PitchPersuasion

Here is a quick overview of two very easy to use tools which can be used to measure and monitor online social media presence and effectiveness.

For the purpose of this blog post we’re going to use two well known brands: Sony Playstation & Nintendo Wii

Tool #1 - Addictomatic

Addictomatic is not very measureable, however it is very good to see where your brand can and cannot be found.

It’s very simple to use, all you have to do is go to the address: www.addictomatic.com and type in a topic of your choice, in this case “Sony Playstation”  & “Nintendo Wii”

The results can be seen here:

• Sony Playstation

• Nintendo Wii

From these two you can see that these two very well known brands appear in all of the main stream social media channels.  Looking at the content on both of these two pages the more experiences marketeers will be able to spot the different messages that are getting through and those that aren’t.

Tool #2 - Twitter League

This is a relatively simple yet very effective tool to measure the number of followers on twitter across a number of twitter accounts.

Simply by visiting the site & logging in, in a number of minutes it is possible to create a comparison list which is kept up to date for you live, making those reports easier to fill in at the end of the month!

As you can see from above, the code can also be embeded into blogs and there’s even an option to get the raw XML which if you know what you’re doing you can use for anything you like.

It’s worth noting that I couldn’t find an official XBox 360 user on Twitter only the unofficial ‘fanboy’ user..

Twitter is a relatively well known microblogging tool. Most normal people will be lost at ‘microblogging’.

Misunderstanding
The main misunderstanding of Twitter is as a result of it’s marketing which says: “Twitter is based on the simple question of ‘What are you doing right now?’”.

What people typically use Twitter for?
What Twitters front page it should really say is:
-For when you want to send a message to someone but don’t know who, so send it to everyone
-For when you want to share information or links with friends and colleagues
-For when you want to poll opinion on an idea/topic of interest to you or your followers/friends
-For when you want to promote something that you or your organisation has just done

Who Cares?
Initially no-one. First you have to make your presence known by looking for people you know, these might be through work or social or both. You can then ‘Follow’ them, this is a little like adding a friend on Facebook except that by default they are accepted.

People who you follow are notified by an email (assuming they haven’t turned this feature off, most don’t), and can then if they think you might be interesting follow you.

What if I have private stuff that I want to say?
Twitter is like your own little press release news wire. If it’s private there are many many alternative modes of communication you could use like email.. This is especially worth noting as Google tends to like indexing everyones messages aka ‘Tweets’

If you are interested in what I have to say, check out my twitter@ http://www.twitter.com/duncan_m/

Gary Vaynerchuck is a very well established entrepreneur who has built a multi-million dollar wine business from scratch.

From his talk at the largest European web conference LeWeb I took some very important points which although I’ve heard before, can’t be impressed on too importantly for Agencies, SMBs and Brands alike.

-You’re a clown if you’re not using Tubemogle to upload video,  as it is the best way to distribute and track video online.

-You have to love your audience, care about your community, and be authentic with content that you understand.  Caring, answer all your fan mails in a serious and authentic way.

-Two things matter: Word of mouth - Now instead of a maximum audience of 100 now people have audiences of thousands if not tens of thousands & Customer service will prevail, if it’s good.

-If you can build a personal/people based brand you should as it will add value to yourself and the company you are working at.  A company/brand with a board of celebrities is always going to be more valued by a customer base than one which is invisible.

Live Video streaming by Ustream
Gary @ LeWeb in Paris 2008

Source: Gary Vaynerchuck, Winelibrary.tv

If you’re looking for a breath of fresh air from iStock and Getty, check out Fotolia A US based stock photo site, they have 4,6m online royality free images.  What is unique about Fotolia is that it’s actually a marketplace where professional photographs are able to sell their photos.

The companies key goal is to provide only very high quality images which they screen.  One thing that came through from the interview is their intention to start offering stock video by the end of January 2009.

Watch the interview above. Source: -Interview with Oleg Co-Founder & President of Fotolia - Intruders.TV

They have a very simple pricing model of between $1 and $10 which gives you rights for print and at the top end $10 you can use for resale on items such as t-shirts and mugs.

-www.fotolia.com