Data, Social Media, and You.

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How do YOU pronounce it? Day-ta or Dat-a?

What actually IS it? Encarta defines it as information, often in the form of facts or figures obtained from experiments or surveys, used as a basis for making calculations or drawing conclusions.

Surveys? Experiments? How does this apply to social media? And, you thought I was going to talk about ROI, didn’t you?

Ah, questionnaires. Good old fashioned quantitative market research; an excellent way to get some insight from your fans, followers or circlers. And plenty of free sources to use. But beware of bias and improper wording; I’ve seen lots of poorly written surveys in my time!
Find a market research professional, tell them what it is you’d like to learn from your clients, and let them do the rest. Great data starts from the best preparation, from defining the issue, including determining the possible actions that will be taken as a result of the findings, creating the questionnaire, testing, fielding, processing, analyzing and reporting.

What do you want to learn from your fans on Facebook for example? Some ideas include:

• Demographics, beyond the location, age group and gender that Facebook provides to page owners
• Gather ideas on what they’d like to see on your page
• Test out a new product concept
• Their opinions on a particular subject; perhaps something that you’d like to blog about at a later date
• Greater detail on their interests (psychographics in market research speak)
• How they feel about some of your current products and likelihood to buy
• What charity they’d like to see you make a donation to

And the other half of that definition, experiment?  How about trying something new with your posts? For example, my other endeavor, Groovy Reflections, offers products, namely hand tie-dyed t-shirts sporting the brand logo. Personally, I don’t enjoy getting in people’s faces touting these offerings.

So, instead, I’ll post something that’s more on the “softer side”, such as giving away a shirt instead (have been doing this every 500 new fans).  Discussion about the free shirt will be lively and some of the more curious folks may inquire more about the products while others will explore quietly on the website. It's both engaging and creating awareness.

Not exactly a focus group facility!

It’s not as good as having a focus group, but you’ll get some qualitative feedback. DO remember that this is a very informal way to gather information and it’s not representative of the population at large that has an interest in your brand or business.

Focus Groups, either in person or on-line would provide some concrete data on the respondents as well as their individual responses in conversation based on a well-planned out guide contain the question you’d like to have the respondents discuss.

Data is powerful if gathered wisely! Do learn from it to make your social media efforts even more successful!

For more data (ha!) on data, say hello on my Facebook or Google+ pages or tweet me.

This is "D" of the Blogging A to Z Challenge. Don't forget your A, B, C's!

‘Cause You’ve Got…Personality!

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Lloyd Price once sang his desire to behave like a fool “O-o-over an’ over”, opening admitting to it. His message was heard by millions. Nowadays, we don’t have to have a hit record to be heard by the masses.

And we’ve all got something to talk about! Mind boggling, isn’t it? So what are you contributing to the mix?

Some time ago, a research study suggested that a large portion of the content on Twitter is “babble”; what IS that, anyway? Well, the Merriam-Webster dictionary states: “wordy and generally unintelligible jargon”.  Hmmm. So I set out to find some prime examples (account names removed to protect the innocent):

• Could you fill out my resume for me... while I hit it from the back?


• People run past my window all day long. I watch them go by but I never get any thinner. I guess it doesn't work that way. Sigh......


• 2 females were sitting at a table & they didn't gossip the whole time...who got this joke?


• what was will be..... what is will be nomore


• You can loose everything but you can NEVER loose your character...BUILD IT !!

While not really making sense, they are however, part of those Tweep’s personalities. Now think of how you display your personality as a small business owner, blogger, or perhaps as someone who just enjoys being connected on Twitter:

• If you’re a business, does your Twitter bio contain info on what your business is?

• Does your Twitter bio contain info on what your passions are so that people gain insight as to what you’re usually tweeting about?

• Do all of your tweets make sense to the casual observer?

• Is everything spelled correctly? One of the examples used "loose" instead of “lose”, changing the tweet's meaning and making her appear less bright than she may be.

• Is your grammar correct? Sure, you can take liberties with the limitation of characters, but it should always be an easy to comprehend tweet.

• Do you converse with those who share your passions?

• Can people see you smiling through your tweets? Positive energy will take you places!





And a few thoughts on what not to do when displaying your personality:

• If you’re having a bad day, don’t tweet about it. (see example above regarding the gent who doesn’t get thinner; would you respond to his tweet?)

• If you’re a big cursor when you’re alone, that’s one thing, but consider it a part of your personality that should remain private and keep those words off your tweets.

• Having personality does not mean tweeting every move you make in every moment of the day. Keep it to a few highlights that would be interesting enough to open up a conversation.

• Don’t selling your product or service by tweeting about it. No personality there! That’s spam. And besides, Twitter is not a sales tool.

• Getting into an argument with someone on Twitter is not going to fare well on your personality overall. People do forget quickly and move on; but why open up that can of worms? Move to direct messaging and leave the public forum to settle it.

♫

So what have you got?
Walk (with personality)
Talk (with personality)
Smile (with personality)
Charm (with personality)
Love (with personality)
An' plus you got a great big heart…

♫

By now you’ve probably got the idea. The challenge is to reflect who you are on Twitter while remaining confined to the limitations it has. Let your personality shine through via your tweets; your followers will pick up on your vibe and are more likely to respond and retweet you.
Speaking of vibe, click here for the song that inspired this post.