Social Media Monitoring and Analytics

A major part of social media marketing is starting conversations and putting content on social networks. However, another significant part of it is listening to what people are saying. A recommendation when working with social media is to see what people are saying about your social media messages so you can see how things are going.

Social analytics allows you to measure impact, such as number of likes, or conversations or even the performance of a particular page or account. This allows you to report how the social media efforts are going to clients of yours or colleagues. As well as, social analytics helps track the ROI of social media efforts, which has been an increasing interest for companies.

There are two types of media, one is "owned media" and the other is "earned media". "Owned media" is social media pages or "properties" that you control. For example, your blog, your Facebook page or Twitter page. It is where you post content and start conversations. The other aspect of media is "earned media", which is everything else. This is when people start their own conversations; or someone shares something you post with someone else.

Social media surrounds our everyday life, there is no escaping it. Therefore, it is an excellent opportunity to learn all about it and what it has to offer. When looking for jobs, social media monitoring and social analytics are excellent skills to have in order to put on your resume and have a better chance at getting hired.

Social Media Messages Using Hootsuite

Today we learned about sending social media messages out through https://hootsuite.com/. The first step to do is to connect all your social media to your Hootsuite account. By looking at the top left hand corner of your Hootsuite page you can see which social media accounts you have added. After adding your accounts you are ready to post. Hootsuite is a unique tool in which it allows you to select all your social media accounts and post to them the same message from one central site. 

For my first attempt at using Hootsuite, I decided to send the message of "working in social media, check out my blogger" to my Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter account (as shown below). However, the only thing that I recommend doing is to make sure once you post a message to your social media accounts from Hootsuite to check out how it looks on the social media sites. As you may notice, each social media site has a different look for how the post is viewed. Therefore, make sure to double check if the message you are trying to convey to your audience is really what shows up on your social media sites.  

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is an excellent place to use for "social listening", it gives you a sense of what people are saying about you, on your social media sites.

To get started you will want to go to https://hootsuite.com/login and start with the free account for now to see how you like it. Then enter your email address, name, a password you can use, your location, and click Create Account. It is that easy to make. All you have left to do is add social networks and allow Hootsuite to work its magic.

Hootsuite attempts to be helpful, as part of the setup process, so it will take you through a series of steps to help things get started. You do not need to watch everything, however, there is no harm in doing so.

Hootsuite allows for you to post on different social media sites from one central website. This tool is helpful to keep you organized and allows you to keep a regular stream of content going, especially when you schedule a post.

My advice to you is to give Hootsuite a try because you never know if you will end up liking it if you do not try it out in the first place. 

Twitter

Twitter is an excellent example of a main network channel seen within social media marketing. The best way to understand Twitter is by looking at a Twitter page or more importantly making a Twitter account.

Twitter posts are limited to 140 characters each, so the general format is some kind of very concise comment, often with a link, either to an article or picture. the @ sign and # sign are unique graphics for Twitter because they enable people to basically notify another Twitter user of something connected or related to them.

Twitter is another source for customer service because many people tweet about products, and it is a good idea for a company to keep an eye on social media so they can resolve any problems that may come up with products before it gets out of control.

Creating a Twitter account is pretty simple, all you need to do to get started is enter your name, email address, and a password. Then you have to choose a username and follow the tutorial for Twitter and there you have it. Your new Twitter account is made and you are now ready to tweet.

Creating a Blog

Social media marketing is an important skill to have in order to find a job in today's world. One way to improve your skills in this area is by starting simple and creating your own blog. Make sure you pick a topic or technique that you are interested in, so you get in the habit of posting ongoing information on your blogs. This tool of creating and maintaining a blog is an important one because future employers or clients can refer to your work and see your work ethic and research skills.

To get started, there are many blog websites that can be used to create a blog, however, one of the easiest ones to work with and is free to use is https://www.blogger.com. There are two ways to sign up, first, you can either sign in with your Google account, or click the "create an account" link at the bottom. Once you have done this you have to click the New Blog button and make a title that corresponds to the topic or topics you will be blogging about. You will have to create an "Address" that your blog will appear at. The next step includes picking a template for your blog. From there you are ready to blog by simply clicking the Create blog button.

Blogs can be about anything that sparks your interest. However, my only advice to a new blogger is to continue blogging and keeping up with your blogs. Do not have your blogs be unattended for long because you want to be able to keep your social media skills up to date. To learn more about Blogger, access the settings menu and select "Blogger Help," this will help with any unanswered questions you may have when blogging.

Social Monitoring

In class today we learned about social monitoring and how important it is to look yourself up to see what is being said about you on social media. This is an important step to do before one goes out looking for a job because future employers can see everything about you on the internet and that can make or break a job interview. A popular website used by many in order to see what is being said about them is www.socialmention.com.

Today's class activity consisted of looking up different people on various "channels" such as news, twitter, a blog post, etc. and trying to get a sense of what the public is thinking.

The Political Figure I looked up was Donald Trump because he is seen in the public eye recently, by searching his name and scanning the recent posts about him I noticed there is a 5:1 sentiment in his favor. However, some posts state that he is not fit for president and is a racist.

The Celebrity I looked up was Britney Spears because she has been around for a while now. By searching her name I noticed she is equally divided down the middle with how many positive and negative posts are said about her, it’s a 1:1 sentiment. Therefore, people are divided on whether or not they like her.

The Brand Name I looked up was Nike, which is a well-known brand that everyone is familiar with in one way or another. Nike makes people speed back into season. By focusing on Nike there is a positive outlook on it and how people view the overall brand. As seen there is a 5:0 sentiment in favor of the brand and the quality of it.

The Product Name I looked up was Charmin Ultra Soft which is a type of toilet paper that is seen in many households and is seen as more of a positive product than a negative one. As stated on the socialmention website there is a 8:1 sentiment in the products favor. Posts have stated that no other toilet paper compares because it is America’s softest toilet paper.

The last thing I looked up was a Company and I decided to go with Google Company because it is a well-known company that many posts say it’s a great place to work. The difference between the positive and negative posts are huge in which there is a 31:1 sentiment that shows how much people view google as an awesome company and one that they can trust.

Next time you are free look yourself up on the computer to see what is being said about you and to prevent anything bad being put up without your consent.