• Easily sort by date or number of clicks
• A quick trailing 7-day graph of traffic on links
• The ability to add an internal Label for tracking purposes (eg, who in your organization publishes the link, etc.)

Of course all of these clicks also feed into the overall metrics and social graph provided by Clickst, so you can track downstream virality as usual.

We’ll be adding conversion tracking and more detailed reporting for each link in the coming months. In the meantime, we appreciate your feedback!

Most recently, this phenomenon came to our attention thanks to an article Intuit VP Seth Greenberg Evaluates The Facebook Funnel At The ANA’s Annual Conference on AdExchanger.com. TurboTax has done a great job with their use of social media, and this presentation highlights the funnel.

What I found most interested was their “lift” in terms of conversion rates: 4x. This is squarely in the 2x-5x range we have been observing for our clients for over 2 years now.

Whether you call it friendcasting, earned media or good old word-of-mouth, the numbers don’t lie… or move.

The key highlight is on page 4 where a majority of marketers suggest that a person with a handful of tightly connected friends / fans / followers is more likely to have a measurable effect on an outcome.

I would consider this paper a “must read” for any digital marketer in today’s social world. You can access the full paper here:

http://www.vocus.com/social-media/influencer/what-makes-an-influencer.pdf

Please share this post with your friends in marketing & social media, and we look forward to serving each and every one of you!

Thanks!

- Andrew Hoag, CEO

The poll determined that the recipe for a successful social media campaign embodies:

• relevant content
• measurable outcomes
• connected to right individuals & networks

An overwhelming 81% of respondents believe a post-click action (purchase, registration, vote, download, etc.) is the most important criteria for evaluating the success of a campaign or content.

This was reiterated by a quote from the audio track– “if you’re not driving an outcome, you are just competing for the moment … and there’s just no way to win”.

Obviously here at Clickst we have a strong vision on what it means to be an influencer, and it was nice to see that vision reinforced by an independent survey. We have always known that popularity != reach != influence, and are happy to see other marketers appreciating the difference. As Brian noted, “the ability to get someone to retweet something isn’t as important as to get them to DO something”.

We predict that the coming year will further the trend towards measuring performance across all aspects of a campaign, and tying it to measurable business objectives. This transformation will initially overwhelm but eventually transform the practice of marketing (including media, brand, direct response, social, etc.).

Update: Corrected 91% -> 81% (typo in original post)

I find it particularly interesting that companies implement a “sharing” tool that really isn’t about sharing, it’s about data collection piggybacking off your traffic. What’s becoming clear from these series of WSJ articles is the recognition of the value of this data to marketers and to publishers (web site operators).  This may be painful in the short-term, but long-term is a good thing as we can bring more transparency to this ecosystem, to the betterment of consumers.

Our results have proven the value of sharing for bringing high-quality traffic (2x-5x better conversions) to a site, and marketers are just scratching the surface on how to use that data. We are excited about several innovative partners that we are working with, and will feature them here over the coming months.

We at Clickst believe that your data is your data, and by working to help to maximize your insight and understanding of that data, our goals are aligned with yours. By helping you be successful, we are successful. There are so many ways this data can be used by our customers to 1) reduce costs, 2) increase sales, and 3) generate awareness.

First, let’s think about the ingredients a little bit. Looking in our pantry, we have:

• marketing
• social media
• social networks (the graph kind, not the VC-backed kind)
• data
• analytics
• word-of-mouth and referral marketing
• recommendations and targeting

As we’ll discuss subsequently, the combination of these are all very topical and relevant. There are tectonic shifts happening in the internet today, and it is critically important that marketers adapt.

So our content will follow a staple of carbohydrates (marketing), with a healthy dose of protein to build muscle (technology), have the healthy fats (social), and occasionally include some sweets (trivia & off-topic) to keep things interesting.

Thanks for following!