When one of the biggest global management consulting firms decides to build a social business consulting practice, you know that big business is taking notice and asking for help. In a recent blog post Mark Fidelman profiles how CapGemini is making the move to help its customers figure out their social business strategy, very interesting I think.
Social business is far more than social media. Even using the term "social" in this context seems to trivialize what is a radical transformation in the midst where corporations and businesses of all sizes, in all industries, are finding innovative ways to leverage social technologies to foster innovation, deepen relationships with customers and connect employees in new, more meaningful and efficient ways.
As we enter 2012 and beyond it will be fascinating to watch which brands get it and which ones do not. Those that fail to evolve and adopt a real social business strategy will likely not survive in the long-run as customers will defect to brands that truly listen AND act. And employees also gravitate towards careers with businesses that empower them through the social technologies they have in place; allowing for accelerated career and idea advancement without the more traditional structures of power and control that still exist today.
You can read more about this in the full report from MIT and CapGemi, Digital Transformation: A Roadmap for Billion-Dollar Organizations.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Measuring Content Engagement with Share of Choice
So I've been working on and refining my perspective around social media measurement for the past five years and I feel that I've been exposed to or heard the vast majority of ideas around metrics. Recently though while at Pivot I heard something new that stuck with me. The concept is "share of choice".
Whereas "share of voice" is a competitive metric I've been measuring for years, "share of choice" is a nice twist and meaningful competitive metric. It offers a new way to move beyond comparing conversation volume and to evaluate the important area of content engagement. While you want people to talk about your brand and products online, what you really want them to do is take action and demonstrate preference as well.
To make this distinction more clear, share of choice can be understood and defined as how often your brand is chosen to be engaged with versus your competitive set. As compared to share of voice, which evaluates the relative volume of conversation around your brand or products versus that of your competitors. I like how share of choice offers a view into understanding brand preference through people's direct actions of literally choosing to click on and view your video content.
With the increasing use and consumption of online video, I believe that determining how often your content is chosen versus that of your competitors is not only a relevant information point but can sincerely help you evaluate how well your content is resonating with your target audience, and in cases where it's not, enable you to learn from what your competition is doing well.
Whereas "share of voice" is a competitive metric I've been measuring for years, "share of choice" is a nice twist and meaningful competitive metric. It offers a new way to move beyond comparing conversation volume and to evaluate the important area of content engagement. While you want people to talk about your brand and products online, what you really want them to do is take action and demonstrate preference as well.
To make this distinction more clear, share of choice can be understood and defined as how often your brand is chosen to be engaged with versus your competitive set. As compared to share of voice, which evaluates the relative volume of conversation around your brand or products versus that of your competitors. I like how share of choice offers a view into understanding brand preference through people's direct actions of literally choosing to click on and view your video content.
With the increasing use and consumption of online video, I believe that determining how often your content is chosen versus that of your competitors is not only a relevant information point but can sincerely help you evaluate how well your content is resonating with your target audience, and in cases where it's not, enable you to learn from what your competition is doing well.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Online Influence and The Nuances of Measurement
Online Influence and the ability to identify relevant online influencers for a brand, product or service is not only a hot topic in marketing today but also a field of measurement that is rapidly evolving as we continue to learn more. With the ability to observe connections between people and uncover individuals whose opinion matters within different spheres of conversation, services like Klout and Kred are giving marketers more sophisticated tools for analysis and interpretation of the ever-evolving social media landscape.
I recently had the opportunity to attend the Pivot Conference in New York city; an event focused on the connected consumer and how this new breed of customer is having a sincere impact on the ways that brands market, communicate and build trusted relationships. There were many fascinating sessions and topics discussed at Pivot. For me one of the more interesting was a panel led by David Armano discussing online influence. The panel included Joe Fernandez, CEO and Founder of Klout, Larry Levy, Co-founder and CEO of Appinions, Elisa Camahort Page, Co-founder and COO of BlogHer; essentially people who should be quite well versed in the theory and practice of influence and influencer identification.
