Two big-picture takeaways from the “Measuring Social” speakers were:

1. Before you begin any social media campaign, know your business objectives. Not your social media objectives, your business objectives.
2. From the start of the campaign, have a consistent, streamlined way to measure how you are meeting, missing or exceeding your pre-defined social media expectations.

John Lovett (@johnlovett), senior partner at Web Analytics Demystified and author of Social Media Metrics Secrets, gave an excellent presentation on “Ten Tips for Paving Your Social Media Analytics Roadmap.” He talked about creating a roadmap, establishing proper expectations, documenting your journey and assessing your progress.

Two of his social media analytics points that really stood out to me were:

1. Skip the vanity metrics (e.g., fans, followers, likes and dislikes). This point might surprise small business owners who are trying to manage their social media campaigns on their own, perhaps feeling pretty darn proud of themselves when they reach 300 fans on Facebook or 1,000 followers on Twitter. You might be excited about these milestones, but how are you interacting and engaging these fans and followers to drive sales? There are much more meaningful metrics that you should track and analyze.
2. Plan for desired outcomes – When you start to gain more exposure through social media and you’re kicking off more and more conversations and interactions, what do you want to happen next? How will you allow or encourage these interactions to improve your products and services?

Adam Covati (@adamcovati), founder and chief technology officer of Argyle Social, gave a great presentation entitled, “Managing, Measuring and Monetizing Social Media.” He had some solid tips for getting started with consistent, simple measurements:

1. Start simple with a bitly.com account.
2. Add Google Analytics parameters on links.
3. Use tracked links everywhere.
4. Begin marrying data sources.

These steps will start measuring your social media activity. However, according to Adam, this approach will not accurately report social media’s total impact on your business.

For example, Google Analytics will attribute social media for a conversion that comes immediately and directly from a link on a social media site. Argyle Social’s software tracks social media interactions over a period of time and gives a more in-depth report of conversions that were “socially influenced.” For more information on the difference between the beginner tips listed above and much more advanced social media analytics possibilities, you might want to check out Argyle Social’s whitepaper entitled, “A Primer on Social Media Attribution & ROI.”

Well, I said it in 2010 and the (in)frequency of my blog posts proves it, “Kelly Duffort is not a Blogger.” It’s just that I learn so much from all the great speakers at the Internet Summit each year that I thought it would be fun to pull together a few posts. Whenever I can’t attend an event and instead, learn from people who are so kind to blog about it, I’m very, very grateful. If you couldn’t make it to Internet Summit 2011 or missed this particular session, this blog post is for you.

So…until next year’s Internet Summit or whenever the blogging bug first bites me in 2012, farewell!

Are people finding your web content? Do you know the latest SEO trends? (Photo by doraemon, Flickr, Available via Creative Commons License)

Jessica Bowman, founder and CEO of SEOinhouse, jump started Internet Summit 2011 for me as the first speaker that I heard during Tuesday’s Pre-Conference Intensives. She was a great example of a speaker whose approach is “You’re here to learn, I’m here to teach, let’s get to it!”

In addition to her enthusiasm (an extra important quality in the 8am time slot), she had tremendous knowledge to share. According to Jessica, quality content, now more than ever, is crucial to search engine optimization. (As a content person, I thank you, Jessica Bowman. That’s what I like to hear.)

Jessica reminded us that search results are getting more and more crowded every day. You’ve got to work harder and you have to stay up-to-date on what works and what doesn’t. One point that she spoke on, which was later echoed by Bill Slawski (@bill_slawski), president of SEO by the Sea, is the impact social media has had and will continue to have on SEO.

Jessica’s tips for gaining social authority are:

• Automate minimally
• Associate with people who will share
• Mix up your sharing so you aren’t too predictable
• Do not over expose the message, repeating the same message over and over again.

Later in the day, I attended the “Advanced SEO” session with four speakers. I learned something new from each and every one of them.

Lindsay Wassell (@lindzie), partner and consultant at Keyphraseology, recommended that brick-and-mortar businesses claim their local listings (e.g., establish a presence on Yelp) and then encourage and manage reviews. She also pointed out the increasing importance of posting images. More and more, images are appearing in search results, with and without the related content due to the greater and greater weight search engines are placing on images and videos.

