Tag Archives: Social Media marketing

ROI-Return On Influence

Posted on by

Earlier this week on Twitter I got into a back and forth discussion on whether Influence could be measured with Niall Cook. Niall essentially says that:

I am reaching the conclusion that influence cannot be measured, and thus is a futile metric for exploration.

Though this may end up being a chicken versus the egg type of discussion, I decided to throw up some visual representations of my thoughts on the matter and have some fun with it. Here are Niall’s thoughts on the topic: Social Media influence cannot be measured. One issue- there is a bit of a difference between social media influence and influence… Or is there? What are your thoughts?

Engagement, Influence and User Experience

Posted on by

I was sitting this morning with a client having a breakfast meeting when I started to use what was on the table for props. I was explaining the different marketing channels like this…

silverware

Each of the above “tools” has a certain marketing function within your organization. You use them everyday for engaging your users and customers and even your prospects. Good, bad, or indifferent, you use them. It’s what we all have been programmed to use.

They can, however, be influenced by what you bring to the table.

breakfast

But at the end of the day, you are still going to use the same tools pretty much the same way.

You might enhance them. Or influence them.

s and p

But the tools are still the same. Regardless of look and feel, they still function the same way.

plastic_knife__fork_and_spoon

But what if we could add something to the dynamic? That enhanced the whole experience? That wasn’t there before? That perhaps no one else was doing?

orange-juice-01

Or…

Table_Cloth

Now the experience has been changed for the user. You’ve upgraded the experience by adding 2 elements that were not there before. If you don’t add them, nothing really changes. If you do add them, aren’t you better off now than you were before?

Once they are in place, you  see how much the user enjoys them, and how they told their friends and what it did for your business and your organization… the feedback has been tremendous versus no feedback before. Customers are talking about you and to you.

Now, would you ever consider removing the OJ or the table cloth? Is this better or worse than prior to your 2 new additions?

Lastly, your new customer, user, client comes up to you and says, ” We love what you have done with your OJ and your table cloths and it’s why we come here now, but you know what would be nice…?”

flowers

You listen and you now have enhanced the customer experience. You listened! and they appreciate it and tell others.

Now, would you ever consider removing the flowers?

Say hello to the most basic elements of social media.

Searching for social media experts

Posted on by

searching

Lets say I’m a business owner and I want to get into this social media thing and I want to hire someone to handle my social media marketing. I don’t know anything about anything so I’m going to go straight to Google to find one.

If you do a search on “social media experts”, the first organic result in Google is for a post by Chris Brogan If I saw Chris’s site, I’m not sure he would be the best fit for me since I might not know any better. I might not know Chris Brogan from Mary Brogan, so I’m going to keep searching.

Interestingly enough the only ppc result for that search term is for Pandemic Labs, but their site is dark and too techy and makes me think Nintendo or Xbox, so I’m out. I’m frustrated already.

The second organic result is for giovanni gallucci, who I am familiar with, and ironically enough of the top 10 search results, this is or his site is the only one actually touting himself and his services as a social media expert. Why is this ironic?  Because of the other results, the majority of them are blog posts essentially slamming people who call themselves social media experts.

What am I saying? I’m saying, if I do a search for a social media expert, I may not be able to find one. Funny isn’t it, given the amount of blog posts about people claiming to be a social media expert?

I better change my tactic. How about social media companies?

The results are a little different but no less confusing. Your top 10 results are the following:

  1. CrunchBase company profile on Social Media.com
  2. An blog post from Jeremiah Owyang from 2006
  3. A post from David Meerman Scott’s blog on Social media company entrepreneur official garb.
  4. A post by Lee Odden from Top Rang Blog on How Big Companies Use Social Media @ BlogWell
  5. An article from Inc titled, Inc. 500 Companies Fast Adopters of Social Media
  6. A blog post titled, Valuing social media companies and Facebook apps
  7. The management team results from Pluck
  8. Tech Links piece titled, Social Media Companies See Increased Demand for Internet Marketing Services
  9. This next one is actually not too bad, though as a n00b, it might all just fly right over my head. 12 social media companies that kick ass
  10. This last result is actually a pretty good one too though again, not for the noob, it’s by Peter Kim-It’s a list of social media marketing examples

So at this point I’m striking out, big time. I’m going to try one more thing, maybe two. One is, lets do a search on social media marketing companies and the other is lets do a search on social media consultants. Waddya say?

