Final Weekly Stats: Weeks 12

Over the last 12 weeks we have tweeted, blogged and facebooked to our hearts content to see if utilizing social media held a significant value for service-based business. Our initial goal was to gain 1,000 followers and friends on Twitter and Facebook to share our design ideas and inspirations (and hopefully boost our ROI).

From the first week of the experiment to the last, we didn't hit our goals, but did make satisfactory progress. We gained 346 Twitter followers, added 441 more users to our following list, and increased our Facebook fans by 62%, allowing us the ability to share our ideas and communicate with others. Our blog hits increased from 63 a week to 190 a week and our website hits averaged 174.5 unique viewers a week. Whether or not these new connections are leading to genuine business relationships is still up in the air for us. The connections seem intangible to our service-based business. That doesn't mean they are not valuable, just hard to measure.

(To see our overall stats from week 1 to week 12, click here.)

One problem we ran into was our potential client base is largely not yet on Twitter or reading the type of blog that we published. The average Twitter account holder is reasonably young, urban, and engaged online according to arstechnica.com. Our clients tend to be Directors of Marketing or CEOS, which most Twitter users are not.

We feel that there are things we could have done differently that would have produced better results. We could have blogged about more topics that we are passionate about, and make the blog much more personal. We could have twittered around the clock. Hind-sight is always 20/20.

However, the point of any experiment is not knowing exactly what will happen based on any variable. We went in to this the same way that most companies jump into Social Media, with virtually no strategy. More testing is definitely recommended. A great way to test the significance of Twitter strategies would be to conduct the experiment in a scientific manner: starting with a handful of brand new Twitter accounts and assigning each a specific strategy, with one being a control (no strategy) and assessing the value(s) of each strategy to service-based business.

Though this is the end of our experiment, we are not ending the experience. We will continue to tweet, blog, and facebook to represent ourselves and our ideas and will continue to post to this site with insights and observations about the universe of Social Media.

Keep watching us!

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Blogger
• YouTube

Interview - Social Media Believer

Ben Smith is what we would call a firm believer in Social Media, especially for business. He's the Social Media Manager for the World Company, a media empire based out of Lawrence, KS. Ben explains what it means to be the same person online as you are offline and shares a few tips on handling Social Media within the business space.

Weekly Stats - Week 11

We're happy to report good stats this week!  The overall bump in our stats is directly proportional to Clifton's blog post, "Is your brand image only worth two hundred bucks?"  It's a hot-button issue that gets people fired up.  We posted a link to the blog on Twitter and Facebook resulting in 134 clicks and multiple retweets.  

The blog itself was based upon an idea we felt strongly about, and thusly received more traffic than some of the other posts we have made which may have been very simply posts of cool graphic ideas for inspiration.  We found that many others in the design community also felt strongly about this topic and were happy we had voiced our beliefs about it.  This gives us reason to believe that mixing in more personalized content with images of inspiration would result in a bigger following. 

Weekly Stats - Week 10

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The results of our experiment are really starting to plateau.  Sure, they're still increasing, but at very small numbers.  Blog hits and website hits seem to be interchangeable and stay within the same span of hits.  However, we do have good news: The number of hits on this blog (the greatsocialmediaexperiment.com) have spiked.  It's too bad we aren't including this blog in our measured results!

Ten Simple Suggestions for Using Social Media

If you haven't already, you're likely going to use social media in one form or another to promote your business.  The following are a few easy things to keep in mind as you do so: 

Advertise less

We all hate being interrupted in what we're doing by an ad or a commercial (think about all those videos online that make you watch an advertisement before you can watch the video.) Try to think about social media from a less ad-centric perspective.  Try to pull people into what you're saying instead of pushing your message out to everyone. 

Listen to what's being said

Monitor what is being said about you or your company, share your perspective and even attempt to apologize when needed to remedy a situation.  Not doing so could cost you some business.  It's free to utilize a number of useful tools like Google Alerts, Backtype, and TweetBeep.  So start doing it.  Even if you do nothing else with social media, you need to listen to what people are saying about you and your company.  Not doing so could prove costly.  

