Council shows reason in Gardiner debate, just not enough: Keenan

Councillors have made the wrong choice but it was a real debate for once, with heartening signs of life, writes Edward Keenan.

The 5 Most Meaningful Google Analytics Reports for Social Media Marketers

We have Google Analytics installed on all the Buffer blogs (Social, Open, Overflow, and certainly also Happiness in the future). I imagine you might have it installed, too.

And though I could be in a much better habit of checking GA often, I am grateful to know that all the stats are there for me, whenever I choose to look.

The next question, then: Where should I be looking for helpful social media stats in GA?

There’s just so much to look at, with so many new and unusual titles. I’ve done my best to research and ask around about the best advice for social media marketers using Google Analytics. Here’s what I found to be the five most useful reports that you can set up quickly and let run forever.

Exclusive Bonus: Get free access to a complete social media dashboard for Google Analytics! Install in one click!

1. Traffic by social channel

See your most valuable networks, plus the up-and-comers

Where to find this report:

Acquisition > Social > Network Referrals

What this report tells you:

At-a-glance, you can see which social network sends you the most visits to your website. For instance, Twitter sent the Buffer blog 79,096 visitors last month.

You can view the data in a pie chart to see how the networks break down as an overall percentage of social traffic to your site. For instance, Twitter accounted for 56 percent of social traffic to the Buffer blog. Twitter and Facebook combined accounted for 81 percent.

You can expand the results to show 25 or 50 channels, then change the date range to include a comparison to last period. Voila! Now you can identify networks beyond your main ones that are beginning to send you more and more traffic. For the Buffer blog, we’ve noticed StumbleUpon and Hacker News seem to be on the rise.

Advanced:

If you click on the individual network name in this report, you can see a breakdown of all the links of yours that have been shared on that network.

2. Social media traffic

See how much social media contributes to your overall visits

Where to find this report:

Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels

What this report tells you:

You can see your traffic sources at a high-level:

1. Organic search (people clicking through from Google)
2. Social (Twitter, Facebook, social visits)
3. Direct (people typing your site in their browser or bookmarks)
4. Referral (people clicking links from other sites to get to you)
5. Email
6. Paid search
7. Other

With this info, you get a great sense of the importance of social media for bringing people to your site. If you ever need justification for focusing on social media, this report is it!

For the Buffer blog, we see 15 percent of our traffic from social, which accounts for nearly 150,000 visits each month.

Advanced:

Under the Acquisition > All Traffic category, you can click to view the Source/Medium, which will show you a granular break down of the search, social, and referral traffic. For a quick hack into your mobile vs. desktop traffic, look at how each social network URL is abbreviated. Twitter on mobile is represented by t.co, and desktop is twitter.com. Facebook on mobile is represented by m.facebook.com, and desktop is facebook.com.

In addition, to see the mobile vs. desktop traffic breakdown, you can add a Secondary Dimension to any view (by clicking the Secondary Dimension button at the top of any table). Type in “Mobile” and select “Mobile (Including Tablet).”

3. Landing pages

Where to find this report:

Acquisition > Social > Landing Pages

What this report tells you:

Use this report to see your website pages that get shared most often on social media. For the Buffer blog in the past 30 days, our most-shared story is Andrianes Pinantoan’s guest post about Canva’s growth strategy.

Advanced:

You can click any link in this report to see the specific breakdown of networks where this content was shared.

4. Multi-channel reports

Where to find this report:

Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Overview

This report will work if you’ve got Goals set up for your website. (See below.)

What this report tells you:

The Venn diagram you’ll get on this report page shows the various paths that people take to convert through your website or blog. For example, on the Buffer blog, a good majority of people convert after coming to the site from organic search. A smaller—but still significant—portion convert after coming directly or clicking on a link from social media.

The overlap in the Venn diagrams represent visitors who might, for instance, click a link in a tweet first, then come back to the site directly later on to go through the conversion flow. And Google Analytics tracks all this, all the way through!

