In this FREE Report, I reveal the Top 21 KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) your business or agency must be measuring for Social Media ROI

First– ask yourself a question:

Which of the 3 website goals am I trying to achieve?

Websites typically focus on these 3 objectives:

Increase website traffic

Increase leads

Increase sales (Or what we help do- increase conversion)

Second– ask yourself what is my cost per lead? Cost per customer? Remember: LTV of a customer (Or life time value)

Third: Understand Quantitative VS. Qualitative measurements

Now for the 21 KPI’s your business or social media agency should be measuring:

1. # of unique website visitors per month

2. # of Twitter followers & # of Twitter lists

3. # of mentions of your brand, product or service on twitter (see the tool www.tweetreach.com )

4. # of Facebook friends/ Fans

5. # of clicks on bit.ly links (find patterns in the time of day) this is FREE PPC! HUGE cost savings I’ve personally saved companies over 20,000$ easy that they would of spent on PPC  (who says social media is free??)

6. # of you tube subscribers

7. # of you tube channel views/ videos views

8. # of newsletter subscribers (or blog subscribers)

9. Know which traffic sources are sending you the most traffic (Google Analytics)

10. # of quality inbound links (SEO)

11. # of blog comments

12. # of opt ins to your list

13. # of linked in group members

14. Avg. time spent on site (social media increases this) More time is better

15. Bounce rate (you want this % as low as possible) Lower is better

16. # of leads, sales, and conversions (Percentage) This is the MOST IMPORTANT

17. # of customers you retain from social media (staying engaged and on top of mind)

18. % of revenue increase from social media marketing

These are just some additional supplemental benefits of social media:

19. How much a PR campaign or traditional campaign would of cost without using social media (Cisco saved 250,000$ that they would have had to spend) see video here: http://justinrfrench.posterous.com/social-media-saves-businesses-like-cisco-2500

They reached 90X the audience at 1/6th the cost with social channels.

20. Social Media produces much higher QUALITY of leads than paid advertising

21. Social media produces better conversion rates than email, PPC, CPA, CPM, etc.

Last Point:  Social Media is just simple communications Duh!

If you need an actual ROI Calculator, check out Dragon Search which we use quite often to show cost savings to clients. You can find here http://bit.ly/jFWilb

Hope you enjoyed this FREE Report.  Click Here If you would like to subscribe to our Social Media VIP Insiders tips and tricks.

Any questions about optimizing your businesses social strategy? Feel free to comment below or connect with me on Google+ http://plus.justinrfrench.com

Cheers,

Justin Results French

I had the opportunity to attend the 3rd Annual Gravity Summit at the campus of UCLA yesterday with fellow members of Social Networking San Diego. In a nutshell, Gravity Summit is a day long event that brings together some of the best minds in social media from various industries. Speakers talk about social media trends, how to use social media tools, and present case studies on some unique social media applications.

Here is a brief recap and a couple of key points I took away:

The Summit started with opening remarks from Beverly Macy, CEO of Gravity Summit, and Teri Thompson, Creative Director of Gravity Summit, who spoke on the topic of “A Social Global Perspective”. One notable statistic I took from Teri’s presentation was that in the past year, there was a 90% increase in conversation on Twitter about companies and corporations. It makes you wonder, what are people saying about your company?

Gravity Summit Attendees

Simon Mainwaring from Fast Company took the stage for the opening keynote. He mentioned that two of consumers’ top concerns are honest and transparent business practices and dealing with companies they can trust. A way to address those concerns is to engage with your customers via social media.

Simon explained how social media is connecting us and accelerating change on multiple levels. He stated that companies need to build social capital as well as financial capital. Companies and brands cannot excel in a society that fails, therefore, it is critical for companies to contribute to social good.

“The best hope for business is the business of hope”

How is your company contributing to social good?

Brian Dresher from Mashable talked about sharing the personality behind your brand, show casing your company’s personality and why you should provide behind-the-scenes access to how your company operates. Sharing your brand’s “personality” is key to building trust with your customers, a point mentioned previously by Simon Mainwaring.

Panel Discussion (from left to right) Beverly Macy, Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, Patrick Srail (MySpace), Andrew Orci (ORCI Agency), Daphne Hart (American Red Cross)

There were speakers representing companies such as Access Hollywood,  American Red Cross, Domino’s Pizza, and Toyota, who talked about how they use social media or how the use of social media has been beneficial to their companies in a multitude of ways, from gaining competitive advantages, better customer engagement, building brand awareness and following, etc.

A memorable presentation was by Ramon De Leon, owner of six Domino’s Pizza restaurants in Chicago who shared how he uses social media to engage with his customers and deliver above and beyond customer satisfaction.

