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April 16, 2013 by

Creating search engine advertising campaigns is like peeling back the layers of an onion. As you go through the different stages of setup and execution, you reveal new complexities at each step. Acknowledging these details, we decided to re-surface an old search advertising post, 5 Steps to Building an Outrageously Successful Paid Search Campaign, with added advice to each step, so you can create an even more outrageously successful campaign! 

Search engine advertising steps

1. Select User-intent, Long-tail Keywords

Give some thought to how your target audience seeks information. For example, people who search for products and services on Google are at a crucial stage in the buying process. Searchers looking for “embedded design” could be looking for a Wikipedia entry, but those searching for “embedded design services” are much more likely to be future paying customers. For the services you provide, look for terms that end in services, solutions, and companies.

embedded design services

Once you’ve selected your keywords, now you need to set the keyword match type. Adwords allows you to set your keywords on three different match types: exact, phrase, and broad.

  • Exact match: Keywords set to exact match will only display your ad if the search term includes that exact keyword, with the words in that exact order.
  • Phrase match: Keywords set to phrase match will display your ad if the search term contains the same order of the words, but it can also contain additional words around it.
  • Broad match: Keywords set to broad match will display your ad when the search term contains any or some combination of the words in your keyword, in any order.

Using the example above with keyword “embedded design services,” if this was on exact match, the ad would only appear if “embedded design services” was typed in. For phrase match, your ad could show up for, “embedded design services in new york.” For broad match, your ad could appear for search terms “design services,” “web design services,” “define embedded design” and so on.

So what’s the best approach? Start with phrase match and monitor the search terms, especially during the first weeks of the campaign. Phrase match drives traffic without being too broad. Once you’ve run a campaign for at least a few months, and have enough data to find the keywords that convert well and make sense for your business, you can set those to exact match, because they’ve been proven to work.

For more on how to select keywords, you can read Killer Keywords: The Secret to Engineering and Technology SEO Success. 

2. Group Like Keywords

Create ad groups by topic. When you group keywords by topic, it ensures that your ad will match your keywords. Using the example above, if you’re a service company, use the different purchase intent permutations of embedded system services, such as “embedded design services, embedded design solutions, embedded design companies,” and group them together. Or if you’re a software company, think about grouping keywords together by product features.

Below is an example of the hierarchy of how Adwords groups keywords into ad groups that are then housed under campaigns.

search engine advertising campaign structure

3. Write Keyword-rich Ad Text

You don’t need to be a prized wordsmith to write Adwords copy. Here are three simple rules to follow for writing successful ad copy:

  • Use keywords in the ad.  Keywords should be used in the ad text and headline. If you find it too difficult to match ad copy to the keywords in the ad group, it’s a sign that you need to split the current ad group into two.
  • Be specific to the offer.  The ad should preview what the landing page is about. If it doesn’t, you’ll see that people click on your ad and then bounce off your site, which is a huge waste of your budget.
  • Study what others are doing. What are other companies offering in their ads? You will quickly obtain ideas of good and bad copy.

Ad examples:

Screen shot 2013-04-12 at 10.18.54 AM Keyword: Real-time control

Screen shot 2013-04-12 at 10.24.11 AM

Keyword: Vibration monitoring systems

4. Direct Traffic to a Relevant Landing Page

Once someone clicks on your ad, where will you send them? The most important thing is to deliver on what was promised in the ad text and keywords. If your ad offers a white paper, make sure the visitor can easily find it once they get to the landing page.  Below is an example of an ad that offers a white paper, which directs traffic to a landing page, discussing what a reader will learn from the paper and a simple lead form to capture contact information of those who download it.

Screen shot 2013-04-11 at 4.12.17 PM

 

Screen shot 2013-04-11 at 4.13.07 PM

The key components of lead-generating landing pages are:

  • Lead capture form placed prominently above the page fold
  • Page title and detailed sub-title highlighting offers
  • Brief 1-2 body paragraphs, followed by bulleted reasons why the reader needs your content, and how they will benefit from it
  • Company contact information
  • If you have a short video that further explains the content, embed it on the page. It makes the page more interactive and engaging.

