This is an interesting TED talk that talks about how social media marketing challenges traditional market research demographics and target markets. The video is only about 9 minutes, it's worth a watch:

Although I will hopefully be walking you all through a few experimental things during class on the 23rd, this video can and will do a better job than me of walking you through an A/B Test with google's system. This is very good video, and since I don't have two sites set up with Google Web Optimizer, this is a good alternative to me just trying to explain it.
So, the video is about 5minutes long and will go through the whole process of getting your pages set up and how to begin testing. Some of it may seem a little too "techie" but don't be scared off. So take a few minutes and watch this video (at least the first few minutes that shows you how to set up your test).

A/B Experiments with Google Website Optimizer

As I mentioned in my presentation yesterday there are a few great online fundraising sites that take advantage of social fundraising and are quite cheap/FREE! I said I would throw a few of them up here for you since I didn't list them in my presentation, so here you go!

1. Razoo.com - this look like a great one, your non-profit can create your own page/customize the donation page, it provides you with buttons that you can stick on your site, it integrates with Facebook and Twitter, and I think is free :)

2. Twitpay.com -this platform works with and takes advantage of Twitter. It has an easy way for people to re-tweet your donation message and then go directly to your Twitpay fundraising page. They only charge a small transaction fee, but don't charge you a monthly fee or a site fee so if you're not getting donations, you don't have to pay anything.

3. Crowdrise.com - this site is probabaly one of my favorite; the user interface is so clear and easy, plus they have "share on Facebook/Twitter/Email" buttons right there which make it easy for people to share your page with others or announce that they've just donated. However, this site takes the most money from your cause, which for many fundraisers may not be worth the lovely user interface.

4. ChipIn.com - is not quite a site (well they have a site) but is more of a widget that allows you to connect it to PayPal and then place the widget on your site or blog in order to raise money and then the money gets deposited into your PayPal account. I like this little widget and ChipIn is pretty easy to use. This is also useful for personal fundraising (for a trip or personal cause) or to place on your blog for readers who love you to donate to you.

Here is my in-class presentation (3/2/11) about social media return on investment, metrics, and user experience that impacts conversion. Visit some of the suggested pages/sites from my presentation to get familiar with these tools and let me know if you have any questions. I will be doing a bit of a more thorough walk-though on 3/23 of some of these tools, as per request to demonstrate and answer more questions.


Social Media ROI

Here is my presentation from class on 2/23 about how to use content and trust to build a community around your brand and what to consider when building a content strategy.
This slide show can be viewed on Scribd and is accessible for downloading or printing.
Community Building/Content Strategy

Groundswell is a great book for an introduction to social media, some strategies, and some case studies.
The next step up, a book that I loved, is The Whuffie Factor by Tara Hunt (a lot of her philosophy and case studies can even be read on her blog). This gives loads of really fantastic examples of how brands embraced social media and used it to turn their brand around. Tara is a great writer and the book is an easy, enjoyable read. I would highly recommend this as a Spring Break read for anyone interested in learning more and really seeing how brands make the most of social media and the new consumer environment. Tara represents a outlines the idea of "whuffie" (social capital) and how important it is to Web 2.0, which is something that I think is crucial to a great online interaction with consumers.

I came across this article today that is simplistic, but straight forward and completely true. I thought it might serve as a useful reality check for those who are creating personal blogs or who may begin contributing to workplace blogs. If you feel like your blog has one or more of these problems and you have questions on who to improve- let me know!

http://theantisocialmedia.com/anti-social-media/why-no-one-reads-your-blog