MEGO: My Eyes Glaze Over

Customer Care Online: Interview with Logitech’s Ben Hong (Part 2)

May 27, 2010 Blogs, Community Management, Customer Service, Microblogging, Social Media, social networks

Earlier this week I published Part 1 of the interview with Ben Hong, Sr. Mgr. Technical Services, Global Customer Care and Digital Home Group for Logitech.The first half of the interview gave you a brief introduction to Ben and his team at Logitech.

This is the final portion of this written interview.

Part Two: People, Process, & Tools- Logitech with Ben Hong

What kind of training is required for team members who are active online? And, does your company have a social media policy in place? Can you tell us a little bit about these efforts and how they help (or hinder ) the team.

We train our team on how to be online ambassadors and effective writers for blogs, micro-blogs and knowledge bases (SEO). So far, training has been extremely important to maintaining consistency and control. Without it there would be chaos. Currently, the online ambassador training provides our employees with knowledge of the social media policy. It’s helpful, not a hindrance.

If you could share your favorite tips, best practices, lessons learned or social media must have – what are they?

• Look before you leap….have a framework and plan before you get started.
• Start with social monitoring. It is incredible what you learn your customers are talking about and provides critical insight about where your early investments should be made.
• If you are managing a social media program for customer service you must be social internally as much as you are externally. Key learning’s and shared insights complement VoC programs.

There are many tools for tweeting, listening, and overall participating in social media – which ones do you use either personally or for your work?

Co-tweet, Radian6, TweetDeck, backtype, delicious, FriendFeed, NetVibes, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, WordPress, Yelp, Flickr, StumbleUpon, Digg, Google Buzz, ShareThis, Technorati

Whether you have your own community on your “dot com” or you participate in existing social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Get Satisfaction etc) – what do you do to build the community and encourage your community members to become ambassadors for the brand?

We have a reputation model in the community that helps us and community member identify and recognize key contributors. Our Logi Legends and Gurus have a close relationship with my team and we work side by side with them in the community. To help them with their work we often send them our products.

Do you reward community members for the work they do? If so, how?

Nothing formal … yet.

When helping customers in social channels do you reply publicly or privately? Does it differ by channel? Discuss how you make this decision.

We reply both publicly and privately. If we are managing a customer escalation in our forums or on Twitter we respond publicly but ask for specific information to be provided privately. We do this to protect customer information. Otherwise we respond publicly to all else.

Is YouTube a part of your support efforts? How do you use this and other video channels for customer service and support? Do you create the videos or is another team responsible for these? Do you engage with the YouTube community? How do you measure success for your video efforts?

Our plans for YouTube are in development. We plan to publish 1-2 videos per month.

Many companies have gone through some highly visible social media gaffs (Dominos, Southwest); while others have seen offline issues go viral due to social media (Graco recalls, Toyota recalls). In your opinion how should a company deal with crisis online? Do you have a process in place that helps you determine next steps in the case of your own “crisis”?

Responses should be quick, open and honest. To that end, Logitech was put to the test recently when the US National Labor Committee reported on Chinese labor issues back in April of this year. Joseph Sullivan, our Sr. VP of Worldwide Operations, responded with a letter to the committee and we posted in online. In his letter which he shared, he stated the plain truth. Thankfully we had severed the relationship with the offending factory, however, he was clear to state when and why. It was met with positive comments and response.

What is next for you and your team? What are you excited about today?

Twitter enhancements, YouTube and Facebook integration are on our roadmap. Right now I am working on Radian6 setup and configuration.

What is your favorite social media tool, network or other for personal use?

LinkedIn. I was an early adopter and have seen how it evolved. It helps me keep up-to-date with colleagues, recruit, participate in communities of interest/practice and share what I am working on.

Thanks to Ben for taking the time to share!

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tags: ben hong, community, customer care, customer service, Logitech, support forums, technical support, twitter

Customer Care Online: Interview with Logitech’s Ben Hong (Part 1)

May 24, 2010 Blogs, Community Management, Customer Service, Social Media

Often when we talk about social media in business we talk about “social media marketing” which is a term I dislike for various reasons -one reason being that it supposes it only lies in one department rather than an integral part of how we communicate with customers, employees, and stakeholders.