While I've personally been working on influencer programs and discussing with clients all the various attributes that constitute influence, I think the panel did a great job of distilling online influence into a few logical categories that made a lot of sense to me. They broke the forms of influence into the following schema:
1.) Topical: where someone has influence in a topic of content or expertise
2.) Temporal: where someone has influence within a defined span of time
3.) Identity-based: where there is life-style association and affinity amongst the audience and influencer
While there were certainly other nuanced definitions and sub-categories discussed such at likeness, experience and expertise, these three seemed to bring clarity to how you should be thinking about the influencers you might be looking for.
I recently had the opportunity to attend the Pivot Conference in New York city; an event focused on the connected consumer and how this new breed of customer is having a sincere impact on the ways that brands market, communicate and build trusted relationships. There were many fascinating sessions and topics discussed at Pivot. For me one of the more interesting was a panel led by David Armano discussing online influence. The panel included Joe Fernandez, CEO and Founder of Klout, Larry Levy, Co-founder and CEO of Appinions, Elisa Camahort Page, Co-founder and COO of BlogHer; essentially people who should be quite well versed in the theory and practice of influence and influencer identification.
While I've personally been working on influencer programs and discussing with clients all the various attributes that constitute influence, I think the panel did a great job of distilling online influence into a few logical categories that made a lot of sense to me. They broke the forms of influence into the following schema:
1.) Topical: where someone has influence in a topic of content or expertise
2.) Temporal: where someone has influence within a defined span of time
3.) Identity-based: where there is life-style association and affinity amongst the audience and influencer
While there were certainly other nuanced definitions and sub-categories discussed such at likeness, experience and expertise, these three seemed to bring clarity to how you should be thinking about the influencers you might be looking for.
Friday, November 18, 2011
The Social Media Marketing Plan: 12 Critical Questions for Planners
Originally published on The New Group blog on 10.1.11
Faced with the request to create a social media marketing plan for your organization?
Crafting a defensible social media marketing plan can be time-consuming and even frustrating if you don't have a good framework to build your social media plan around. By considering the right questions up front you'll set yourself up for success.
The following 12 questions are helpful to consider when creating your social media marketing plan. Thoughtfully answer these questions before you jump in and start posting content, engaging with customers and orchestrating conversations around your brand.
1. What are our strategic vision and business goals for social?
2. What does integrating social mean for our organization?
3. From a marketing and operations perspective where does social fit?
4. What are realistic objectives to pursue?
5. What's our social channel mix?
6. What role does each social channel serve and what's our approach to each?
7. How will we measure success?
8. What content should we invest in?
9. What else should we invest in?
10. How do we get people to share?
11. What's the 90-day plan?
12. What's next on the 12-month horizon?
By taking a methodical and analytical approach you'll be prepared to measure social media marketing tactics and analyze results, learn what really works for your business and ultimately understand the relationship of social marketing programs to your business objectives. However, having consensus on the right social media strategy for your brand is critical to making smart decisions as you gain momentum and grow your social media programs. Plan accordingly and get your internal and external stakeholders on board before just doing something for the sake of doing something.
An additional concept also worth considering is the bigger-picture opportunity that developing a social media marketing plan brings up. What I mean is the bigger picture of social business and what else you should be considering beyond just social media marketing.
Think about what it means to integrate social into the way your brand conducts business. Consider what this means, for example, in the context of driving real business innovation and connecting people globally to harness the collective intelligence of your organization. Social can play an important role.
Faced with the request to create a social media marketing plan for your organization?
Crafting a defensible social media marketing plan can be time-consuming and even frustrating if you don't have a good framework to build your social media plan around. By considering the right questions up front you'll set yourself up for success.
The following 12 questions are helpful to consider when creating your social media marketing plan. Thoughtfully answer these questions before you jump in and start posting content, engaging with customers and orchestrating conversations around your brand.
1. What are our strategic vision and business goals for social?
2. What does integrating social mean for our organization?
3. From a marketing and operations perspective where does social fit?
4. What are realistic objectives to pursue?
5. What's our social channel mix?
6. What role does each social channel serve and what's our approach to each?
7. How will we measure success?
8. What content should we invest in?
9. What else should we invest in?
10. How do we get people to share?
11. What's the 90-day plan?
12. What's next on the 12-month horizon?
By taking a methodical and analytical approach you'll be prepared to measure social media marketing tactics and analyze results, learn what really works for your business and ultimately understand the relationship of social marketing programs to your business objectives. However, having consensus on the right social media strategy for your brand is critical to making smart decisions as you gain momentum and grow your social media programs. Plan accordingly and get your internal and external stakeholders on board before just doing something for the sake of doing something.
