I wanted to find out how West Hawaii compares to the mainland U.S. when it comes to using social media for business marketing. More than 100 West Hawaii residents responded to my West Hawaii Social Media Survey in April. The results are presented below in a 19-page report with 10 charts and interpretive analysis.
This is the first look at how West Hawaii uses the Internet and social media tools for marketing businesses.
Previously, this data did not exist. In this report you’ll learn:
The percentage of West Hawaii marketers using social media to promote their businesses
How much time West Hawaii marketers spend on social media
The benefits most associated with social media
The relationship between time invested and results
The most popular tools, and which tools are best for what purpose
If you’re a marketer in West Hawaii and sometimes wonder if your efforts will pay off, these results will guide you!
If you’re already investing in social media, this report will let you compare what you’re doing to those that have the most success.
Remember, the nature of social media is to share, so if you find value in this report, please share it with your social network.
Most importantly, I need to know what questions YOU have. Tell me what the most useful information was for YOU in this survey, and what you would like to see in the next West Hawaii Social Media Survey. Use the comments section below!
I’m conducting the first West Hawaii Social Media Survey. People who take the survey will be entered to win a drawing for a $50 Costco Cash card. Please take the survey by clicking on the image below, or by going to: http://survey.laura-kinoshita.com.
The purpose of the survey is to find out–once and for all–who is using social media in West Hawaii! I will also be comparing local and national trends to see how much Hawaii lags behind mainland U.S. Every response counts, and I especially need folks from West Hawaii to participate. So please help me get the word out. You can help me promote this on Twitter with something like:
“West Hawaii: Enter to win a $50 Costco Cash card by taking this super-short survey: http://bit.ly/91snua [please retweet!]“
Or use the green ”ShareThis” button below. Please contact me for a copy of the results, which will be ready in about 3-4 weeks.
Laura Roeder has taught me a lot over the past year, and I admire her greatly for how much she has been able to accomplish over the past few years. I subscribe to the “Dash” newsletter, which she runs, which is also linked to her Facebook community. The Facebook group allows people to extend the learning of her workshops and share results of what’s worked best using her methods.
Recently, Laura got a question about how much time she spends on various social media tasks. Her response is probably the best one I’ve ever heard.
Twitter is like radio … extremely public …. a stream of information you can casually step in to and out of when it suits you. I don’t always have the radio on, but I like to listen (Tweet) over lunch and breakfast. Similarly, as “broadcasters” we need to be sensitive to our “followers” and only produce content our listeners will be interested in. Otherwise, they’ll switch us off (unfollow).
I use hashtags as a quick way to find groups of people talking about the same thing — #hawaii #marketing #taxes and so forth. I really like to use them when watching an exciting tennis match #federer or #wimbledon or for some people #lost to get live reactions from people as things occur. It can really add a lot of interest to a baseball game, too! (#Angels)
You can also use hashtags to get your profile in front of groups that might not know about you. Or to promote events among select groups of people, such as #editors and #business people. For stock investors, use the $ sign, as in $AAPL or $MSFT. Remember, everything you Tweet is indexed and archived by Google, so many companies use hashtags to add extra publicity to thier events and trainings. In fact, links to your Web site increase your Google search ranking, so your Tweets could even help you get found on the Web.
Hashtags are just simple ways to find other people talking about the same thing. They are often used when you don’t know who or where those people are, and vice versa. Sure, you can use Twitter Search for what interests you, but hashtags offer a highly focused way to find people who want to talk about that specific topic.
Remember: Use hashtags when you want to engage in a conversation topic. Use Search when you want to find instances of people using a particular word in conversation.
Everyone has their way of deciding who’s worth following on Twitter and why. Here are three ways to judge.
1. Ratios. These are wonderful ways to compare one aspect of a Twitter user to another. The most reliable ratio is “Followers” to “Following.” Divide the number of Followers by the number of people Followed. At a minimum, the number should be greater than “1″ and I prefer numbers closer to 2 or 3. Typically, the greater the number, the more influential the profile. Most news sites have higher scores. @abcnews follows 68 profiles (Jan 2010) yet has more than a million followers (14,700:1). TV news profiles get followers from widespread media exposure. Same with well-known authors, screen personalities and so on. Spammers will follow large numbers of profiles, knowing many of those profiles will follow back. Spammers almost always have low ratios of .985 or less because they are selling products and seminars. For them, the number of followers is all that counts — more followers = more sales. You can use ratios of 0.985 or less to gauge how likely you are to be “sold to.” Low numbers = more sales pitches; higher numbers, less sales. On average. Truly worthwhile “experts” will have ratios of 10 or more. That tells me they are getting lots of publicity through events, radio, seminars and are delivering outstanding value to their followers.
2. Quality of Followers. You’re about to pay $75 for Social Media traing when you decide to look at your speaker’s profile on Twitter. Do they have a large number of foreign followers? Particularly from India or Russia? This could be a sign they are paying sites to generate large numbers of “fake” followers — empty profiles used to pump up the numbers. Are a lot of the followers young, attractive women soliciting their companionship? Or are there lots of profiles selling vitamins and skin cream? Be wary of social media “experts” who excel at attracting spammers. Ask yourself, “how many of this profile’s followers are like me?” The more in common you have with the other followers, the more relevant the content will be for you.
3. Engagement. How often does a profile engage directly with their followers? I want to follow people who are reaching out to other people. I want to follow conversations. I want to see how people respond to content, and to each other. Some profiles have a policy of not following anyone, using their feed to strictly disseminate news. That might be fine for some, but it gives a profile an “old media” personality, the old-fashioned “one-to-many” model of so many newspapers. It’s like going to a cocktail party and having a guest just sit there and blather on and on about themselves. Isn’t the purpose of conversation to bounce ideas off of other real people?
How do you evaluate Twitter profiles? What tricks of the trade have you learned? Leave me a Comment to share what’s working for you.