To learn more about how to create a landing page that converts visits to leads, read Need Leads? Tips for a Winning Landing Page. 

5. Track Metrics that Lead to Insight, Action, and ROI

Search engine advertising can be flashy with all the numbers and reports you can pull. Don’t fall into this trap! Since we all have limited bandwidth, it’s a good idea to pull a short list of key metrics on a bi-weekly or monthly basis that give you the meaningful insight into what’s working and what isn’t.

Here are key metrics that will provide a good overview of campaign performance:

  • Click-through-rate: This metric is a percentage of clicks over impressions, and tells you whether or not your ads are relevant to searchers.
  • Conversion rate: This tells you how many people clicked on your ad and then took the next step – whether it’s downloading a white paper, requesting a demo, or purchasing a product.
  • Cost-per-conversion or action: Look at how much you’re spending to produce leads or an intended action, and then how much you’re willing to spend to obtain a lead. Essentially this number is the line that separates success or failure from an ROI perspective.
  • Search terms report: In order to avoid wasted spend, pull the “search terms” report. This report shows the entire search phrase that a searcher typed in and then clicked your ad. If you find irrelevant keywords, add negative keywords to your campaigns.

Most importantly, search engine advertising is not a “set it and forget it” activity. We recommend testing new keywords, ads, and offers frequently. This will give you valuable and actionable insight as you measure and analyze each test.

TREW has deep expertise in search engine advertising with Google Adwords certified specialists. Let us help you determine if search engine advertising is a great solution for your technical business. You can read more about our search advertising services or contact us to get started today.

Want to learn more about search engine advertising and SEO best practices?

search engine advertising companies

How TREW Cut Ad Spend 60%, Increased Web Traffic 75%

Killer Keywords: The Secret to Engineering and Technology SEO Success

Need Leads? Tips for a Winning Landing Page

March 19, 2013 by

Looking for additional insight? Check out our TREW Talks- SEO Slideshow


Unlocking the secret to keyword ranking successseo keyword strategy

TREW Marketing’s latest TREW Talk on how to build a SEO keyword strategy, guides you through the different ways you can optimize and generate the right kind of traffic to your website.

Keyword research is foundational to building an effective SEO strategy. Doing this important step will help guide you to create web content that searchers are actively seeking in your niche.

This 10-minute TREW Talk on how to build a SEO keyword strategy includes:

  • Analysis of results from sample Google and Google Adwords searches
    Using a sample search term, we will explain the on-page layout of the standard Google search page.
  • Factors that affect SEO
    Linking, blogging, and utilizing keywords are just a few factors we will elaborate on in the webinar. Understanding the value of these important components of SEO will help you better design your website to get more attention from search engines.
  • Strategic ideas about how searchers look for your products and services
    Discover the different thought processes of searchers when they research a product or service online.




Looking for additional insight? Check out our TREW Talks- SEO Slideshow

Check out our related posts on SEO:

4 Ways Pictures Power SEO and Social Media

Content and SEO Fuel Inbound Marketing Results

Killer Keywords: The Secret to Engineering and Technology SEO Success

January 15, 2013 by

B2B technical website checklist

Today, TREW Marketing released a new evaluation guide for technical business leaders marketing their products and services online. Available for download on our site, the checklist addresses 15 ways to grow the impact of your website, including expert tips on:

  • Clean design
  • Intuitive navigational paths
  • Informative graphics
  • Clear company positioning
  • Compelling, succinct, and fresh content year-round
  • Landing pages that convert visitors to leads
  • On-page SEO actions to get found by your audience
  • Social media promotion
  • Lead nurture with email automation

The checklist guides you through how to create a better web experience for all visitors to your website no matter where they are in the buying cycle – those researching your business, learning more about your products and services, preparing to buy, or returning for another purchase. Prepared by TREW Marketing’s web specialists on strategy, design, usability, search engine optimization, content creation, and content management systems, this checklist is a comprehensive guide to help you grow the impact of your technical website.




