We at Search Integration had the privilege to sit down with our exclusive partner and friend Brian Clifton for a short chat regarding social media and how to measure success. Brian is former Head of Web Analytics at Google EMEA. He is also an International Web Analyst and writer of the international bestseller ”Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics”.

- Authors, industry gurus and researches tend to be heavy tweeters. However, we noticed you tend to tweet around “only” 10 times per week. Is there a reason for this relative low volume?

Good question! Essentially, I use Twitter to promote events that I am speaking at and/or highlight online articles and news that I have read and think other similar minded people (my connections) would be interested in. So it looks like I read about 10 decent articles a week!

- What are your reasons for using social media such as Twitter and Linkedin?

I think Twitter’s purpose is misunderstood by a lot of people. Many use Twitter as a public chat forum – letting you know where they are going, what they are doing, their mood and even today’s weather where they are. I am not a fan of that. It can work for celebrities and your close friends, but everyone else is simply not interested.

For me, I only tweet when I have something interesting to say – sharing my knowledge. Its a broadcast medium for when I wish as many people as possible to hear my message – whether they know me personally or not. Its great for spreading the word on news and events.

In addition, I write blog articles, update LinkedIn and Facebook pages as a mechanism for receiving feedback. It keeps me informed on the latest techniques, industry trends and events/products that can help my business as well as allow me to listen on what readers and potential customers want.

[ As an aside, The missing product that Twitter is being confused with is "Group Chat" i.e. simultaneous instant messaging for your friends - not the entire world! When that evolves, you'll see the signal to noise ratio of Twitter rise and then it will really take off! ]

- Regarding measuring the effect of social media, what is of most interest to measure? Why?

Value. There are a great many useless metrics for social media out there. Tweet density, number of followers or number of Facebook fans etc. are useless because they tell you nothing of value. For example, you may have 1,000 Facebook fans, but if they don’t read anything you write, post on your wall or tell their connections about you it has no value. Like money has no value on the moon!

The interesting parts of social networks to measure, are figuring out who adds the most value – that sings my praises, recommends my work, reviews the book etc. These connections ultimately help me grow my business and therefore have a monetary value.

Examples include:

• The number of retweets per 1000 followers
• The number of comments per blog post or Facebook wall comments per week
• The number of mentions of your name, @handle, company etc. on Twitter per day/week/month.

- Since social media often is sort of “uncontrollable” due to its nature and that a lot of the interaction happens on websites that you have little ore no control over, companies are a bit afraid of entering this world. What is your advice to them?

If you have a good product and something interesting to say about it, you should certainly be experimenting with your visibility on sites where your customers are interacting online i.e. using social networks.

However, its equally important to realise that sometimes you have nothing interesting to say – so keep quiet for a while! Useless information is irrelevant to people and if you peddle it, you are effectively a spammer. Infrequent and informative posts are much more appreciated and respected (no one likes a loud mouth).

Also respect that we are talking about social networks, not advertising networks. Its not appropriate to bombard people with a sales pitch or call to action. It is perfectively acceptable (and encouraged) to broadcast special promotions, product launches, events etc. But the real power of this is to think of social networks as a feedback mechanism – a way for you to engage with an otherwise anonymous audience.

Once you have engagement, you have control. By that I mean you can measure the engagement and grow/improve it. Without engagement, you have very little control and therefore very little useful metrics to work with.

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Do not miss the training session that Search Integration will host together with Brian Clifton in june. The subject for the session is “How to measure success in social media.”

The training goes far deeper than most “normal” sales-oriented seminars we are accustomed with in the market and instead focus on what methods you can trust and which should be questioned.

Brian Clifton will, based on his analytical background, guide us through how social media works, the parameters that are measurable and how we can interpret the results. Brian’s approach to social media differs significantly from consultants who generally speak more positively about social channels. Brian is critical in his conclusions and the training is designed to highlight specific examples of what actually provides business value and what are measurable indicators. The training will be held in English.

The training session will be held in Stockholm on June 1st at United Spaces, Vasagatan 11. And in Gothenburg on June 3rd at Grand Hotel Opera, Nils Ericsonsgatan 23

Read more about the training session

Sign up for the training session

As a follow up to the SVT Aktuellt TV show last night, there have been some questions around the fact that you can buy your way into the search engines. Unfortunatley SVT didn’t have enough time to go into the details of this so I will explain it a bit more here.

First of all: There is NO reason, action or defined need for anyone to buy or manipulate the results in the search engines. There are a few spammers out there doing exactly this and they create a bad situation for their clients and for the user. The search engines as well as the user want to see the current and most important articles that show truth and discuss all areas of the topic. Companies can only provide their facts and their details and view around the topic.

