by Fronetics | Mar 21, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain
Use these 10 social media analytics tools to measure the success of your social media efforts.
Analyzing your social media performance is critical to a successful marketing effort, especially in light of recent changes to Facebook’s News Feed. You need the tools to determine what’s working and what isn’t, as well as the best time to post your content for your target audience.
At Fronetics, we use a variety of tools to measure social media success. Here are our 10 favorite social media analytics tools.
Our 10 favorite social media analytics tools
1) Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a social media management tool that can do everything from scheduling social media posts to measuring your social media ROI. The AutoSchedule feature lets Hootsuite determine the best time to publish a post or tweet based on when similar content performed well in the past. It also considers the platform and can publish the same message at different times based on audience engagement on each particular network.
2) Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a robust analytical tool for determining how web users are interacting with your digital assets, including social media. Three custom reports (Best Days to Post on Social Media, Best Time to Post on Social Network by Hour, and the Social Media Traffic by Date and Hour) offer real-time, in-depth insight. Also, Google Analytics is free!
3) Tweriod
Tweriod, a free Twitter tool that helps you know the best time to tweet, is changing the way companies approach their marketing tweets. It will evaluate up to 1,000 of your followers and their tweeting patterns, including schedule, interests, and retweets. You then receive an analysis of when your tweets will receive the most exposure based on that data.
4) Snaplytics
If you’ve jumped on the Snapchat bandwagon, you probably know that Snapchat gives brands relatively little data on performance. Snaplytics gives you data on the performance of your snaps, audience growth, and more.
5) Iconosquare
This tool is specifically for Instagram. It stands out because, in addition to analysis of your normal photos and videos, it gives you insights into Instagram Stories. With higher level plans, you can also get influencer analytics as well.
6) Buzzsumo
Instead of analyzing your brand’s individual social media performance, Buzzsumo takes a different approach: It looks at how content from your website performs on social media.
7) Tailwind
Tailwind lets you track your performance on Pinterest. Although Instagram and Snapchat are getting a lot of buzz these days, users remain extremely active on Pinterest. With Tailwind, you can track trends in followers and engagement and analyze your audience.
8) SproutSocial
SproutSocial offers a customized dashboard with a quick overview of how your social media channels are performing. You also can gain deeper insight into your followers — like gender and age demographics. And you can assess your customer reach and what will work in your favor.
9) ShortStack
This social media contest app provides performance analytics, so you can determine if your efforts are working, or if you’re simply giving away free merchandise.
10) TapInfluence
Influencer marketing is becoming one of the most commonly used social media tactics. TapInfluence is a complete influencer marketing platform that researches potential influencers you want to work with, as well as tracks campaign performance.
What social media analytics tools do you use?
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by Jennifer Hart Yim | Mar 19, 2018 | Blog, Current Events, Logistics, Strategy, Supply Chain
More than half of the UK’s Kentucky Fried Chicken stores recently closed because they ran out of chicken. Here’s a look at what caused the issues and what supply chain lessons can be learned.
This guest post comes to us from Argentus Supply Chain Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm specializing in Supply Chain Management and Procurement.
There’s another unfortunate entry in the annals of Supply Chain failures that burst into the wider world of business and pop culture: More than half of the UK’s Kentucky Fried Chicken stores recently closed because they ran out of chicken. We’ve written on the Argentus’ blog many times about Supply Chain misadventures, and how they can harm a brand’s reputation as well as profits – for example, maybe most memorably, in the case of Target, which had to retreat from the Canadian market after Supply Chain snafus led to empty shelves and disappointed customers.
Although Supply Chain Management is taking off in terms of recognition within business, it still doesn’t get a lot of attention from the wider world – until it fails, at which point the stresses and pressure of beleaguered Supply Chain teams become an object of fascination as the organization races to play catch up and get things back online.