Learn from it

Publicists used to try to "handle" situations, and many likely still do.  Instead of doing this, use this feedback to your advantage and learn from it.  Have someone cursing about your product? Talk to them and find out why they're so frustrated.  It's a pretty wise idea to take what they say to heart.

Define your purpose

It's easy to become intoxicated by the litany of tools available to the marketer - Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Feedburner, widgets, applications.  There are lots of things you can do... so don't. Instead, try to put all of the tools out of your mind, and think about your purpose. Imagine someone asking, "I just got a screwdriver...what should I fix?"  Wouldn't that be crazy?  You shouldn't get a tool and then look for a problem; instead, isolate a problem and then select the appropriate tools. 

Speak human

People don't care about companies.  They care about the people in them and the things they do. Think small.  If I need help with your product, I probably don't want to talk to a person in a call center reading a script.  Actually, the very best thing for me would probably be if I were able to talk to the person who actually put the thing together.  So, drop the posturing and let me talk to that person.  Why not just be a person who thinks, cares, and makes mistakes instead of replacing that person with an automated robot designed to take calls?

Have a personality

Social media is only interesting when it's social.  That means that we need the discussions, debates, and back-and-forth.  The only way you get to that is by being who you are and letting the chips fall as they may.  I'm not proposing that you act like a jerk, but don't let politeness get in the way of something you actually mean.  Most people prefer that to corporate fluff. 

Play

In spite of all the "experts" out there and the many grand claims around what they can do with social media, it's actually not quite that clear.  In fact, with the rate at which social media and trends change these days it's pretty hard to establish any proven method for success.  So give up on perfection and try some things out.  Get out there and play with the tools and see what works for you.  

Give us the good stuff

Forget about "going viral".  In fact, never even say the word "viral" again.  A lot of people want to "go viral" but in reality they don't.  They just think it would be nice to get some free advertising by doing something quirky.  Most of them aren't prepared for it if it did actually happen.  It's unlikely that their servers would handle the load, and even if they did, they would probably get a chuckle, but not a sale.  The truth is that "viral" almost never happens, and when it does, it's generally not as important as the long-term stuff.  Instead, make (and sometimes give away) good stuff that has value to your audience. 

Avoid the quicksand

A day spent on social media seems, in many ways, poorly spent.  These are great tools, but they're just that.  Don't let them cloud your vision.  Remain focused on where you're going and what you want to do.  Establish goals that help you determine if you're actually doing what you want, or in fact just getting sidelined by distraction.  You can always walk away from social media if it's not working, and for some it just doesn't.  Fact is: there are many ways to communicate with your audience and a lot that "old stuff" still works pretty well.

Surprise people

Every once in a while we're all surprised by something that just goes further than we might have thought.  It doesn't have to be monumental and it doesn't have to cost a lot.  All it has to do is take us somewhere we didn't think you'd take us.  Go beyond trying to get as many followers as possible or doing something funny for kicks.  I suggest that we think about connecting with people in an authentic fashion instead of treating it like a digital popularity contest in which we "streak the campus" to make people look for a moment.  

To read the entire article, click here

via Eric Karjaluoto at ideasonideas.com

Plaid Nation Rocks!

A big thank you to the rolling van that is Plaid Nation.  A couple weeks ago we mentioned them on this blog and their tour through the country meeting creative, marketing, brand and internet networkers and celebrating their innovations. Today we received a package from them, containing a hand-written note, super-cool t-shirt, air freshener, and an awesome button.  Way to go guys!  You show great care in social relations.  We can only hope all companies will incorporate the same values you have.  

Follow plaid nation on Twitter

or check out their website

Weekly Stats: Week 9

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We are in the last quarter of our Great Social Media Experiment.  Have you been keeping up with our efforts?  

Again, for the most part, our numbers are slowly rising.  Is the lack of "speed" due to summer vacations?  Are people on the internet hearing about or getting our information?  Will our numbers skyrocket once school starts and vacations end?  

It seems our new strategy has nicely boosted our blog hits, but our websites hits are slipping. The problem is, it is difficult to get users to access our website if there is nothing new for them to see.  We depend solely on new viewers to boost our website hits.  

Click here to head on over to our overall stats of the experiment.

Help us spread the word!  Not only do we have a website, we're on Twitter, Blogger, and Facebook.  And be sure to check out our t-shirt shop :)