Advanced: 

Further down into the Multi-Channel Funnels, there are some neat reports:

1. Top Conversion Paths
2. Time Lag
3. Page Length

For Top Conversion Paths, you can see the frequency with which visitors take certain routes to conversion. For instance, I can see in my report that the most common path is a person visiting my site directly two times before converting. The top social path is a visit or two from social first, then a direct visit.

You can change the view here also by clicking on “Source/Medium Path” at the top of the chart to see the specific social networks involved in the conversion flow.

For Time Lag, you can see how many days come between first visit and conversion.

For Path Length, you can see a breakdown of how many paths are involved in each conversion typically. For my blog, the vast majority (75%) convert after one visit.

5. UTM campaign results

Where to find this report:

Acquisition > Campaigns

What this report tells you:

If you’re running a social media campaign, you can append the URLs you’re sharing with a UTM parameter, a bit of text that goes at the end of your link. Google’s free URL Builder is perhaps the simplest way to set these up.

If we were running a campaign for a bufferchat, we could change this link:

https://blog.bufferapp.com/free-marketing-tools

to this:

https://blog.bufferapp.com/free-marketing-tools?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=tweet&utm_campaign=bufferchat

When setting up the new URL in Google’s URL Builder, just make note of what you’re calling the “Campaign Name,” as this is how you’ll find the results in your Google Analytics reports.

The value here is that you’ll then be able to track how many visits this campaign sent back to your website as well as what happened to these visitors once they landed. How long did they stay? Did they convert? Etc.

Advanced:

Within the Campaigns report, you might notice the term “buffer” popping up. When you share a link from Buffer, we automatically add a UTM parameter to the shortened URL so you can easily track the impact of your social sharing via Buffer. You can override these campaign settings by creating custom UTMs in your Buffer dashboard.

How to Set up Goals and Advanced Segments

The above five reports are excellent and great and wonderful, and to make things really powerful you can go through a few quick steps to add Goals and Advanced Segments to your traffic stats to make things even more targeted and useful.

For Goals, you can tell Google Analytics which actions on your website you value most, whether those are conversions or Time on Page or any number of other metrics.

How to set up Goals:

1. At the very top of any Google Analytics page, click Admin.
2. In the far right column, click on Goals.
3. Choose a goal template.

Google Analytics breaks these down into four different categories:

1. Revenue
2. Acquisition
3. Inquiry
4. Engagement

(I’ve personally used the Revenue category to track sales and the Engagement category to track newsletter signups.)

The next steps here will vary based on the category you choose. If you’ve got any specific questions on the details here, drop a comment on this post and I’ll see if I can dig up an answer!

For a quick overview, I love this advice from Kristi Hines:

The easiest goals set up type is URL destination – this is where you tell Google Analytics that a goal has been completed when a visitor lands on a particular page on your website. For example, you would set up the thank you page for a form submission or the final order confirmation page for a product purchase as a URL destination. For ecommerce websites, you can set up goal funnels that track all of the steps visitors take in your shopping cart process for more detailed reports.

At the end of the setup, you have a chance to verify the goal to see if all is in working order. If all’s good, then you’ll be able to start seeing your traffic in relation to the goals you’ve set up, which can be hugely helpful in identifying which channels and paths are most valuable for what you’re hoping to achieve with your site.

How to set up Advanced Segments:

1. From your main overview page in Google Analytics, click the “+Add Segment” button above your main traffic graph.
2. Click the red button to “+New Segment.”

You can name your segment and choose the factors that you want to segment by.

The value here is in singling out a portion of your traffic based on particular options—only traffic from Twitter, say, or only Facebook mobile traffic. You can create these social media segments by adding the URLs for these networks to the Traffic Sources > Source in the segment settings.

For more on Advanced Segments, Convince and Convert has a useful overview on the topic.

Bonus: Free Social Media Dashboard

I’ve found that knowing about Google Analytics reports and using them can be two very different things, so I’d love to make it as easy as possible to get these reports into your social media marketing workflow.

Click here to receive a free social media dashboard.

It’s a free dashboard that adds straight into your Google Analytics once you click. From then on, you can access it quickly by clicking on Dashboards in the left column from any GA page.