KFC’s UK operations are the latest such story. On February 19th, outlets began reporting about the closure of about half of the chain’s 900 stores in the country, due to delivery failures after changing their 3rd Party Logistics (3PL) provider from Bidvest Logistics to DHL. A few weeks later, reports are that a number of stores are still closed, with front-line workers being encouraged to take holidays as the company sorts out its deliveries and tries to account for the failures. It’s no wonder that the closures have been met with derision across the internet: delivering chicken to the people is pretty much KFC’s #1 job.
So what has caused the issues, and what lessons are there to be learned?
According to the BBC, KFC recently switched its 3PL operations from food specialist Bidvest Logistics to international heavyweight DHL – the latter being a company with operations in a number of different industries, now navigating a country-wide Supply Chain out of one distribution centre location. In short, DHL took over the contract on Valentine’s Day, and delivery failures started to happen on February 16th – an extraordinarily short time table for Supply Chain issues to get so dire that customers see disruptions.
While there’s some disagreement among experts about the exact cause of the failed deliveries, speculation is that many of the problems can be attributed to the fact that DHL has one distribution centre location serving the entire country – a bottleneck that wasn’t seen with the previous 3PL provider, who had six distribution centre locations.
While Supply Chains gain a lot of their competitive advantage from offering lower costs and greater efficiencies, it seems that the shift in providers was a cost-cutting maneuver that’s ended up costing the company’s brand — with some analysts predicting something on the order of 20% of a hit to the company’s share prices once the disruption finishes shaking its way through the system. It underscores the importance of sound planning and reliability in Supply Chain Management in an era where companies are looking to gain an edge with margins wherever they can. It’s also great evidence for what many of us know: an approach that puts cost-cutting first can cause more problems than it solves.
John Boulter, the Managing Director of DHL’s operations for retail in the UK and Ireland issued a statement saying, “The reasons for this unforeseen interruption of this complex service are being worked on with a goal to return to normal service levels as soon as possible. With the help of our partner QSL, we are committed to step by step improvements to allow KFC to reopen its stores over the coming days. Whilst we are not the only party responsible for the supply chain to KFC, we do apologize for the inconvenience and disappointment caused to KFC and their customers by this incident.”
Ouch. Boulter’s statement has two issues that, from our perspective, show a lack of the accountability necessary to restore credibility both with DHL’s immediate customer (KFC) and the wider base of customers disappointed that they can’t buy KFC’s fried chicken:
- The statement attempts to shift blame onto DHL’s other partners in the deliveries (particularly QSL) in a way that looks passive aggressive. Admitting responsibility is the first step to restoring credibility when responding to Supply Chain failures, and while DHL accepts some blame for the issues, the statement doesn’t go far enough.
- Going out of their way to describe the service as “complex” doesn’t do any favours for DHL in this situation. Of course modern Supply Chains are complex. Understanding that complexity, and being able to deliver anyway, should be considered table stakes for providers in 2018. To implicitly chalk delivery failures up to a complexity that your predecessor – in this case Bidvest Logistics – handled without issue for years, casts even more doubt on DHL’s competency. At the same time, the fact that analysts are having such agreeing on an explanation for these issues – despite the fact that KFC only has a few poultry suppliers in the UK – says a lot about just how complex modern-day Supply Chains have become.
Logistics failures leading to the closure of stores is pretty much the worst case scenario for Supply Chain teams everywhere, so all of us across the community are probably watching this story with bemused shock and sympathy for those involved.
Hopefully DHL – which is, after all, the biggest logistics provider in the world – can get these issues solved soon, but in the meantime, let us know in the comments: are there any further lessons you think that Supply Chain professionals can draw from KFC’s recent woes?
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by Fronetics | Mar 5, 2018 | Blog, Current Events, Logistics, Supply Chain
Companies looking to promote their supply chain transparency should consider joining the Green Supply Chain Map to reach environmentally conscious buyers.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE) created the world’s first map publicly linking multinational corporations to their suppliers’ environmental performance. This Green Supply Chain Map shows companies’ commitment to supply chain transparency and environmental management. It will allow customers to make buying choices based on commitment to environmental sustainability.