An additional concept also worth considering is the bigger-picture opportunity that developing a social media marketing plan brings up. What I mean is the bigger picture of social business and what else you should be considering beyond just social media marketing.
Think about what it means to integrate social into the way your brand conducts business. Consider what this means, for example, in the context of driving real business innovation and connecting people globally to harness the collective intelligence of your organization. Social can play an important role.
Social Branding: Is Social Marketing Right for My Brand?
This post was originally conceived and written by Derek Phillips when we worked together at The New Group. I subsequently edited some of the content. Derek is a seasoned content strategist whose opinions and work I highly respect. Derek is currently a Content Director at Critical Mass.
Originally published on The New Group blog.
Social branding: Is social marketing right for my brand? It's an important question. Fundamentally I believe there is opportunity for all brands to leverage social marketing, but it all depends on how broad your perspective is.
Many brands today think of social marketing as simply Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Others understand the power of monitoring and nurturing conversations in public online forums, and even fewer are yet to tap into the power of private online communities to spur innovation around their products, marketing and business model. The point here is that social marketing and social media are much bigger than just "likes" and "retweets." While those are aspects of social marketing, the bigger conversation is about social business and how to leverage social channels, technologies and human behaviors to build better, more responsive and ultimately more profitable brands.
As digital marketing strategists we're often asked how we can prove ROI on social marketing investments. Honestly there are a variety of answers to that question, but it often helps to consider other parallel investments that you probably already budget for today. Ask yourself what ROI metrics you and other companies apply to public relations, customer service, customer insights research and business innovation.
Too often people see social media as simply a marketing channel where the point is to gather as many "brand ambassadors" or "evangelists" as you can and the measure of success is how many people have liked your brand page on Facebook. While it's true that some brands can motivate legions of fans on their behalf, that's not necessarily true of all brands and misses huge opportunities that the social space offers outside of messaging and promotions. Below are some further thoughts on how you might think about social media as it relates to areas of your brand that you likely already invest in today.
Social Branding Through Public Relations
It used to be that companies hired PR professionals because those people had access to and relationships with the gatekeepers of media, thus providing access to audiences. While the value and need for PR professionals remains, the way these professionals do their jobs has changed and it's something we can all learn from.
1. Access to audiences is no longer gated by mass media (which doesn't mean that mass media doesn't have its place—it does, it's just not the ONLY way to access audiences).
2. Conversations about your brand are happening now and you can learn from them even if you decide not to engage.
3. It's easier to put out a small, smoldering fire than a raging blaze.
Even if it doesn't make sense (either from a legal or an organizational politics perspective) to directly engage users who speak ill of your brand, wouldn't you like to know what negative messages are resonating with real customers so you can prepare and take action before it becomes a much larger and more complicated issue?
Social Branding as Social Customer Service
One of the most overlooked opportunities in social marketing is what some are calling SCRM or Social Customer Relationship Management. In its simplest form it's applying a social layer to standard CRM practices and has value across each of the three phases of traditional CRM:
1. Acquire
2. Enhance
3. Retain
Acquisition can be achieved through a variety of social marketing promotions that encourage people to engage with your brand and are propelled by leveraging their social networks. We've all seen those campaigns:
* "Retweet this for a chance to win!"
* "Like our page and get 10% off your next purchase!"
* "The foursquare mayor of this establishment gets a free dessert with every meal!"
Enhancement can include access to exclusive content and events or direct interaction with people of interest. TV shows have leveraged these opportunities to keep viewers engaged beyond the 30- or 60-minute timeslot. From online chats ("Real Time with Bill Maher") to deleted scenes ("The Office") to extended interviews ("The Daily Show"), there are countless opportunities for creative brands to keep that audience engaged…and it's not just media companies.
The true genius of the notorious Old Spice campaign is that it took a TV commercial character who was resonating with fans and extended the campaign to a social sphere where those fans could directly interact with the character—and spread word of the campaign as a result. The millions of dollars in earned media are still being tallied.