What the dashboard includes:

1. Real-time visitors to your website from social channels
2. Which social networks are sending you the most traffic overall
3. Your top landing pages for social traffic
4. How your social traffic fits with traffic from search, direct, and referral
5. Your most shared pages on Twitter and Facebook
6. Your social media campaign results

Over to you

What have you found most useful with Google Analytics for your social media marketing?

Which reports do you find yourself checking often?

I’d love to learn from you on this! I feel I’m still quite green when it comes to Google Analytics and that there’s tons of untapped potential there. If you have any tips you’d be willing to share, it’d be an honor to learn from you!

Image sources: Pablo, IconFinder, UnSplash

The post The 5 Most Meaningful Google Analytics Reports for Social Media Marketers appeared first on Social.

#ProjectThrowdown: Ikea Lack Table Hack

#ProjectThrowdown: Ikea Lack Hack brings together six top creators to design any project, as long as they use four specific (and somewhat unusual) materials.

Which one of these is the neutral wire ?

Hello

Recently got a ceiling light fixture. Upon opening I couldn't tell which wire is neutral and which one is hot. Both are black, both are smooth, both are copper however one has some words written on it. Can someone tell me which one is the neutral one ?

Attached Images

It's time to end carding in deed, not just words: James

Citizens keep up the pressure to finally kill it because our civic leaders’ words about the issue are only that, writes Royson James.

10 Proven Tactics To Grow Instagram Followers and Engagement

It’s an exciting time to get to know Instagram. The popular photo-sharing app is fun, simple and growing—Instagram has more than 300 million users and sky-high user engagement levels.

And for marketers, it’s an especially interesting time. The company just announced that it will open its feed to all advertisers and begin testing a “Shop now” button that allows users to click on a link to buy a product advertised.

With such brand-friendly features on the way, it seems like marketers might be more keen than ever to get acquainted with Instagram for their business. I know we are at Buffer!

Lately we’ve been sharing, liking and commenting more on Buffer’s Instagram account, and it’s been so much fun. Since Instagram is still relatively new to us, we thought it would be fun to research some ways to grow a following there.

Read on to find out the 10 best tactics (with tools and examples!) we uncovered that could help you grow a bigger, relevant audience on Instagram.

Top 10 Instagram Growth Tactics

 1. Post consistently (at least once a day)

Social media analytics tool Quintly analyzed over 5000 profiles in early 2015 to learn that the average Instagram account posts once per day.

More intriguing: Accounts with the highest number of fans tend to post a bit more than that–up to 2 or 3 photos per day on average. This data might allow us to say that “more successful” accounts tend to post with a higher frequency.

Instagram is one of the last social media networks with no algorithm that chooses what you see, which means there’s no drop-off in engagement for posting more—provided you can keep up the quality of your posts. So post consistently, as much as you can with high quality!

2. Study and load up on quality hashtags

We’ve explored hashtags a lot on the blog, but it seems that nowhere on social media are they quite as important as on Instagram. The right hashtags can expose your image to a large and targeted audience, and Instagram users don’t seem to get hashtag fatigue in the same way they might on other networks.

In other words, hashtags could be your best bet for growing a fast following on Instagram.

Instagram allows for a maximum of 30 hashtags per post, and many power users max out this ability.

Check out how many hashtags our recent Bufferchat guest Jeff Sieh used on a post of his:

I was lucky enough to sit down with @suebzimmerman on a recent episode of the Manly Pinterest Tips Show and talk with her about the power of leveraging @Instagram for business. Some topics discussed… •  Personal vs Business content •  Hashtag Strategies •  Cross-Promotion •  Connecting with Influencers •  And much more! Sue is always high energy, entertaining, and educational.  I always enjoy learning from her.  I think you will too! Click on the link in bio to watch/listen! ▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃ #Pinterest #marketing #socialmedia#business #entrepreneuer, #socialmediamarketing #podcasts #ManlyPinterestTips #pinterest #socialmedia #marketing #smm #interview #SocialMediaMarketing #bestpractices #business #socialmediatips  #Pinterestformen #tipsonPinterest #Pinteresttips #pinterestforbusiness #instagood #podcasting #podcast #marketing #business #smallbusiness #socialmediatools #smmtools #instacool #contentmarketing #new #instagramtips

A photo posted by Jeff Sieh (@jeffsieh) on Jun 8, 2015 at 11:28am PDT

A TrackMaven study discovered that interactions are highest on Instagram posts with 11+ hashtags.  