Michael Marshall (@michaelmarshall), lead instructor with Search Engine Academy of North Carolina, spoke about the difference between on-page and off-page optimization. On-page optimization includes the steps you take to optimize your webpage as you are building it including title tags, alt tags, header tags (H1, H2), keyword density and keyword proximity, sitemaps (XML and HTML), usability and internal linking. (Note: Some of these factors are not used appropriately today.)  Components of off-page optimization include your activity, presence and mentions on social networking sites, search engine/directory submission, social bookmarking submissions (digg.com, de.li.cious.com) and article submissions. I had not heard of that division – on-page and off-page – and I appreciated the breakdown.

Markus Renstrom (@markusrenstrom), Head of SEO at Yahoo!, said that SEO is:

• content strategy
• accessibility
• relevance architecture
• user focused

Well, I liked everything that Markus had to say since he puts such high importance on content strategy and because he had the best accent – helps break up the day when you’re listening to speakers for 9 hours straight.

The slide from Bill Slawski that made me think the most was:

Google+   >   Twitter + Facebook

I love Twitter, I enjoy Facebook, but I’ve really been dragging my heels on Google+. Looking ahead to where search and social are headed, his equation make complete sense. If you’re not on Google+ now, you better get busy and join. (Look me up when you do…I’ve got some Google+ homework to do.)

Bill closed with a recommendation that really resonated with me as I start up a couple of new projects. Something I knew, but is always good to hear the experts reinforce: Teach and coach clients how to social network instead of networking for them. They are the subject matter experts. It’s more authentic when the content comes directly from them. Authenticity is very, very good for search engine optimization.

So… what was the best search engine optimization (SEO) insight you gained from Internet Summit 2011?

With a little luck, I’ll get similar blog posts on my search and analytics takeaways in the next couple of days.

As Matt Peters (@fracked), co-founder and creative director of Pandemic Labs, put it so eloquently, “NO ONE IS VISITING YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE!” You can have hundreds of people like your page, but you should know that, on average, less than 5% of them ever return.

Your Facebook Page is not a destination, as Matt explained. It is an important place from which you pump out content, but that content needs to be written with the goal of appearing in fans’ news feeds. The goal of getting them to “like” it or preferably “share” it with their friends. It’s golden content if inspires your fans to respond to it. “Engagement” (as we folks in the industry like to call inspiring people to respond and talk about what you post) is what you want.

Matt provided some excellent food for thought and provided some great examples on what qualifies as an excellent Facebook Page post. For your Facebook Page content to be successful, it should require:

• minimal attention
• minimal cognitive resources and
• high emotional value.

Lisa Braziel (@lisabraziel), strategy director at Ignite Social Media, and Jim Tobin (@jtobin), president of Ignite Social Media, both referenced Facebook’s EdgeRank Algorithm in their social media presentations. Folks who work on the web know it and build content around it every day. Small business owners toying with the idea of a Facebook Page should know that it is the magic formula for determining whether your post appears on your fans’ (or friends’) newsfeeds. Every Facebook post is measured according to it and the three magic dimensions are affinity (engagement and interaction), weight and recency.

Matt Crenshaw (@mcrenshawATL), vice president of marketing and analytics for Discovery Digital Media, Discovery Communications, gave an interesting presentation that covered his company’s analysis of their Facebook Page postings, their fans’ comments and how Discovery Communications adjusted their Facebook Page activity as a result. Another part of their extensive analysis was a tactic that any small business can and should adopt. A few questions that I think are excellent starting points – and points to revisit every so often as you create and manage your Facebook Page content.  Determine:  “What is my competition posting? What is working for them? What isn’t working for them?”

If you made it to the Internet Summit this year, what were your favorite Facebook Page takeaways? For you or for your clients?

It is a wonderful event for a small business owner/mother of two young children like me who would LOVE to find extra hours in every day to read and study much more than I do, but instead gets quite jazzed every November about having a legitimate business-related reason for dedicating two solid days to learning as much as I can from industry thought leaders.

I took 10 pages of notes this year – and live tweeted probably another couple of pages. The topics that interested me the most, based on projects I have before me, were Facebook Pages, search engine optimization and analytics.

Let’s see if I can bend time and write three blog posts on those topics over the next few days.

Photo by mag3737, Flickr, Available via Creative Commons License

Not so long ago, a small business that wanted to “get on the web,” had a simple project list:

• Build a website.

Today, a small business that wants to “get on the web,” probably has a checklist that looks more like this:

• Build a website.
• Answer the question: To blog or not to blog?
• Create a Facebook Page (and determine how to use it effectively).
• Figure out Twitter (and decide if it’s right for the business).
• Review analytics, determine which of the above are and aren’t working.
• Prioritize objectives. Divvy up the work. Get busy. Your work on the web is never complete.

