managing your online presence & google analytics

MANAGING YOUR PRESENCE ONLINE—AND USING ANALYTICS TO TRACK RESULTS

Susan Mernit March 2011

Welcome to the social media ecosystem

3/3/09 copyright, 2009, Susan Mernit, do not reuse without attribution.

  Over 200 Million Americans are on Facebook   Roughly 44 million people use Twitter   There are over 2 Billion photos on photo-sharing

community Flickr   You are now connected to everyone on the planet

via Google searches  How do you show up?

What is your social media—and online—presence?

•  Do you know how you show up on the web? Are you discoverable through search? If someone hears of you—can they find you?

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Do you know how you show up online?

  Search as your starting page  Your name, email, phone, organization

The Game Has Changed


Even beyond Google, everyone is inter-‐connected We’ve gone beyond centralized authori:es that creden:al us—newspapers, universi:es, affiliate groups To crowd-‐sourcing, networks, and the wisdom of crowds

-‐-‐And you need to play to compete

We’re going to talk about the basic social media toolbox and how to use it:


• Facebook • TwiEer •  Linked-‐In • Flickr • YouTube (Vimeo/Viddler) • Blogging • Google and Facebook analy:cs

1. Start with listening


Do you know how to monitor?:

Google alerts RSS reader Twitter search Facebook search

“Listening dashboard”

Need a driver’s manual?


Resources to learn with re listening

•  Mashable.com •  Google videos on YouTube •  SEO videos •  Knowledgebases for specific products

What are other faves resources that work for you?

It’s okay to do “bursty” work


  Blog or twitter daily.   Visit Facebook daily; update your status & interact   Build your linked in contacts weekly   Use YouTube, Flickr, Scribd, etc as needed to

intensify your connections, share materials

Pay attention to SEO, headlines

  SEO is about crawling robots.txt

  Use precise descriptions in your post heds

  Revise your meta-data to reflect how you want to be seen

  Read up on SEO, this is a must have skill

  Make it catchy, we’re in the entertainment economy

  Make it literal so your post can be discovered

  Keep testing and improving!


Self-monitor and check the metrics


  Set up ego alerts for your name at google.com/alerts and search.twitter.com

  Install Google Analytics on your site and learn how to use it.

  Check your content and keywords in Google analytics: are you turning up where you want to be?

Remember, it’s about the outcomes


• Building your brand • Being known for something • Expanding your community • GeOng results

It is all about the rela:onships—when you build your brand, you build them as well.

Measuring results

What’s this about?

  How can using Google Analytics inform your knowledge of what's work in your project--and what isn't?

  What are some strategies and best practices for reading Google Analytics--and Facebook insights—to help a site owner make decisions about what you focus on and where you spend your time and effort.

Google Analytics: Read it w/yr morning coffee

  Most viewed stories   Time spent per traffic source   Geographic location and patterns   Referrals & distribution insights

Core questions

  Is my content generating traffic? (see GA)   Is my content driving discussion? (see FB)   Where is the audience coming from?   Where are the BEST users coming from?   Where are my geographic clusters? (GA & FB)   What are the trend-lines on interaction (FB)

Opening screen: Past 30 days

Check in daily with the monthly, weekly, Daily dashboards

Review top stories

What’s the top story: Jean Quan Mayoral election—okay, how come? Time to drill-down…

Check entry points for top stories

What was the big traffic source for Quan election story? Checking entry points shows that Yahoo drove most of the traffic for this story —far more than any other source.

Quan story content detail

Quan election story—Time spent shows story was read; high bounce shows— readers left; 80% exit rate confirms that.

Geography: Where is your audience?

Drill down from country to state—for Oakland Local. GA shows 99% of traffic is regional and provides overall baseline metrics: 1:36 minutes on site, 56% new visitors.

How many visitors are from SF Bay area? From Oakland?

GA can drill down on state info…

Top four sources are Oakland or within 8 miles of Oakland. Los Angeles traffic is Mehserle trial.

What is the pattern of someone from the “core” location?

Lower bounce rate

Smaller percentage of *new* visits

What are top entrance keywords?

Helps evaluate search engine traffic at keyword Level for ALL search engines. Are we delivering Right content for these keywords?

What keywords led people here?

Bounce rate on top landing pages

Blacks leaving bay story has 30% less bounce Why?

Traffic sources

What can this teach me? Note high Yahoo & Google referrals; yet Facebook Is #4 over all.

Learnings from GA review

  Focus content against audience behaviors: PV analysis of published content demonstrated appetite for neighborhood-level stories & investigative pieces, not features.

  Understand value of referral channels: OL gets more traffic from FB than Twitter, but Twitter users stay longer, read more pages

  Facebook outperformed SFGate partnership for referrals; led to cutting investment back

  Unmet content/community needs: Stories by/for Queer community, Gospel music audience, Bicycle commuters

  Slim success: Korean community coverage

Facebook insites

  Facebook insites—visible to adminstrators

  Offers analytics for FB fan or business page

  Two views of page—”Old” insites & new insites—check out both

  Great tool to map against Google Analytics data

FB: Basics on users

FB: Maps user likes and comments

FB: Shows “likes” over time

FB: Shows levels of interaction

Geography: Compare w/Google!

We look at cities—where’s the audience?

Workflow recommendations

  Daily view: Google Analytics & Facebook page metrics for individual posts

  Weekly view: Facebook insites   Monthly: Review of GA & FB against core goals,

with close look at trending keywords, referral patterns, time spent per referral.  Write up brief summaries to share with key team

members, discuss in meetings

For more information

  Google analytics blog http://analytics.blogspot.com/   Help site:

http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics   YouTube videos on using GA   Books--Big tomes:

 Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics, by Brian Clifton

  Performance Marketing with Google Analytics, by Sebastian Tonkin (and others)

Contact info

  Susan Mernit   [email protected]

Useful resources

•  Facebook Business Account FAQ: http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=721

•  Twitter account creation: http://twitter.com/account/create

•  Great article on social media and small business: http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/17/how-social-media-drives-new-business-six-case-studies/

•  •  Don’t forget about follow-up classes from Oakland

Local Academy—and the social media support our consulting group can provide you with along with advertising services.

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Contacts for more info

•  Oakland Local Academy –  Kwan Booth, Trainer,

[email protected] –  Susan Mernit, Trainer,

[email protected] –  Plus a whole team who’d

like to help

–  PS Follow Oakland Local on Facebook & Twitter!

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managing your online presence & google analytics

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