One area that should be part of the grand scheme when it comes to social media is customer service.  Today many companies are finding ways to connect with their customers directly via the web, often offering support and help. Since this is a focus in my work I wanted to highlight the subject on my blog.  Through my work I have had the opportunity to chat with many others that are using social media for support. I have learned a lot from them and want to share some of these conversations through a short series of interviews. My hope is that you will find this information helpful in building your online customer care communities.

In order to facilitate these posts I sent a series of questions to a few folks and they were kind enough to respond. The first interview is with Ben Hong, Senior Manager Technical Services, Global Customer Care and Digital Home Group at Logitech. Due to the number of questions I have broken this post into two posts. Part two will be published later this week.

Part One: Customer Care Online First Steps- Logitech with Ben Hong

Can you describe your career path that brought you to where you are today?

It has been one focused on creating the best possible experience for customers by implementing service innovations and managing for high performance.

How would you describe a typical work day?

Busy, busy and busy…so it usually starts even before I leave for the office by reading and responding to email, tweets and Facebook. When I arrive, I try meet with each member of my team individually to discuss projects/tasks and provide the team with feedback or direction.  The rest of the day is spent managing programs which normally involve participating or chairing meetings, preparing and delivering presentations, briefs and reports. For the last few months I have also been spending time throughout the day monitoring our discussion forums, Twitter, Facebook and Blogs. Putting into action our social media support program is what excites me about work these days.

What responsibilities fall into your department or team? Where does you team fall in the organizational structure ( eg. customer service? communication?)

My team and I lead social media, knowledge management, VoC and training initiatives within the Global Customer Care and Digital Home Group organizations of Logitech.

How many people work on your team?  What are you able to accomplish with this size team in the social space – e.g channels? quantity of daily responses?

My team is made up of two products specialists, curriculum designer, and various contractors that provide technical writing, training and video content.

• Blogs – We write one Tips and Tricks blog post each week for the corporate blog and respond to on average 2-3 comments each day.
• Customer Forums – We monitor customer forums from 20-30 responses per day for the team.
• Internal Forums – We monitor internal discussion forums for our customer care agents and respond daily to 10-20 posts per day.
• Twitter – We co-tweet with marketing/PR teams and respond to 2-5 customer care or technical support questions each day.
• Social Monitoring – We just acquired Radian6 as social monitoring tool. However, we have been using a variety of free tools to track blogs, twitter, product reviews and other social media. We typically report once a week on social media trends/buzz for our Harmony Remote Controls products.
• Videos – Currently creating prototype videos for publication on YouTube and Viddler. Our plan is to publish 1-2 videos per month.

Social Media plays a large part of your role, but typically people associate the use of Social Media with Marketing, what are the biggest benefits realized by your business due to your team’s participation in social media for customer service?

We are early on in our adoption of social media for customer service, month three. There are two early benefits to our participation in social media responding to and managing negative customer experiences, learning more about our customers through social monitoring. Our long term goals are tied to the mission of delivering an engaging online customer service experience.

How did you initially convince the business that engaging with customers via social channels for customer service was the right strategy?

It’s a work in-progress, but we asked to create an incubator team. Our chain of command from CMO to VP to Directors have all been extremely supportive and eager to see the program grow.

Generally, customers don’t care what department you work in when they connect online. Do you work closely with other internal departments to integrate social media communication efforts? If so, which ones?

Absolutely. We work closely with marketing, sales, PR, CX, QA and product/software engineering teams. Our marketing and PR social media programs are more mature and we have learned a lot by partnering with them.

There are many social channels where your customers will engage with each other – how do you decide which social spaces you will participate in?

Given where we are with the development of our program we have focused primarily on mass social media applications and networks. Social monitoring tools will help us to decide if and where we move next. For us it is critical to look before we leap.

As social channels grow, and customers come to expect businesses to respond online to their requests – there has been a lot of talk about scaling efforts. Is this a concern for your team? If it is how will you scale to meet the growing business? If not, why?

Yes, scale and resourcing is a critical part of our plan, which is why we have decided to take a measured approach to building out the program. Currently we have a small team, with a roadmap for adding resources.

How do you measure the success of your social media efforts?

Success is and will be tied to our corporate and departmental goals. So, NPS and cost will be key measures of our success.

Do you have KPIs for your team (for example time to response) if so can you share what these are and why they were chosen?

We are working on them.

