If you need help from The Lab, give me a call.