December 22, 2009

Are You Driving Your Research or is Your Research Driving You?

As much as I love immersing myself in data and appreciate the guidance and insight it provides, I can’t help but ask: how much research is too much?

A Tale of Two Sodas

In his book, “Obsessive Branding Disorder“, author Lucas Conley compares the launch of Coca Cola’s C2 with the success of Peter van Stolk’s upstart, Jones Soda.

If you’re asking, “what’s Coke C2?” you’re not alone.

According to Conley, C2 launched in Summer 2004 at the peak of the low-carb craze with a major sponsorship of American Idol.

At that time, all the consumer product research indicated a rabid interest in a low carb soda and Coke responded with a multi-million dollar ad campaign to launch C2.

Coke’s C2, as well as the rival Pepsi Edge product, all but disappeared from shelves in about two years. The low carb craze was losing its appeal with consumers and most people didn’t really see the need to have a mid-calorie soda positioned between regular and diet.

While the biggest brand in the world was launching a new product that would secure a paltry 0.4 percent of the marketplace within a couple months after launch, a little upstart called Jones Soda grew its revenues by 70 percent in just two years.

Jones endeared itself to people by putting customer submitted snapshots on bottles of flavors like Salmon Pate, Wild Herb Stuffing and Turkey & Gravy… as well as others like Blue Bubblegum, Rootbeer and, (my favorite) Strawberry Lime.

The Future Will Always Be Difficult to Predict

Research on the front end would never indicate any consumer need for soda that tastes like a Thanksgiving turkey, salmon pate or any number of other Jones flavors that seem more a curiosity than a household commodity. In fact, any advance consumer surveys might have been enough to scare Peter van Stolk out of the idea to launch Jones Soda entirely.

With Social Media there is Still No Empirical Data

Let me be clear: I realize the example above is centered around product research specifically, and for the record I believe in the importance of research; especially marketing segmentation research that helps identify who your customers are, what they care about, and others to be considered for future outreach.

However, with social media specifically, so many companies are still sitting on the sideline trying to figure whether this type of engagement is right for them. Rather than focusing on individuals — people — they focus on the channel, or network. Plus, they seem to worry more about making a big splash out of the gate than learning as they go. Most companies and individuals who have experienced any amount of success with social media outreach can tell you that’s just not how this stuff typically works.

It may be hard to believe, but as we move into 2010, some businesses are still waiting — crunching theoretical numbers focused on specific social networks from years past while others are putting some solid, preliminary segmentation research to good use by getting to work, testing experimental ideas, measuring results, and repeating that process several times over.

Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking…

In a few years, which companies will be better off? Those waiting for a critical mass, or those working the networks, forming connections and sowing the seeds for a meaningful online presence?

Photo Credit: The Rocketeer
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December 14, 2009

The Cost of Conversation: Should Companies Have to Pay to Talk to Customers in Social Networks?

I’m only asking because I had a recent encounter with a site that proposed the company I work for do just that.

For a little bit of background on the situation, OptionsHouse is an online brokerage owned by my employer, PEAK6 Online. OptionsHouse recently introduced some new pricing options in addition to the launch of new features, so I wanted to monitor and address any online chatter that were to surface in blogs, forums and other social networks as a result.

Since the securities industry is strictly regulated, this isn’t as easy a process as it may be in other industries — every statement I post online must go through a compliance review for approval before posting.

Since I am not registered to sell securities, it’s also important that I not have any type of dialog with customers or potential customers that could be interpreted as a solicitation to open an account.

For this reason I was particularly surprised when I received the following message from the EliteTrader forum administrator informing me that my posts were deleted.

Baron wrote on 12-03-09 11:21 AM:
All of your posts have been deleted because they violate our member rules of conduct. Unless you represent one of our site sponsors, you can’t use our message board for communicating with potential customers, providing customer support, posting your rates, linking to your web site, etc.

The details of this rule are in section 6 on this page:

http://www.elitetrader.com/conduct_rules.cfm

Thanks for your cooperation,

Baron Robertson
Administrator
EliteTrader.com

Admittedly, I did include an email address and phone number for customer service, but that was more a matter of providing a resource than it was about any kind of advertising.

