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2012 Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report [Infographic]

April 9, 2012 By 1 Comment

Sponsored by NTEN, Common Knowledge and Blackbaud, the 2012 Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report came out last week. This 4th annual report on nonprofits & social networks is intended to provide insights for both nonprofits, foundations and those serving this sector about behaviour and trends relating to social networking as part of  the nonprofits’ marketing, communications, fundraising, program and IT work.

Conducted between 24th January and 21st February this year, nonprofit professionals completed an online survey covering two main categories of questions:

  1. Commercial Social Networks: Looking at the use of commercial social networks e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, etc.
  2. House Social Networks: Looking at the social networks built and managed by the nonprofits

The report summarises the 3,522 responses received and provides top insights for this year, top trends and future trends to watch, top factors for social network success as well as community size and monetary costs/gains through social network entities.

Visual.ly have designed this rather attractive and informative infographic to support the report’s findings, but of course the full Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report can be downloaded for free if you want more detailed information.


It’s probably no surprise that Facebook is the most utilised network with 98% of nonprofits having a presence on Facebook in 2012 and an average community size a healthy 8,317. Twitter is the next most utilised at 72%, followed by Linkedin with 44%. It will be interesting come next year to see how Google+ and Pinterest perform for the nonprofits.

However engaging in social networks uses resource, which is one thing all nonprofits have in short supply. While 79% of nonprofits only have one person spending half or less of their time on this, and 74% allocate a budget of less than $10,000 it’s worth noting that staffing and budget levels for maintaining  social networking activities is on the increase. 

The main 2012 goals given for commercial social networking activity was “Grow our Base” at 76% and “Engage Members More” at 74%. Given the low cost of acquisition, it is understandable that nonprofits and supporting organisations are keen to maximise these channels.

Filed Under: Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, social media, Social Networking, Twitter

Fortune 500: Social Media Statistics since 2008 [Infographic]

April 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 As yesterday’s post mentioned, like it or loathe it, social media for companies is here to stay. Organisations from all industries and of all sizes are starting to use it, perhaps as a way to share messages about the business and gain feedback or as part of the business operation e.g. pre-sales questions or customer service.

I like this infographic from GO-Gulf.com because it takes Fortune 500 companies and highlights their social statistics for blogs, Facebook and Twitter from 2008 through to 2011 (nice, ordered lists!). While it would be good to see some of the other social channels, it’s got some interesting points.

Blogs appear to be an undecided point, back in 2008 16% of Fortune 500 companies had blogs, in 2011 it was only 23% with some areas appearing to discontinue their blogs i.e. a 3% reduction in blogs within the Top 100 companies. Looking at the infographic even INC 500 companies have seen a reduction in blogs since 2009.

Between Twitter and Facebook, 62% of the Fortune 500 have a Twitter account, compared to only 58% having a corporate Facebook page. However consistent across both Twitter and Facebook were the decrease seen with two industry types:

  • Computer Software, Peripherals, Office Equipment
  • Telecommunication

I’ve been wondering why it’s these two industry types who have seen reductions in Twitter and Facebook presences, perhaps they are perhaps focusing on other channels?

Browse more Social Media infographics.


Filed Under: Facebook, social media, Twitter

Video introduction: Learn the basics of five social media channels

April 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Updated Social Media and Video Channel Guides

We’ve had a productive time of it with our video guides recently, did some reorganising/refreshing not to mention uploading a few new versions. It’s not finished, (although I don’t think video guides are ever finished – there’s always an update somewhere), but it’s sufficiently updated to merit a short series of posts each focusing on a video or group of videos. Today’s post is looking at the social media guides.

In previous posts I’ve written about the value of learning by video and being able to watch over someone’s shoulder as they talk you through “how it works”, and I’m still a big fan of video walk/talk throughs even though this batch have me doing the talking. I’ve included the transcript in each video page for the speed readers out there.

Why would I want to learn about social media?

