I'm Jamie Riddell and I believe that every business, large or small, should be able to benefit from building a deeper relationship with its customers, through social media. I know that having access to good quantitative data is key for all practitioners, whether they are working at a global giant or a local business.
Back in 2012, as a social media consultant, I knew that getting hold of good social statistics could be expensive. Existing providers often demanded monthly subscriptions and long-term commitment, which was not always accessible for smaller businesses. Therefore, I decided to launch BirdSong Analytics, a "pay as you go" social media analytics tool, designed for SMEs.
Our initial objective was to launch a minimum viable product (MVP) to test whether there was a real and sustainable market for a "pay as you go" product.
We began in May 2012, by:
Nearly three years and several product upgrades later, BirdSong Analytics:
To our delight, we are not only supporting SMEs, but also global agencies, brands and journalists.
We deserve to win because
I lead the overall strategic direction for the product. Over the last 24 months we have built a prototype, tested it, broken it, rebuilt it and then begun to broaden it to include Facebook, Instagram and shortly, Youtube.
Dave Clouter is our lead developer. He never stops thinking about BirdSong and how he can make it perform better. He also works with me on customer service, which is a 24 hour job.
Tim Davies is our front-end developer. He's responsible for the customer journey but he also loves data. With him, we regularly review the conversion rates through each of the steps that our customers take on their way to buying the product to see if we can improve them.
Katherine Riddell is our commercial director. She is an experienced direct marketer and her approach is to test, measure and evaluate every development and commercial change we make before deciding what to keep, what to drop and what to refine. She runs our development meetings and kept us up to date on sales, targets and much more.
We didn't have external funding so necessity made every risk we took, a calculated one. So far, we have spent under £50,000 on marketing with a focus on SEO, PR, Content and Forums
Key features of our product
We don't offer a free trial
We initially tested a free trial report but found that sales are better without it.
You can buy a report in 5 easy steps.
A single report costs 19.99 GBP and packages start from 69.99 GBP . A report will cover the cost of any Facebook and Instagram account or a Twitter account up to one million followers. Above this size, you simply purchase additional reports, for every million followers.
If you decide to buy a package, there is no time limit on when these have to be used by.
You can analyse any publicly available account
You don't need to be the administrator to gain these insights.
We focus on the who, what, when and how of a social media accounts.
Who follows them on Twitter, who is engaging with them on Facebook or Instagram.
What are they doing? Tweeting, Replying, Retweeting? Posting videos or images?
When are they active? By day of week, time of day and when is the best time to post, based on follower activity or engagement.
How they are using the social networks? This could be insights on Twitter customer service replies or the frequency of image posting on Facebook
All of these insights are included in our standard reports, empowering the user to make decisions based on their own data and/or that of their competitors.
"BirdSong reports are easy to understand and don't require Excel Ninja skill" Noisy Little Monkey
You can export Twitter followers for any available account
Customers use this for lead generation, SEO outreach, Twitter Tailored Audiences and more.
Recent exports include 5.5 m followers @jeremyclarkson and 30m plus followers @instagram.
Case Study: We have published the snapshot reports for The Shorty Awards accounts at www.birdsonganalytics.com/shortawards2015 - feel free to look at the reports and download the example Twitter followers, with our compliments.
There is a real person to help you if you need it
We talk to visitors all day, every day. We often pick up the phone too, which takes time but pays rewards when visitors become customers then repeat buyers.
For example, there's Jen, the casting coach from New York who works on Sunday afternoons and Sophia in Hangzhou who needs help at 06.00 my time.
"You've become by business bestie" - Jen Rudolph. The Actor's Green Room
The outcome
We have customers in 104 countries including the USA, China, Canada, Australia, South Africa, UK, India, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Hong Kong.
We support SMEs, global marketing agencies, kick starters, sovereign banks, casting coaches, fashion houses, the US Pacific Fleet and many more.
Most importantly we have loyal customers. 43% of our income comes from repeat purchasers, proving that a "pay as you go" product can work.