Which hashtags to use? Check out the top 100 hashtags from Websta here. (You can also use Websta to search relevant keywords and find popular accounts.)

One method I use a lot is to adda couple of relevant and obvious hashtags to my photo before posting it. Then I’ll click through to search those hashtags and scroll through other, similar photos that share my hashtag to see what other tags those users have added that I might add, too. Then I go back to my photo and edit it to add all the additional relevant hashtags I’ve found. 

You can do this process in a more formalized way by searching and recording hashtags relevant to your brand, in a similar way you might do keyword research for a blog post.

3. Follow and like similar accounts

In addition to adding hashtags to your post, use the ability to search hashtags to find likeminded friends.

One intriguing tactic to grow an Instagram following starts here and goes even further. It’s called the “follow like like like,”  as described in Austin Allred’s The Hacker’s Guide to User Acquisition.

In this process, you search a specific, relevant hashtag and choose a few of the top pictures you find. Follow those accounts, then go to each of their photo feeds and like three of their recent photos.

“This shows the user that not only did someone who is kind of like them follow them, but they also dug a little bit and really liked what they found.”

Here are the results Austin saw with this tactic:

“When we did this, the follow-back percentage approached 25%. Meaning for every four people we followed, one would follow us back…By the end of the week we had 10,000 followers. In one week. Each photo was getting over 100 likes, and other people were being tagged in each of the photos by their friends.”

Need some extra help here? Apps like Pixifly, Banjo and Instaround allow you to see what Instagram users in your area are posting so you can follow and engage with your local or broader community.

4. Ask users to “tag a friend”

I recently got a great Instagram tip from some new local friends who helped me out with marketing a non-profit food tasting event. They shared a food photo from a past event and asked their 11,000 followers to comment and tag a friend they wanted to attend with.

The response was awesome, and exposed our event to a lot of people who wouldn’t have heard about it otherwise: I’ve seen this tactic work well for lots more than events, too.

5. Use the right filters

All those filters Instagram gives you to use aren’t just fun—choosing the right ones can actually lead to more views and engagement.

Researchers from Georgia Tech and Yahoo Labs analyzed millions of photos and corresponding data on how frequently they were viewed and commented upon to determine that filtered photos are 21% more likely to be viewed and 45% more likely to be commented on than unfiltered ones.

What kind of filter works best? After examining five different types, researchers found that the top filters to increase chances of views and comments are those that create:

• higher exposure
• warm temperatures
• higher contrast

Higher exposure was the most tied to more views, and warmth had the biggest correlation with comments. 

Two types of filters had negative correlations: Saturation correlated to slightly lower views, and age effects led to lower comments.

Curalate has a great infographic with even more specific pointers on optimizing the look of your image for greater engagement:

6. Host a photo contest

Instagram hashtags make it easy for to collect photos from followers around a theme, and many brands have had success and fun using this capability to host photo contests.

Here’s an example of Instagram itself hosting a photo contest, asking users to recreate an iconic image and share it with the hashtag #recreatedclassic.  Instagram has a great blog post with some tips for getting your photo contest off on the best foot, and Social Media Examiner has an awesome primer on all kinds of Instagram contests.

7. Add some emojis

Emoji are becoming a universal method of expression—Instagram reports that nearly 50 percent of all captions and comments on Instagram now have an emoji or two. I know I’m drawn to them in posts and I’ve noticed some folks are even adding to their user names for a bit of extra pop.

Anthony Thompson explains over at PostPlanner how he earned 3x Instagram growth by calling on emojis to ignite engagement in both posts and comments—smart.

