Let’s face it folks, social analytics is a new frontier – not anything like the analytics and metrics tracking we’ve used for advertising, direct mail or other one-way channel marketing.   

However, in a recent and compelling white paper Social Marketing Analytics – A New Framework for Measuring Results in Social Media, Web Analytics Demystified and the Altimeter Group defined social marketing analytics in a way that all of us can understand:  

Want to Go Deeper on Social Media Measurement? 

Web Analytics Demystified and Altimeter Group each approach social media from unique perspectives 

 If you would like more detail on social media strategy or identifying the business objectives of your social initiatives, please contact Altimeter Group by emailing jeremiah@altimetergroup.com.  

Alternatively, if you’d like to learn more about measuring social media or applying the measurement framework to your business, please contact Web Analytics Demystified by emailing john.lovett@webanalyticsdemystified.com.

Best

Thanks to my colleague James Davidson for an incredible link to social media resources underwritten and posted by Colin Welch titled Making the Most of Social Media Marketing – Links.

The link provides access to all types of tips and guides, tools and analytics, trending tools, social tools and applications as well as twitter tools. The listing is comprehensive and spot-on.

Learn more now>>

Enjoy

Best,

Denice MacDonald

TweetMic is a simple and intuitive Twitter client app for the iPhone that allows you to make high-quality audio recordings or "Tweetcasts" and publish them directly to Twitter.

There is no limit to how much you can record and you don't need to sign up for any additional service to start using TweetMic.

More information here!

For more expanded information on Twitter in general, consider Mashable - The Social Media Guide:

- 6 Twitter Search Services Compared
- 6 Unique Twitter Visualizations
- 20+ Great Twitter Tools for Firefox
- 20 Twitter Badges to Show Off Your Tweets

Happy 4th of July to all you!

Best

Denice MacDonald

You probably know that building links into your site is one of the most important things you can do in your efforts to improve your site's ranking.

A lot of people struggle with this process, especially at the beginning. Many questions also arise as to where the link should be placed on the site you are trying to get linked from, along with what kind of sites should you get links from, and what those links should look like.  Linking is no longer a passing fancy, it is a strategy that is relevant and necessary. Consder the following link building strategies:

Social Media: By submitting your site and content to social media aggregators such as Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and other niche social news sharing and bookmarking sites, you introduce their audience to your site and build high authority links to your organization.

Advertising: Text Links which are sold or purchased with the intention of advertising a relevant site or service to the audience of the site which is serving the link ads. These links are valued and treated as authority inbound links by the major search engines.

Editorial: Editorial links are links which are earned via relationships with journalists, bloggers or site publishers. By informing writers about your site and services, you persuade them to write about you.

Directory: Web directories classify sites into organized subjects and listings while also sending search traffic to those sites. Directories are a way to increase search rankings and site traffic.

Blogger Reviews: Similar to editorial links, blogger reviews are when you pay bloggers to take the time and write an honest review about your product, business or site - and link to you. Not only will your link be seen by search engines, but also by the readers and subscribers of these high level bloggers.

Privately Solicited Links: Contact site owners and negotiate private linking deals with your business goals in mind.

Blog Comment Participation: By intelligently adding to blog comment conversations, you build your online reputation along with inbound links to your site.

Resources:

• 101 Link Building Tips to Market Your Web Site by Andy Hagans and Aaron Wall
• Link Building - Web Site Resource

Software/Tools:

• Axandra
• Zeus
• Link Assistant

Best,

Denice MacDonald

I received a timely e-mail from founder Todd Hogan from Surchur regarding a recent press release announcing a major update to their web site.

Surchur.com gives you a dashboard to the latest social media, blogs, pictures, and videos for a given topic. The new surchur.com adds several additional features:

1 -- The Surchmeter - see just how popular your keyword is on Surchur, in the blogosphere and on twitter - more sources coming soon!

2 -- A more intuitive cleaner design - we think you'll really like it.

3 -- Significantly faster load speed.

4 -- The front page and "catching fire" feature track the hottest topics on the internet via Yahoo Buzz, Google Trends, Twitter Search and more.

5 -- A history for surched topics, so for popular keywords you can see what was being posted on something yesterday, last week or, as our history builds, further into the past.

If you want to learn more about Surchur, visit the homepage, the social media section or their blog.

Best of luck Todd, we love your web site!

Best,

Denice MacDonald