Return and social media

[Philippe Deltenre]

I just accepted to speak at the new media event in Dubai (december 2008)

here's a link to the blog presenting the speakers: http://www.iirme.com/newmedia/blog.html

There is no official program yet but I know I'll have to talk about the following:
Engaging With Social Network To Maximise Your Reach But Also Manage Risks
- Understanding the nature of networks
- Recruit and unleash social network advocates
- Assessing the potential return on using social networking website

I feel comfortable with the first two bulletpoints. The third one is a little more complex and I wanted to ask you your take on this. Do you already used social network in your communication strategy? (besides traditional display advertising) What measurement did you make in order to evaluate your return?

Thanks,

Philippe

[Philippe Deltenre]

I realize my question is probably a little too specific.

Let me rephrase: overall, how do you measure the return of your media campaigns?

Cheers,

Philippe

[Tulika Sheel]

Hi Philippe..

well the measure of return is very much divided in the sense 50% u are sure of things and 50% unaware...
about the point "Assessing the potential return on using social networking website"

But yes if we could actually reach the right person , we can get the right responce :)


and it had actually helped me in many ways( i m talking of the genuin professional websites like Facebook etc.) for e.g.:

- learning by interacting to different people
- can get new ideas
- can do a quick survey :)
- can post a question , in return you get 100's of responses
- search for usefull stuff, like contacts, emails etc
- easy to find likeminded people

ill effects could be
- effect on efficiency of the worker
- wasting time on browsing the site
- productivity to some % decreases
- leakage of the identity, which in turn can lead to fraud and mishandling
- fake identities


We can not deny or overlook the existence of these social networking sites on the web nowadays, but what can be done is to look into them more carefully to avoid unpleasant interaction, behaviour and be sure of the unwanted events.

Hope it helps :)
-

[jourik]

Hi there,

It sure is an interesting topic.
For the second question, I would talk about activation through social networks/platforms
A good starting point might be The Social Metropolis from GoViral (http://goviral.com/orderBook.php)
For the last question, you could take it from a metrics point of view.
You might want to check The KUDOS framework from RMM as a starting point (http://www.rmmlondon.com/archive/kudos-a-planning-and-evaluation-fr...)

Good luck and keep us posted about your presentation...

jourik

[Jeffrey Stewart]

Philippe,

Can I go to Dubai with you? :-)

This is a question that I have thought a lot about. Social media from my perspective can be viewed as the next generation public relations activity. As such, the same type of measureables and return on investments can be made.

The purpose most of the time to is get your name, product or service 'out there'. And once it is 'out there' we need to define the call to action or response desired. In many cases this might be activity on our web site and/or direct links to specific content or promotional landing pages.

I recently posted a blog that points to an article about the CMO of Oracle.
http://www.trekk.com/blogs/stew/default.aspx?id=3250&blogid=250 It specifically discusses their use of what is often called social news releases. It also talks about the effect of more people starting their web visit on internal pages rather than the home page, and more use of user forums.

These are the types of measurables that can be used to help determine return on social network and media usage.

Jeff

[Liene Liese Donckers]

It's not about measuring the members of your platform but the activity, the traffic. A website works like a popular youtube video. Once someone discovers the greatness of it, it goes digitally mouth-to-mouth.

By setting up a social platform for your advertiser, you open a dialogue with your (pontential) consumer. The way they are allowed to speech, question & answer is very important.

Remember MacDonalds? They fixed a website with a moderator and a spokesman. Every single person worldwide could ask Ronald straigtfoward his preferred question f.e. if the meat is of an excellent quality, where it's comes from, etc.

For some clients or purposes an online social platform (as there is Facebook) offers the opportunity to discover more about the perception of their brand and product. But honestly I don't really believe it's very efficient and easily measurable. Stats can talk about number of clicks or visitors but it's very flue.

[Scott Traylor]

Hello,

In terms of social networking for business I say it's one part luck and five parts effort. I believe that you get out of social networking what you put into it.

For example, I have used LinkedIn for over four years but have been more involved in it's use over the last 18 months. I wasn't entirely sure if the effort was worth my time, but I landed a $250,000 project as a result that was a perfect fit for my company. I would not have received this project otherwise and I think all the time I have invested in LinkedIn paid off with this one project alone. Happy to speak with you offline about the details if you would like.

Best,

Scott

.............................................
Scott Traylor
360KID
scott "at" 360KID "dot" com
t: [phone] x11
Web: http://www.360KID.com
Blog: http://www.360KID.com/blog
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/straylor

Play Smart

[Michael Odza]

Two great resources for measuring ROI on social networks are the books Groundswell, by Charlene Li (and a co-author) from Forrester Research, and Smart Startups, by David Silver. Silver is an angel capitalist who predicted (a couple of years ago) that ad-supported, general SNs like MySpace and Facebook would have a tough time, while highly targeted, USEFUL SNs would multiply and be very profitable. Both excellent resources, with many examples. A third is the Online Community Report, part of a consultancy that puts on excellent conferences. I attended one in Santa Fe, New Mexico this spring, which is where I met David Silver.