In December 2011, Forrester Consulting were commissioned by Facebook as part of their Social Business Blueprint to evaluate how businesses operate in a connected world. The conclusion was that “while most leaders recognise that social can enhance the customer experience, many organisations are not set up to capitalise on this opportunity”.

Excerpt from Facebook Social Business Blueprint

Excerpt from Organize For Success In The Connected World – A Social Business Blueprint by Facebook based on a commissioned study by Forrester Consulting

Social media is not about pushing out brand messages or hoping to publish a video that “goes viral” but about enabling a two way dialogue between the business organisation and those who have an interest in what that business is saying, or doing.

Even if you’re not using or involved in social media, (maybe you’re even deliberately avoiding the topic), it’s likely that you have an opinion on its value to you as an individual and perhaps to your organisation. In our office we’ve a wide mix of opinions, sometimes the same person rates one channel but wouldn’t ever consider joining another one. 

 The one thing we do have is an understanding of what social media is, knowledge of the main channels and how they operate. Social media is here to stay and at some point in the future you’ll come into contact with it, so it’s worthwhile at least gaining knowledge of the basics.

So what’s in the videos?

Under the heading Social Media and Video Channel Guides  I’ve regrouped the Facebook series – which is on my list for shrinking down and updating, and introductions have been added for LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter, along with an introduction to video optimisation.

Each of the new videos are between 3 to 5 minutes long and give you an introduction to the channel. I talk about the main terms, show you the main screens in each account and talk through how it can be used.

I’m an enthusiastic student about these topics so if you have any questions on these or other channels or have any feedback on the videos just use the comments to get in touch. As mentioned earlier, a transcript has been included in each page in case you want to scan it, are working without sound or just incase my Scottish accent gets a bit much!

Filed Under: Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, social media, Twitter, YouTube

Three Social Media Measurement Tools That Save Time, Money, and Heartburn.

March 22, 2012 By 2 Comments

Social media is an important component of any successful digital marketing strategy. However, with the services themselves consistently changing metrics on the back-end (like Facebook and YouTube) – how does an online marketer measure success in 2012? April Wilson, a featured blogger and CEO of Digital Analytics 101, is here to help understand how to measure, monitor, and optimize your social media marketing efforts.

First, know your limits.

I am constantly looking for new ways to cut down on the time I spend monitoring my social media. I run a start-up company and we are completely crunched for time, money, and resources. However, I play in the digital marketing space, so my online footprint should mirror that. I can’t say I’m a digital company and NOT have a Twitter or Facebook presence. Most importantly, that presence shouldn’t SUCK.

This narrows down my criteria for a tool set:

  1. I need as much information and functionality in one place as I can get. Having just one login and one interface to manage ALL my social channels is a baseline criteria.
  2. Whatever I use, it better be easy to figure it out intuitively. I budget my time at no more than one hour a day to manage social media.
  3. Finally, it has to be free or so cheap that I don’t give that line item on my credit card statement the hairy eyeball.

 

Second, I have yet to find ONE tool that does everything I want.

I know that my reality is going to be that I need to use multiple tools to do multiple functions, so the tools I use have to complement each other without too much overlapping.

This is not to say that there ISN’T a larger enterprise social media solution out there that will do what all three of my tools do. I just haven’t found it yet.

 Because there isn’t just one tool out there that does everything, I use three different tools with three different objectives:

1)      Content curation: I believe it is my job as a subject-matter expert to share research, tools, trends, and articles with my followers.

2)      Social Media Management: I measure, respond, and grow each of my social streams all in one interface with one dashboard. I don’t have time to log into 4 different accounts to get my work done.

3)      Monitoring: It’s important to understand who’s talking about your brand, and where they’re discussing you. Also, it’s important to know what your overall share is of the chatter for your industry, product, or service.

 

Step 1: Content generation.

My first priority is delivering interesting or valuable content to my followers. If I’m lucky enough to get them to follow me, then I want to make sure that I’m shooting them articles, news stories, blog posts, infographics, and op-ed pieces on whatever topic is relevant to that brand and their followers. As such, I subscribe to several industry newsletters and have a slew of Google Alerts emailed to me every day. I need to stay current on everything in my field, and so do my fans.