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December 11, 2012 by

2013 B2B Marketing Infographic by TREW Marketing

October 23, 2012 by


B2B marketing - photosDid you know that 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000X faster in the brain than text? (HubSpot, 2012)

You can’t deny it – we love pictures. Visual content is revolutionizing social media and how web content is consumed. Facebook recently reported that their users upload an average of 300 millions photos everyday, and the rise of photo sharing social media sites like Pinterest – now the third largest social networking site, behind Facebook and Twitter, and Instagram – bought by Facebook for $1 billion this year, tell us that there’s real power behind pictures.

So what does this mean for B2B marketing? It means that pictures are a viable content opportunity for your marketing mix of web pages, white papers, videos, webinars, case studies, and blog posts.

Read on to learn 4 quick ways to optimize and effectively integrate photos and visuals in your B2B marketing activities.

1. Name the file appropriately. Pick a related keyword for your web content and use this in your file name. Many users will name their image as “image1” or “logo.png” or “screen-shot 2012-10-22.” Is this you? Search engines, like Google, rely on textual cues to understand what the image is about. So if you leave your image file name like the examples above, Google will not know what to do with them.

2. Add alt text. Use keywords in the “alt tag” text box when you upload an image to your blog or website. By adding descriptive alt tag text, search engines can better identify what the image is about and how it relates to your content.

The image below shows how a blog, dynamometermanufacturers.com, found an image of TREW client, Wineman Technology’s dynamometer system via Google search and used it for a blog post. The blog attributed the image to Wineman Technology by linking to winemantech.com, which generated web traffic that spent more than 11½ minutes on-site and viewed an average of 6 pages per session. This cyclical effect of posting and tagging images helps increase your backlinks, gain third-party credibility, and generate highly engaged web visitors.

Example of inbound marketing TREW Marketing
3. Add context for the image in the page text. In addition to naming the file correctly and adding keyword rich alt text, Google also recommends you add text on the page where the image is located. Referencing the image in the page text ensures that Google understood your alt text correctly. See tip #2 above for an example of referencing an image in your page text.

4. Use rich visual snippets for Facebook posts. Using visual content for Facebook helps increase fan engagement with your page. The more engagement you receive on your page, the more positively Facebook’s EdgeRank Algorithm will favor your posts, thus expanding your reach.

TREW Marketing tracked our Facebook page content metrics to learn what content generates the most engagement. The results are very telling of engaging visual content on Facebook. Updates with photos receive 2X more total impressions versus posts with just a link. Additionally, our photos receive 12X more engaged users (people who like or comment on the image) over the link posts.

So here’s what you can do. By snapping a quick shot of a chart or image used in a blog post, you can upload it as an individual image and link to the blog post. This makes your Facebook post stand out more in the newsfeed and in the timeline. Below is an example of this, from Rand Fishkin’s presentation at Inbound 2012.

Choose Short Men Presentation - Inbound Marketing - TREW

Contact us today to learn more about TREW Marketing social media and search engine optimization programs.

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October 16, 2012 by

In TREW’s Survey Report: 3 Must-do’s for Reaching Technical Audiences, we revealed that 80% of high-tech professionals use search engines to find technical product and industry information, followed by 42% who favor vendor sites. These results underscore TREW’s long-held belief that your website is the single, most important marketing investment you can make, and is the reason why we approach all web projects with a strategy that supports business and marketing goals.

For these reasons, clients ranging from ERP integrators to national defense solutions providers, pre-clinical biotech and pharmaceutical test companies, and test cell measurement systems integrators selected TREW to redesign their websites.

The following web projects were launched this year, each with features that are unique to each company’s goals, ultimately helping our clients create solid foundations to make a big impact online.

Reinforcing branding and corporate messaging through web design and navigation

KTC website design

KTC website home before/after

TREW Marketing client, Kline Technical Consulting (KTC), a national defense solutions provider, needed a new website to highlight their expertise in defense solutions, directing users to their three main services – Physical Security Systems, Electronic Warfare, and IT Consultation — and to better communicate their branding and messaging visually throughout the site.