One of the highlights of the show was MC Hammer accepting an award from Gravity Summit for Social Media Marketer of the Year.

Social Networking San Diego CEO Justin French with MC Hammer

My experience at Gravity Summit overall was great. Check below for a full list of the speakers and a link to their Twitter page.

Wesley Quach

Complete list of 3rd Annual Gravity Summit Speakers:

Beverly Macy @beverlymacy
Rodney Rumford @rumford
Teri Thompson @terithompson1
Simon Mainwaring @simonmainwaring
Brian Dresher @bdresher
Ted Nguyen @tednguyen
Daphne Hart @daphnehart
Stewart Neff @stewartneff
Jeremy Blacklow @blacklow1
MC Hammer @mchammer
Ramon De Leon @ramon_deleon
Vishal Sapra @vishalsapra
Justin Goldsborough @jgoldsborough
Shira Lazar @shiralazar
Dr. Natalie Petouhoff @drnatalie
Patrick Srail @patricksrail
Denise Morrissey @denisemorrissey
Charles Miller @chasmiller
Nic Adler @nicadler
Kyra Reed @kyrareed

Gotta love that catchy headline right? Ok so yesterday when I logged into my personal Gmail account (I have about 30 Gmail accounts by the way all for a different business purpose because you know I’m all about business and occasionally having fun) and I happen to see a landing page come up introducing me to Google Buzz. I watched a quick video, got versed on it, and began exploring. After you watch the video I would advise you to play around with it a little bit. Do you think Twitter may be worried? My personal opinion is just like Linked-in, Facebook and Twitter. Google buzz will be just another means of me communicating to another online community of those I am connected with. (it just happens to be my contacts in my Gmail account and on my phone- the G1 Android). Buy one here and I’ll teach you how to set up a special proprietary workflow system I have created to streamline email and increase productivity

As the lines become more and more blurry between my professional life and personal life, I started out having two separate accounts but quickly realized how non time efficient this was. I am slowing trying to migrate to just 1 user account per social network, but we will see where that takes me. Right now I am more into twitter and Linked-In (obviously) but it depends on my goals.

What are you thoughts on the new Google Buzz? Should Twitter be afraid? I don’t think so, not for now anyway, BUT who knows what will happen in the next year. The world of social media and social networking for business changes every day. It is so hard to keep up BUT if this is your passion, you never consider it work. Its part of your life. It consumes you. You are addicted. But there are many other worse things you could be addicted to so until then, go get your Buzz on with Google and Tweet it up on Twitter. Cheers,

Justin R French

Here is a Top 8 list of our Most Popular Posts for 2009 according to our tracking statistics on Hootsuite. You the community, clicked on these posts the most, so I put together a list of the most popular ones just in case you wanted to bookmark it or share it with your contacts (always appreciated)

Please help share these with the Business Community as I’m sure they will find these extremely valuable in preparing their strategy for 2010. This is in order of oldest post to the newest.

1. Top 5 Lessons Learned about Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter, and Business”

This is the post that really kick-started our renewed passion for consulting, except instead of providing trusted IT consulting, our TEAM shifted into providing trusted Social Media Consulting because we identified the trends of businesses needing a team of consultants to help guide them on this new medium which should now be part of their marketing mix. Social media has been added to the equation of all marketing departments, or at least should be and the budgets will finally be there for 2010.

2. 10 Keys for Small Business Success Using Social Networking

This post gave actual tips small businesses can implement right away and gained much popularity among the small business community.

3. How CEO’s Can Create A Blue Ocean Strategy And Save The Company Using Social Media

As we know, good leadership starts from the top and works its way down, yet now we have seen a more bottom up approach thanks to social media. I would suggest any executives still trying to wrap their head around social media, you may want to read this popular post I did and the video explaining how to create a blue ocean strategy using social media with some examples in layman’s terms.

4. Top 5 lessons learned in the trenches of social networking for business and social media consulting

This post discussed what life has been like in the trenches of providing social media consulting and strategies for companies to leverage with even some lessons we learned early on. A good refresher like this is much needed for the New Year.

5. Top 5 Lessons in Trust relating to Social Media and Social Networking

Especially in today’s economic climate, we are extremely reliant upon the trust we have built with our network and community, and we must constantly be cultivating these relationships. The book I would recommend you read is by a fellow social media evangelist Chris Brogan. The title of his book Trust Agents speaks for itself. Here is where you can get your copy: Remember- leaders are readers!

6. San Diego Small Business Fair- Social Networking 101 Slides

This post gives the actual presentation I did at the local San Diego business fair. We received some very good feedback on the content presented so I encourage you to view this post just in case you missed the live event.