The text from Rule 6 of Elite Trader’s Member Conduct Rules:

6) Advertisements and solicitations of any kind are strictly prohibited unless you are a paying site sponsor. As a person who does not represent one of our site sponsors, you are not to solicit our members with any type of commercial offer, or advertise your business through your public posts, private messages, profile page, or file attachments. This includes, but is not limited to, posting your phone or fax number(s) and posting any URLs or hyperlinks to your commercial web site(s) or email account(s). Elite Trader and its agents may remove or edit any posted content, without prior notice, that contains unauthorized advertisements or solicitations. Elite Trader may, without prior notice, immediately terminate your membership upon discovery of any unauthorized advertising or solicitation.

While this rule does stipulate against providing any company contact information, why not edit the contact information out of the post rather than simply deleting it?

The larger issue to me isn’t whether or not companies are allowed to provide contact information to individuals who talk about their product or service online, but whether they should be charged a fee to respond to their concerns in kind and engage in a public dialog.

Besides, isn’t this the same type of thing got Seth Godin in so much trouble back in September when he tried to monetize Squidoo by charging companies to manage a public dashboard of mentions in blogs, social networks and other places online? The backlash in the blogosphere was so loud his plan changed rather quickly in response.

When I replied asking the forum administrator what kind of sponsorships were available, I was sent a link to this page with details about a “Corporate Posting Account“.

Corporate Posting Account Explained

According to the details on the site, a corporate posting account is “a paid account that authorizes you to participate on our boards from a promotional standpoint.”

This type of account costs $500 per month and is billed via credit card. There are no “long-term commitments” and no sign of any type of contract. In fact, the sign-up button takes you directly to an EliteTrader PayPal account where you can enter your credit card information.

After some poking around on the site I also couldn’t help notice that this type of sponsorship isn’t included in the site’s navigation. There is only a clearly labeled link to an advertising page that explains other types of formal sponsorships that include the typical featured listings, banner ads and email advertising, but no mention of a corporate posting account.

It’s Not About the $500/month

My list of concerns is as follows:

  • If sites begin requiring companies to pay to access customers who mention them online, where does it end? How many sites should companies pay to participate in? If I’m self employed am I now a company?
  • This forum pulled my posts on this thread even though members of the community were obviously engaging with me on the site. Several member posts still contain quoted text from my posts and are addressed to me personally. The members of the forum certainly didn’t respond as if they were being marketed to, or spammed in any way.
  • This would be an entirely different situation if the forum were private. If the site was not searchable on Google and had no ability to rank in Google’s search index for our branded keywords, I could understand paying for access. However, this site in particular is public. Anyone can post once an account is created and user posts as well as sponsor posts have the potential to rank for branded and organic keyword searches. If we cannot respond without sponsoring the site, I think it’s only fair that the conversation not be allowed to rank for branded search terms.
  • What about the FTC? Since EliteTrader’s corporate posting account mentions nothing of disclosure and includes no other type of explicit sponsorship on the site, the new guidelines stipulate that it would be my responsibility to disclose the fact that I was in fact a sponsor of the site in each post since threads on the site span several pages and any of those pages could potentially function as a landing page.

Yes, marketers are now responsible for making sure the channels they sponsor include some type of explicit disclosure. The new rules from the FTC with regards to new media clearly state, “the advertiser should take steps to ensure that these disclosures are being provided.”

I’m truly curious whether anyone else has encountered a similar situation. Are there other sites that require companies to pay to engage with their customers, or is this situation somewhat unique?

If people must pay to participate in social networks on behalf of their company, where should we draw the line on what constitutes advertising and solicitation? And, should the members/users of the site be aware when this is the case?

Photo Credit: ThinkPanama
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December 13, 2009

An Open Letter to Companies on Facebook

Dear Companies with Facebook Fan Pages,

It’s not you, it’s me.

If I’m your fan on Facebook, please know it says very little about whether you are doing a good job with your social media strategy, although this may very well be the case.

Adding your page to my profile is more akin to me wearing your logo on my sweatshirt or handbag than it is indicative of a conversation I am willing to have. Please don’t feel free to “engage” me with your news or press releases. While I appreciate your presence on one of the world’s largest social networks, I am much more impressed when you offer a good product, honor things like warranties, have a human being available to take my phone calls and credit my account when I pay my bill.