Site features:

  • New home page that highlights the three services with feature banner images. It also features content, such as press coverage, blog posts, and footer items that direct users to lower level pages about KTC’s team of experts.
  • Strategic usage of KTC’s yellow branded color, paired with modern black & white images to emphasize their visual branding across the web and in printed materials.
  • A solution “quick find” feature so the user can quickly learn about past solutions KTC has deployed.
  • A user-friendly, secure web content management system (CMS) so the client can easily make web updates to the solution quick find, content, images, and add new landing pages.
  • Tabs for seamless navigation through service overview, solutions, resources, and technical blog posts that feed into the service pages.

Updating a website to modernize design and reflect new business and marketing direction

website redesign TREW Marketing

Wineman Technology home and product page after

TREW Marketing client, Wineman Technology, had recently launched three new products, and was in need of a web update to reflect their growing product portfolio and content, such as case studies, example solutions, white papers, and videos.

Site features:

  • The new home page showcases their products with the rotating banner images and product feature bullets, with a prominent call-to-action button directing visitors to the product page.
  • Two new product page templates designed for tier 1-flagship products, such as INERTIA™ test automation software and tier 2 products, such as RAPID test cell controller and Dynacar vehicle model simulator.
  • Tier 1 template features a “learn, try, buy” experience, where visitors can familiarize themselves using the “get started” box at the top. Other features of the site, including the tier 2 product pages, and services pages showcase Wineman Technolgy’s content with lots of space for interchangeable promotional boxes and sidebar features.

Enhancing web user experience with accessible content features and quicker downloads

Hepregen website design

Hepregen services page before/after

Hepregen, a biotech company, partnered with TREW Marketing to redesign their website with a goal to improve the site’s overall marketing effectiveness. Their site needed service pages to accurately reflect their core capabilities, as well as the ability to offer lead generating content for their focused target audience of researchers.

Site features:

  • New service pages that use a tabular approach to display highly technical content that users can easily access.
  • A session-based cookie so that site visitors only have to fill out a lead form once for the many different technical resources and articles offered on the site.
  • Updated site look and feel with modern and technical imagery specific to Hepregen’s core competencies.

Differentiating with new branding and communicating their open source ERP difference

Trek global website design

Trek Global new site launch

Trek Global is a team of ERP integrators and developers, who use open source ERP to install ERP systems for high-volume distribution companies, and hired TREW to help launch their U.S. business. During the process of creating their U.S. “branding brain,” the company and with the help of TREW, crafted a new company name, Trek Global. The website redesign was an opportunity to launch the new name and brand to build corporate awareness in the U.S.

Site features:

  • Developed the site navigation and web strategy to generate more web leads and communicate  corporate and product-level messaging and positioning.
  • Page templates that clearly communicates Trek’s educational value to prospects, as well as the open source difference for ERP, using infographics and clear call-to-action buttons/sidebars.

Your new website is live, now what?

With a new website, you now have the foundations to generate web leads. The next step is to begin promoting content. Learn the five things lead generating websites have in common in our free, downloadable white paper, “Inbound Marketing: 5 Keys to Generating Leads on Your Website.”

>>Download now.

Related Blog Posts:

Need Leads? Tips for a Winning Landing Page

Microsites: Effective Marketing or Bad Idea?

Website Success: Web Traffic Grows 300%

August 23, 2012 by

TREW to Help Science, Engineering Customers Drive More Leads; New, Free White Paper Explains Inbound Marketing

AUSTIN, Texas – August 23, 2012 – TREW Marketing today announced it is now certified in the HubSpot all-in-one inbound marketing software platform. With the HubSpot platform, TREW can help science, engineering, and technology companies further automate marketing plans to generate a consistent flow of qualified leads that fuel new sales opportunities and drive growth. To help clients and potential clients stay on the leading edge of marketing best practices, TREW also today released a free, downloadable white paper that discusses inbound marketing and shares five essentials of effective, lead-generating websites.

TREW’s new certification follows more than 50 hours of training and adds to the agency’s track record of creating smart, collaborative, and measured integrated marketing plans that directly tie to business and marketing goals.

“Our goal at TREW is to help scientists and engineers define their company’s unique, differentiated position, and then create and execute a smart, integrated marketing plan that establishes leadership and generates leads to drive sales,” said Rebecca Geier, Principal and co-founder of TREW Marketing. “Using HubSpot, we now have more intelligence about prospects and leads, increased efficiency in engaging and nurturing those leads, and access to more data to inform decisions and effectively allocate resources.”

