The Million Dollar Question What is this social media they speak about? What is the return on investment?

Defining Social Media Media is an Instrument of Communication eg Radio or Newspapers Social Media is a SOCIAL instrument of communication o A medium which embraces customer interactions and has people as its core o A revolutionary means of communication were companies give customers the opportunity to speak and be heard not just listen

What can Social Media do for Affiliates? Social Media… o Gives your brand a body o Is an optimal plan B when all other channels of communication are closed due to legal restrictions o Gives your players a voice o Provides you with the opportunity to build closer relationship with your target market and increase your understanding of their wants and needs – better targeted campaigns o Helps generate an identity and buzz to your affiliate business o Gives you additional exposure organically given that your content is shared by an existing community when using social media techniques o Can provide tangible improvements in terms of homepage terms ranking o And true social media participation can serve to habitualize activities which signal greater credibility and authority.

Getting started, part 1 / 2 Set initial short term and long term objectives Define a personality for your website if you don’t already have one which is in keeping with you target audience. Identify as many clear USP’s for your website as you can Think about what you do as an affiliate that could be leveraged to generate interest

Getting started, part 2 / 2 Begin to create a content plan around these points Identify other sources of content complementary to your own Research & identify the tools you will use to communicate Spend some time on the chosen social media sites Start communicating and engage those you are following Start o implement your prepared content plan

Getting to know what people are saying How to monitor social media People are talking Tap in, listen and engage

People are talking From a few producing, to everyone producing My grandmother is blogging They talk about you, whether you want it or not

Tap in, listen and engage Tremendous source of information Look for your brands, keywords but also for competitors Listen, understand and respond

Two examples of companies doing it Swedish start-up headphone webshop Headler o Constant search for “buy headphones” etc. And interact, great conversion. When I was going to Vegas, I wrote a tweet o Reponses in minutes, from clubs, casinos to hotels

Getting started with listening Many different ways, some of them are free Is it hard? OK, so let’s get started

Setting up alerts Google Alerts o Social Mention Alerts o Daily updates, not real time

NetVibes Dashboards for “real time” Set up a NetVibes account Choose a keyword to start with o Add more keywords Add additional sources o o feed:// o feed:// oblog

Using Yahoo Pipes to build RSS feed Yahoo Pipes? An RSS feed mashup from 40 different sources o o feed://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?OrigDomain=.betsafe.com&_id=f1ae63990f6 d5b9e48ce807a77bb9995&_render=rss&terms=Betsafe Specify region and/or domains to exclude Put the feed in your client / RSS reader

How do I know when I’m doing it right? Success and ROI is hard metrics, while social media is soft The need of reference points o A 5 isn’t a 5 if you don’t know how it relates to a 6 o feed://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?OrigDomain=.betsafe.com&_id=f1ae63990f6 d5b9e48ce807a77bb9995&_render=rss&terms=Betsafe

Measure success? Traffic Interaction Sales Leads Interaction SEO Brand metrics Customer engagement Retention Profits

Freeze time and take a snapshot Create reference points by taking snapshots Take snapshots of o The obvious numbers such as Facebook fans, followers, referrals, traffic. This is engagement data. Check services for more data to dig in to. o The less obvious benchmarks such as SEO rankings, referrals, customer satisfaction, share of voice. No industry standard. o Of ROI benchmarks such as; how much do you pay for a customers in other channels? Revenue, costs

Conclusion Social media may not be as natural a fit for some affiliate websites as for direct-cause, brand or merchant sites BUT There are still many rewards to be had and relationships to be made once the ground work has been done.