A web strategy is the project plan that guides you through the process of “getting on the web” and determining which of the above “To Do” items to tackle first.

Six months ago, I would have argued that every business should kick off its web strategy by building a website. Now, I believe there are cases when a small business can get started with a Facebook Page or a blog.

A website can make you look a great deal more official, but it generally costs you a fair amount of money. You can create a Facebook Page or a blog for free, but once you create them, what will you post to keep the content current, fresh and top-of-mind? Do you have the resources for managing a Facebook Page or writing a new blog post every week?

Maybe Twitter is your answer. You’re allowed only 140 characters per tweet. Coming up with succinct tweets has to be easier than generating 200-300 word blog posts, right? But then…you’d need to figure the whole Twitter thing out, including how to find people to follow and how to inspire people to follow you. Plus, are the people you’re trying to reach even on Twitter?

In today’s Web 2.0 world, there isn’t a one-solution-fits-all. You need a web strategy – a plan for “getting on the web” that is based on your content, your audience, your resources and your objectives.

What's your best guess?

Lots of buzz last week about Goldman Sachs’ estimation that Facebook is worth $50 billion. The investment firm paid $450 million for less than 1% of Facebook’s stock. $450 million. For less than 1%. Crazy, isn’t it?

There’s  talk of a possible Facebook IPO in 2012. Question is…what will the company be worth then?

I’m not a finance person so I’m not going to try and call that number. Let’s have a little fun with some simpler numbers, though. Take a look at the number of Facebook active users over the years and give me your best guess on what that number will be in say…December 2012?

Number of Active Facebook Users

December 2004:         Almost 1 million
December 2005:         Over 5.5 million
December 2006:         Over 12 million
October 2007:             Over 50 million
August 2008:               Over 100 million
December 2009:         Over 350 million
July 2010:                     Over 500 million
January 2011:              Over 600 million

I wasn’t any good at “Guess the number of jelly beans in the jar” game so my guesstimate will be laughable, I’m sure. Nevertheless, I’ll start us off by guessing 1 billion active users on Facebook in December 2012.

Photo by eaglegrl76, Flickr, Available via Creative Commons License

Well, here we are in 2011 and despite what you might have thought in 2008, 2009 or 2010, Twitter is still around. In fact, Twitter seems to be gaining in popularity not just by what you see on the web, but by what we see at the end of TV commercials, hear on the radio and catch (surprisingly) even on the back of mail-order catalogs.

Last year was a terrific year for Twitter, according to Sysomos, provider of social media monitoring and analytics technology. From January 2010 until mid-August 2010, 44% of Twitter’s total population consisted of new users. (See Twitter Statistics for 2010 on Sysomos’ blog.)

I signed on with Twitter in 2008, but didn’t do too much with it until last year. I’ll admit … it takes a while to understand and even longer to figure out how you, personally, might use it. Nevertheless, once you “get” it, I’m betting you’ll find it useful and fun. Below are five reasons why I really fell in love with Twitter in 2010.

1.    Twitter enables you to connect with people you would never meet otherwise.

Whether they’re down the street or around the world, you can follow whomever you like on Twitter to learn more about them and/or from them.

For example, I love using Twitter to connect with people whom I’d like to meet at an upcoming conference. We can connect on Twitter, find out about each other via our tweets and decide to set aside a few minutes at the conference to talk face-to-face.

(In this example, I could perhaps meet the person without the advance Twitter connection, but it would be a lot more difficult and our conversation would be a lot more superficial than if we’ve already spent a few minutes learning about each other via our Twitter profiles.)

2.    You  can be who you want to be.

Don’t get me wrong. Be real, be who you are, but in the 160-character Bio section, list things that interest you, things that you want to learn more about, things that you want to discuss specifically on Twitter.

I make this point specifically for job seekers. I was a job seeker when I started on Twitter. It struck me that while LinkedIn is great a great place for outlining what I had done in previous jobs, Twitter is a more exciting place to talk about what I am doing and what I hope to be doing in the future.

3.    Twitter search is fun!

The web is a crowded place, getting more and more crowded every day. Google helps navigate it, but Twitter’s real-time search results can make your journey a little more interesting.  Looking up a topic on Twitter can lead you to someone who is tweeting about that topic right at that moment. That person might not be the authoritative figure with the answers that you really need (or he might!), but it is still pretty cool to find someone, somewhere tweeting about that same topic.