Watch for part two…

In part two I ask Ben questions around the people, process and tools he is using to accomplish the work they are doing online for customer service.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tags: ben hong, community, corporate blogs, customer care, customer service, Logitech, social media support, support forums, technical support, twitter

Social Networks and the Net Generation at Work

Mar 15, 2009 Blogs, Books, Customer Service, Digital Marketing & Metrics, Internet General, Marketing & Communication, Microblogging, Social Bookmarking, Social Media

When I joined the workforce e-mail was pretty standard as a method for communication and the Internet was commonly used for research purposes. But, in the early days of email many business owners and managers did not allow e-mail in the offices for fear that their employees would not get any work done, they were concerned over how to manage, store and capture e-mailed information, and of course they grappled with security issues surrounding e-mail. Today, business owners and managers have realized that e-mail has increased the speed of business communication, and concerns over data capture and management as well as security have largely been overcome.

Social Networks Stats and Facts

There is a new tool that has caused much consternation and hand-wringing for IT Managers and business owners – social networks and social media.  A new report by Nielson puts social networks ahead of e-mail in online activities according to a recent article in the Globe and Mail.  Neilson found that 1 in 11 minutes online is spent on a social network or blog site, bringing social networks and blogs to the fourth most popular activity following search, general interest portals and software manufacturers. More telling is the growth seen by social networks during the period of the study (Dec 2007-Dec 2008) which saw between 1.4 and 1.9% growth for the top three activities versus an incredible 5.4% for social networking.

There are 150 Million active Facebook users and a recent research study from Pew Inernet shows that 11% of online adults say they have used the social network Twitter. A Netpop report shows that 7 Million people in the U.S. are contributing to content online and that social networking sites have grown a whopping 93% since 2006!

Despite the growth in the use of social media and social networks specifically, many corporations have decided to bury their head in the sand and hope it goes away, much like they did when e-mail came on the scene. Instead of facing the issues these companies have decided to simply block employees access.

Blocking Access

The concerns for social media are similar to those in the 1990s when e-mail entered the workplace: productivity, data capture, privacy and security. The approach the same – block, refuse access, refer employees to old technology (oddly in the case of social media it is often e-mail!). But this is short-sighted, unrealistic and a passive approach that will eventually (if not already!) be seen as anti-productive.

Let’s look at the concerns companies have regarding social media:

Productivity: This has to be the most ridiculous of the reasons. 1) If employees want to be slack off all they need to do is go stand by someone else’s desk, go for a smoke break, chat at the water cooler, close their eyes and have a snooze. Let’s face it if you can’t trust your employees are doing their job…then you didn’t hire the right people or they are bored, unchallenged or unempowered. 2) If employees are allowed to use social media they can actually become more productive! (More on this in next post)

Data Capture/Management: Many social networks are easily followed, stored and saved. People have clearly moved beyond this issue with e-mail – and this can be accomplished with Social Networks. Ownership can be overcome by businesses as well by contracting space on sites for block of space that would be under control of the company as suggested by Salesforce.com precedent. Another alternative is to set up internal IM systems, social networks and Wikis for use with Internal Communication. While this does not help customer and vendor communication it can allow employees some use of tools that will help productivity while maintaining data security and capture.

Privacy and Security: This is a biggie, and closely related to data capture and management. Panic has ensued amongst business owners with regards to data privacy and corporate secrets. And, of course it can be an issue as more and more employees spend time on social networks discussing their lives (which includes work) with Facebook status changes, LinkedIn profiles, and of course the tweets on Twitter. Companies obviously want to limit and retain close control over sensitive company information, at the same time they also must find ways to engage and communicate directly with their customers (or risk losing them). As social media becomes increasingly interconnected and more customers EXPECT companies to be active on social networks it will become inadequate to simply block social media sites and use URL filtering. Instead companies can help alleviate the privacy and security (and avoid potential lawsuits) issues by creating policies and educating employees on safe data handling. (Note: There are also IT tools available on the market to help monitor, examine historic patterns of leaks and discover and eliminate malware that have in the past been issues with some Web 2.0 sites). Privacy and security is an issue whether your employees are using social media or not – but a easy to understand policy, and a central contact for questions related to privacy and security can help companies avoid future issues.

