I’ve only just started making a real effort to track the results that I’m getting from my social media efforts and while it is slow I am finding that it definitely does make a difference.  What have I noticed?

• Traffic on this blog has increased
• Comments on the blog have increased
• I’m developing relationships with people that I consider to be influential
• People are starting to know who I am

I found this nifty little video on YouTube.  Short but sweet:

The last thing he talks about is tools.  I’ve found one that I like called Kurrently and it tracks what people are saying on Twitter and Facebook.  I know there are other tools out there that track keywords but I like this one because I can simply go in there and check out what people are saying at any given time.

Of course, I also use Hootsuite, which allows you to track keywords, too – but it also allows you to see things like how often people are clicking on your links.  And if you click on someone’s name (including your own), it tells you how much “klout” they have.  This is kind of bugging me though.  I mean what exactly do you have to do to have klout?  Something I need to look into a little bit more…

So what are you doing to track your results in social media?  Or do you?  Does it really matter?  Hmmm – food for thought!

Getting re-tweeted is one of the points of Twitter.  Of course, the main point will always be to develop relationships and trust but if you want to get publicity, if you want others to visit your site, your followers need to find value in your tweets and re-tweet it.  But how do you get them to re-tweet?

I find that not as many people re-tweet my links as I’d like so I started doing a little bit of research.  A couple of weeks ago I jotted down some notes and came across them today.  I have no clue where this comes from because I forgot to write down the source.  It could have been an e-mail newsletter or a blog or maybe even an audio that I listened to.  If you know where it came from feel free to speak up in the comments.

Anyway, one of the things I jotted down was that,

Less is more; keep tweets to 1 per hour.  Especially if it is a post you want re-tweeted.

That’s something I’ve been working on.  I tend to go in and tweet several thing at at time because, well, no one I know really has the time to go in and tweet every hour.  But, if you use something like Hootsuite, you can schedule your tweets.

At first I thought that was being kind of manipulative because – well, it isn’t completely genuine.  It makes it look like  you’re always there.  But if you do it carefully, interspersed with your own casual comments as you go on, it can be a lot easier on your followers.  Personally, I hate it when I go into my feed and find that the same person/business has tweeted twenty links in a row.  I’d rather they space them out.  I want to see others’ tweets, too.

I found some more interesting advice today when I stumbled across Dan Zarella’s blog, The Social Media Scientist.  He wrote a great blog post on the 20 words and phrases that will get you the most re-tweets.    I was surprised to see that “please retweet” or “pls rt” were on that list.  But I can imagine if people start to see it all the time they’ll start to over look it.  I think it depends on how often you use it.  I know one guy (that I recently unfollowed) that would post about 10 things in an hour and ever single one of them said, “Please RT” at the end.  Did I?  Maybe the first once or twice – until I realized that he does that all the time.

So, have you noticed anything that helps you get re-tweeted more often?  Would love to hear your successes or your thoughts.  Leave a comment!