4.    You can build a community.

You can build your own Twitter community focused on topics, industries, people, locations, etc. that you like. As a member of that community, you should share links to news articles or blogs that you like, re-tweet posts by others and work your way up to taking part in Twitter conversations. The people you follow will be doing the same. As a result, each time you log into Twitter, chances are good that you’ll find a tweet, a news article, blog post or dialogue that “speaks” to you.

5.    Twitter empowers you as a consumer.

If you’ve ever been frustrated with black-hole customer service e-mails or hour-long customer service phone calls, you’ll be excited about the change Twitter is forcing upon companies’ customer service departments. It might be a while before all companies are on Twitter, but the smart ones are getting on it quickly and they’re listening. More importantly, they are responding…quickly. You can read all kinds of case studies, but when you experience it yourself (as I did a couple of times last year), you’ll be jumping up and down with tremendous customer satisfaction … and singing Twitter’s praises like me.

If you’re still a Twitter skeptic, now in 2011, what’s holding you back? If you’re a Twitter lover (like me), what’s your favorite way to use it?

WordCamp is a conference that covers the WordPress open source software, which was originally used to build blogs, but can now also be used to build websites. I was hoping to learn more about WordPress as a website content management system (CMS). I didn’t walk away with the information I had hoped to learn, but I did indeed learn a lot from speakers who know a great deal about blogs, websites, online marketing, traditional marketing, etc. So much, in fact, that I decided it was time for me to sit down and write one of my quarterly blog posts.

Blogging is a great marketing tool. It’s an easy way to communicate with current and prospective clients. You can say what you want to say any way you like. You publish it yourself and it’s out there for all to see … or find (assuming you’ve got that search engine optimization stuff working). Of course, if you want to do it the right way, blogging does require some hard work.

Reviewing my notes from several different conference sessions, I pulled the following recommendations.

Ten Blogging Tips from WordCamp Raleigh Speakers

1. Don’t start with just a topic and content ideas. Devise a content strategy. @jeffreylcohen. Think about not just what you will write, but how the content will be presented. Will you be the only one to write posts? Will you have guest posts and if so, how often? Will you include pictures? Where will you get those pictures? Will you include video? How about podcasts? Most importantly…decide…”What do you want people to do with the content?”
2. Prepare and follow an editorial calendar. @jeffreylcohen. Be strategic about when and how often you publish posts. One week you can write about xyz, the following week you’ll be at a conference and that should be a topic, then you’re off on vacation and you realize now would be a good time to seek a guest blogger for that period. Jeff also recommends publishing posts on a regular schedule (e.g., every Tuesday morning at 9:30am) so that your followers know when to expect something new and so that you can become the “go-to” resource.
3. Make your “calls to action” super clear and include them at the end of each post. @waynesutton, @jeffreylcohen. At the end of each blog post, tell your readers what you want them to do. Ask them a direct question, invite them to take a survey, encourage them to download your white paper, remind them to print and use your monthly special coupon. If you want them to pick up the phone and call you, don’t expect them to go hunt down your “contact” page. List your toll free number at the end of that post. Wayne suggested checking out HubSpot’s Blog to see how they have a call to action at the end of every single blog post.
4. Don’t call yourself a “guru,” “maven,” or “expert.” @davemoyer. If you do, you’re probably compensating for something. Instead, just BE an expert and show that you are via your blog.
5. Immerse yourself in your field and stay “ahead of the pulse.” @davemoyer. Familiarize yourself with tools that are out there to help you do this: Twitter, Feedreader, Google Alerts, social media aggregators (e.g, Yahoo! Pipes) and social media tracking services. (Argyle Social and SAS Social Media Analytics are two locally-based social media analytics resources.)
6. Involve your audience. @davemoyer. When you get comments, respond to them. Join the conversation. Use e-mail, instant messaging services, polls, Facebook, Twitter, and hey…even the phone.
7. Keep your blog titles short so they can be re-tweeted and briefly commented on in Twitter. @lawpower (Lawrence Ingraham).
8. Include your brand name in your blog titles so that your name appears in search results. (Thus, my third person title on this post.) @lawpower (Lawrence Ingraham).
9. Invite others to be guest bloggers for general cross-promotion of your two blogs and “link juice,” which is important for better search rankings. @lawpower (Lawrence Ingraham).
10. Don’t have too many “traffic leaks” with outgoing links. @beley (Brandon Eley). If a visitor is on your blog and clicks on a link to another blog, a social media site, an ad, etc., what are the chances they’ll make it back to your blog anytime soon?

