Dear friends and family of 3 Elements,

The past year and a half has been a fantastic journey and a learning experience as I opened and ran my social media company, 3 Elements, LLC. Through this time I have built relationships with some of the most amazing businesses and have had the privilege in helping them market their companies online.

As of September 30^th, 2010, 3 Elements will no longer be in business. I have decided to take a position with an innovative and emerging company called SnapRetail where I will be the Director of Social Media.

I am extremely excited about this opportunity and am thankful that 3 Elements was able to help me find this position. If you haven’t heard of them, please visit their website at http://snapretail.com. They have created a fantastic platform to help retailers market to their databases more efficiently through email campaigns and social media; mainstreaming the retailers’ marketing efforts and saving them time.

Words cannot explain what I have been through with 3 Elements and there are definitely bitter sweet feelings about closing, however, I am excited about this opportunity. I had an amazing time getting to know everyone I worked with; learning from them and growing both professionally and personally. I am so thankful for 3 Elements and am excited to start the next chapter in my life with SnapRetail, where I will be relocating to Pittsburgh.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask. You will still be able to connect with me on Twitter and Facebook, and of course by email and phone (all my contact info will stay the same and/or will be forwarded).

If you ever need help pushing content, a promotion, announcing new products, etc., please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d be more than happy to send info out to my personal networks. Be sure to stay in touch and I encourage everyone to also follow SnapRetail as we will be producing content about social media and email marketing that will be helpful to you and your business.

Thank you for being a part of this journey with me and 3 Elements. I look forward to keeping in touch with you and wish you all the best.

As always, to the future!

Crystal Vilkaitis

HOW TO Measure Your Social Media ROI: Part 4 (If you missed it, check out HOW TO Measure Your Social Media ROI Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

Let’s face it, most business owners starting to utilize and leverage social media want to know what the return on investment is with social media.  Honestly, social media lacks easily and clearly measurable characteristics of other investments, but it IS very much possible to see and track the monetized return from engaging in social media.

Tip #4: Use 3^rd Party Tools

Honestly, there are WAY too many different tools for measuring one’s impact (which works hand-in-hand with ROI).  Since there are so many to choose from, I’ll just focus on two very important resources that business owners like you should be investigating.

oneforty.com

For most businesses, a trip to www.oneforty.com might feel intimidating at first due to the hundreds of applications (apps), tools, and resources that it has to offer.  Fear not!  This particular selection of digital treats offers user ratings and sponsored recommendations.  Most of the way down the initial web page you will see a large squared section title, “What’s Essential;” this should be your next stop on the journey of social media enlightenment.  There are 10 ‘essential’ types of resources, but ‘Analytics’ is the destination that you’re looking for; this will bring you to the top six analytical tools for your twitter account.  Read the reviews and choose what best suits your specific fancy.

Alexa

It seems like so few people actually use www.alexa.com to monitor their websites, but there’s no time to start like the present.  Alexa can install a toolbar to your web browser if you want it to; this toolbar will keep you posted as you browse the World Wide Web as to the ‘rank’ of the page that you are looking at.  Ideally, people should want this number to decrease in pursuit of the #1 position (google).  How this affects your social media ROI is by monitoring the “linking” websites that drive traffic to your website.  The higher that social media sites rate in the listing of referring sites, the better the social media campaign.  Ideally, if most of a site’s traffic is coming from social media, then success has been attained.

Let’s face it, most business owners starting to utilize and leverage social media want to know what the return on investment is with social media.  Honestly, social media lacks easily and clearly measurable characteristics of other investments, but it IS very much possible to see and track the monetized return from engaging in social media.  Every person using and utilizing social media should always remember, however, that social media is most importantly about building relationships; companies that don’t understand this simple fact will likely not feel the full and complete benefits of Social Media.  So how does one actually visualize the effectiveness and ROI of social media campaigns?

Tip #1: Use Your Analytics

Today, just barely over half of American businesses even have a website.  Your website is your home base where all of your products, services, and information need to be readily available for your potential customer and clients to find.  Websites are the business cards of the 21^st century.  Most hosting companies offer their own analytics tools, but Google Analytics works with just about that you have access to editing.  After inserting a specific HTML code in to the pages of your site, Google Analytics will start providing useful information that can help identify the effectiveness of any campaign.  Most importantly, using any analytics should identify what is driving traffic to your website.  Social media campaigns should include self-promotional information that entices fans, followers, friends, and connections to investigate the company’s website.  As long as a company and the website have remarkable content, products, and services then the money will come.  If social media services become the top referring websites, then the ROI will be clear and evident.