Net Generation at Work

Companies that decide to limit or block use of social media are not only unnecessarily limiting their communication with their customers through online methods, they are also forfeiting the chance to discover new tools for collaboration within the organization. By closing the company off from social media they are also driving away younger employees who are looking to work for companies whose culture fits their life and ideals.  Don Tapscott in his book Grown Up Digital says the “Net gener [age 18-32] arrives at work, eager to use his social networking tools to collaborate and create and contribute to the company. For starters he’s shocked to find that the company’s technological tools are more primitive than the ones he used in high school…And they are surprised, perhaps naively, to learn that corporations have antiquated ways of working.” These same Net Generation workers can, if given a chance, show companies how to collaborate in new ways more effectively and efficiently. But, these workers don’t stick around long according to Tapscott – they usually only last two years before moving on. Which is too bad since Tapscott’s research shows that those companies that embrace the Net Gen norms perform better than those that don’t..

This generation, of which I am a part of (well I missed it by a month…), view life and work different from other generations according to Tapscott – and that view is defined by 8 characteristics or norms: Freedom, Customization, Scrutiny, Openness, Fun/Entertainment in life and work, Collaboration, Speed, Innovation.

Tapscott definies these characteristics as they relate to work (summary):

Freedom: Net Geners expect to mix work and their personal lives, and this includes choosing when and where they work. They want flexible hours, the ability to telecommute, and other services that make their lives easier.

Customization: They want employers to treat them as individuals and this means giving them learning and development opportunities that are right for them. They want an adaptable work environment, job descriptions that are project based and customized, flexible benefits,  and more frequent discussions on their contribution to the organization.

Scrutiny: How we search for jobs has changed and how we research the company before we make a change has as well.  According to Grown Up Digital 60% of Net Geners check out a company before accepting a job offer. They want to work for companies that are transparent, share information, and have integrity. Tapscott says: “Young people respond well to management integrity…there is greater loyalty and lower turnover, and employees are more likely to do the right thing.” (For example more likely to get their job done even if they take a break to check Facebook, and more likely to hold company secrets sacred and follow company privacy policy).

Collaboration: Net Geners want to work with other people and collaboration is how they get stuff done. To them the workplace should be less about hierarchies and departmental silos and more about connecting with others to solve a problem. Using social networks, social bookmarking, Wikis, aps like LinkedIn Huddle Workpaces or Virtual worlds (Second Life) to meet, collaborate, plan, and execute.

Fun/Entertainment: Fun and work go hand in hand for this generation – they don’t need to be separate. Cultures that allow employees to have a little fun at work end up with more productive staff. We all need a break before diving back into another round of work – and if surfing on a social network is that little bit of fun – why block it?

Speed: This generation is used to speed and instant responses. Why not? We no longer have to wait for dial-up or snail mail! For Net Geners red tape is frustrating, feedback should be in real-time and bureaucracy can mean doom in the market. They use social media tools such as Wikis and IM to speed up communication within the workplace.

Innovation: This is a fascinating point Tapscott makes: “If video games taught this Net Generation anything, it’s that every problem has seemingly endless solutions” and so this generation is looking for new ways to their jobs, to be innovative in their workplace, to challenge status quo. Many of these young workers bring their knowledge of social media to the work place creating new communication channels, building collaborative work systems, and finding new ways to solve a business problem.

In the End

Social media such as instant messaging, blogging and social networks have gained ground as communication tools outside the workplace by leaps and bounds, and it is only a matter of time before they, like e-mail before them, become necessary and an acceptable part of the work place.  The concerns for productivity,  data management, and security and privacy are valid – however they can be overcome by education, corporate policy and new IT tools. Ultimately, if a company hires good people they will need less process and bureaucracy to police the space – as the employees in an open and empowered culture will be more likely to use social media tools wisely. Through using social media in the workplace employees will find new ways to harness collective knowledge, collaborate, and create ways to communication effectively internally and externally.

As always  – connect on Twitter and Google Friend Connet (right hand side). And, if you enjoyed this content – subscribe!

Images from Stocl.xchng (bigevil600, brokenarts, glennpeb)

Popularity: 100% [?]

Tags: facebook, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World HC, linkedin, socia, Social Bookmarking, social media, social network, twitter, Work

#GNO with @jessicaknows: A Summary of Twitter’s Girl’s Night Out

Jan 7, 2009 Advertising, Blogs, Books, Consumer Brands, Digital Marketing & Metrics, Microblogging, PR, Search Marketing, Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Web Analytics, social networks, word of mouth

Jessicaknows

I missed some of the #GNO (Girls Night Out) discussion on Twitter last night so I went into Twitter Search and read the discussion. As always, it was a bit of a dizzying conversation last night – trying to keep up with the multitude of posts. So, it was difficult getting all the tips from @jessicaknows during the discussion.