But I don’t want to overload them with tweets or Facebook posts. That’s a total rookie mistake – one that I am sad to say that I made once upon a time. It’s better to pace yourself and make every communication count.

Buffer is the tool to help you NOT be that annoying post-er.

I love Buffer for content curation and scheduling. It’s a beautiful thing. I mean it. The way that it works is that as you create or find content that is interesting, you click a little button (via a browser add-on) to add that content to your “buffer.” Your buffer is like a metered repository of content.

You then schedule posts to publish based on the BEST times for you. When you first set it up, it will default to 4 posts per day, scattered throughout the day, so that you aren’t over-posting and making your followers freak out. Over time, you can ask Buffer to adjust your posting schedule to optimize for the best times for YOUR audience. This enables you to publish content at the times when YOUR followers are most likely to a) see it and b) engage with it.

You can play around with the tool for free, linking 1 Twitter and 1 Facebook account. I feel in love in the first 24 hours and upgraded that same week. I pay for the “Pro” account which lets me buffer up to 50 articles at any given time across 5 social media accounts… and it’s only $10 a month which is well worth the value of the software.

 Screenshot of bufferapp analytics

(Click on image to see full size screenshot)

Step 2: Relationship Building

Now that I have interesting things to say to my fans and followers – and I’m communicating at a pace that doesn’t freak them out – it’s time to take the relationship to the next level. There are several things I want to be able to do at this stage in the game:

  1. Make sure I’m following back all of my new followers
  2. Thanking people for RT’s and follows
  3. Answering questions or leaving comments on stuff they put on my Facebook page
  4. Sharing content that THEY post that is relevant to my “tribe”
  5. Understanding the impact of social media on driving traffic back to my website
  6. Seeing all my metrics in one place, in aggregate, and by social channel
  7. Finally, monitoring chatter about key topics that interest me so I can find new fans and followers to follow and learn from – and hopefully add to my “tribe”

SproutSocial is my go-to social media management program for all of my brands.

They have a free 30-day trial – and I was hooked. I currently pay $49 a month for the service, mostly because I think it’s important to link my Google Analytics to my social streams. There’s a really nice review of the tool on Aaron Lee’s blog that goes through some of the features, and many of the things he didn’t like have been fixed in the latest release.

It meets all of the criteria on my list, and I spend about 30 minutes each morning drinking my coffee, and sorting through what’s going on with each of my brands. I communicate, measure, and monitor topics I care about for each brand, all in one happy place that has a simple user interface and kick-butt functionality.

 Screenshot of SproutSocial

Last, but not least, Step 3: Keep an eye on the competition

When I’m working for a client – even if I’m NOT managing their social media — I want to see what percentage of the conversation they’re actually getting. OR, conversely, if it’s normal for there to even BE buzz about their industry or product.

I’ve had the pleasure of using some of the enterprise monitoring tools in past jobs – tools like Radian6, Buzzmetrics, Lithium (aka Scout Labs), and Crimson Hexagon.

All of these are really nice tools, but I’m not an enterprise anymore. I’m cheap. For my purposes, Social Mention works just awesome – for free.

I can search for branded and non-branded keywords and phrases. I can filter. I can download the data and manipulate it myself. While it may not be perfect, NONE of the monitoring tools are perfect. I don’t let it bother me if, for example, my monitoring tool doesn’t pick up Twitter chatter so well – because when I’m doing an competitive analysis, it’s the same problem for any brand I’m searching. If SocialMention doesn’t pick up EVERYTHING for Lexus, it’s also not picking it up for BMW or Mercedes, so I’m not going to sweat over it.

 Screenshot of Social Mention

In sum, my core social media measurement toolkit is:

  • Content curation and scheduling: Buffer App
  • Social CRM:                                   SproutSocial
  • Competitive research:                   socialmention

I’d love to get your feedback if you’re a current user of these products… and I’m always looking for new products and services to try if you’re in love with your own solution.