How to wrap up a blog post that doesn’t even skim the surface of all that was covered at WordCamp Raleigh 2010? How about I borrow Dave Moyer’s closing thought?
“Blogs take persistence and time and a whole lot of effort.”

*Attribution for each tip is made by including the conference speaker’s Twitter name. This setup makes my blog post a lot less cluttered than including links to each of their websites … and it cuts down tremendously on my traffic leaks. In case you are not on Twitter, I’ve included given names (when not already obvious) so that you can google that person and find out more.

Question: What is your best blogging tip?

Photo by -nolly on Flickr

Real bloggers write all the time. I blog when the mood strikes. The mood struck me today after having coffee with a friend who has toyed with going out on her own over the past year, just like me. She is leaning toward a return to the corporate world and I wish her all the best. I admitted that I might be on that path again someday, but for now, I’m sticking it out, working hard and enjoying what I’m doing.

The following is a blog entry I’ve had swirling in my head for a few months. It is the best three pieces of advice I was given in my first year of going out on my own. Thanks, Jennifer, for inspiring me to finally sit down and put these thoughts out there in the blogosphere.

Use a simple, descriptive name for your business.
When I was first getting started, I put some pressure on myself to come up with a creative name. It was a daunting task because at the time, I wasn’t absolutely sure I wanted to go out on my own. Yet, I knew my business name would be used on my logo, my business cards and my website…for starters. Then there are bigger issues like officially registering the business name and applying for trademark rights. Aye yai yai.

Then, someone told me to keep it simple, especially as you get started. State your name and add whatever it is your business does. Thus, Kelly Duffort Web Strategies. Not a lick of creativity in that, but it gets my name out there and it does give you a good idea of what I do. Thank you, Steve.

Listen to your clients, they’ll help define your business.
This advice came from one of my first potential clients. She had been building her business for about a year and she was still working on defining her niche market and her key offerings. What she said made sense that day and several months later, it still applies to what I do today as I continue build my business.

Yes, I build websites. (That’s the 3-second answer I give to folks when I’m being lazy and pretty darn sure they don’t want to hear my elevator pitch no matter how slick and polished it is.)

The truth is I am a communicator and I LOVE working on the Web. I enjoy talking to potential clients to find out what messages they want to communicate, who their audiences are, what website development tools they have available to them now, how much they can spend on upgrading those tools if necessary, talking through the advantages and disadvantages of social media, mapping out strategies for “feeding the social media content beast” if it’s in their best interest to go that route, coaching them on data that is available in their analytics reports, etc.

I’ve done a little bit of all of the above as I have spoken with clients over the past six months. I enjoy the variety and I am discovering that I can help clients in many more ways than I originally thought. Indeed, they are helping me define my business.

“Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. ”
I do not know where I first came across John Wooden’s quote, but it is one that really helped push aside my self-doubts and go for it.

I build websites, but I don’t design them. There’s a difference. I’m a website producer, a project manager, a communicator, a writer. I have great appreciation for excellent design and I’ve worked with designers throughout my career.

So…I had to let go of that design obstacle and get started on everything else that I could  do. That’s exactly what I did and since then, I’ve worked with overseas designers (whom I found via freelance websites) and connected with local artists whom I look forward to working with in the near future. Funny thing is some of the designers I have met have been eager to connect with me because it just so happens they have a client who could use my expertise. I never imagined that connecting with them would lead to reciprocal business. In hindsight, of course, it makes perfect sense.

I agree with statements like “you can’t be everything to everyone” and “know your strengths and weaknesses.” For some reason, the way John Wooden said it made the most sense. Do what you can do, don’t worry about what you can’t.

I just came across a blog post by Chris Brogan, “Have You Been Laid Off?,” which features  the “Lemonade Movie Trailer.”

My answer is “Yes. I was laid off a long time ago.” In fact, when I was laid off, my oldest child was two and a half and my “baby” was a newborn. We celebrate the baby’s 2nd birthday tomorrow.

I’m not going to get rich by going out on my own. In fact, I don’t know when my income will make a real dent in the bills. What I do know, after watching the “Lemonade Movie Trailer,” is that I’ve enjoyed turning recession and unemployment lemons into “time that I’ll never have again” lemonade with my kids.

I look forward to seeing the whole Lemonade Movie as soon as it is released. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJltcT7DH7g] ]]> http://www.kellyduffort.com/content_strategy/websites/feed 0