Customer retention is a challenge for most companies, and a costly one at that. Most people, even the loudest and most obnoxious among us, just want to be heard. We want to feel good about our purchases and be acknowledged when we have issues. Social media allows savvy brands the opportunity to not only address the person who is directly affected, but show others that you're doing it. Most customer service complaints are related to common issues (that's why so many companies employ scripts). Address once and resolve for many. Even if you can't come to an immediate resolution, the fact that you're engaging and treating your customers with respect has resonating value.
Customer Insights from Social Brand Building
There are enormous opportunities to gather customer insights via social channels. The short story is that people are out there talking about your brands and your products and you can listen in to find out what they really think about your latest ad campaign or how they're actually using your products. Customers can be very clever in discovering new uses for products, and understanding that can lead to optimizing how you market and enhance those products.
Social Branding Through Business Innovation
An area that forward-looking social brands have already benefitted from is using social technologies to connect global internal teams as well as connect marketers and product developers with passionate customers to decrease time to market and unearth new directions to pursue.
This is a meaty topic deserving of a dedicated blog post, but for now let me just say that building internal social communities to connect employees around ideas and to connect customers with the people shaping your products is an area that many brands could benefit from.
So is it appropriate for all brands to have social outreach and engagement programs? No, probably not, but that doesn't mean there aren't real opportunities in social marketing, and the ROI on those activities can be substantial.
Originally published on The New Group blog.
Social branding: Is social marketing right for my brand? It's an important question. Fundamentally I believe there is opportunity for all brands to leverage social marketing, but it all depends on how broad your perspective is.
Many brands today think of social marketing as simply Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Others understand the power of monitoring and nurturing conversations in public online forums, and even fewer are yet to tap into the power of private online communities to spur innovation around their products, marketing and business model. The point here is that social marketing and social media are much bigger than just "likes" and "retweets." While those are aspects of social marketing, the bigger conversation is about social business and how to leverage social channels, technologies and human behaviors to build better, more responsive and ultimately more profitable brands.
As digital marketing strategists we're often asked how we can prove ROI on social marketing investments. Honestly there are a variety of answers to that question, but it often helps to consider other parallel investments that you probably already budget for today. Ask yourself what ROI metrics you and other companies apply to public relations, customer service, customer insights research and business innovation.
Too often people see social media as simply a marketing channel where the point is to gather as many "brand ambassadors" or "evangelists" as you can and the measure of success is how many people have liked your brand page on Facebook. While it's true that some brands can motivate legions of fans on their behalf, that's not necessarily true of all brands and misses huge opportunities that the social space offers outside of messaging and promotions. Below are some further thoughts on how you might think about social media as it relates to areas of your brand that you likely already invest in today.
Social Branding Through Public Relations
It used to be that companies hired PR professionals because those people had access to and relationships with the gatekeepers of media, thus providing access to audiences. While the value and need for PR professionals remains, the way these professionals do their jobs has changed and it's something we can all learn from.
1. Access to audiences is no longer gated by mass media (which doesn't mean that mass media doesn't have its place—it does, it's just not the ONLY way to access audiences).
2. Conversations about your brand are happening now and you can learn from them even if you decide not to engage.
3. It's easier to put out a small, smoldering fire than a raging blaze.
Even if it doesn't make sense (either from a legal or an organizational politics perspective) to directly engage users who speak ill of your brand, wouldn't you like to know what negative messages are resonating with real customers so you can prepare and take action before it becomes a much larger and more complicated issue?
Social Branding as Social Customer Service
One of the most overlooked opportunities in social marketing is what some are calling SCRM or Social Customer Relationship Management. In its simplest form it's applying a social layer to standard CRM practices and has value across each of the three phases of traditional CRM:
1. Acquire
2. Enhance
3. Retain
Acquisition can be achieved through a variety of social marketing promotions that encourage people to engage with your brand and are propelled by leveraging their social networks. We've all seen those campaigns:
* "Retweet this for a chance to win!"
* "Like our page and get 10% off your next purchase!"
* "The foursquare mayor of this establishment gets a free dessert with every meal!"