First 2 organic results for social media marketing companies? Izea and socialmediasystems.com, the 2nd result is scary. It might be the streaming talking head in the right hand corner; but companies like this may hinder more than they help. Though, they do rank #2 for the term “social media companies”, the used car sales approach doesn’t fly with me, and shouldn’t with you.

Further down the page, we finally get to some results that may benefit me. one note though that the PPC results on this page are a little more condusive to the search term we’re using at the moment, but lets continue.

In the #6 spot we have a post by marketing pilgrim titled Social Media Marketing Beginner’s Guide Which I would most definitely read. Why? Before I go and hire and expert, here is a chance to know what I’m looking for and know what I’m talking about..

In the #7 spot, I like this article simply because it’s arming me with some more solid info, that in the long run will help me, even if I’m not the one doing any of the work. It’s titled, How to Leverage Web 2.0 & Social Media Sites to Market Your Brand & Control Your Message has over 30 sites for you to check out on social media marketing tactics.

In the #8 spot  we have 11 Marketing, which I, the business owner, might click through some and check out, it sort of talks the talk at least. In spots 9 and 10, we have blog posts from Mashable and Peter Kim and thats it.

So the results were spotty at best and if we adhere to “people only search the first page” theory, we’re done; and we have maybe 3-4 “leads” to pursue. Interesting.

Onto our last search and then some conclusions.

Wow… the results for “social media consultants” are 9 blog post results dissing anyone who calls themselves a social media consultant, and one search result for Dan Zarrella who actually is a social media consultant!

The conclusion? If you are in the social media space, then what you hear (and read apparently) are a lot of people complaining about other people calling themselves social media experts and consultants. The truth is, they(the experts and consultants that is) must be just telling themselves and anyone else who is willing to listen. Fact is,  not too many are actually doing a very good job at marketing themselves and their companies and what they do, to the masses. Or maybe they just don’t understand the importance od SEO?

Either way-by the looks of the search results, if you are looking for a social media expert, social media consultant, or social media company, or  social media marketing company, good luck weeding through all the people that are pissed about the people who are claiming to be one of those.  Sour grapes? Perhaps, but what it looks like is that not only does the cobbler not make shoes for his own children but his competition spends more time watching him, than they do doing their own job!

Top 3 ways to get that social media project you always dreamed of.

Posted on by

3men

So you’re scratching, you’re clawing and fighting to educate managers and business owners on the beauty of social media. You’re honing your tactics. You’re going off on the merits of engaging in conversations with customers, you’re Tweeting about how it’s all about transparency etc. etc. But what you should know is that it really comes down to 3 really basic tenets. Here they are.

1) Show them how social media can make them money

2) Show them how social media can save them money

3) Show them how you will increase brand equity

With this knowledge in your head, go ahead and push all the nuances of social media that you want. Sell and educate till the cows come home (though not sure where the cows went in the first place). But be sure you do this. Be sure that when you are done talking- or is that listening? That you have at least proved to them that one of the above three things will happen after you have embarked on your social media plan. The go do it!

What should the definition of social media be for the layperson?

Posted on by

kramden

Last week, I was at another baseball game, I go to a lot of them, and someone asked me what I did. In this situation a couple of things have to happen very quickly. The first of which is that I have to size up the person I am talking with. Can I give them the high level deep answer or do I give them the “lite” version?

For example, my 75 year aunt gets the, “I’m in computers” answer… which she then yells to my 82 year old uncle, “He’s in computers”…That’s the “lite” version.

If I have someone who I think might understand what I do, I then have to decide how “deep” do I go then? Do I go the route of the, “I work with the internet, internet marketing, online marketing, marketing, search engine marketing, social media marketing,  social media consulting, branding?”

If I do go that route.