7. Top 10 Reasons Businesses Should Embrace Social Media and Twitter To Survive in 2010

Here was another Top 10 list I had put together explaining why businesses will should be embracing social media more as part of their business strategy for 2010. It received over 800 hits so there should be at least a few good points that you may find beneficial.

8. What are the ABC’s of Social Media For Business?

It is important to know the foundation of social media for business development purposes, so these ABC’s explain some of our processes we use (transparency) in working with clients to establish principles to ensure a solid foundation.

Here is to a great 2010 and we at the SNSD team wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Justin R French

P.S. As your trusted advisor, In case you were looking for a cost effective tool to stay in touch with your customers, prospects, and community, you may want to consider starting 2010 off with a tool we use at SNSD called Aweber. You can sign up here for a FREE test drive:

Can You Have More Sales, Too?

Helping over 65,000 businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber’s opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.

Take a Free Test Drive today!

My colleagues, partners, customers and friends always wonder, “So Justin, you’re a social media strategist huh, then what is a typical day like for a social media strategist? What do you actually DO?” It’s also important to know that as an Entrepreneur running another start-up and consulting on a regular basis for a few clients, many wonder what a typical day looks like. Here is a detailed breakdown of a typical day in the life as a social media strategist (play by play)

I hope this is beneficial and eye opening to those business professionals considering using social media marketing to assist in growing their personal brand or company brand online. Be prepared- you are investing time, money, and sometimes countless hours of sweat equity but at the end of the day I must caution you- be prepared for a exciting and sometimes overwhelming and draining journey

6:30AM Wake up to a fair and balanced news station on TV

7:30AM Check twitter stream (latest news) listen to voicemails and check emails/ follow up (Google alerts) from the night before (usually competition and industry trends) on the G1

7:45AM Check Google Reader on some of my favorite Blogs

7:55AM Listen to what some authorities are doing (usually my custom twitter accounts I set up for filtering) to try and continually better myself, I study the best

8:15AM Check linked-in and Facebook (my business account) and maybe E-Cademy if time

8:30AM Client call backs, follow ups, then get on the clock (consulting)

9:30AM brainstorming session with executives on current month’s promos

10:30AM check some Google analytic stats, keyword performance, verify content postings (measuring campaign success and ROI for SNSD and clients)

11:30AM check in/ focus group with key TEAM members, progress and status check on projects

12:30PM Lunch

1:45PM watch a couple you-tube videos on industry items (social networking, social media, tech, entrepreneurship, leadership, or sales)

2:15PM Engage in twitter with prospects, friends, clients, etc. send out a newsletter or two, read some headlines on twitter, delegate some tasks to my assistant

3:15PM Billing, banking, and where I am with latest projects / products in development for social media and social networking for business

4:30PM Conduct a webinar on twitter, linked-in or maybe my online psychology class. Also, prepare next week’s curriculum for Mira Costa College social networking class. Maybe prepare for an online interview or Press Release or prepare talking points for a speaking engagement (power point slides using 10X20X30 Formula- thanks Guy Kawasaki)

5:00PM Record a you-tube video or two, prepare tomorrows blog post, check in with key contacts/ circle of influence

6:00PM Gym / or Soccer

9:00PM Dinner, another you-tube video (Always learning)

10:00PM Check twitter, thank followers, interacting, engaging, learning

11:00PM Call it a day

I’m interested in what your day looks like. Would you mind sharing what your typical day looks like? Is it a little similar/ different? I look forward to hearing from you-
Justin R French

I hope everyone is having a great week. This has been one of the busiest weeks for us in a few months, and we are working on some VERY exciting products and services (systems) that are going to revolutionize social networking and social media for business. As you know, Social Networking San Diego has been taking you though the social media and social networking FOR BUSINESS journey since January 2008 when we started our first Squido lens (HERE) to setting up our website/ blog on word press. Don’t forget our CEO Justin R French on twitter, who has been paying it forward since Day 1.

The reason for this blog post is to let you know what a typical day is like for a Social Media Strategist to see if you may be ready for this type of position OR even have the business background and the technical know how to provide such services to clients.