The IPE calls the map “a leadership initiative dedicated to showcasing brands’ commitment to supply chain transparency and environmental management. It openly links brands’ supplier lists to publicly available environmental data, including real-time data for air emissions and wastewater discharge.”
Supply chain transparency, mapped
Publication of the Green Supply Chain Map is a breakthrough in transparency in the supply chain.
“The map has the potential to become a true game-changer for public environmental oversight and improvement efforts for industrial manufacturing in China,” says Ma Jun, environmentalist and director at IPE. “We hope to see more brands step up their game and join the map to connect the missing dots of accountability in the vast network of global supply chains.”
Six brands have so far joined and disclosed supplier data: Esprit, Gap, Inditex, New Balance, Puma, and Target.
The map allows users to filter by brand and to view the supply chains for individual companies. It displays water, air, and weather conditions in a factory’s location, as well as the air and wastewater pollutants each factory releases.
How brands can leverage this map
Interested brands can join the map voluntarily, demonstrating their leadership in supply chain transparency and environmental sustainability. The map’s interface allows businesses to verify and advertise their environmental compliance. It’s a potential way to attract business, as more and more savvy and environmentally conscious buyers will use this tool to make purchasing decisions.
“Until now, customers have lacked effective tools to assess the environmental impact of their favorite brands’ global operations,” says Linda Greer, senior health scientist for NRDC and founder of its Clean by Design green supply chain program. “These companies that have stepped up to put their names first on the inaugural map are showing new levels of transparency on their manufacturing abroad and are demonstrating real leadership in supply chain responsibility.”
Other companies hoping to demonstrate their supply chain transparency should consider adding their brands to the map as part of a holistic strategy to attract environmentally conscious buyers.
The future
The Green Supply Chain Map may be the first of its kind. But with the increasing availability of such data, we anticipate like organizations — or even brands themselves — will soon have similar tools for illustrating supply chain transparency.
“We hope our map can serve as a reference for other countries and regions facing similar concerns about environmental impacts of rapid industrialization within their own borders,” says Kate Logan, the IPE’s green choice outreach director.
How does your organization demonstrate supply chain transparency?
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by Fronetics | Feb 27, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Current Events, Marketing, Social Media
Also in social media news February 2018: Facebook is developing more sophisticated chatbots, Twitter’s increased character count leads to more tweets, and Instagram introduces a new content publishing beta for businesses.
The Olympics aren’t the only thing to keep an eye on this month. The results from the fourth quarter of 2017 show that social media sites are going for the gold when it comes to customer engagement.
Updates to the most popular sites have included longer character counts, more advanced conversational skills with chatbots, and new tools for easier sharing. All of these changes are working to improve user experience and help keep users active on the biggest sites.
Here’s your social media news for February 2018.
Instagram launches content publishing beta for businesses
Instagram’s latest update allows businesses to schedule photo posts, view posts they’ve been tagged in, and view other business profiles. Prior to this update, users would have to use a third-party tool to publish posts to the site. “This change helps businesses manage their organic presence more effectively,” writes Instagram on its business blog. This new feature is also open to Facebook Marketing Partners.
Facebook boosts local news posts
In a continued effort to increase customer engagement, Mark Zuckerberg shared the latest changes to Facebook’s News Feed. The site will now boost local events and news stories from high-quality sources. “We’re making a series of updates to show more high-quality, trusted news. Last week we made an update to show more news from sources that are broadly trusted across our community. Today our next update is to promote news from local sources,” writes Zuckerberg. The updates to News Feed are rolling out in the U.S., with plans to expand to other countries later this year.
Twitter launches Sponsored Moments
Twitter introduced a new sponsorship opportunity, Sponsored Moments, in which advertisers can run tweets designed around a specific event or theme. Similar to other in-stream sponsorships, advertisers can promote the moment to their specific target audience and expand their reach beyond the content partner’s existing followers. Twitter is hoping these changes will help advertisers be relevant “in the moment” and create opportunities for a more organic marketing reach.