Filed Under: analytics, business intelligence software, Facebook, free, internet marketing, marketing, social media, Social Networking, social search Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Why HTTPS websites like Xing don’t send you any traffic (according to your Google Analytics)

March 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Ever wondered why the biggest German-speaking business network Xing sends you almost no or no traffic at all? It might not only be Xing. As Facebook, Twitter and Google+ and an increasing number of other websites, Xing runs on the secure HTTPS protocol. And that can mean trouble for the referrer data in your Web Analytics tool.

The good old HTTP referrer is getting less and less reliable. Reasons include:

https (by svilen001, sxc.hu)

  1. The multitude of ways other than traditional links you can arrive at a page. For example, think of mobile, desktop or browser apps.
  2. Google Analytics discriminates against “normal” referrers by treating them as less important than search engine or campaign links when a user’s source changes during a visit. I say “discriminates”, but there are probably some good reasons for that.
  3. The “new” (well, from 2009) HTML link attribute “rel=’noreferrer’” which allows websites to not leak any referrer information when following the link.
  4. The increase in sites using HTTPS.  When a link goes from an HTTPS to a HTTP site, by default no referrer is transmitted. This can be a major problem, especially with important sites running on HTTPS, like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or Xing, the largest business network in the German-speaking world. The whole “keyword not provided” debate when using Google in HTTPS is a related, but different discussion.

If you’re using “untagged” links (no utm_source and the like), all four cases will mostly lead to “direct traffic” in your Web Analytics tool.

I will dig deeper here into that fourth point because a lot of web analysts are not aware of this. And when web analytics tutorials on analyzing your sources discuss referrers, this topic barely if ever comes up. Google Analytics’ Conversion University doesn’t touch it in its Google Analytics Tutorials. Even Avinash Kaushik added this issue only after a user suggested it in his post on “making love to your direct traffic“. 

Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are not a problem

To ease your heartbeat a little, HTTPS is not an issue with Facebook, Twitter or Google+. All these networks seem to want to show other websites that they are generating traffic for them (they should!). All channel their links through a non-HTTPS page that serves as an intermediator (Google+: plus.google.com?url=…, Facebook: facebook.com/l.php?u=…, Twitter: t.co/…). That way, the referrer gets sent along. Make sure to add the “t.co” source to your Twitter segment, by the way.

Intermediate pages also make surfing easier

This intermediate page has other reasons, of course: It makes surfing safer and more private. Firstly, Twitter & Co. can thus prevent you from moving to a spammy or infected site (yet, also sites they might want to censor). Secondly, Twitter & Co. can cloak the original referring URL so the destination website can’t see that someone clicked on a friends-only link on someone’s Facebook page (“facebook.com/john.doe” is not the most private of URLs).

See this example for a link to webanalyticsworld.net on Facebook:

HTTP://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=HTTP%3A%2F%2Fwww.webanalyticsworld.net%2F&h=oAQH3bikK

Facebook even rewrites links in email notifications this way. So if someone sends me a link via a Facebook message and I click on that link in my email notification without going to my Facebook inbox first, the referrer will still be facebook.com. That way, Facebook makes sure the rest of the web gets a complete picture of Facebook’s share of their traffic.

Xing, and other https pages, are problematic

Still, there are https sites like Xing that don’t use intermediate pages. Yet, they may generate a lot of “organic” traffic for you, that is, traffic you didn’t provoke yourself like when people send each other links to your site or post them in their status updates. In that case, there is hardly any way you can figure out Xing’s impact for your website via Google Analytics if your own website doesn’t run on HTTP.

GA Chrome Debugger Screenshot 1 : Xing (HTTPS) link to HTTP page. Referrer = “-”, Campaign Source = “direct”

https to http (Screenshot of GA Chrome Debugger)

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Screenshot 2: Xing (HTTPS) link to HTTPS page. Referrer gets transferred, Campaign Source = “xing”

Referrer data when link goes from https to https (GA Chrome Debugger)

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LinkedIn, by the way, runs almost entirely on HTTP (the settings page is on HTTPS) and has a similar rewriting mechanism like Facebook and Google+. So no need to worry here.

