Tag Archives: ROI

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Sunday Brunch Reads with Social Media ReInvention: Week of 11/30/14 to 12/4/14

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Sunday Brunch Newspaper

Photo Credit: Anton Diaz

Hi Social Media ReInvention Community Members! Apologies for not consistently posting our Sunday Brunch Edition. External circumstances prevented me from keeping up. I promise to do better job. I hope you celebrated blessed and happy Thanksgiving Holidays with loved ones and friends. 

Here are your share-worthy links. Enjoy your Sunday Brunch!

1) CNET: How-To Video: Upgrade Your RAM on Your MacBook Pro. I upgraded the RAM on my MacBook Pro 15 this week. I suck as a do-it-yourselfer (DIY). I researched required steps and tools to lessen my anxiety and increase my confidence. The Result: I successfully upgraded my MacBook Pro 15 (late 2011) from 4MB to 8 MB of RAM (and she performs like a champ)!

MacBook Pro 15 Successful RAM Upgrade

As I type, I’m running seven (7) applications: iTunes, Google Chrome (with 12 tabs open), Apple Preview, MarsEdit, Finder, Evernote, and Dashlane. Here’s the content I found most helpful: 

  • You’ll need a Phillips 00 screwdriver to unscrew the bottom panel. I paid a premium price for the iFixit 54 Bit Driver Kit because the magnetized screwdriver bits are HUGE in removing and reinserting the six (6) tiny screws on the back panel. There’s a reason I went to business school instead of medical school (HINT: I lack a surgeon's dexterity).

 

2) Fast Company: What Every Young Designer Should Know, From Legendary Apple Designer Susan Kare. Kare has two (2) simple rules for designers: 1) Fake It Tlll You Make It and 2) Design Never Really Changes. I personally relate to Rule #1. When she applied applied for Apple’s graphic designer position, she worked at a furniture store. She prepared for her interview by studying graphic design books from the Palo Alto library (direct article quotes): 

Having designed many of the Mac's early system fonts such as Chicago, the (original) San Francisco, Geneva, and Monaco, Kare is one of the pioneers of early digital typography. But when she first applied to Apple, she was pulling her type design qualifications out of thin air.
"I was working at a furniture store at the time, and I didn't know the first thing about designing a typeface," she told me. "But I'd studied graphic design, so I said, 'How hard can it be?'" So Kare went to the Palo Alto Library and took out a number of books on typography. "I even brought them to my interview to prove I knew something about type, if anyone asked!" she laughs. "I went into it totally green."

She's not so green now. Here's a great video of Susan Kare sharing her design expertise:

Susan Kare, Iconographer (EG8) from EG Conference on Vimeo.

 

If Susan Kare listened to The Resistance, she wouldn’t have achieved her Apple Legendary Designer status. So let’s fake it till we make it. Or, as Dorie Clark of Reinventing YOU, says: “Fake It Till You Become It.”    

 

3) Fortune Magazine: GE CMO Comstock's New Job: Reinventing the Lightbulb. I’m a HUGE Beth Comstock fan. Her strategy to reinvent and power (pun intended) GE's 130-year old lighting business includes embedding social and digital media throughout the business. Comstock transformed GE into a creative, infuential and credible digital marketing player:

Here’s a direct quote from the Google Think article about Beth Comstock titled Market Maker:

The 52-year-old often describes her job as "connecting the dots"–between GE's seven segments (Power & Water, Oil & Gas, Energy Management, Aviation, Transportation, Healthcare, Home & Business Solutions), its many markets, and between the company and the outside world. It's something Comstock regularly does as head of GE's sales, marketing, and communications, and in her management of the company's multi-billion-dollar Ecomagination and Healthymagination initiatives, dedicated to environmental and health care innovation respectively.
In her travels and conversations with customers, she constantly scans for patterns. "When you're in this business, you see a lot of things," Comstock notes. "Marketers are in a great position to notice if something's happening in an industry like energy or healthcare."