Facebook developing new chatbots with better conversational skills
The Verge reports that Facebook is working on more sophisticated chatbots with a “consistent personality” and the ability to carry on better conversations. Feedback from Facebook’s FAIR lab showed that customers were unhappy with chatbots’ ability to provide context-based responses and their programmed responses, like “I don’t know,” when faced with questions they can’t answer. Facebook’s new research is looking for patterns in large datasets that will allow chatbots to converse in a more natural human dialogue.
Snapchat hits 187 million daily active users
Snap’s Q4 2017 Earnings Report showed that Snapchat gained 8.9 million daily active users during the last quarter, bringing its total to 187 million daily active users. While still not reaching Instagram and Facebook’s user numbers, this growth shows the largest increase in users since 2016. This increase included 3 million new users from outside of the U.S., a market Snapchat has just recently focused on expanding into.
Twitter’s increased tweet character count leads to more tweets
Back in November, Twitter increased its tweet size to 280 characters. Though most tweets aren’t using the additional characters, the platform has seen an increase in tweets. CEO Jack Dorsey stated that the recent expansion hasn’t actually changed the length of messages people are sending out — but it has led to more engagement.” The increased engagement has come from more retweets and mentions, higher follower rates, and less abandonment of tweets.
Facebook updates branded content policies
Facebook will no longer allow publishers to take money for posting media they didn’t create or weren’t involved in creating. These updates to the platform’s branded content policies also prohibits publishers from placing ads in video, audio or visual content and states that all branded content may only be posted using the branded content tool and has to feature the proper disclosures.
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by Fronetics | Feb 22, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Twitter bots may get you more followers and retweets, but artificial influence isn’t a healthy indicator of marketing performance.
In this age of influencer marketing, in which followers and retweets are all-important indicators of marketing success, a new phenomenon is emerging: Twitter bots.
According to a recent New York Times article, these computer programs are generally run by “shadowy companies that sell Twitter followers and retweets to celebrities, businesses, and anyone who wants to appear more popular or exert influence online.”
These bots essentially constitute large-scale identity theft, as they use the personal data — including names, profile pictures, and hometowns — of real twitter users. According to recent research from the University of Southern California and Indiana University, “as many as 48 million of Twitter’s reported active users — nearly 15% — are automated accounts designed to simulate real people.” Bot producers count on the economy of online influence, with businesses desperate to monetize a mass audience.
Why are Twitter bots around?
The temptation for businesses to buy followers is strong. Amplification bots, the specific type of Twitter bot most often favored by businesses, promise follows, retweets, and likes for those who buy them, boosting the visibility and “amplifying” the influence of buyers.
“This virtual status is a real-world currency,” say the New York Times writers, as follower counts play a role in determining “how potential customers evaluate businesses or products.”
But as tempting as it may be, paying for followers can get you a lot more — or less — than you bargained for.
The bad news
For one thing, Twitter and other social media sites explicitly forbid buying or selling followers or retweets. While social media companies are more apt to penalize sellers than buyers, if you’re paying for followers, your business is engaging in what can best be described as shady practices.
While companies that sell bots describe their services as legitimate, these claims are shaky at best. They often promise “discretion,” but there’s no guarantee that their client records will remain private.
“It’s fraud,” says British rower and Olympic gold medalist James Cracknell, who regrets purchasing 50,000 followers. “People who judge by how many likes or how many followers, it’s not a healthy thing.”
The bottom line
Cracknell’s statement points to an important, though often overlooked truth about influencer marketing: While quantity of followers and amplification may be fruitful in the short-term, artificial influence isn’t a healthy indicator of market performance. It will ultimately be detrimental to your reputation, a far more important and illusive currency than followers.
“I tell anyone and everyone who ever asks that it’s a total scam,” says Marcus Holmlund, a freelance writer formerly tasked with buying followers for an international modeling agency. “It won’t boost their engagement.”
And there’s the bottom line: While businesses are under constant pressure to increase their social media presence, and bots carry a powerful lure, they are ultimately an ineffective scam.
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