Just when you think you’ve got Facebook figured out, it rolls out another change. Last week, Facebook unveiled the new Insights platform, Facebook’s analytics tool for fan pages. While you may be unsure about some of the other recent changes, this change is a cause for celebration – a definite step forward for fan page analytics. So what do you need to know about the new Insights? Here’s the 4-1-1 on the new metrics and how to use them. Friends of Fans: Like the name suggests, “Friends of Fans” is the number of unique people who are friends with your fans. The metric excludes anyone who...

With over 200 million users, Twitter is an increasingly valuable tool for reaching new supporters and enhancing brand recognition. So how can your organization reach outside of its immediate followers and tap into that pool of 200 million users? One key lies in the strategic use of hashtags. What on earth is a hashtag? For those less familiar with the Twitterverse, hashtags are akin to keywords. Created as a way to group information on Twitter, hashtags allow you to categorize the 40,000+ Tweets that happen every minute. To create a hashtag, just place the hash symbol (#) before any word or phase. The...

Last week, M+R’s Steve Daigneault and Colin Holtz delivered a live webinar on their new paper, “Storytelling and the Art of Email Writing.” You can view the slides here, and read the paper here. Steve and Colin got so many great questions on the call that they ran out of time before they could answer them – but they wrote them all down! Read on to see what they think about how long emails should be, common mistakes in story-based appeals, and the pros and cons of authentic but unpolished stories. Storytelling Q&A with Colin Holtz and Steve Daigneault Q: Did you cover...

If you judge a presentation by the questions that get asked then our 2011 Benchmarks webinar was a resounding success! In fact, we got so many great questions that we couldn’t answer them all on the call. Was your question one that didn’t get answered? I’ll answer more questions now, and you can email me with your unanswered questions. Let’s jump in! Q: I missed the webinar. Are the slides available? A: Yes! You can download the webinar slides and listen to the webinar here. The Benchmarks study is a free download as well. Q: Why does the Health sector behave differently from other...

This week, a client asked if I would help explain to their boss what goes into an online campaign. I actually get asked this question fairly frequently, so I figured maybe I should just quickly write up some thoughts to outline the anatomy of an online campaign. Here’s what comes immediately to mind – and I admit that I probably am missing some tactics or maybe even big picture concepts – feel free to tell me what I missed in the comments and I’ll make an edit to the post. Hopefully this can serve as a resource to anyone who needs a good answer to that question. Purpose. Campaigns need to have...