SES San Francisco 2011: Automating Social Media

My first liveblogging session after a long day in the exhibition hall and it feels good to get off my feet. Virginia and I had a small break right before this and went to get our auras photographed in Japantown. The results? Virginia is full of energy and life and I am stressed out. Note to self: squeeze some yoga and meditation this week.

SES SFIn this session, we’re hearing about tapping into the power of Twitter and other Social Media outlets so you can help your business reach more customers, influencers and audiences than ever before. We’re starting with Aaron Goldman from Kenshoo. He is talking Facebook ad automation.

First set KPIS, focus on attribution, then targeting and testing. Facebook has a lot of ad inventory. But not a lot of people are clicking on these ads, less than have of AdWords.

KPIs: social impressions, social reach, reach and engagements. How will you attribute credit? Set an attribution model to reflect the true value of engagement. If you just default attribution to the last click, you’re going to devalue the ads. Also, mine insights from search and social interaction.

Automation is key in targeting. How do you focus on the group that matters most and deliver that ad to them? Create ad groups. Then you can start to see how the different groups are aligning with your goals. Use automation to figure out which combinations of ad delivery are working and copy that, so you don’t have to start from scratch.

Test variables such as:

  • Segments
  • Images
  • Messaging and the timing of your ads
  • Bidding

Next up is Charles Black from Technorati Media. He says social is different than just Facebook; it’s more than that. Find groups of people that have similar interests and influence each other. It’s not just about what your friends think.

Power your social message across niche and blog stes:

  •  Consider more than traffic
  •  Harness earned and paid earned
  •  Add value

How do you automate?

  • Power the social message across niche and blog sites
  • Auto pull content feeds from social sources
  •  Engage audiences socially across the open Web

What is rich social media?

  • Large formats
  • Content
  • Social features

Displays impact on search:

  • Search and display provides a 22% conversion lift over just search itself.

Last is Paul Madden from Automica. He says he’s a former Black Hat spammer (and he’s just given some disclaimers about creating fake Facebook profiles).

He’s talking hybrid social accounts: they can offer the efficiencies of automation while making it feel like it’s a person in real time. Golden rule: never under any circumstances automate a reply. Reach out to targets, inhabit the niche, don’t initiate a private message until you have a connection.

Need signs of trusts – want to make the account look like and act like a real account. Each account should have a style sheet, profile details, posting styles and rules.

Build a Twitter following:

  • Create an account in zero tweets
  • Follows anyone who mentions a target phrase
  • Get a script made that marks which accounts automatically follow you back.

Getting likes on Facebook:

  • You can buy them, but caution against it
  • Create incentivized landing pages and apps
  • Ads

Posting frequency:

  •  Twitter: 25 to 50 is normal
  • Facebook: No more than 2 updates per day. Automated updates can include questions and standard updates that a person would say on their profile

Create a schedule of posts. SocialOmph is a good tool to facilitating this. Twitter and Facebook also do it. However, SocialOomph has a byline that says it’s from that platform, so it can look automated.

Jessica Lee is the founder and chief creative for bizbuzzcontent Inc., a marketing boutique that focuses on digital content strategy and professional writing services for businesses.

See Jessica's author page for links to connect on social media.

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