Analysis of Social Media Management
A look at the integration of social media
platforms
Background
·
In my
graduate social media course with Marist College we were instructed to create
accounts on Blogger, Twitter, and Pinterest.
·
Each
week we were given a topic to discuss amongst our class and these discussions
were executed through the blogs we created for the course (My blog: http://dc4sm.blogspot.com).
·
Using
the social media platforms we created accounts with (Pinterest, Twitter, and a
class Facebook page) we posted links to attract attention and generate traffic
to our blogs.
·
Here, I analyze
my social media management experience and the results of integrating blog posts
with social media platforms.
Introduction
·
As a prior public relations professional,
I have seen the growing importance of social media and how businesses are developing
plans to utilize these platforms to reach their consumers.
·
As an entrepreneur and business
woman, I am deciding which social media platforms work best for communicating
and reaching my own customers and I have seen the impact that social media has
firsthand.
·
My online websites have seen the
most traffic and the most amount of purchases when my blog and social media
platforms (especially Instagram) has a steady flow of content being produced.
·
Going into this course, I was eager
to learn more about these platforms and to see what I could take away that
would better help me manage my business' social media accounts and reach more
customers.
Plans & Policies
·
With knowing firsthand how the use
of social media can directly affect traffic to a website; I set out to increase
traffic to not only my class blog but to my business’ blog and websites as
well.
·
I wanted to gain a better
understanding of the social media platforms that I already use (Facebook and
Twitter) as well as new ones (Pinterest).
·
I most importantly sought to drive
traffic to my class blog through these platforms.
·
On my business’ blog and websites I
do not have any privacy policies posted, however after taking this course and
especially learning about policies and security online, I will be implementing
privacy policies on all of my websites.
·
This site offers a generic privacy
policy template and allows users to select the options that best suit their
needs.
·
To view the privacy policy for my
class blog, click here.
Activities
·
For each week’s blog post I “pinned”
a pin along with a link to our class’ Pinterest board, I shared a tweet with a
direct link to the post, and I shared a link on our class’ Facebook group wall.
·
Halfway through the week I typically
posted again to remind people to visit my blog and join in in the discussion
that was underway (this included a link to the blog as well).
·
Lastly, I posted on the final day of
the week with a similar reminder.
Analysis
·
Week four’s blog post entitled, “Social
Media and your Target Audience” has been my class blog’s “most successful” blog
post thus far (the above screenshots are from week 4 as well).
·
During week four I published my blog
post earlier than usual (Tuesday instead of Wednesday) which afforded myself
and my visitors an extra day of interaction and dialogue.
·
Below are my blog’s stats which for week four showcase a 45% increase in pageviews versus week three:
·
When it comes to my blog’s audience,
the only information provided by Blogger is the country and operating system
used (97% of visitors live in the U.S. and 30% use Google Chrome).
·
I’d love if Blogger developed the
ability to provide more specific audience information such as age, income
levels and professions.
Conclusion
·
Although, it might be difficult to
clearly state that my blog’s traffic increased specifically because of my
social media interactions; there does seem to be a strong enough correlation
between the two to continue these practices.
·
The strategy of posting at least
three times throughout week on these social networks seemed to offer the
perfect balance between posting “just enough” and posting “too much”.
·
Moving forward I will definitely be
taking what I’ve learned in this course and directly applying it to the
marketing strategies I use for my two websites (The-Style-Closet.net & London-Rock.com).
·
The key to success is a constant
flow of content production; which often times is relatively difficult for me to
keep up with.
·
As a one-man-show it becomes
difficult to post on several different social media outlets as well as a blog;
however I know how important it is for not only meeting new customers but
maintaining the relationships I have with my current customers as well.
Hi Damaris! Your Storify is off to a really great start! As I was reading through, I was thinking you could probably find a few other places to drop in some Storify media. Right now, your first drop is in the Activities section. But, you might want to drop in a few social media links in your Background and Introduction. In your background you reference the three accounts you created for the class, you might want to drop in the profile pages or at least a sample for each of these. In the introduction, you reference some of your personal websites as a business woman. It might be neat to drop in a link to your business or your social media business account. Just provides some visuals and adds to the entertainment. Just a thought. Great job.
ReplyDeleteHi Bobbie Sue,
DeleteThanks so much. You brought up a great point about adding the links to the social media profiles I created for the course. I will definitely be sure to make those adjustments for my storify paper. You also suggested including links for my businesses websites as well. I did already include these however I included them in the conclusion instead of the background and introduction. Since the course has been focused on the new social media platforms and blogs we created my thinking behind this was to not try to make it about something else (my businesses). So, I figured I would tie it back together with links in the conclusion.
Hi Damaris,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your Storify! I think it’s great you pointed out that the course lessons will help you with your own business and its social media accounts, but it’s also good to hear how your previous experiences with your business helped you succeed in this class and in integrating multiple social media platforms. I also like the background you provided – it really sets the stage for an outside reader who may not be familiar with our course objectives and tasks.