Although, like most other people, I am more than willing to enter a contest in hopes of winning something of value or pass along a coupon or discount, this means that I am a savvy consumer who cares enough to share good things with others. This does not mean we are friends. It just means that I like your products or services enough to admit it in public.

If your company is doing a bang up job aligning a Facebook presence with accountable marketing initiatives and solid metrics that indicate a positive ROI, please feel free to correct my position in the comments.

For everyone else, please add your voice in the comments and help stop the Facebook madness.

Sincerely,

Shannon Paul

P.S. Don’t just take my word for it, The Slate just put out The Big Money Facebook 50. The factors were number of fans (companies had to have more than 200,000 fans to be considered for the list), company engagement and user generated content. Nothing about ROI, increased revenue or brand awareness in other channels. I’m not saying a fan page doesn’t have value, but can we please stop making this out to mean something more than it does. After all, according to the study, even fans of incredibly delicious Ben&Jerry’s ice cream got upset when the company got a little too enthusiastic about frequent posting.

Photo Credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

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December 7, 2009

Does This Thing Have a Pause Button?

I know you’re probably reading this because you want to read up on social media and something to do with its impact on marketing and communications for business, but I needed to take a step back this last week.

It’s been a crazy year for me. My mom had a bout with cancer, I changed jobs and moved across the country from Detroit to Seattle and now I’ve lost one of the most consistently supportive presences in my life: my dog, Jupiter.

He was very old — thirteen years old — ridiculously old for a St. Bernard, but no amount of thinking on the matter prepared me for losing him. He has been by my side in three different cities over the last 13 years and he was with me for almost four years before my husband and I started dating.

It’s been difficult to concentrate on other things, not because I’m preoccupied with thoughts of him, but because I’m so afraid of forgetting him — his different looks and mannerisms, his smells (even the bad ones), and because I also look for reassurance everywhere I go that he is indeed okay.

I apologize if you came here today for something else, but I had to share where I’m at in order to begin to move forward — I hope that’s okay with you.

I promise the next time you come back here I will continue to share things related to social media marketing and communications. Hopefully you’ll even find it useful.

Today I had to use social media to help me remember my best friend and I just have to hope you’ll understand.

Unfortunately, we all know there is no pause button on life — online and offline, but sometimes I think it’s okay to let some things go on without you in order to give yourself a chance to regroup. What do you say?

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November 27, 2009

Does Social Networking Threaten Journalistic Integrity?

Given recent updates to the L.A. Times social networking policy for journalists, I can’t help but ask whether or not social media really does threaten journalistic integrity.

Here are some of key points in the L.A. Times’ revised social networking policy to consider as outlined in a staff article in Editor & Publisher:

  • If a reporter friends/fans an interest group on any social network, she must also become a friend/fan of an interest group with an opposing viewpoint.
  • Becoming a friend/follower of a professional contact may reveal her as a potential source.
  • Any transmission of information online including a retweet of a post on Twitter should be treated with the same caution and standards as anything that would go into the formal publication.

While I can’t say I’m totally shocked by this, I am definitely interested to see how policies like this impact profit margins in mainstream media over the next few years.

The problem for me lies in what a policy like this leaves out: what the journalists actually can do in social networks. According to this policy, journalists are a-okay to:

  • Post links to his/her own work for the publication
  • Avoid people
  • Avoid conversation

The trouble with this equation lies in the fact that without conversation and passing along others’ information, the only reasonable thing left to do is to post links to your own work and chat with coworkers. Why bother?

I also can’t help but question the stark contrast between what many propose is the best way to build an online presence… tenets like be human, be genuine, be approachable, don’t use the channels as a one-way means to broadcast your stuff (links to articles, products, webinars, etc.).

This leaves the question of integrity.

I’m not a journalist, but I have a difficult time understanding how inclusivity, personal accessibility and engagement in genuine conversation with others poses a threat to journalistic integrity.

Kristine Lowe, on the other hand, is a journalist and she has some great thoughts on impartiality, consensus and PR related to journalists use of social media.

