Social Media Measuring Maturing?

In reading today's article in eMarketer: When will Social Media Measurement Mature? I have to confess I had a little bit of a visceral reaction: What do you mean mature? here is a non comprehensive list of the things we can give Marketers today, for some of these I have been involved personally in making them possible:

• We can monitor public venues of online conversation for specific keywords or key phrases, if the venue allows to identify the author we can see who started and who joined the conversation and we can even see how it grew and spread across other networks. 
• We can allow you to track who shared (depending on implementation this may render actual emails, names or maybe it only delivers knowledge at the level of anonymous cookies, that can certainly be used for personalization and targeting) 
• We can track who reacted to the shares mentioned above, and how many of those actually render leads and conversions (in whatever way you decide to define a lead or conversion) 
• We can see inbound visits from all of the above to your Ecommerce pages 

With all of these we can give you: 

• A clear understanding of who talks about you, what are they saying and where. A clear understanding of who reacts to that and how.
• A clear understanding of what of the content, messages, offers that you put out there are actually considered worth of sharing, by whom and how many others reacted to the initial share and how many leads and conversions that brought back to you 
• we can help you identify who is an authority in the space you care about, who shares and gets others to visit, who advocates for you and gets others to try your products, who is displeased and how many others are they affecting. 
• We can tell you a lot about all of the above individuals: what is their location? gender? income level? and many other demographic aspects of their persona. 
• We can make all of this available real time so you can adjust your relationship and message any time, anywhere (in your site, in third party sites) 

I am by no means saying the platforms we offer are perfect, far from it... and we are yet to deliver on a much more integrated set of capabilities. furthermore I think a lot of the confusion stems of the fact that we, as an industry, refuse to agree on a standard set of semantics and formal definitions around them which will help practitioners learn, benchmark and teach others and share that experience in a standard and understandable way. 

However you can't tell me metrics are not available today, they are not easy and do need to mature and integrate... but they are available, lets use them 

What do you think? 

Filiberto Selvas 

Re-Post: Social Media Strategists: Can we learn from the past?

I had a recent comment in a post that made me remember this experiment I made back in 2008; still relevant today (I Believe)

>>>>> Original Post published May 29 2008: 

For a while know I have been worried that Social Media, Social Networking, Online Communities seem to be heading down a path that is familiar to me, and that I’d rather have all of us avoid if we can….

I did an experiment: I searched for the key reasons CRM projects failed; I took snippets of one of the the articles I found (here the original, credit and eyeballs due to Adrian Mello) and I replaced CRM by Social Media…. Please read the results below; sounds to me we are at risk of repeating the mistakes, and we need to make an effort to learn from the past:

·         …It’s much more common for SOCIAL MEDIA projects to fail because of a lack of alignment with the business goals, inadequate organizational preparation, and other problems arising from ineffective business planning and management….

·         ..One of the biggest sources of failure arises when enterprises put SOCIAL MEDIA tools in place before forging a clear customer strategy…..SOCIAL MEDIA tools can be used for a variety of purposes so companies need to identify their goals…Do you want to reduce the costs of handling customer inquiries? Do you want to acquire new customers? … Without answering these questions companies usually pick the wrong SOCIAL MEDIA tools.

·         Some enterprises have a customer strategy, but it’s far too broad. Overreaching SOCIAL MEDIA projects usually fail…..Companies can avoid failures by establishing carefully defined short-term business objectives.

·         Although project objectives should be highly specific, they must still fit into an overall strategy…. When they are administered as isolated "stove pipes," SOCIAL MEDIA programs usually fail…..Individual SOCIAL MEDIA projects need to be coordinated and project leaders need to communicate with each other.

·         ….Even enterprises that develop a sensible customer strategy will still fail in their SOCIAL MEDIA efforts if they don’t modify their organizations to reflect that strategy. A SOCIAL MEDIA rollout must shape appropriate employee attitudes and behavior before the technology is deployed…

·         ….A common misconception about SOCIAL MEDIA is that it deals only with superficial processes due to its customer-facing nature. To be successful, SOCIAL MEDIA requires deep change within an organization…..