[Philippe Deltenre]

Wow, thanks to all of you for your replies! It's a lot of good material.

Tulika, I like the idea of taking an individual perspective. It makes perfect sense especially for market intelligence and customer service people.

Jourik, the go viral ebook is a fantastic resource indeed especially for case studies.

Jeffrey, you're welcome in Dubai. I'm not sure I can invite you ;-) Focus on PR is something my company is working on for the moment. I like the point in the trekk.com article that emphasises that structure matters (structure is often the achilles heel of social media)

Liene, I agree that we should maybe accept the fact that's it's not (easily) measurable. Still, I believe that it can be extremly efficient even if not measurable.

Scott, I would very much like to hear the details of your story (and it's a pleasure to discover your blog... I'll ad it in my blogroll)

Michael, I'll surely read groundswell.

A question for all of you, may I quote you on my blog? :)
http://badideaindeed.wordpress.com/

[adrian neagu]

Hi Philippe,

I think it depends on the branch. In our case (hotel business) it can be usefull to use social networks. Often colleagues or good friends just recommend each other nice or good hotels using social networks. The weighting is very high because social networks are straightforward. We measure the ROI by using recomandation rewards for those who recomended our hotels to his/ her friend.

But always warn your audience that social networks can also close your business very quick. In case you spam them or spread untrue information. Many companies just open fake discussions with their (paid) users/ network members and undercut the comunities.

I hope my short information will help you a little bit. I think the others will write you also some more details besides mine.

Good luck in Dubai!

Cheers,
Adrian

[Kelly Gomez]

I agree as well, that in social networking it is much like traditional networking in that you get back what you put in. The more effort, the more responce.....now, that does not mean more $ or time. There are of course lots of ways to work smarter and reach more people at once (ie. joining groups and being active in them, getting referrals, etc.) and those are measurable in terms of the actual messages, requests for information, clicks you get and so on. Best of luck on your conference. It sounds like it will be really a great one.

Kelly

[Kristin Wadge]

Hi Philippe. Sorry I'm a bit late with a reply but I see you've got until December to come up with the goods so hope this helps. Just so you know who I am and what I'm doing here. I work at Metrica - a PR measurement agency that works with over 150 companies worldwide to help them improve the effectiveness of their programmes. Most of our clients are now talking about / doing social media measurement as part of their complete evaluation. I've got a whole heap of things to add but to keep things brief. The place we always start with our clients (with any measurement, of any media) is what are you trying to achieve. So few people start here. Are you trying to sell widgets? Increase awareness? Drive traffic to your site? A real, measureable objective is always the place to start. If you've not got one (or the answer is 'cos everyone else is), it's worth questioning why you're doing it at all. Once you know the objective you can wrap the metrics and measures snuggly around it.

The second gem that gets results is integration. My very favourite word. All marketing communications should be integrated. Social media is—for many reasons, not all of them right—being siloed and treated as a special case. Just as happened years ago when online media first started changing things. Consumers will always be consumers. They don't put different heads on when they are reading newspapers, surfing news sites or watching telly. Sure all media have different influences, gravitas and effectiveness of achieving outcomes, but media is media. And, to quote Jim Macnamara (communication god):

"The first observation is that media are becoming immaterial. By that I do not mean that media don't matter per se; I mean the materiality of media is becoming unimportant. With convergence, content pays no mind to the medium on which it is distributed -- nor do most users."

So, we help our clients analyse the whole media spectrum to determine the holistic picture of communication success and return on investment.

Happy to chat more offline if it would help at all.

I also fit snuggly into a medium sized, Dubai-destined suitcase ;-)

Kristin Wadge

[Maureen]

Dear Philippe,

Short comment as the people before me have covered a lot of ground.

The bottom line is always reaching the audience you want in terms of image or in terms of sales. The big plus of social networks is that the users tell you more than you need to know about themselves. The data in social websites is more accurate and more detailed than any marketing survey or marketing tool.
But the tricky part is how you use that information?

As nobody wants to skoop all the sites of my space for instance and you can not sell advertising space based on: " yeah, I will send out my empoyees to find 500 people who are interested in jeans and know what is hip and happening. by screening all the sub-sites of our communities." Or: "this is your client: a person who is searching for a new car and has a family. But you need 1000 others at the very least..."

But there is movement in tools. for instance,to make sure you do not spam untruefully you can use tools like: http://www.zoomio.nl/home-nl/solutions/e-marketing-solutions.aspx
these tools use the activities of the website users to personalize. And I am really curious what is possible if RFID enters the arena, and can be linked to profiles and communities. And how that is gonna happen considering the issue of protection privacy...

So this is the beginning of a totally new way of using information of costumers. And it has in my perspective the social networks have the potential to overthrow all standards in profiling and ROI in terms of the way we get and use marketing data.

Have fun in Dubai and let us know how the reactions were!

Maureen van der Brugh