I tried to pull as much as I could into this compilation. I hope this helps others as well.

Attracting PR Peeps for your Blog

A lot of participants were interested in reviewing more products and wondered how to go about doing this more often.

@jessicaknows said that she doesn’t think that there is a magic number with regards to traffic on your site in attracting PR. She noticed a lot of attention once she had about 20,000 monthly visitors to her blog. However, she suggests if you write about the products you are passionate about the PR folks will follow.

My two cents: She is absolutely correct, while the PR people will look for an engaged community the numbers may not matter as much if you are passionate and are considered an “influencer”. In this case, your review would simply be the tip of the iceberg. An influencer will tend to spread “word of mouth” throughout a variety of networks online and offline -giving a lot of added value to the campaign – beyond the blog post.  I hope to write more posts on books in 2009 since that is my passion. I don’t have 20,000 monthly visitors – but I have already received two books for review in the past. (Dan Ariely – Predictibly Irrational and Don Tapscott – Grown Up Digital)

Use Social Media to Build Your Own Community

@jessicaknows suggests that you pick 3 social media tools & be consistent use them everyday. She uses three social networks: Twitter (obviously), Facebook and LinkedIn. She also uses StumbleUpon for bookmarking regularly. She uses LinkedIn to connect with lots of PR folks, and mom owned business she can partner and work with in the future. On Facebook she prefers to “friend” people she knows in real-life and friends she has met on other social networks (Twitter for example). For users concerned with privacy and sharing with virtual friends she had a great idea to have a user profile for personal use and a Fan Page for your business/blog/website. While the Fan Page will show you as an author, “fans” will have to request to be a friend in order to see your Facebook profile.

My two cents: I post all blog posts to Twitter and Facebook. I try to avoid using the robot when I have the time by personally summarizing the newest post in my status/tweet.  Twitter is also a great place to promote DIY or How To Posts to people who are looking for specific help. I use Tweetburner to track click-through, which can give me an idea of how successful the tweet/status was. Note – don’t just do self-promotion, make sure you tweet other content outside of your own that you think your followers will find value in.

I have just started using StumbleUpon but I have definitely seen some traffic to my site through my profile. StumbleUpon allows you to find “friends” that have similar interests to you which is a great way to find new and interesting websites. Stumble others and perhaps they will Stumble you. All about Karma!

Couple other thoughts on Social Media:
- Use Video to promote your site by placing your URL in videos posted to YouTube
- Participate in Forums and Discussion groups in your topic area
- There are niche Social Networks that you can be involved in TwitterMoms, ClassyCloset and more…Create a profile and participate in the community
- Comment, comment, comment on other blogs. This is an easy way to promote your blog on other similar sites, and show some love to other bloggers.
- Try to link to other bloggers in your blog posts when possible. Give credit where credit is due, and share great information with your community.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

There was a great discussion around SEO last night during the #GNO.  There were folks on all ends of the spectrum – from questions such as “What is SEO?” to helpful tips from experts. @jessicaknows suggests that this is an important part of driving traffic to your website. For Wordpress bloggers she recommends the SEO Plug-in, and she has signed up for SEOBook training to get up to speed on SEO.

My two cents: Having attended SES Toronto last year, I am a believer in SEO for building traffic to your site. I use All-in-One SEO Plug-in for my WordPress blog. I use H1, H2, H3 headers where possible in my blog posts, and try to include Keywords without sounding “canned”.  SEO is great, but you also must use Analytics to compliment your SEO work.  If you aren’t following your stats you won’t be able to measure your success, see what is working and what isn’t, and see where you might have holes. Your Analytics program can also tell you before you start SEO efforts what Keywords are driving traffic to your site, and later on you should follow data for trends in keywords and content that you may not have noticed otherwise.

My SEO for Marketers post is a good SEO 101 for new comers, and watch next week for my Google Analytics Series for Bloggers. Also, take a peak at my “learnings” from my analytics a little while ago

Blogger Relations and Onsite Details

A lot of blogger etiquette and on-site promotional ideas were brought up during the discussion, here are some of the points:

• It is all about helping others: @jessicaknows says “I establish relationships by learning about other ppl’s goals & what they’re all about & then introduce to each other”. This includes helping to promote blogs she believe in the most through her sites. I love this quote from her “it’s so easy…the key word is SOCIAL…use the “have a friend, be a friend” mantra in business and you can’t go wrong”
• Write often, and be consistent. She tries to write daily if she can. Obviously that isn’t feasible for everyone – but I know if I blog 2-3 times a week my traffic remains higher than if I blog 1 time a week. Perhaps that is just a no-brainer.
• Encourage conversation and open up channels for two way conversation.
  