That should be enough to make my point; what do you think?

Filiberto Selvas

Leveraging Brand Advocates to Drive Sales and Positive Word of Mouth: 3 Case Studies in 30 Minutes

Got this email; I thought I should share:

Hi Filiberto,

I wanted to let you know about three (that’s right three) upcoming webinars we will be hosting featuring social marketing success stories from top brands like Intuit, Microsoft, 24 Hour Fitness, and Motel 6. The case studies will be presented by Rob Fuggetta, Founder/CEO of Zuberance and author of soon to be published book, “Energize! How to Turn Word of Mouth and Social Media into Sales by Energizing Brand Advocates.” Please find webinar details below.

3 Case Studies in 30 Minutes: How Three Health & Fitness Companies are Increasing Sales and Positive Word of Mouth by Leveraging Their Brand Advocates
Date: Tues, Dec 13, 2011
Time: 11 AM PST/ 2 PM EST
Featuring case studies from: 24 Hour Fitness, Club One, and Anytime Fitness

Register now for the Health & Fitness Webinar

5 Case Studies in 30 Minutes: How Five Software Companies are Increasing Sales and Positive Word of Mouth by Mobilizing Their Brand Advocates
Date: Wed, Dec 14, 2011
Time: 11 AM PST/ 2 PM EST
Featuring case studies from: Intuit, Microsoft, Webroot, NetApp, and Corel

Register now for the Software Webinar

3 Case Studies in 30 Minutes: How Three Hotels are Increasing Sales and Ratings by Leveraging Their Brand Advocates
Date: Thurs, Dec 15, 2011
Time: 11 AM PST/ 2 PM EST
Featuring case studies from: Motel 6, Tryp by Wyndham, and Atlantis

Register now for the Hotel Webinar

Please feel free to forward along the invitation to friends and colleagues.

3 Case Studies in 30 Min: How 3 Hotels are Increasing Sales by Leveraging Advocates

3 Case Studies in 30 Minutes: How Three Hotels are Increasing Sales and Ratings by Leveraging Their Brand Advocates


Date: Thursday, December 15, 2011
Time: 11:00 AM PST/2:00 PM EST
Join the conversation on Twitter: #zuberance

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER NOW

Hotels and resorts spend billions on marketing and sales promotions trying to lure travelers to their properties and keep them coming back through loyalty reward programs. However, an influential and powerful segment that is often overlooked is Brand Advocates. The value of energizing Brand Advocates goes beyond loyalty. Brand Advocates are highly satisfied customers that pro-actively recommend your properties to their social networks online and offline. Mobilizing Brand Advocates turns your enthusiastic guests into a cost-effective marketing force, boosting ratings and reviews and driving sales.
Register now to attend this free webinar featuring real-world success stories from:

• Motel 6
• Tryp by Wyndham
• Atlantis

Participants will learn how to:

• Identify and energize your best customers (AKA Brand Advocates)
• Boost ratings and increase positive reviews on TripAdvisor and other review sites
• Generate leads and drive sales via social media
• Measure the impact of mobilizing Brand Advocates

All participants will receive a free whitepaper, “How Hotels Can Turn Word of Mouth and Social Media into Sales.”
Expert Speaker: Rob Fuggetta, Founder/CEO, Zuberance (@robfuggetta)

Rob Fuggetta, the founder and CEO of Zuberance, has more than 20 years of experience in Word of Mouth marketing, His WOM strategies have created marketing success for Apple, Intuit, Norton, and many others. Fuggetta is a frequent speaker and author of an upcoming book, “Energize! How to Turn Social Media & Word of Mouth into Sales by Energizing Brand Advocates.”
REGISTER NOW