Enhancement can include access to exclusive content and events or direct interaction with people of interest. TV shows have leveraged these opportunities to keep viewers engaged beyond the 30- or 60-minute timeslot. From online chats ("Real Time with Bill Maher") to deleted scenes ("The Office") to extended interviews ("The Daily Show"), there are countless opportunities for creative brands to keep that audience engaged…and it's not just media companies.
The true genius of the notorious Old Spice campaign is that it took a TV commercial character who was resonating with fans and extended the campaign to a social sphere where those fans could directly interact with the character—and spread word of the campaign as a result. The millions of dollars in earned media are still being tallied.
Customer retention is a challenge for most companies, and a costly one at that. Most people, even the loudest and most obnoxious among us, just want to be heard. We want to feel good about our purchases and be acknowledged when we have issues. Social media allows savvy brands the opportunity to not only address the person who is directly affected, but show others that you're doing it. Most customer service complaints are related to common issues (that's why so many companies employ scripts). Address once and resolve for many. Even if you can't come to an immediate resolution, the fact that you're engaging and treating your customers with respect has resonating value.
Customer Insights from Social Brand Building
There are enormous opportunities to gather customer insights via social channels. The short story is that people are out there talking about your brands and your products and you can listen in to find out what they really think about your latest ad campaign or how they're actually using your products. Customers can be very clever in discovering new uses for products, and understanding that can lead to optimizing how you market and enhance those products.
Social Branding Through Business Innovation
An area that forward-looking social brands have already benefitted from is using social technologies to connect global internal teams as well as connect marketers and product developers with passionate customers to decrease time to market and unearth new directions to pursue.
This is a meaty topic deserving of a dedicated blog post, but for now let me just say that building internal social communities to connect employees around ideas and to connect customers with the people shaping your products is an area that many brands could benefit from.
So is it appropriate for all brands to have social outreach and engagement programs? No, probably not, but that doesn't mean there aren't real opportunities in social marketing, and the ROI on those activities can be substantial.
Social Monitoring for More Effective Media Planning
Originally published on The New Group blog on 10.1.11
Given the current and growing trends in business and consumer usage of social media, it's quite clear that media planners need to incorporate not only social properties into their mix but also social monitoring insights in order to build the most targeted, cost-efficient and results-driving media plans.
This means taking a comprehensive view with respect to how we as people interact with brand-produced, earned and consumer-generated media, and using these insights to architect the most relevant touch points for consumer and business customer interactions with brands: at the right time, within the right context, at the right place.
Using social monitoring is an important topic that we as marketing strategists continue to learn more about and refine our perspective on. I'm happy to have found a great presentation from the smart folks over at Forrester Research and Networked Insights that digs deeper into this topical area.
Since I'm a concept guy, I thought I'd share a few of the most interesting concepts presented in this presentation. Here they are:
* Incorporating social conversation catalysts into creative
* Starting with digital first, then editing for TV
* Next layer filters
* Directional indicators
* Contextual discovery
* Spending the "minimal effective amount"
* Making your TV media buys work harder with social
* Social data as a leading indicator to project audience growth
* Dynamic segmentation
* Real-timing sensing
* Using social data sequencing
* Social lift scores
I've long held the belief that you need to go beyond psychographic and demographic data and tap into an understanding of influence to make your media dollars work harder. This presentation really helps take that concept and add some further detail around how and why.
Bottom line, great presentation, excellent ideas that really add value to where media planning is and needs to be going, thanks again to Forrester and Networked Insights. If you've got 45 minutes to spare, grab a coffee and check it out.
Given the current and growing trends in business and consumer usage of social media, it's quite clear that media planners need to incorporate not only social properties into their mix but also social monitoring insights in order to build the most targeted, cost-efficient and results-driving media plans.
This means taking a comprehensive view with respect to how we as people interact with brand-produced, earned and consumer-generated media, and using these insights to architect the most relevant touch points for consumer and business customer interactions with brands: at the right time, within the right context, at the right place.
Using social monitoring is an important topic that we as marketing strategists continue to learn more about and refine our perspective on. I'm happy to have found a great presentation from the smart folks over at Forrester Research and Networked Insights that digs deeper into this topical area.