In your Analysis section, it may be helpful to break down your traffic for each week in comparison to any objectives you set forth beforehand (i.e. visits, page views, unique visitors, etc.). I actually used Google Analytics for my blog because the Stats section of Blogger seemed to be lacking a bit (as you mention yourself), so I’m not sure how much more specific you may be able to get. Just a thought!
Overall, great job!
Lindsey
Lindsey,
DeleteThat's a great suggestion in regard to using Google Analytics. I agree with you that the blogger stats seem to be a bit vague in delivering manageable feed back. Can you describe how you were able to link google analytics to your blogger account? I would be interested in using that for my own storify project.
Thanks,
- Dan
Hi Dan - no problem! You just need to sign up for Google Analytics (just using your Google credentials) and you'll be given a tracking code that you need to add to your Blogger account. This (luckily) doesn't require any coding - check out these quick directions! I hope these are helpful. https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1009610?hl=en
DeleteHi Lindsey,
DeleteThanks so much for your suggestion. I actually had the thought of doing that as well but I'm sure as you know Blogger stats doesn't make it easy to do so. I'm going to revisit this for my final storify paper as I think it would drive home why week four's discussion was my most successful discussion of the semester.
Hey Damaris,
ReplyDeleteI think you are off to a great start in regard to your analysis of social media management. The information you listed is informative, and really takes the readers step by step through your process, in regard to micro-blogging, and generating traffic to your blog. According to (Scott, 2013, p.367), "true success comes from driving buyers directly to the actual content they are looking for". In this case, even though the point of driving traffic to our blog was not to sell a product, in some sense, we were selling our message to our fellow class mates and in many cases, the public, all those who chose to view the content we posted. I think you were successful in driving traffic to your page through the messaging you posted on your micro-blogs, enticing people, and reminding them to go view your blog. That is evident from the amount of page views you were able to generate weekly. There are a few things I do want to point out, that might help you improve your overall analysis.
I agree with what Bobbi Sue stated above, in regard to adding additional media earlier into your storify analysis. As she said, the first sign of media is in activities section, and perhaps adding additional media earlier on will help to improve the overall flow of the project.
One other thing I want to point out has to do with your messaging. Before I state what I feel could be something you improve upon, I really like how you staggard your messaging throughout the week, making sure to remind people to go visit your blog in the beginning, middle, and end of the week. You gave thought to the timeliness of your posting which is important. According to your stats, was there one time that was most popular in relation to generating page views?
Getting back to the content of your messaging. IMC tells us that we as marketers want to delver consistent messaging across all channels. When dealing with different mediums like facebook, and twitter, I saw above you used the same message to drive traffic in both places. I feel moving forward, you might want to try a different message that basically means the same thing, in order to avoid your messaging becoming too static and repetitive. You want to be repetitive, but dress it up differently to keep your messaging new and fresh.
Overall again, you are off to a great start. Keep up the good work!!!
- Dan
References:
Scott, D.(2013). The New Rules of Marketing and PR. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated.
Hey Dan,
DeleteThanks for your input and for leading this week's discussion. I had never really given too much thought to changing the messaging depending on the platform. To me it's always been if it will fit on Twitter it will fit anywhere (haha). Now ill be thinking about your suggestion in the future and will be eager to see if there is a change in the response or traffic.
Damaris,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your post. You did a really good job of sticking to the outline and organized all of the information in a way that was easy to read. This post referenced all the parts of our past projects that we worked on throughout the course of this class. I liked the way you organized your thoughts because there was enough to content to explain everything but it was not daunting to try to read all of it.
The other part of this post I really liked was your use of pictures and snapshots. You were able to capture a lot of the tweets and other information. This made it easy to see what you were talking about in regards to posting things on social media each week to drive traffic to your blog. The only thing I would have added was to break down some of the stats by week.
Great Post!
Hey Ian,
DeleteThanks a bunch for your feedback. I definitely tried to keep it streamlined and as much to the addendum as possible and part of that was making sure it wasn't too text heavy or "daunting", so I'm glad you caught that. Lindsey suggested I show the stats through the weeks as well so I will definitely be sure to add that for my final storify paper.
Hi Damaris
ReplyDeleteGreat post! You have a lot of great insight into the whole experience, especially since you are already so professionally active on social media. You really know how to build a brand and create a voice! I like your conclusions too, and would love to hear more about how you plan to apply what you've learned to your own blogs after the course ends.
Great job!
Sabrina
Damaris,
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned in your intro that you are seeing which social media platforms work best. Throughout this project we have used many different social media platforms. Including whichever additional social media platforms you have used personally are there any specifically that you would recommend for communicating effectively with consumers or other professionals? As for the paper I really liked how you described posting at least 3 times throughout the week as being a good balance. This was great insight and those posts certainly increased your blog views and comments.
Great Post!