HubSpot tools bring a proven record of client success. Typical HubSpot users see a growth in monthly unique visitors to their websites by up to 60 percent, an average increase in leads of 25 percent and an increase in sales of 50 percent or more because of their inbound marketing efforts.

“TREW Marketing has demonstrated their ability to grow their own traffic, leads and sales using the HubSpot software and inbound marketing methodology. As an engineer myself, I’m eager to see them apply their creativity and skill to helping their science and engineering clients accomplish the same goal,” said Peter Caputa IV, Channel Sales & Marketing Director at HubSpot.

Inbound Marketing Explained: Free, Downloadable White Paper

TREW Marketing recently released a white paper to educate small to mid-size companies that serve scientists, engineers, and technical professionals on the importance of inbound marketing.

The paper provides current data on the ROI of various marketing investments and best practices for web lead generation and nurturing through activities including SEO, blogging, and social media.

For more information about TREW Marketing, readers can download the white paper, visit http://trewmarketing.com/, or contact TREW directly at info@trewmarketing.com.

Click to tweet: New from @TREWMarketing: HubSpot Certifies TREW Marketing for Integrated Marketing Platform. http://ow.ly/d63rR

About TREW Marketing

TREW Marketing, headquartered in Austin, Texas, is a full-service marketing firm uniquely serving leading companies and organizations in the engineering and science markets. TREW Marketing uses decades of specialized technical marketing experience to create strategies and plans, and execute services for clients such as brand identity and design; positioning and messaging; market research; product launch planning; PR and social media; website strategy and design; and search marketing.

About HubSpot

HubSpot all-in-one marketing software helps more than 7,500 companies in 46 countries attract more visitors to their websites, convert more of those visitors to leads and drive customer growth. Website management, blogging, search engine optimization, lead management, marketing analytics, email marketing, landing pages, and social media marketing are among the 25+ integrated tools that make up this end-to-end marketing software. HubSpot is also the developer of the popular marketing analysis tool, MarketingGrader.com, which grades the marketing efforts of over 250,000 companies a month. In the last year, HubSpot has been named the second fastest growing software company by the Inc. 500, one of the 20 most promising companies in America by Forbes, and the eighth fastest growing technology company in the world by the Deloitte Fast 500. HubSpot, Inc. was founded in 2006 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Find them at http://www.HubSpot.com. Find out if HubSpot software is right for your business by applying for a free inbound marketing assessment.

June 11, 2012 by

Trek Global Chooses Agency for Technical Focus and Breadth of Marketing, PR, Web Expertise

AUSTIN, Texas – June 11, 2012 – Trek Global today announced its selection of Austin-based TREW Marketing, a specialized science, engineering, and technology marketing firm, as its brand and marketing communications agency. The partnership includes a business re-naming project, corporate positioning and messaging, and a website redesign, as well as ongoing technical content development, search engine marketing, and public relations.

Trek Global delivers ERP solutions for mid-size distribution companies that need to order, shelve, assemble, and ship their products efficiently. The company’s open source approach to ERP offers customers a cost-effective, low risk solution that harnesses the benefits of top-tier ERP systems, like Oracle and SAP, without the typical restrictions and expenses. Trek Global’s growth in North America drove a desire for integrated marketing communications to match its level of expertise and high standards for quality.

“Trek Global was founded by leading developers of open-source ERP and they have a clear and differentiated position in the marketplace,” said Wendy Covey, Principal and Co-Founder of TREW Marketing. “From our early branding and messaging work to an integrated strategy that drives traffic, engagement, and conversion, we are excited to increase marketing ROI for Trek Global.”

The partnership entails marketing projects including:

“The TREW team is passionate about marketing to technical audiences. Their diverse marketing experiences and the synergy between their team and ours creates a high-performing and high-character partnership. We consider TREW to be an integral part of our success and team,” said Chuck Boecking, Director of Education and Marketing at Trek Global.