So what does all this mean for you? 

1. Does your website run on HTTPS?

a) Good for you, because you need not worry about not seeing the referral traffic in your web analytics tool, as traffic from https to https preserves the referrer. 

b) Bad for you, because other non-HTTPS websites you’re linking to might not realize how much traffic they get from you. Try a solution like Facebook’s to ensure that other sites see your impact.

2. Does your website run on HTTP?

  • Tag all the links you can influence with the utm campaign parameters.
    Check out Google’s basic guide and Lunametrics’ Dorcas Alexander’s suggestions for a good tagging hierarchy.
      
  • Add default campaign parameters when providing “share” links through a widget in an article or product. 
    Example: Add  ”utm_source=share&utm_medium=shared-referral&utm_campaign=share_this-url” to the links if someone uses your share widget. You might want to have the links shortened automatically in the process via the bit.ly API or your own tool so they don’t get so long.
     
    If you are really nifty, you can even provide different parameters depending on which sharing option someone clicked on (“share-email”, “share-twitter” or “share-xing” for example).
      
  • If possible, switch to HTTPS.
    I know this is not easy because there are so many other problems associated with HTTPS. For example, a lot of external tracking scripts or widgets, like Google’s on-site search (how ironic!), do not support HTTPS and create ugly browser errors (Internet Explorer 8 shows a popup warning on every page for example). We switched back to HTTP on our website because of these problems last October.
What are your suggestions on how to deal with unrecognized HTTPS traffic?
Now it’s your turn: Do you think you are missing out on a lot of traffic from an important HTTPS site? How are you dealing with it?
Filed Under: Facebook, Google Analytics, Google+, Twitter, Web Analytics, Web Analytics Implementation, Xing

Facebook Pages, is your Page Timeline ready?

March 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The Timeline for Personal Profiles

This was me in December last year when we were given the preview of Timelines on our personal profiles…

Image of Facebook Timeline for a user

 

I spent about 30 minutes tidying up my timeline, grumbling about not wanting to go onto a timeline view and wondering what cover picture to use.

Three months later and I’m still not a fan of timelines for my personal use, so when the news broke that Pages would also move to a Timeline design at the end of March I expected to feel a similar negative reaction…which hasn’t happened!

The Timeline for Pages, due 30th March

With only having a custom tab and the five photos at the top of the newsfeed, Facebook Pages have been looking rather sparse and not engaging when you compare them to personal profiles so this new design will let organisations improve the level of branding to reinforce/express their identity. There is more explicit personalisation shown on the page as individuals can see their friends who also like the page and related friend activity.

The new admin panel is very straightforward and user friendly, and there’s even a new section for messages from your Readers. I’m curious as to why Facebook are introducing messaging (although Pages can only message once they’ve been messaged) as the focus was previously on using news feeds and applications, but I think messaging is a good thing.

This change does mean some initial work for Page admins, so make sure you allocate some time this week or at the latest next week to start to preview your page and work through:

  1. sourcing a new cover image (or images to rotate over the months ahead). There is a point of caution here, Facebook are being strict in what is/is not allowed here to make sure you read the guidance notes and check out the updated Guidelines,
    Screenshot of Facebook cover image warning
  2. resizing the page profile pic, 
  3. deciding if you want custom images for applications,
  4. checking the Page timeline, looking at possible featured posts or milestones that you want to create, you want to get all these points ready before your page is automatically transferred to the new design on the 30th March.

Guides to getting your Page Timeline ready

With all things Facebook there are numerous blog posts out on the internet commenting on the changes, offering opinions and guides. I’ve had the opportunity to read through several as I’ve been prepping our Web Analytics World Page, and wanted to highlight the ones I’ve found most helpful.