• Show personality in your posts
  
• Offer Blog giveaways (check out @jessicaknows 15 days of Marketing Post on Giveaways)
• Attend offline events (Tweetups, Conferences)
  

For those of you who were at Girl’s Night Out – did I miss anything? Any other hints and tips to encourage traffic?

Popularity: 36% [?]

Tags: #gno, blogging, girls night out, jessicaknows, marketing & communication, promotion, seo, traffic, twitter, Web Analytics, web traffic

Looking for Reading Material: Suggest Blogs Here

Jan 6, 2009 Blogs, Digital Marketing & Metrics, Social Media

Well, not sure if it is because people weren’t writing as many blog posts in December, or that my super organization skills with Google Reader are working but my blog aggregator has ZERO unread items.

So dear faithful readers…can you suggest some good blogs to subscribe to? Perhaps reading 107 blogs is just not enough.

So, suggest your blog…suggest your friends, or suggest a blog you just love.  If I get more than one suggestion I will post the list for others to read.

I am not particular…I like blogs on just about anything but my favourites are about politics, marketing, digital and social media, parenting and mom blogs…and shopping. However, I am always interested in expanding my horizon.

So, let me know your favourites. Ask a friend their favourite. E-mail me or just add in the comment section.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tags: Blogs, reading

Best MEGO Posts from 2008: A Retrospective

Jan 1, 2009 Blogs, Digital Marketing & Metrics, Microblogging, Social Media, social networks

I wanted to highlight the best posts of the year. I based the choice on a combination of number comments, traffic, and quantity of in-bound links.

January

How We Make Decisions To Purchase Products

February

I was watching Lost and not blogging…

March

Making Concerts More Social

April

Facebook Advertising

May

The Hyperconnected Minority

June

Event Planning: Birthday Fun

July

YouTube Star

August

Baby! Baby!

September

The Canon Advantage?

October

Obama’s Loss Traced to [insert name here]: Personalized Video at its Best

November

5 Tips to Organization in Google Reader, Or How to Avoid Information Overload

December

Toronto Twitterers Top Twittersphere

Popularity: 12% [?]

Tags: canon, events, facebook, google reader, organization, social media, social networks, twitter, word of mouth, youtube

Lessons in Driving Traffic and Engagement to Blogs

Dec 29, 2008 Blogs, Digital Marketing & Metrics, Microblogging, Search Marketing, Social Media, Web Analytics, social networks

The Lineup: Courtesy Stock.xchng KLatham

Traffic and engagement are not the same thing. Likely you know that. Quality vs Quantity…

Having people visiting my site looking for Chia Pets and Chicken Recipes and Fred Flinstone is ultimately not my goal.  People who visit my site using these search terms don’t tend to stick around very long, but they show up in my ‘traffic’ report nonetheless.

Quite some time ago Avinash Kaushik from Occam’s Razor gave me access to Google’s Custom Reporting and Advanced Segmenting which were at the time in beta. I had played with the new features quite a bit with my work websites, but not with my blog.  I decided it was time to do so, with the goal of figuring out how to grow my community of readers, and engage those of you who are regular visitors – for example getting you to comment, visit regularly etc. Using the extra reporting functions I was able to find out some interesting stuff:

• My most valuable new visitors were referrals (visiting from another website) and most were visiting from blogs I had commented on. These visitors, over visitors from Facebook, Twitter, Technorati or Blog directories; spent more time on my blog and visited a higher number of pages.
  LESSON
  - Commenting on other blogs drives interested and engaged traffic and hopefully subscribers
• Most returning visitors (those who aren’t subscribed via RSS, visiting directly or via a bookmark) visit again from Facebook, Twitter, Google and MichelleKostya.com
  LESSON
  - It is worth promoting blogs on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter by linking new posts.
• The keywords that drove the most valuable search traffic (pages/visit and time spent) to my site over the last few months were to posts on politics.
  LESSON
  - Posts on current events drive traffic.
• Keywords including “mego”, MEGOAgain”, “Mego Michelle”, “Michelle Kostya” etc spend the most amount of time on my site compared to site average. Duh…they were looking for me. Other keywords that engaged my visitors: Facebook advertising, Facebook ignoring friends, jetblue twitter duty, corporate tweet, Loblaws, Sony, Sheridan
  LESSON
  - Optimize site and posts around keywords that engage.
  - Brand names are often searched and can drive traffic although not all engage readers enough for them to stick around.
  - Continue to write posts on social media and Web 2.0!
• Unfortunately, since most return visitors came directly to the main page it is hard to determine what content is driving them back via Google Analytics. However, if you I look at my Feedburner stats and refer back to the articles posted around that time my readers enjoyed these posts over the last 30 days (why does Feedburner only allow me to break data by 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or “all time”?) the most popular posts to my return visitors are:
  - Social Media’s Next Victim
  - Kid’s Say the Funniest Things #2
  - My Top 15 Web 2.0 Sites
  - 5 Tips to Organize Google Reader
  - He Sleeps! A Miracle
  Interesting – a mixed bag of social media posts AND parenting.  However, one thing I do know about these posts is that they were either short or broken up by bullets or subject headings.

  LESSON
  - Short is good
  - Break long posts into sections or use formatting to break the post up into smaller bites!

• I have been racking my brain to find ways to encourage commenting, this is a good sign that readers are enjoying what they are reading on my blog. However, this is not the only way to measure this.
  LESSON
  - Measure depth of visit, number of pages/visit
  - Time spent on site
  - Return Visitors vs. New Visitors

What kind of lessons can you share about building your blog community? Where do your readers come from? How do you measure engagement?

Popularity: 18% [?]

Tags: analytics, avinash kaushik, Blogs, commenting, community, engagement, facebook, feedburner, google advanced segments, google custom reports, keywords, search terms, seo, twitter, web 2.0, web traffic

New Theme! Check it Out

Dec 19, 2008 Blogs, Digital Marketing & Metrics

We got snowed in today, so all plans went out the window. With my “free” time I changed my Wordpress Theme.

More reasons to visit my site. I have a new layout. What do you think?

It is called Daily Press and can be found at BlogOhBlog. I think it is gorgeous and simple.

So if you are an RSS or e-mail viewer take a trip to MEGOAgain and have a look. While you are there, join my Google Friend Connect!

Popularity: 6% [?]

Tags: Blogs, themes, wordpress

Not a Creature Was Stirring….except those busy Google Folks

Dec 19, 2008 Blogs, Marketing & Communication, Social Media, social networks

Boy, right under my nose Google has been busy giving me more fun tools to play with.

Have you seen my fancy new widget I am hiding on the bottom left-hand side of my blog page? It is Google Friend Connect.

I am hiding it because right now I have no “friends”. So if you wouldn’t mind, dear readers click here to go to my page (if you are reading from email or a aggregator) and join the MEGOAgain network.

What is Friend Connect?

With Google Friend Connect, any website can be “social” or – more social, in the case of blogs, which are already fairly social due to commenting and linking. Beyond the comments section now my readers can connect with other readers in the member gallery. All I had to do was add a bit of code, which was really easy even for me!

So what can you do with Google Friend Connect?

Popularity: 8% [?]

Tags: Blogs, friend connect, google, google reader, gtalk, profiles, social media, social networks

Up and Running Again (finally!)

Dec 9, 2008 Blogs, Family and Friends, New

If you are a subscriber via RSS or e-mail you may not have realized that my site was down for three days! Yes, three days! I don’t know how I lived for 72 hours with no blog. My analytics at Zero visitors for Saturday and Sunday was depressing to look at.

It was especially sad since I just wrote my first guest post on another blog and was hoping some of her subscribers might just find me worthy of subscribing to as well! Now fortunately for me – her site is served by the same host and therefore was down as well. Which means no one new was finding the post and trying to link to my dead blog. However, any of her subscribers would have linked from their reader….to a wonderful error message. Boohoo.

Please check out my guest post on one of my favourite blogs - Mom on the Run. Janice writes about life with her two girls and reminds me how special being a mom is! Even when the kids are at their most frustrating they do something absolutely adorable or funny to make you smile. Oh, and she is a huge NKOTB fan…which is very important. We differ in our favourite member – she prefers Jon – while my favourite was always Jordan (Jon’s brother!).

Popularity: 11% [?]

Tags: Blogs, guest post, momontherun, nkotb