Since I'm a concept guy, I thought I'd share a few of the most interesting concepts presented in this presentation. Here they are:
* Incorporating social conversation catalysts into creative
* Starting with digital first, then editing for TV
* Next layer filters
* Directional indicators
* Contextual discovery
* Spending the "minimal effective amount"
* Making your TV media buys work harder with social
* Social data as a leading indicator to project audience growth
* Dynamic segmentation
* Real-timing sensing
* Using social data sequencing
* Social lift scores
I've long held the belief that you need to go beyond psychographic and demographic data and tap into an understanding of influence to make your media dollars work harder. This presentation really helps take that concept and add some further detail around how and why.
How to Infuse Media Planning with Social Data - Networked Insights & Forrester from Networked Insights on Vimeo.
Bottom line, great presentation, excellent ideas that really add value to where media planning is and needs to be going, thanks again to Forrester and Networked Insights. If you've got 45 minutes to spare, grab a coffee and check it out.
Social Media Monitoring—Choosing the Right Tool
Originally published on The New Group blog on 10.1.11
If you're a marketing strategy professional you know the importance of customer insights. Additionally, you know that you must incorporate the behavioral and conversational insights from the way business people and consumers are using social media today. With this an important question rapidly becomes: what's the best social media monitoring tool for my brand or business unit?
Well, it depends. Do you need to conduct historical analysis—and if so, over what time frame? Or do you need a tool that excels at real-time monitoring—if so, what social channels are most critical for your social media programs? Are you trying to identify and track your interactions with online influencers—and if so, do you need to coordinate the outreach efforts of multiple people or departments in your organization? Is closed-loop tracking of your outreach efforts a requirement or just a nice to have? These are not all, but certainly some, of the important questions you'll want to consider as you evaluate what the best-fit social media monitoring tool will be for your brand or business unit.
Over the past five plus years we've seen a plethora of social media monitoring tools enter the market. At The New Group we were early adopters and have used a number of tools including Social Radar, Radian6, Nielsen Buzzmetrics, Buzz Logic (before it turned into a social advertising network), Scout Labs (before it was purchased by Lithium), Alterian SM2 and Sysomos. We've conducted our own research into more than 30 tools and generally take a deep look at the social media monitoring tool market about twice a year.
Currently our tool of choice is Sysomos. Far and away, our favorite feature is speed, and the user interface is pretty friendly too. Speed is crucial to our social media listening workflow. Social media isn't slowing down anytime soon, so tools that cannot return real-time results are quickly becoming obsolete. However, depending on your particular situation, a different tool might better serve your needs. There really is no perfect one-size-fits-all social media monitoring tool on the market today. If you start with that mindset then you'll be a happier camper with the tool you end up selecting in the end.
If you're a marketing strategy professional you know the importance of customer insights. Additionally, you know that you must incorporate the behavioral and conversational insights from the way business people and consumers are using social media today. With this an important question rapidly becomes: what's the best social media monitoring tool for my brand or business unit?
Well, it depends. Do you need to conduct historical analysis—and if so, over what time frame? Or do you need a tool that excels at real-time monitoring—if so, what social channels are most critical for your social media programs? Are you trying to identify and track your interactions with online influencers—and if so, do you need to coordinate the outreach efforts of multiple people or departments in your organization? Is closed-loop tracking of your outreach efforts a requirement or just a nice to have? These are not all, but certainly some, of the important questions you'll want to consider as you evaluate what the best-fit social media monitoring tool will be for your brand or business unit.
Over the past five plus years we've seen a plethora of social media monitoring tools enter the market. At The New Group we were early adopters and have used a number of tools including Social Radar, Radian6, Nielsen Buzzmetrics, Buzz Logic (before it turned into a social advertising network), Scout Labs (before it was purchased by Lithium), Alterian SM2 and Sysomos. We've conducted our own research into more than 30 tools and generally take a deep look at the social media monitoring tool market about twice a year.
Currently our tool of choice is Sysomos. Far and away, our favorite feature is speed, and the user interface is pretty friendly too. Speed is crucial to our social media listening workflow. Social media isn't slowing down anytime soon, so tools that cannot return real-time results are quickly becoming obsolete. However, depending on your particular situation, a different tool might better serve your needs. There really is no perfect one-size-fits-all social media monitoring tool on the market today. If you start with that mindset then you'll be a happier camper with the tool you end up selecting in the end.
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