He uses this adorable example from Sue Zimmerman to prove his point:

8. Cross-promote

Make sure your existing fans know you’re on Instagram through cross-promotion. Instagram makes it simple to share your images to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and Foursquare, which could be a great tactic to get some extra exposure.

You can also try embedding Instagram photos in your blog posts (see the bottom of this post for an example) or adding an Instagram feed to your Facebook page for some additional discovery. Here’s a look atBuffer’s Facebook page with an added Instagram feed:  

9. Try video, too

Instagram allows users to upload videos of up to 15 seconds, and not too many of us art taking advantage of this just yet. An April 2015 study from Locowise found that only about 10% of all posts on Instagram are videos right now, but they’re getting 18% of all comments. There’s still plenty of room for you to focus on video and be one of the first!

10. Share the love

In our quest to grow our followers, it’s always helpful to remember what really matters in all of this: The friends we’ll talk to, the relationships we’ll create and the fun we’ll have.

An easy way to keep this principle central is to spend a bit of time each day just hanging out and enjoying Instagram. You might respond to comments, like photos, follow some new friends, and comment on awesome posts. If the “follow like like like” strategy above tells us anything, it’s that time spent showing and sharing the love can pay off in new followers. It also creates a better social media experience for everyone.

One last tactic: How to add a link?

One of the challenges of marketing on Instagram (and possibly a part of its joy for users) is that you can’t quite add links for your viewers to click.

If you want to send your followers to a specific link, though, it seems that it’s becoming common practice to change the link in your Instagram profile and add the comment “link in bio” to a corresponding photo.

You can also try an easy-to-remember shortened URL, or use this tip from Buffer follower belovednewo: She adds the link to the “location” area in order to keep from having to change out her bio link. Neat hack!

Wrapping it up: Anatomy of a perfect post

We’ve gone over quite a lot of tactics to remember and try! The kind folks at Made Freshly combined lots of these tips for growing a following into this fun infographic:

  

How will you measure all your new growth? Check out our post Know What’s Working on Social Media: 19 Free Social Media Analytics Tools to learn about Iconosquare, Collecto and other Instagram analytics tool to help you measure your performance.

What are your Instagram experiences?

We’d love to keep the conversation going—both in the comments here and on Instagram, of course! Lots of awesome friends shared their top tips for marketing on the photo social network, and we’d love to hear yours, too! Add your thoughts below!

  We’re working on a blog post about Instagram tactics and we’d love your help! What are your top tips for getting more followers and engagement? We’re excited to learn from you! #instagram #marketing #socialmedia #socialmediamarketing   A photo posted by Buffer (@buffer) on Jun 5, 2015 at 10:23am PDT

The post 10 Proven Tactics To Grow Instagram Followers and Engagement appeared first on Social.

Central Air System Must be Replaced?

Hello and thank you in advance for your advice.

First off, I am not looking for DIY advice. Here is my problem. I have an R-22 Trane XE-1000 (mfd year 2001) 2 ton system. I recently had the unit inspected for a suspected leak. My local contractor came out found the leak and told me that I needed to replace my system (outdoor condenser and inside coil, and lines, etc.) due to the leak. He stated that it could not be repaired. I was curious as to how he knew he couldn't repair it when the leak was on the condenser(?) on the outdoor unit. The unit has small Al hairs/fins coming off it which makes the actual leak invisible to the naked eye without removing those fins. Is this SOP for units now, they just need replaced when they break? I ended up peeling the fins back to the leak after he left. There is a crack in the line where the Al tubing was slightly kinked. I noticed though that the line in the coil is definitely Al. Then approx. 4" prior to the crack the line is copper. Obviously at some point Trane was able to join copper to aluminum, but I thought this a fairly delicate procedure. Would cutting this fatigued section out and brazing in a new copper or aluminum line be feasible? Can a swagelok fitting be used at the AL-Cu joint? Can this unit be repaired? I called this guy b/c he was listed on the Trane website, but something just doesn't seem logical about his diagnosis.

I realize that I need to replace my system soon, but not really wanting to do it so soon, with the R-22 phase out. Even if I could limp it along for another 2-3 years would be spectacular.

Again, thank you for your advice.