Archive for February, 2009
Social Media ROI
Posted by johnweet in Social media on February 28, 2009
Saw an interesting blog post from Axel Schultze today on Social Media ROI. ROI is of course an important conversation to have when working for an agency or as a consultant. How else, particularly in these difficult times can you prove your worth.
The formula that Axel comes up with is
Contribution Margin in currency generated from externally referred customers over cost in currency for human interaction and other cost to manage and engage in the ecosystem= Social Media ROI.
Now I started thinking about this. For some businesses this may work. I can see for instance how it might work for a client in a B2C environment where people can purchase on-line. You can see where people are referred from and input the amount of any resulting order into the equation.
But what about when you are working in a B2B environment and where you may also sell through distributors. Your goal with social media may be to raise awareness or to establish yourself as experts in the field. How do you measure contribution margin then?
I don’t think there is a single answer. It depends on the goals of your social media strategy and the type of business you are in.
For the full blog post go to socialmediatoday.com
Come on in – the water’s fine
Posted by johnweet in Social media on February 25, 2009
Social Media and User Generated Content (UGC) are big things. They are becoming more and more important to the marketing communications industry and I worried that if I didn’t get involved I would find myself left behind.
I hadn’t really thought about it before but I was already active in the social media scene. I have had an account on Facebook for several years but never really used it. I also registered with LinkedIn many years ago, but only ever got as far as setting up some basic profile information. I also have an account with FlickR and have a personal blog.
After enrolling on a short course on Social Media, presented by Luke Williams of socialtech I decided to get more involved and what better way than jumping in with both feet.
What I am going to do is briefly describe what I did, I’m not saying this is the only way to approach it, or that it’s the best way. It’s just the way that I did it.
I completed my profile and linked up with many of the people in my address book. I then searched for groups that i felt were relevant to me. I have dabbled a little bit in discussions and know that I need to get involved more. That’s my next step.
Twitter.
I signed up for an account then started searching for people that (a) I could learn more about social media from (b) Any of the employees in my clients organisation and (c) Celebs and other people who may provide some light entertainment along the way.
There are a number of tools that are helpful when searching for people, I used Twilerts and identified many people that I thought were worth following. I then looked at the people that were following the people that I found and then started following some of them too. I didn’t always get it right. some of the people I followed didn’t have anything to say that I wanted to listen to so I swiftly unfollowed.
When i started on Twitter I also felt pressured into posting continually so I posted anything. I’ve calmed down now and post when I think I’ve got something worthwhile to say, as well as sometimes just to get things off my chest.
My next step was to follow links from twitter posts taking me through to blogs.
Blogs and RSS feeds
I subscribed to many different blogs initially. blogs on social media as well as industry blogs. The amount of information that I had available to me now was huge and it has taken a long while to wade through it all.
I know that I am no expert yet, and when I say that, i am not saying it as a true expert who is dismissing the title as Lisa Hoffman may do. I am saying it because I do understand that I am still on a learning curve, but then I am not alone. everybody involved in Social media is constantly learning as the tools evolve, as new widgets, gadgets and sites are developed.
The same rules as for traditional PR still apply though. Understand your audience, understand the message you want to get across and then decide what media to use to get that message across. If social media is appropriate then you need to try it. If you don’t it is only a matter of time before your competitors do.
Media Myths & Realities survey
Posted by johnweet in Social media on February 6, 2009
Bournemouth university and Ketchum have issued a press release announcing the survey mentioned in my previous post. The full press release can be seen here.
According to the release, the survey compares the media usage habits of 500 British consumers, 1,000 Americans consumers, 500 American communications industry professionals and 500 adult consumers in Brazil.
There are many interesting points raised and I really do need to try and get hold of the survey results.
One point worth mentioning, especially in light of the money programme that aired on the BBC last night, is the fact that in the UK consumers read national newspapers at nearly three times the rate of consumers in the U.S. (53 percent compared with 18 percent). Brazilians are even higher at 62 percent.
What is not said in the press release, but was stated in the presentation that I sat through, is when people say they get their news from the Telegraph, as an example, they are talking about the brand and not necessarily the newspaper. The brand will of course include the web site.
This is interesting in that a representative of one of the large UK nationals that was interviewed in the BBC programme has stated they are trying to take that brand into the US market. The reason is one of economics.
With printed newspapers you generally know the majority of your audience. They are constrained by the boundaries of your circulation. This make it easy when selling advertising space. Not so with the web, your audience could be anywhere. Not always an easy sell to a potential advertiser. If the brand has good recognition however, in the US markets then that opens the door to the vast sums of US advertising dollars that are lying around waiting to be picked up, simple isn’t it!
I started this post with a mention of Ketchum so plan to finish with one too. What a good example of how not to use social media. Off to give a talk to one of their largest customers on the use of social media a senior representative of Ketchum arrived at their town and made a twitter post “True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, ‘I would die if I had to live here.’” This post was subsequently seen by somebody at the company he was going to visit. A company who are fiercely proud of the town where they are based. To see the full story click here.