The fastest way to see if your social media accounts are driving traffic to your website is by logging into your Google Analytics account and clicking on Traffic Sources in the left sidebar. From there, click Referring Sites and scroll below the graph to see which sites are driving traffic to your website.

Stay tuned for more.  Tomorrow’s tip: Keep track of your interactions!

When talking about social media, Elvis had it backwards. One of the biggest reasons social media is effective is because you are able to have a conversation with your peers and potential clients. Twitter has often been compared to a room full of people shouting and it is your goal to be heard, however as a business owner, it is important that you are also listening, listening to what your consumers are in need of. One way to do this is by monitoring specific keywords that are related to your industry and following the conversations that are happening around those words.

One way I like to do this is by creating a column within HootSuite.com (which I use to manage most all of my social media accounts) and enter 3-6 keywords; keywords that people would be using to find your product or service. Take a salon for example: if there is a local salon in Denver Colorado trying to monitor keywords that their audience is using, they might watch words and phrases like “salon in Denver” “massage in Denver” “need a hair lady in CO”. You might have to play with what keywords deliver you the best results. Once you see someone post a tweet that has the keywords you are monitoring you can quickly respond introducing yourself and solve their problem by giving them your address, setting an appointment, sending them to your website, etc.

Another way to participate in the conversations is through search.twitter.com. Twitter doesn’t have the best search capabilities, but this site does make it easy to hop into a relative conversation quickly. Just enter the keyword or key phrases that someone would use when looking for you or talking about your product/service and see where it would be appropriate for you to engage.

Finally, Twitter Lists are a fantastic way to filter through all the millions of Twitter users and hundreds to thousands of Twitter users that are following you. You can either create a list or subscribe and follow one that has already been created, but just make sure it is a list where you would find your perfect client. Mashable has a fantastic post about How to Use and Create Twitter Lists, I highly suggest you check this post out.

Remember, social media is about building relationships so make sure you aren’t only talking but also listening, all while jamming to Elvis

If you are a part of the Twitterverse then you have surely seen #FollowFriday or #FF used before, perhaps you’ve even seen it… every Friday? #Followfriday has become the most popular social convention tool used on Twitter but if you don’t know what it is or how to use it, you might feel a little out of the loop.

If you have a great #followfriday feel free to leave a comment, we’d love to pass it along to our networks!

While the idea of face to face meetings is ideal for any business, the reality of global business and relationships makes that entirely impossible to have with every customer or consumer. Blogs enable people to talk to each other in a direct, informal manner. Bloggers make grammatical errors, often change their train of thought, challenge arguments, make suggestions, basically everything that would typically happen in a conversation- happens in a blog. The blog is the work of a real person, no BS, no fluff, in other words, it is- what it is. This is important and attractive to a lot of people because most people don’t trust big corporate companies because there seems to be no connection and trust, and this is exactly where and how blogs emerged. It is just a typical conversation with the idea that it is all presented on an equal level playing field.

In blogs you can loosely connect to other blogs or websites through the use of hyperlinks. The linking from blog to blog paves the way for it to become a part of the blogsphere. Even if you have 1 visitor or as many as 100,000 daily visitors with hundreds of links, your blog is a part of a huge circulation of findable information. But regardless of the circulation, the most important aspect of the blog s that it is conversational and personal.

So why do businesses have or need to have blogs as a part of their online marketing campaign? Because blogs are just another way for business to build trust, they humanize companies and give prospective customers an idea of the people who are running the business. Going back to the older blog post I wrote about Joel Comm’s 4 step sales process, know me- like me -trust me -pay me, the blogs are the perfect outlet for your potential customers to get to know you a little bit, perhaps enough to want to do business with you.

Blogs are among the most powerful two way internet communication tools thus far. They can help your company tremendously and although about one third of blogs started may be abandoned in one year, the overall growth of blogging is among the fastest of any technology.