What will best describe what I do to the layperson, who may actually “get it”, so that I don’t get the following question:  So you’re a webmaster?

I digress.  So last week I’m talking to this person in the stands and I decide to go for it. She’s a lawyer, she’s smart, knows her stuff. Who knows? Right?  I tell her about my company and how we are all about search and social media and marketing, and how awesome social media is and continues to be etc. etc.  and I decide to try and give her a suitable yet understandable definition of social media.  I stumble a bit but think I’ve done a pretty good job and she looks at me and says…

So you’re a webmaster?

What is YOUR  lay-person definition of what social media is? Help me out.

If it moves…measure it!

Posted on by

measure

Beth Kanter was writing about measuring engagement and return on relationships recently and there was a line that struck me. It was as simple as it was complex for a lot of people to understand and it’s this:

Money was the only one metric for success…

But as I read further, I couldn’t help but nod my head at this sentence:

Whatever the tool we’re using, the right metrics are those that can help us understand engagement and relationships.

So yea, for social media marketers and companies alike, if it makes money, or saves money or builds equity, that’s a good thing. But we can still and should measure engagement and its positive or negative impact as well, which can and will affect the bottom line.

The Customer Suffers

Posted on by

customerservice

Beyond the obvious.  Small business owners closing up. Demand for products and services drying up. People losing their jobs left and right. There is an aspect of this that all of us have overlooked. The customer.

What does the customer do? Where does the customer go? What are their alternatives?

For the brands and the businesses that do survive, what are they doing to keep their existing customers? What tools are they using to keep and engage their current customers? What are they doing to get new customers?

Not that I’m keeping score, but who has the upper hand right now? and who can leverage that?

A sense of responsibility in a transparent environment

Posted on by

1967topps24kemp

As I was walking out the door yesterday, I still had the news on when I had heard that Jack Kemp had passed away. I always liked Jack Kemp, and not so much because of his politics, but mainly because he was a former athlete turned politician. You see, he could have easily walked away and had a wonderful life as a “former athlete/pro football player”, yet he decided to pursue the not so always friendly environment of politics. I can dig that.

Some athletes, not all, have the unique perspective of understanding what its like to have their every move watched, scrutinized and questioned-and Jack Kemp was not exempt. Which leads me to the title of this blog post. It is pulled from something he said:

Football gives you a sense of responsibility in a transparent environment…

Shouldn’t we all have a sense of responsibility with the way we engage in the the transparent environment that is social media? The way we converse, create, share and exchange all things?

We should. But not all of us do…

The social value of your relationships

Posted on by

socialweb

This has been on my mind lately. It was amplified yesterday by a tweet by David Armano who tweeted the following:

Have you ever bought something from someone you felt you had a relationship? That’s the ROI of social business…

At which point I responded back with:

@Armano Value..think about your offline relationships-the ones that mean the most, are the ones that carry substance.-same with buying habits

So here’s the deal. In your offline every day world, what relationships mean the most to you? They are the ones that are not superficial. Right? The relationships that have substance, meaning, and value.

Less chit and more chat

The ROI of social business. the ROI of your relationships, as hollow as that might be, are both the same- The ROI is the value that you have built up in that relationship. Both from a business and personal standpoint. If you have cultivated a relationship, then you place a high value on it and what it might return. The less that you have put into it, or what you have received, should be consistent with your expectations and effort.

The same applies to any “online” social network or offline. Though it may seem shallow at first to only say that you only put stock in the people that bring value to you and what you do-it’s actually the truth. It has nothing to do with the technology, the platform, the hardware or the software.

Whether we care to admit or not. We all look for value, we may not say it, but it’s true. Online and offline, value in the people that we connect with, drives our relationships.

Thoughts?

Twitter Angst

Posted on by

It’s tough to avoid writing about Twitter, it’s everywhere, but you know what? That’s ok. We did the same for Facebook too. As more and more N00bs flock to Twitter, I thought it was important that right out of the blocks, some things are done right. Here is a vlog promoting some of the things that you might want to think about. In short, I talk about tweeting as yourself, using your pic as an avatar,understand why you are following and why you follow and lastly-it’s all about value.