ReadWriteWeb confirmed that Twitter will be rolling out new real times analytics with a beta launch in Q4.

I am an analytics/data nerd, and I am ridiculously stoked. Apparently the folks at Twitter acquired analytics startup Trendly and will be absorbing it into the Twitter functionality. According to ReadWriteWeb:

“The product will leverage algorithms similar to the Twitter Resonance concept,” Justin Kistner writes on the WebTrends blog, “in order to show users which tweets are spreading, who is influential in their network, and more. The emphasis is on real time in order to help users make adjustments on the fly to their tactics.”

This is great, and I really hope they will expand the offering to include Twitter integration/retweeting from websites and blogs as a metric as well.

This is awesome and big and a wonderful complement to the data that Facebook provides through insights. Good job, @ev and the gang.—KEIDRA D. CHANEY

The post Data Geeks Rejoice! Twitter to Add Real Time Analytics! appeared first on 435 Digital.

There’s a ton of tools and apps (Klout, Clicky, Twitalyzer, Facebook Page Insights) out there designed to measure social media traffic and engagement, but even so a baseline method of measurement hasn’t yet been established, which can be frustrating for marketers. It’s really easy to get bogged down in numbers and data that are interesting, but ultimately, meaningless when it comes to figuring out your bottom line. So where do you start?

First things first, you don’t have to measure everything.

The best way to attack social media measurement is to establish what your social media objectives are before you start: Are you using social to drive traffic to your company website? Do you want to expand your brand recognition in a new market? Are you using social media for lead generation? Identify the metrics that will give you the insights to answer those questions.

So for example, if your company is using Twitter to drive daily traffic to your website, looking at the number of daily @ mentions won’t help you much, you’ll have to start looking at your visitor numbers from Twitter to your website. If you are looking to expand your market in a new area using Facebook, tracking your new fan count in that particular location will be useful for you, however.

The key is identifying the metrics that measure your company’s objective. There’s no one size fits all with this. The more specific your company’s social media objectives are, the more refined your measurement can be. This could mean as little as 5 – 6 metrics that work for you. Imagine that! No more being bogged down with tons of stats and pages of spreadsheets. You can be lean and mean, and only track the numbers that directly affect your bottom line. Good luck!—KEIDRA D. CHANEY

The post Measuring Social Media ROI Doesn’t Have to Be Tedious! appeared first on 435 Digital.

A couple of years ago, the answer would have been “it depends.”

When Facebook first introduced fan Pages back in 2007, they left much to be desired in terms of functionality and giving organizations the ability to truly engage with Facebook users. (For example, in the very early stages of Facebook Pages, administrators could not send “blast” style messages to fans in-boxes, a feature available in Facebook groups). Pages seemed to serve the role of a promotional platform, rather than an engagement tool.

Profile, Group or Page? The Definitions
In the past year or so, the developers at Facebook have made strides in adapting the functionality of profiles, groups and pages to serve user needs:

Profiles continue to be best for individuals who are looking to personally connect with others.
Groups are ideal for bottom-up social networks around common interests (fan clubs, volunteers, etc.)
Pages have now evolved into a powerful tool for organizations and companies who want to connect with supporters, but who also have very specific marketing goals that require further insight on users.

Facebook Insights: Learn More About Your Fans
The key tool that makes Facebook fan pages so valuable to companies doing social media marketing is Facebook Insights, which provides page administrators with information on user demographics and activity on Facebook. If you’re a marketing data geek, this is juicy stuff: the average age, gender, and location of your users. Additional information includes page views, photo views, and “interactions” such as comments and “likes.”

If the ROI question is big in your company, and you are looking to glean hard numbers from Facebook’s ability to connect with users, there is no better tool to use than Facebook Insights. And if you’re a marketer that regularly reports progress on your Facebook traffic and interaction to your company (and if not, you should!) Facebook makes this report-ready data available in a downloadable .csv or a Microsoft Excel (.xml) file. In my experience I’ve found this data extremely useful in reporting company progress with social media marketing efforts to higher-ups, through weekly updates on Facebook activity and fan counts.

Facebook developers continue to evolve and improve the effectiveness of Facebook Insights, and I am confident that as more organizations use this tool to aid in their social media marketing goals, we’ll see more improvements in the future. Recently, Facebook Insights added pageview information by individual post – a godsend for anyone with a content-rich Facebook page and want to assess the popularity and impact of posts by content, something administrators could only speculate about before.

Don’t Forget Goals!
A final word about reporting and Facebook Insights. As with all web metrics, Facebook Insights are only as valuable as the marketing goals and objectives you apply them to, so I urge you to really look at your overall marketing goals and strategy and see how these juicy stats can lend insight. If you haven’t established measurable goals for your social media marketing efforts, there’s no better time to start!

The post Facebook Insights: Make It Work for You! appeared first on 435 Digital.