Kristine questions whether journalists’ tendencies to talk only amongst peers online exacerbates media’s herdlike behavior and points out that public interaction with PR folks is preferable to closed-door meetings. She expresses excitement over PR’s ability to get better acquainted with her work in social networks like Twitter in hopes of more targeted pitches to her inbox, and notes inherent opportunities in social media to engage and expand readership of the publication.

My thinking around this issue is that the older broadcast-type media channels are at a crossroads. Many are adapting rather well to social media, some are struggling to adapt, and others are refusing to compromise the institutional tenets of the past.

Which publications will come out winners as a result? Despite leanings one way or the other, the outcome is still anyone’s guess.

Should we expect journalists to behave differently online than other types of professionals? Do policies prohibiting personal interaction make sense for those responsible for delivering news? And, perhaps most important, does social networking threaten objectivity and integrity?

What about perceived objectivity and integrity? Could the L.A. Times have a point?

I have my own thoughts on the matter, but I’m interested in learning what you think. In order to embrace social media, what are we really asking journalists and mainstream media to give up?

Photo by Frederic Poirot

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November 23, 2009

Looking for ROI in Social Media? Mind Your Metrics

ROI is important for every function in business, but what if it’s measured too hastily?

I wrote about social media ROI last week and some of the comments in response to that post highlighted a tendency many have to oversimplify this calculation.

Simple is good; overly simple is not.

ROI Blah, Blah, Blah, More ROI

What if ROI is the thing so many people are distracted by while screwing up the metrics?

ROI is an economic equation that looks at costs and benefits, but how do you quantify what gets counted as a benefit? There are many steps on the road to ROI, but deciding what gets measured and how much weight to give it are the keys to giving an ROI calculation that actually makes sense.

For the record, let it be known that nobody is saying ROI calculation isn’t important — at least not me :) But, I don’t think hasty measurement or oversimplification is the way to go either.

This line from a recent post by Peter Kim got me thinking more about this:

“I think that too often, people jump from measurement to ROI too quickly. If we take a different approach that accounts for the interim steps required to get from start to finish, we’ll be able to sleep better knowing how our social business investments are performing.”

Yes, ROI is a simple economic equation that subtracts cost of investment from benefits of the investment and divides the result by the cost of the investment. Whatever.

Figuring out the costs has to do with the amount of money spent and work-hours devoted to the cause. That’s the easy part, right?

Slow Down

The tough part comes in when you try to put real economic justification on any social media endeavors. I’m of the belief that social media marketing works, but a lot of the numbers signifying failure in the industry are because too many measure the wrong things.

A significant disconnect between goals and success metrics was found in this year’s Tribalization of Business study by Beeline Labs and Deloitte.

Most goals of businesses surveyed centered around increasing word of mouth and brand awareness, but the top metrics positioned as indicators of success were things like number of active users and user engagement on the site.

I’m just thinking out loud here, but a better metric for word of mouth might be an increase in the number of branded keyword searches, and a better metric for an increase in brand awareness might be the number of incoming links and mentions on 3rd party sites including social networks.

My point is, the math involved in the ROI calculation is easy. Deciding how to measure and quantify what gets counted as a business gain could use some noodling.

Your Take

As we move into 2010 (time flies!), what are some of your goals and what do you plan to measure to ensure you’re meeting them? How does what you’re measuring eventually ladder up to ROI?

Does having a better sense of the role of measurement in ROI make you more confident in your efforts?

Photo by Vincent Ma

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November 18, 2009

One Reason Not to Hate Twitter’s New Retweet Function

I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about Twitter’s recent changes to how individual Retweets, aka RTs, are retweeted, but there is something interesting here to think about.

Aside from adding lists, the changes to Retweets are the biggest change to happen to Twitter came since they changed how @replies worked earlier this year.

To recap: In the past, if I was following you, I would receive all of your tweets in my Twitter stream, even those that began with an @reply to someone I was NOT following. That’s no longer the case. Now I only see tweets that begin with an @reply if I’m following the person they’re replying to.

When @replies changed, a few other things changed, too. Namely, discovery of new and interesting people to follow. In the past, if I saw an interesting person in my Twitterstream was engaged in conversation with someone I wasn’t following, I might choose to follow them based on our mutual acquaintance.

Now, I know there are plenty of good reasons to be upset with the new changes to Retweets, but one neat thing about this is that it does bring back the possibility of discovering new people.