  1. Facebook pages – grab a coffee and spend just over 3 minutes getting an initial overview on the new design and top level features.
  2. I spotted this one via Social Media Examiner, it’s from www.dreamgrow.com and is an excellent checklist to work through in order to get your Page ready. Although I’ll be moving the “publish” step to the very end of the process.

  3. Mari Smith has gone into more detail this week with a 21 key point article and a great screenshot packed with explaining notes about each section on your new page.

Will the design increase Page engagement?

In February Mashable quoted Gokul Rajaram, Facebook’s Product Director for Ads  as saying “The goal is to make Pages more engaging and more social,” and I think the new design achieves that. I don’t see every page gaining an increase in reach purely because of the design change, but more because pages have spent time on making innovative designs for their cover picture or have uploaded interesting content in their Timeline.

Screenshot of the 4 Timeline Filters for PagesI’m not so happy about the Timeline filters. Facebook seems determined to do away with displaying every post by chronological order and keeps forcing us to use filtered views, but it’s early days for this new design so there is bound to be future tweaks and I’m keeping hopeful that they’ll provide an “everyone” view in the future.

So  I’m viewing this as an opportunity to freshen up our page, focus on our updated video tab and look forward to getting feedback from our Facebook readers.

Filed Under: Facebook

Full circle: public figures update their audiences through personal profiles

October 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

September 2011 and what Facebook called the “most significant changes to the Facebook Platform since its launch in 2007″.

Image of Facebook Allow Subscribers buttonIncluded in these changes is the Subscribe Button, an opt in choice that allows you to not only vary the level of updates you receive from friends but more importantly to gain updates from individuals you don’t know but want to follow (spot the Google+ term), like a politician or perhaps an author. Which may bring some full circle back to using profiles.

Initially it was all about the profile and group, as Web Analytics World advised “…Organizations and bloggers should create Facebook Groups to further promote brand presence…”. Then in November 2007, Facebook launched Pages and with them, the main tool for businesses, public figures, organisations and causes to interact with individuals.

Profiles, Groups or Pages?

Despite this, there were still Facebookers using personal profiles and groups to communicate with their audiences, some had started before Pages existed and there was no way to easily migrate all their followers and activity between the three entities. Newcomers to Facebook weren’t always sure which was the best option (personal profile, group or page?) and on occasion created and used their personal profile for business without realising that this goes against Facebook T&Cs.

In October 2010, Facebook launched a tool to help users migrate the most important part of their profiles, their friends, over to a new Page. That same month, Facebook redesigned groups with the focus on making them suitable for more personally connected and smaller groupings. There was no migration tool to help groups move over to a new Page. Instead this summer Facebook started a process of migrating old style groups, either into the new style of group or into the archive and oblivion. 

Should I delete my Page and Subscribe?

Fast forward to September 2011 and the Subscribe button, so if I’m a public figure should I be closing down my Page now?

Not necessarily, although Facebook does say that you can use either or both routes to interact with your audience.Screenshot of Mark Zuckerberg Subscriptions Whether you’re new to Facebook or established and comfortable with using a Page, take this opportunity to review your short, mid and long term goals for using Facebook and if you are already using it, your progress so far towards achieving these goals. Even if you are not a public figure, it is always worthwhile to invest some time in reviewing your Facebook activities and goals.

If you are interested in the Subscription route, take a look at the differences in functionality between Profiles with Subscriptions and Pages. While both allow an unlimited number of fans/subscribers, at this early stage, Pages hold far more functionality:

  • allowing more than one admin (obviously!)
  • targeted updates (language and location)
  • custom tabs and applications
  • adverts
  • links 
  • insights for your page and website

Last night, Facebook Pages released a set of best practice guides for public figures to ensure that you get the most out of your page activity. It’s also worth noting that although the subscription button allows you to gain a wider audience with your public updates, the T&Cs still state that you are not to use your personal profile for your own commercial gain. 

So while it may be a good option to allow subscribers I wouldn’t recommend deleting your page just yet!

Filed Under: Facebook