Click to tweet: New from @Trewmarketing: ERP Integrator Selects TREW Marketing for Brand and Marketing Communications http://ow.ly/bfwQo

About Trek Global

Trek Global delivers powerful ERP solutions for mid-size distribution companies that need to order, shelve, assemble, and ship their products efficiently. Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, and with staff in five countries, the Trek Global team of system integrators and developers has more than a century of combined experience in enterprise software architecture and implementation. Trek Global’s software, based on the open source ADempiere platform, offers the benefits of top-tier ERP systems like Oracle or SAP without the restrictions or cost. With a focus on product and system training through Guided Implementation, customer education is Trek Global’s passion.

About TREW Marketing

TREW Marketing, headquartered in Austin, Texas, is a full-service B2B marketing firm uniquely serving leading engineering and scientific companies that target technical markets. TREW uses decades of specialized experience to create custom marketing programs that help customers efficiently and effectively achieve their business and sales. TREW takes an integrated approach using a wide array of marketing services, including market research, brand identity, positioning and messaging, product launch planning, website strategy and design, search marketing and public relations.

Read additional coverage in Austin Business Journal here.

May 31, 2012 by

Landing pages, also called “lead capture pages,” are the gateway to your web conversion offers that create leads for your company. This is often the first page a web visitor sees when arriving to your site from a social media link, email promotion or paid search ad. At TREW, we are asked many questions around how to create a landing page that generates leads, thus the following post outlines some of our tips to guide you through the process of crafting an effective landing page.

When should I create a landing page?

Landing pages should be created to house high-value content for a targeted audience. Good examples of content that visitors are willing to give you their personal information for are:

The more valuable the content is perceived to be, the more personal information a web visitor is willing to give. For this reason, creating a compelling landing page is critical to generate leads.
Web Lead Capture Tips

What are the key ingredients to a great landing page?

With one piece of content to house, and one main call-to-action, “to download,” landing pages should be quick to develop. Avoid wasting time by creating a “kitchen sink” of call-to-actions on the landing page. Instead, follow this checklist of landing page content and wireframe example below:

  • Lead capture form prominently placed above the page fold
  • Page title and detailed sub-title highlighting  offers
  • Brief 1-2 body paragraphs followed by bulleted reasons why the reader needs your content, and how they will benefit from it
  • Company contact information
  • Bonus points: embed a short video that further explains the content
Landing page wireframe
Is less really more? What fields should be on the lead capture form?

Just like the page itself, lead capture forms need to be clear, simple, and concise. Studies have shown that companies with longer page descriptions and forms have a lower conversion rate than those with simple landing page descriptions and forms. By shortening the landing page text and form fields, one company saw their landing page conversion rate go from 32% to 53% (Hubspot, Webinar Redesign Strategy, 2010). If possible, develop the lead form with 4 fields:

  • First and last name
  • Email address
  • Company name
  • Open description box

My landing page is live, now what?

Consider your landing page as a living document. Allow it to run at least a month before making changes to it, while tracking visits and conversion rates. Based on its performance, you will need to decide how to make changes to improve the page.

Are lots of visitors landing and then not converting? This could mean that the page content needs tweaks to better explain your offering and compel the visitor to download, or it could mean your offer is not compelling enough for your target audience to leave their name. If the landing page seems to not be reaching its expected web traffic, try to increase reach with an email campaign, pay-per-click ads, or use as a next step after a trade show.

Overall, the purpose of landing pages is to help you convert a faceless web visitor into real sales opportunities for your business, and is an important component in your marketing strategy and website design.

For more advice on website design, see these related blog posts:

Microsites: Effective Marketing or Bad Idea?

Maximize your Online Impact with a Winning Web Design

April 19, 2012 by

Social media is changing how we use the Web. It’s changing  the way we consume, search and share information, so much, that consumers are now turning to social media before company sites when researching information on a product. If you’re like many small businesses who have read all the hype around social media and registered for accounts, but now wondering, “what’s next?”…this post is for you.

Often times, small businesses turn to expensive software services and applications to help maintain their social networks. This can be very beneficial if social media is an integral part of your marketing mix; however, we’ve learned that most small businesses don’t need all the features many of these services offer. You’ll end up spending more time trying to set up the accounts, remembering passwords, and figuring out how to use it, versus the end goal, which is to connect with your audiences and share key messages.