Since the new ReTweets feature is still in Beta, not everyone has access yet. So, here is a screenshot of my Twitterstream with a dialog box that points out this new means of discovery.

Love the change or hate it, this may not be the organic means of spreading information that grew out of the Twitter community, but discovery is something I’m interested to see making a comeback on Twitter.

What do YOU think?

P.S. Read this post by Dan Zarrella if you’re interested in preserving the way Retweets have always been viewed and posted.

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November 12, 2009

Social Media ROI and the Last Cookie Conversation

Cookie Monster on the Google HomepageThe first push back regarding social media is the dreaded ROI question, right?

There’s also been a lot of talk about how conversation and dialogue can’t be measured in terms of revenue too. Maybe that’s true. Or, maybe we’re measuring the wrong things or we’re only capturing part of the picture.

Since I come from a communications background I never learned much about web analytics until I took it upon myself to learn. It becomes much easier to have the ROI conversation when your piece fits into the overall sales or cost savings equation. However, understanding how ROI is measured in other online marketing disciplines can definitely come in handy.

Mind you, I don’t have all the answers and I know each situation is unique, but I think this fact is worth highlighting. Most conversion analytics credit the final click, with credit for a conversion or sale. This means that the last ad, or affiliate link or referring site gets credit for the sale or conversion. Each one of these types of click installs a cookie in the browser that determines which referrer gets credit. Most links shared in social networks do not come with cookies, but Google Analytics will still pick up the traffic from the referring site.

Why is the last cookie question important for measuring social media ROI?

I have been thinking about this for awhile since having a conversation with Angel Djambazov on the way to Blog World Expo (he and I were on the same flight from Seattle to Las Vegas for the conference). He explained to me how the final cookie, or final click, practice can often skew data. Then a recent post from Rob Birgfeld inspired me to share this information with you here.

Rob’s post on the “myth of the last click” cites a study by the Microsoft Advertising Institute that states, “users interact with an average of 2.2 other ads from the same brand over two days before the conversion.” This study includes a sales funnel of 14 days. Rob then asks what if we were to extend the sales funnel to 90 days?

“…let’s expand the conversion funnel to 90 days, in which case the user is exposed to an average of 18.5 ads over a three-month period… [the] operating theory is that all of these interactions play a role in the final conversion, and they should not be discounted when quantifying ROI. According to Strong, 94% of touch points in today’s “last click model” are thrown away and not given any credit for a sale.”

Several of the touchpoints cited in the above quote could definitely include interaction in social networks and social media channels.

The answer isn’t who gets monetary “credit” for the sale, but rather, doing what it takes to fund, maintain and foster the truly valuable channels that bring customers and that final click into perfect alignment. Maybe one way to examine the data is to look for correlations between social media mentions and actual click-throughs from other online marketing channels.

The idea that clicks trump views and impressions may have been overplayed in social media to give the appearance of substance and business prowess. However, the problem with the final click metric is that it will often discount valuable channels like those in social networks if they do not generate a money-shot style click upon the first impression.

Based on this information provided in this study, my advice to anyone searching for the ROI of social media is:

  1. Question how online conversion is being calculated and whether it’s a final click metric. If so, recommend an alternative view to accompany final click metrics based on engagement and look for correlations between the data.
  2. Don’t be so quick to abandon outreach efforts that appear to be underperforming based on a final click model.
  3. Track engagement on your site from referring sites. Drill down time on site and number of page views by each referring blog, community or social network.
  4. Examine the number of return visits generated by social networks.
  5. Examine the bounce rate from visits referred by social networks.
  6. Look for trends between mentions, sentiment and conversion that attempt to identify the real time it takes most customers to complete the sales cycle.

Social media has the potential to generate a valuable first impression, but it may not ever generate a final click. Aligning outreach efforts in social networks with other types of online marketing and SEO efforts can give a much more holistic view of what networks and channels are adding the most value to your entire sales funnel.

By the way, one of the best presentations on determining the ROI of social media is by Olivier Blanchard, aka @thebrandbuilder on Twitter. Check it out here on SlideShare.

What other types of analytics do you use to determine the true ROI of social media beyond fluff and without giving too much weight to the final click and worrying about who gets the last cookie?