If you are a business considering using a social media strategist or a social media consultant, please watch this video FIRST that will clarify some Frequently Asked Questions about The Top 5 Questions when considering Social Networking & Social Media For Business

I am NOT saying you have to be a programmer with a computer science degree OR be an MBA graduate from Harvard (Cal State San Marcos is just as good and cheaper in my opinion but I digress)

All I AM saying is that to be a Social Media Strategist or a Social Media Consultant, you must have a certain level of education, experience, and technical understanding to be able to provide such comprehensive and holistic solutions. As our CEO Justin R French quotes “It is extremely rare these days to find a web design company who can handle ALL areas of development, content writing, training, marketing, strategy, integration, system implementation, and measuring who have a full understanding of business as well. I remember in my old It consulting firm Perfect Integration that I founded, many technicians just were not business savy. I focused on being business savy FIRST, then technical. It has paid off for me big time, and that is why our team is currently able to help many small and medium sized businesses with social media consulting through my hands on coaching and training program which I provide to our team members.”

My apologies but I will continue tomorrow with the post on the typical day of a social media strategist because I am just soooooo burnt out from the long day. My brain is fried, so thank you for your patience and please check back tomorrow for A Day In The Field As A Social Media Strategist For Small Business

Any comments for us? See below and leave a message- thanks
Social Networking San Diego

Social Media for business is still the current trend and for us to stay competitive in our businesses, we must know the “who’s who” in the social media world. We all know, to be the best, we must study and learn from the best.

So who are the Top 3 Social Media Authorities you follow? Here are mine in no particular order. I will explain reasons as to why i choose these Top 3 as my favorites because first and foremost, after learning from literally thousands of social media authorities over the last couple years, I can honestly say these 5 really communicate in a way i can relate to not only personally but professionally and i appreciate their story.

It is important to know that everyone has a unique story, and i mean everyone. Social media and social networking allows every one of us to have a voice, to let our story unfold on a blog, and build our businesses through relationship selling or as i like to call it “educational selling”. Think of this as you are investing time and building your personal brand. And know that as you go through this social networking and social media for business journey, your personal life and professional life continue to come together online. You suddenly see you start to associate with and migrate to good people online who share very similar passions / interests which is the foundation of social networking.

Here is a list of my Top 3 and the date (according to www.twitterholic.com when they started on twitter)

1. Chris Brogan
Date started on twitter: 10-23-06
Why? One of the first blogs (extremely valuable information) on social media and social networking for business I started reading last year and consider him a mentor. Plus he is one of the nicest and genuine guys you can meet online, and Chris actually engages, interacts, and converses with you. Just amazing how he keeps up with all his comments on his blog and followers on twitter. P.S. I just started his new book Trust Agents and it is awesome! (Video review to come- stay tuned)

2. Justin Parks
Date started on twitter: 6-08-08
Why? One of my closest / very first friends on twitter, and we constantly keep in touch and help each other out by exchanging global economic news (he is in Spain) and things we are experiencing in our businesses and how we can improve in service delivery, performance, and customer satisfaction. Not to mention, I consider him an SEO guru.

3. Gary Vaynerchuk
Date started on twitter:5-04-07
Why? I saw his web 2.0 video from last year and another ah-ha moment again. His passion somehow transferred into me and I haven’t looked back since. Plus I got to meet him at Harvard Gravity Summit and he is just one of the most brilliant Entrepreneurs of my generation that I am just amazed by. I can only aspire to be as successful as Gary Vee someday, but in the mean time, I’m working on crushing it!

Now, who are your Top 3 social media authorities and why? Please leave a reply below, I am really interested in hearing your choices
Thanks for sharing
Justin R French
CEO Social Networking San Diego

Want to connect with me on linked-in? Go here

How are you building your online business brand or personal brand? I have had the privilege to connect and communicate with Brian Solis on MANY mediums such as Facebook and Twitter, and him and Chris Brogan are one of the most responsive social media and social networking for business authorities who actually respond and communicate with their audience. I know there are many individuals who communicate with their audience as well, but these two have really impressed me in how quickly they can respond and demonstrates they really CARE! Not to mention, they usually respond right back within 3 minutes! this is unbelievable! I can barely keep up with 2600 followers (very humbling by they way- people who actually have taken an interest in me, my company, my thoughts, ideas and opinions about small business, technology and social media for business purposes.) Obviously this is my passion, and that is crucial to building your personal brand- follow your passions EVEN if you are not making money at it YET. Also helping the small business community right now as Chamillionaire mentions is crucial.

Imagine, communicating real-time with actual “people” and engaging in conversation, building relationships, all around a common interest on-line. This is what social media is all about, whether you are building a personal brand or company brand.

Here is some footage I taped on Brian Solis (see his website here) today on Fox Business discussing some good insight on personal branding, building a community around your brand, and actually and MEANING something to the people you are connecting with so you can stand out and build your brand. “This helps transform connections with people from just a fan base to an actual community”- Brian Solis

Here is the video of Brian on Fox- enjoy, and congrats again Brian! Your thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment- Justin CEO Social Networking San Diego