Think About that Quote for a Moment. Beth Comstock explained how a great marketer’s expertise is a game changing asset in understanding and exploiting opportunity. Digital and social media marketing continues accepting the rap, “we can’t measure return on investment (ROI)!” Follow her advice and make the case of how not only your digital marketing efforts identify relevant opportunities but also how your expertise uniquely enables you (personally) to identify new business opportunities.

If that’s not a measurable ROI, I’ll be this guy’s uncle:

Chimpanzee Uncle

Photo Credit: Gemma Stiles

 

Your Turn

Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts in the comments. I would love to hear from you. I’m here to read, listen, and learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE.   Comments are open. So let’er rip!


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Mark Zuckerberg’s 5 Point Plan for Facebook’s Future Growth and Mobile Domination

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Facebook mobile app iPhone

Facebook Mobile App iPhone

Facebook released its 2014 Q2 earnings report on July 23rd. Here are some mind-boggling financial performance factoids from Reed Albergotti's Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article:

  • $2.91 billion in revenue (a 61% increase); $791 million in net income
  • $2.68 billion in revenue from advertising (a 67% increase)
  • Mobile advertising accounts for 62% of advertising revenue (up from 59% in 2014 Q1 and 41% in 2013 Q2)

Remember concerns about Facebook arriving late to the mobile advertising party two years ago? How quickly sentiments can change. Here's Reed Albergotti's Wall Street Journal (WSJ) video review of Facebook's Q2 2014 financial performance: 

 

I've reviewed numerous articles explaining how and why Facebook continues transforming and reinventing itself under Mark Zuckerberg's visionary leadership (including but not limited to):

Noticeable patterns / themes in these articles give clues to Facebook's and Zuckerberg's long term corporate strategy.

  • Facebook's (and others') future global growth requires investment in global wireless infrastructure
  • Mobile applications will continue driving Facebook's capabilities
  • Strategic acquisitions are for building future (even moonshot) competitive advantages
  • When you're big, innovation doesn't come as easily as before (even for Facebook)
  • Proving digital marketing delivers positive ROI is a key strategy driver 

Here's my take on the Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook 5-Point Plan for Future Growth and Mobile Dominance:

1. Bring Internet Access to the Other Two-Thirds of the World

Zuckerberg described in his July 2014 WSJ article how roughly 2.7 billion people currently have Internet access. That sounds like a lot, but the majority of the world lacks connectivity. He knows Facebook's future growth is tied to increasing and sustainable investment in wireless infrastructure. The phrase "a rising tide lifts all boats" takes on significant implications not only for Facebook but also for its competitors.

Here are some key quotes from his article: 

"Bringing the other two-thirds of the world online will enable them to invent and create new things that benefit us, too."

"Not only do the vast majority of people have no access to the Internet, but even more surprisingly, Internet adoption is growing by less than 9% each year. That's very slow considering how early we are in its development and that rate is only slowing further."

"The challenge for our industry will be to develop models for Internet access that make data more affordable while enabling mobile operators to continue growing and investing in a sustainable way. Efforts like Internet.org — a global partnership founded by Facebook and other technology leaders –are already under way to solve this by working with operators to provide free basic Internet services to people."

Here's a great 2013 CNN interview with Zuckerberg describing Internet.org (my apologies for any commercials preceding the interview):

  

2. Make Facebook THE Killer Mobile App

Flurry (the mobile ad and analytics firm Yahoo recently acquired for $200 – $300 million) says mobile users spend 17% of their time on their phones in Facebook's app. This metric shows Facebook's mobile app is the most popular app on iOS and Android devices. Facebook's Q2 2014 Quarterly Financial Reporting slides show a consistent, steady climb in daily and monthly mobile users:

 

Q2 2014 Facebook Mobile Daily Users

Q2 2014 Facebook Mobile Daily Users
 
Q2 2014 Facebook Mobile Monthly Users

Q2 2014 Facebook Mobile Monthly Users

Zuckerberg knows consumers live in a mobile, one-screen world. The only screen users care about is the one in front of them. That's why Facebook's mobile apps have to deliver simple, fast, and seamless user experiences. 

