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The thing I love about social media is its flexibility. Unfortunately, it’s very easy to pidgeon-hole it into one category or another. In many ways, social media is the ultimate interactive customer service platform, competing with e-mail support and call centers. But social media doesn’t have to *just* be an avenue for customer service. It can also be used as a great way to drive revenue and generate sales, if done in the right way.

Unfortunately, there are a plethora of companies that prefer to take the easy route and set up their accounts as feeds to their web presence, instead of creating a unique and individualized experience. Rather than dwell on some of the more depressing case studies, let’s look at one of the companies that best uses social media for cross-promotion. The beauty store Sephora has really done wonders to generate in-store and online conversions using simple social media tools. Any retailer with the motivation could do what they do. They’re a prime example of a company that doesn’t just mail it in, but one that reaches above and beyond to improve a user’s social media experience and exposure to their brand.

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Okay. I also want a 62″ plasma TV, a top-notch DSLR and maybe a nice pair of sound isolating headphones. But right now we’re talking about Twitter metrics, damn it. Social networks like Twitter and Facebook are great for targeting and growing your audience, but the available tools just aren’t up to par yet. Followers? Following? So 2007. Number of mentions/retweets? List adds? That’s so… 2009. So I’ve put together a list of metrics that I haven’t seen tracked anywhere, but ones that would be much more useful than most of the key performance indicators currently available. Maybe in the Christmas (Hanukkah, Kwanzaa) spirit, Twitter will comply.

If you’re looking for tools that analyze and track currently-used metrics, take a look the list of web tools for twitter monitoring I put together last month.

So why a wishlist for Twitter Metrics? The control and amount of information that you have over your own blog or your own website vastly outweighs the information you have about your Twitter account. Even Facebook Fan pages have a decent amount of information relating to your pageviews, weekly comments, demographics, and more. Twitter really has nothing. We can’t blame them because they’re a private company and they don’t need to publish that information (let alone for free), but if brands are to continue to evolve on the platform, better key performance indicators are needed. So here’s a wishlist of Twitter systems of measurement, some simple, some more complex, some that can be created/hacked, and some that Twitter would have to integrate. What do you wish Twitter measured for you? What current metrics have you found most useful? I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments.
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Work prioritization is the age-old battle between procrastination and productivity. From water cooler conversations to 200-slide PowerPoint presentations, there are hundreds of hourly events that ruin productivity offline. However, they’re nothing compared to the potential pitfalls online. From email to Facebook, there are thousands upon thousands of ways to kill your productivity online. The Social Media Tactic I’d like to talk about this week is the importance of prioritizing social media tasks.
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This morning my friends from college woke up at 6am, ate breakfast, watched the early morning news, put on a tie, and dragged themselves to work for another grueling 8-10 hours.  The traditional, corporate life has consumed 100% of their time during the weekdays and is the ball-and-chain that dictates what time they wake up, what they wear, and when they can relax.

That used to be me.  Actually, that used to be all of us.

Each member of the Viralogy team was once bound to a work-life that required a physical presence at the office.  But by working together, we realized that this imaginary ball-in-chain only existed because we allowed it to exist, and that location barriers and time barriers no longer apply, especially in the world of the Internet startup.

The result:

1. Each member of the Viralogy team works in a different city and we even have members in different countries
2. Each member of the Viralogy team works at his or her own time
3. Each member of the Viralogy team is able to minimize work time through effective team coordination
4. Meetings are conducted once a week with the majority of the collaboration done online

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Why Larry Hryb and Veronica Belmont

Larry Hryb and Veronica Belmont are two of the most recognizable faces in gaming. You probably know Larry Hryb by his more famous online moniker, “Major Nelson”. He and Veronica run two of the most important gaming video blogs for their respective gaming platforms, the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. In some ways, they also represent the face of their organizations. Though people like Don Mattrick and Kaz Hirai may be at the top of their companies’ pecking orders, Major Nelson and Veronica are the figurehead that the everyday consumer sees most often.

If you want to learn about new products on the Xbox 360, turn to Major’s Minute and the Major Nelson Radio podcast for answers. If you want to see game developments on the Playstation 3, just watch Veronica’s Qore. Their information and popularity drives consumers, and more importantly, creates fanatics for their respective brands.

Both Veronica and Larry have built up both a large cult and mainstream following. While they represent their companies’ brand, they also are hugely popular in their own way. Without Major Nelson, Inside Xbox might still go on, but the dynamic would change completely. Think about what Apple would be like without Steve Jobs. Their success is judged both by their own popularity, but by the impact on their communities and influence in the industry.

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If you’ve used Twitter long enough, you’ve probably heard of sites like Magpie and What’s Your Tweet Worth. With everyone trying to figure out different ways to make money, it was only a matter of time before people would start paying you to ‘tweet’ out to your followers their advertisements. While many argue that you are really getting paid to spam, we thought that it’d be fun to see how much you could make a month and in a year if you were to sign up with these Twitter advertising sites and also what you could buy with it.

We decided to pick Magpie, What’s Your Tweet Worth, and TweetValue to see how much money some of the big names on Twitter would make if they decided to use these services. Anyone can see how much their accounts are worth/how much they’d make in a month just by entering in their Twitter username into the site.

One important thing to remember is that although these numbers may seem mind-blowing and too good to be true, the matter of point is that they probably are. If people were really making these sorts of numbers, why doesn’t everyone drop their day job and just tweet? Still, it’s still fun to dream!

1. Mashable — Toys.com Domain

Twitter Followers: 1,739,623

Bio: “The hottest Twitter news, Twitter tips and Twitter help. Plus, the best social media links around!”

Average income per month: $448,291.72

Yearly Net from Twitter: $5,379,500.60 / Toys.com Domain ($5.1 Million) (more…)

Over the past couple of years, social media has been a buzz word that has flitted around countless marketing and corporate offices. Some have used it to build successful marketing campaigns, even for Presidents. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, some of those very marketers forgot that social media was about listening, not talking.

The thing about social media is that it’s not about you, the marketer, it’s about your consumer. Listening tools are unbelievably important in a world where you have absolutely no control over what your customer says about your brand, your products, or your industry. The success of the Frank Eliasons and Guy Kawasakis in social media isn’t about trying to shove content down your throat, however. It’s about listening, and then acting on your consumer’s needs.

So what are some great ways to listen to your customers on Twitter? Well, I’ve put together 5 great monitoring tools for listening to Twitter conversations about you and your brand using web tools (as opposed to apps like CoTweet and TweetDeck, which are just as useful). Have your own personal favorites? Please add them in the comments below.

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