So, if you choose to join the ongoing conversation that is taking place a great deal on the internet you should know that your company is good for it and your customers will be better-off. Also, you end up saving so much money on marketing campaigns that are really expensive, don’t work, and straight up just annoy people.

Okay, so you have signed up on numerous social media networking sites to advance your business in the world of online marketing. However, in order to increase traffic, turn visitors into consumers, get more online exposure you have to be proactive and create a valuable networking platform for your target audience to feel apart of.  Here is a potential way of looking at levels of success using Social Media Marketing based on the same grading scale you were used to when you were in grade school.

 If you are only pushing promotion or sales through your social networks you will lack credibility, you are wasting your time and annoying people… try something different because you have recieved a D+

If your only active in advertising your routine tweets- ‘had a turkey sandwich’ you have received a C. You leave your followers wondering what your purpose for using networking tools like Twitter as a part of your business plan actually is. (Where’s the useful content, did you eat it with your sandwich or did you ever have it to begin with?!)

 If you allow your customer base to care and become interested and passionate about your product or service by educating and teaching them through the use of social networking, your integrating it effectively so you recieve a B but you could push one step further (and trust us, you need that A).

A+ If you provide an online community for customers to connect and support each other using integrated social media tools you have passed the test (Congrats). As a business, you want to have customer voices speak about your product or service so you know what works and what doesn’t work. Once you have provided a place for them to do so, you have received an A in integrated Social Media Marketing (yes, you get a star on your chart).

There you have it. It is so important to establish a strategic method for consumers to engage in online conversation because it can be used as the most efficient and effective approach to have your marketing plan support the notion of social media aka future marketing. We suggest that you go ahead and make mistakes (I’m still learning) because there is no cookie cutter recipe for how to use social media, but the fact that have an online presence will benefit you and your company  in the future. Go ahead, get creative, get followers and get active because there are over 300 million people active in online media, is your business involved in this conversation?

Sequel to Twouble with Twitter. Funny how Celebrities use Twitter. Great Video- Enjoy!

 This last weekend I was lucky enough to visit my brother in Austin, Texas, the youth magnet city which is extremely attractive to recent college graduates like me.  I’ve always heard Austin is a lively, musically talented city for the young and restless although I didn’t  know exactly what that meant, I was sure I’d soon find out.

Before I continue I should give you a little background on myself and the simple life I live, I still have an old school phone that is big, bulky and only calls and texts. My friends call it a “peasant phone” and they constantly remind me to upgrade to keep up with the times…

I know, I know, especially working for a social media company- by now, I should have crackberry, I mean, Blackberry and until my trip to Austin I did not realize how helpful having a phone with the internet and all the other apps would be!  In the blink of an eye and the click of an app on my brothers iPhone, we were connected to the heart of Austin. All the events, restaurants, happy hour specials, festivals, game scores anything we would ever need to know about the city. It was amazing!  The who, what, when, where and hows were all right at our fingertips making us feel like we were locals of Austin and not outsiders who were wandering the streets hoping to find something cool to do. We went  to the UT vs Utep football game after tailgating at the oldest beer garden in Texas, Scholz Garten. After the game (without getting lost) we made our way to 6^th street where the Pecan Street Festival was going on, we listened to great music and enjoyed the artwork of over 250 local artisans. Later in the night we were able to find restaurants with bands playing music we knew we’d enjoy, making it all around a great trip.

If you have an iPhone or Blackberry, this may not sound like a big deal to you because having access to the internet 24/7 is probably something you are used to. For me, this accessibility was an amazing feeling of being connected to choices that may not have been available to us had we not had my brothers iphone. It makes me wonder, what did my parents do when they were my age?

Technology is advancing at the speed of whiplash and we are becoming more interdependent as the days go by. It’s fun, exciting and brilliantly useful. All in all, it may be time for me to retire my “peasant phone” and enter into the era of the Smartphone as I am now starting to understand why they call it the crackberry…

Good morning and happy hump day! Didn’t get around to getting this video up yesterday, but it’s a good one so here it is today. Enjoy Flutter! (This video was suggested by Beth from EcosphericBlog. You can follow her on Twitter; @ecoshpericblog. If you have a video to suggest, please send an @reply to @madametwit.)