Based on these mobile user numbers and the percentage of Q2 2014 revenues generated from mobile advertising, Zuckerberg and Facebook nailed it. And, speaking of killer, seamless, mobile apps …

3. Acquire Mobile Platforms (and Emerging Ones) that Increase Short Term / Long Term Competitive Advantages

In April 2012, Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion. They recently acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion in February 2014.  March 2014 marked the acquisition of Oculus VR (a virtual reality headset company) for $2 billion. 

Zuckerberg views virtual reality as the next communication platform. It will be fun to track how Facebook leverages Oculus' technologies beyond gaming. Until then, here's a graphic from Austin Carr's Fast Company article showing the 700 million Instagram and WhatsApp users resulting from these acquisitions:

Facebook's Portfolio of Brands and Monthly Users

Facebook Brand Portfolio Illustrations:Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger by Marco Goran Romano

4. Give New Innovations Time to Develop (even if patience contradicts The Hacker Way)

Zuckerberg's brainchild employees 7,000 people. Even at Facebook, creativity and innovation slowed under increasing bureaucracy and jockeying for resources (in both talent and money). Stringent metrics and timelines meant new products had little time to improve post-launch.  

That's why Creative Labs is vital to Facebook's future innovations (and talent retention). Zuckerberg created it as a separate division in February 2014. It operates outside of Facebook's traditional product management processes with looser time constraints. That level of freedom and "small-team feeling" produced Paper, the mobile app for reading an responding to the News Feed.

Even Facebook "likes" innovations from skunkworks — cool twist or reinvention of The Hacker Way.

 

Facebook Creative Labs Image

Facebook Creative Labs

5. Prove Digital Marketing Results in Positive ROI

Facebook's successful foray into Mobile App Install Ads, and the experiments it's running with the Facebook Buy Button show how simplifying the consumer buying process results in higher conversion (and that elusive digital marketing ROI).

It's mobile phone, 1-Click Shopping:

 

Facebok Mobile App Install Ads

Facebok Mobile App Install Ads

In Austin Carr's Fast Company article describing the resounding success of Facebook's mobile app install ads, developers love this advertising medium because:

  • Promoted apps are no longer dependent on App Store "Top 10 popularity contents"
  • These targeted newsfeed advertisements are based on a Facebook's user's history
  • 1-Click shopping simplifies buying for Facebook users
  • 1-Click shopping simplifies customer conversion for the advertiser

This advertising medium has resulted in 350 million app installations (Carr estimates this equates to almost $1 billion in revenue). He cites one mobile gaming CEO who invests 75% of his marketing budget in Facebook mobile install app ads because they drive $70,000 in revenues per day.

 

Facebook Tests Buy Button

Facebook Tests Buy Button

If the experiments with the Buy Button prove fruitful, Facebook can validate the ROI value of digital marketing in not only building awareness, but also in converting eCommerce sales. Here are direct quotes from the experts:

Debra Aho Williamson of eMarketer: 

"With this step, Facebook is becoming even more firmly established as a major player in direct response advertising, and though this test is still only a test, it's a definite sign that Facebook wants to restart its efforts to become an e-commerce company as well."

Josh Constine of TechCrunch:

"If the test is successful and rolls out, Facebook could eventually earn money on the feature by charging a fee or revenue share in exchange for processing payment and improving conversion rates. It could also use the purchases to prove return on investment to advertisers, encouraging them to buy bigger campaigns."

Closing Thoughts

Mark Zuckerberg is the next Steve Jobs (along with Sergey Brin and Larry Page). I was publicly criticized for making that statement more than three years ago. He is a visionary leader. Remember how Facebook originally started out as a desktop application? That's what makes its reinvention as an industry leader and emerging pioneer in the mobile space so impressive.