To help simplify social media, here are few tools that we recommend you use to manage social media and balance it with the rest of your daily responsibilities.

Hootsuite: Hootsuite is a social media management tool with an easy-to-scan dashboard of all your social media accounts. Instead of logging into each account separately, Hootsuite allows you to see them at once. At TREW, we use this service to schedule tweets and Facebook updates, and easily interact with our and our clients’ followers.

TREW uses this tool because: it allows you to schedule updates at your convenience. You can schedule tweets over the weekend, or while the key personnel are on vacation. In addition, it allows you to see new @mentions and direct messages in one interface, as well as, it has it’s own link shortening service, so the analytic reports are housed here too.

Case in point: At NIWeek 2011, TREW used Hootsuite to schedule social media updates for client, Wineman Technology. At the conference, Wineman and  Tecnalia Research launched Dynacar, a fully validated, real-time vehicle model simulator for developing and testing passenger and light commercial vehicles. Intermixed with PR efforts, trade show planning, and web preparation, social media tweets and Facebook updates were released throughout the day to NIWeek attendees and show followers online. While tweets were released, TREW was helping clients on the show floor, and Wineman was occupied giving demos, meeting with press, and attending client appointments.

The result: Wineman had a strong show floor as well as off show-floor presence with over 200% web visitor growth. The graphic below shows how strategic social media can help amplify your message, which in this case was a result of the Dynacar launch at NIWeek, with the help of HootSuite for organizing and planning our social media updates. Dynacar release social media

Klout: Klout measures the influence based on a person’s/company’s ability to drive online action. With engineered algorithms, Klout analyzes your tweets, posts, Google+ updates and other activity to determine your “Klout score” from 1-100, based on the number of people you influence. The score fluctuates in real-time, so if you’re active one week and silent the next, your score will reflect that.

TREW uses this tool because: It helps to understand our return on investment with social media. At TREW, we don’t fixate on the numerical score, but rather the other analytics that surround it. It’s a useful tool for improving the focus of your social media strategy, by gaining valuable insights on whom to target, and how to spark conversation among influential people. Then we look at the results from Klout, which measures “influence,” meaning how many users engaged with your message. It can take many forms, such as a re-tweet, @mention, or a click – ie, actions of influence to measure. By monitoring your Klout score, you can better understand the percentage of effort each channel deserves based on your results and audience influence.

TwitterSearch: A hidden gem, TwitterSearch is much more powerful than most people know. Finding things in the Twitterverse can be overwhelming, which is why this search tool is invaluable, allowing you to cut through the clutter and focus on topics you’re interested in.

For instance you can find out what people are saying about your competitors by typing in “to:handlename” or “from:handlename”. It will give results of tweets that people are posting about the competitor or if you used the “from:”, it will provide tweets from the competitor.

If you want to see conversations about your business that may not be sent directly to you with an @mention, there’s a search query for that. For example, if TREW wants to run this search query, we could type in “Trewmarketing -to:Trewmarketing -from:Trewmarketing -@Trewmarketing.” This tells the search engine to only give results of tweets that talk about Trewmarketing, and not any tweets from TREW or directly to TREW. Many times, you’ll discover a few tweets that would otherwise not be found by your analytics.

TREW uses this tool because: it’s quick, efficient, and it provides results in real-time. With TwitterSearch, there’s no need to sign up for a new account on a third-party site, it’s already accessible on the Twitter account. It gives accurate feedback about most everything you can think of, and it’s a quick way to check if you’re social media analytics are accurate for Twitter. For niche industries, this search tool can be very useful to find subjects being discussed, influencers engaged in the discussion, and opinions surrounding these conversations.

All in all, there’s many tools and services available to help you manage social media. These are three that have worked for TREW and our clients, by helping us manage accounts on a daily basis, and analyze data in an efficient and effective way.

You can read more about the benefits of social media, and how to use it with these related blog posts:

Social Media: Real-World Examples that Dispel the Myths

Social Media: Define, Act, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Repeat

Social Ad Showdown: 5 Ways LinkedIn Takes Care of Business