Influencing the organic listings of Google: This is difficult and hard and the issue that SEB and others might have is that there are old articles from newspapers or blogs that rank in the index and that might not always involve the correct facts or truth. In this case, companys have to provide the media, bloggers and searchers with relevant material and facts. They can do this by optimising their own content on the website, blog, press releases, You Tube section or newsroom . If Google rank it or not is up to Google and the interrest of the market, but the key here is that you at least show what is the truth and the message from a corporate level! The actual opinion is always the users and that should always be the case in all areas of good marketing and PR.

Influencing the sponsored listings of Google:

To buy a listing in Google Adwords is easy and for companies that need to get their facts out on the very moment the reputation changed, this is an easy and fast way of making it accessible. In this case, as well with organic, you need to provide information around the topic and the actual area that people search for. If people search for financial crisis this is the area they want information about! Do not sell them a new mortgage. I see this happening all the time! Again, this is the same strategy as organic. It is all about facts. You can buy an Adwords position but you can’t change the opinion with that…. The user will judge and evaluate but at least it is a way of letting them know of the corporates own facts and view. This is also for some companys with an “old” website structure (like SEB) the only way to let the user know what content they have as Google have problems ranking content within for example framesets.

In summary:

Don’t put your head in the sand! reach out and listen to the voice of your customers and see them as your sounding board. Provide them with facts in both a proactive and a reactive way and let them judge you as you are!

Tonight (Wednesday 28th of April) at 9.00 PM, SVTs (Swedish TV) newsprogram Aktuellt will show some news on how to handle reputation managment online. Search Integration is interviewed and we share our opinion on what is important in this field.

Want to see the program?  Use this link and watch the section 20 minutes into the program: http://bit.ly/9Wwsnn

Want to read more about reputation management and the voice of your customer? See the latest blog post that was written last week below.

//Sara

The use of the search engines to evaluate products before buying them is growing rapidly. As the social media platforms and peers online have become more important to turn to for advice and feedback before buying, the importance of having happy customers is essential. The fast spread that for instance Twitter, Facebook or YouTube can offer to people means that your potential and existing customers will know of any issues and problems on products you deliver within seconds.

Google will rank Tweets, Facebook groups, YouTube videos, blogs, press material along side with your own website and you need to be aware that the negative information brought up by others will influence the customers decision about your brand. If you have bought a paid search listing in Google and sell your products through the Ad copy you need to also spend time looking at what others in the organic listings are saying about you. A negative article about your brand along side a selling Ad is not good advertising money spent. I would still advice you to buy the keywords in Google if you see some negative articles around you, but be aware of the message you put up in your Ad copy so that you meet the customers expectations and the negative comments rather than claiming the opposite.

1. Google all your products, services and company names to listen in on what is said about you.

2. Work with a proactive plan that can push and promote the most important things about you and your products or services. Spread the information and news to your positive ambassadors and peers and make sure that they link to you for more information.

3. Have a crisis plan ready to deal with negative press around you that can appear in the search results. If there is a product failure for instance, you need to get that message across to your peers as soon as possible to avoid untrue rumors.

Web Analytics from a Beginners Perspective:

Ex-Googler Brian Clifton released the second edition of his book Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics last week. Intended for everyone wanting to understand web metrics, or as Clifton explains it in the introduction: ”This book is intended for people who want to go beyond the basics of simply counting hits.” Clifton provides the reader with an understanding of web metrics using Google Analytics and the many aspects of it – without excluding anyone by over using complex technical terms.

When optimising a website for search engines, I always underline the importance to also implement web analytics tool. Without the ability to measure your traffic, its’ origin, where visitors head for and what they do on your site, your SEO will be without cause. Google Analytics is my standard recommendation mainly because it’s free and easily implemented but also because it is straightforward to understand and adaptable to many levels. Read the rest of this entry »

Short blog post from me today. I would like to give all you webmasters out there a couple of quick pointers to take with you in your work with SEO. The advice come directly from Google so I promise you it makes sense.

Perhaps you have already heard about Google Webmaster Tools and hopefully you are also using it to enhance the results of your web site. Google Webmaster Tools is Google’s free service for webmasters. There is no doubt that Google Webmaster Tool is really powerful and great when it comes to getting tips on how to improve a web site’s visibility in the search result and for me as a search strategist, it is vital!

Some time ago Google Webmaster Central posted a webmasters quiz on their blog. In this blog post Google provide some clarity on common issues users ask about in the Webmaster Help Forum.

And here are the questions asked, and of course – the answers! Enjoy and embrace!

/Linn