Image of Google’s homage to Cookie Monster and Sesame Street posted by COG LOG LAB.

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October 29, 2009

The Trouble with Blog Influence Statistics

It may be ironic, but I’m not a big fan of statistics when it comes to blog readership.  Not because I’m not interested, but because I’m not convinced the average person understands exactly what a blog is. Even many of us who think we DO understand what a blog is have a hard time agreeing with one another on definitions.

Case in point: Seth Godin. He disabled comments on his blog long ago, yet some say comments make a blog. On the other hand, The Chicago Tribune has comments on their articles. Is The Chicago Tribune a blog? Others still refer to forums or message boards as blogs. Do they qualify?

A recent study by Mediamark Research & Intelligence (pdf) found that 10.1 percent of U.S. adults reported to having read a blog in the last 30 days.

And, if you think that number’s small, only 3.4 percent of adults actually wrote a blog post in the same period. There goes the theory that blogging democratizes the web. It seems there’s still an equation of the few influencing the many, but just who comprises the few has shifted a bit. If you’re curious, I heard about the study from a Marketing Charts email newsletter. Good stuff here.

I tend to think the number of people reading blogs is actually much higher. However,  I’m prone to believe the statistic on the percentage of bloggers is right on. Why, you ask? Because I’m willing to accept that someone who’s blogging probably knows they’re blogging.

The irony for me is even though the reported number of blog readers seems relatively small, the press release for this study notes blogs relatively sizable impact on consumers:

“This is the latest evidence of the impact a small group of people can have on society at large,” said Anne Marie Kelly, SVP, Marketing & Strategic Planning, at MRI.“The influence of blogs on mainstream media reporting has long been clear and now the government is taking steps to ensure consumers know the motivation behind blog product endorsements and recommendations. Yet, relatively speaking, very few consumers read or write blogs.”

Wait… I’m confused.

If you missed that part in the middle, read it again: “The influence of blogs on mainstream media reporting has long been clear…” Really? So many people working in social media struggle to make this case, why is it such a given for the FTC and the organization behind this study?

If the numbers are so small, why do blogs have such an undeniable impact to those conducting the study? Especially if we consider that the same 3.4 percent who write blogs probably  make up the 10.1 percent who read them.

Math isn’t my forte, but if I examine the numbers, this means that 3.4 percent of the population are very influential over a remaining 6.7 percent. So one third of a very small segment of the population is very influential over another relatively small segment of the population not even twice its size. Big deal! Yet, this press release from the study announces the “broad” impact of bloggers.

For the record, I believe the impact of blogs goes way beyond what this study indicates for a few reasons I’ve written about before, but I would really like to hear from you.

Am I missing something here? What do you make of these numbers?

And, perhaps more importantly, how can we ask better questions to understand the true impact of blogs on culture as well as consumer behavior?

How should we really measure influence?

Photo by Dave ®
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October 23, 2009

Mainstream Media Still Matters

Caution: This post could be construed as gratuitous self promotion because I work for We Seed’s parent company, PEAK6 Online.

I don’t even own a television, but tonight I’ll be camping out in front of someone else’s set to watch We Seed on 20/20.

I know a lot of us in social media circles like to focus on the interest and influence of social media in the way information spreads, but the growth patterns differ greatly. Social media is great for long-term growth and facilitation of word of mouth, but mainstream media (especially national mainstream media) still packs a wallop and has the ability to get a lot of people talking about something all at once.

I’ve used this graphic a lot in the past, but it’s still very relevant. One of my favorite images from David Armano is one that shows the ripple effect in online conversation. To get a better look, click the image and check it out on David’s Flickr profile. If thousands of people throw small rocks in a pond all at once, it can equal and surpass one very large rock thrown into the same still water. That doesn’t mean we should discount the power and force of the huge rock.

We Seed is a great example of a company that has relied mostly on social media and grass roots outreach to spread the word about its mission of providing a fun way to learn about the stock market, but I’m excited to see where this level of attention will take the company and the very talented team of people who work to make the site a success.

A big congrats to everyone on the We Seed team!

Got beef with the influence of mainstream media? Don’t just take my word for it – read these posts:

Mainstream Media Relations, More Important Than Ever

Smart Targeting: Influencers or Fans?

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