And, it only took two (2) years! I can't wait to see what's next as Zuck & Company keep moving fast and breaking things.

 

 

Did You Enjoy This Post?

If yes, please share it with your friends and subscribe to my blog. Many Thanks!

 

Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist.  He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+. 

 

Photo Credit via flickr

Photo Credit via TechCrunch

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7 Reasons To Study Newsjacking by David Meerman Scott

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Newsjacking Cover

Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas Into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage is David Meerman Scott’s latest book.

Newsjacking reinforces and expands the content from David’s most recent book, Real Time Marketing and PR: How To Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Customers, and Creat Products That Grow Your Business Now.  Here’s my review of Real Time Marketing and PR in this blog.

Bottom Line:  I highly recommend studying Newsjacking.  It’s informative, quick-to-read, and filled with insightful how-to-examples.  In fact, both books are required reading for any marketing/PR executive, business owner, or brand manager who wants to capitalize on media opportunities generated by the real-time Web.

1. Clever Newsjacking Generates Media Bonanza Opportunities

And, We All Can Do It!  David defines “newsjacking” as publishing your personal angle, ideas, or perspective into a breaking news story / event to earn media coverage for your company, brand, or products / services.  


 

 

Help Journalists Write Their Second Paragraphs.  When hot news strikes, journalists scour the Internet via search engines (i.e., Google) and social media (i.e., Twitter, blogs, etc.).  Why?  They’re seeking additional content (e.g., details, opinions, etc.) that can differentiate the point-of-view in their individual news stories.

That differentiating point-of-view or compelling content is the “second paragraph.”  Journalists seek second paragraph material that:

  • Delivers credible, authoritative, and valuable information / perspective
  • Describes “why” something happened
  • Interprets the event’s impact and future implications 
 


 

 

Credible Second Paragraphs Can Earn Massive Media Attention.  Be fast, use targeted keywords, and provide valuable context in your Tweets and blog posts so journalists can find your contribution to a story with Google searches.  Quickly writing an informative blog post and shrewdly publicizing it with Twitter may take an hour or less.

And, the impact can be huge:

“With a single hour’s work many people manage to generate more media attention than a whole year’s return on a substantial PR budget.”

“I’ve been a marketer for two decades now, and I have never seen a technique as powerful as newsjacking.”


2. Newsjacking Favors Faster, Smaller Players  


Real-Time Speed is a Newsjacker’s Bread and Butter.  Speed, decisiveness, and execution drive successful newsjacking. And, you must respond within the hour of a breaking news story.  That’s why fast movers are great newsjackers.    

David Can Trump Goliath.  Plus, smaller firms can outplay their larger competitors.  The Fortune 500 has the same opportunity to successfully newsjack as any other organization or individual.  But, their corporate hierarchies and approval processes are handicaps.  

Therefore, smaller firms can outplay their larger competitors:


“What’s abundantly true is that newsjacking is easier for nimbler players than its is for the lumbering giants of the corporate world.”

“To successfully newsjack or fend off a newsjack, you can’t wait for approval.  You just have to do it.”

Newsjacking Lives and Dies by Speed.  The graphic below describes the newsjacking process.  Notice how speed drives the entire newsjacking process:

  • Tracking and staying on top of breaking news
  • Deciding quickly on your response
  • Publishing / Publicizing the response instantly

 

Newsjacking Process Described

3. Chapter 6 – Ka-Ching: CEO Bags a Cool Million with a Single Blog Post 


A Classic, Must-Read Newsjacking Blog Post.  Joe Payne is the CEO of Eloqua, a company specializing in marketing-automation.  When he learned and verified Oracle entered his industry space, he quickly wrote this blog post:  Oracle Joins The Party.  

There are multiple reasons why this blog post and the surrounding circumstances make it a classic, newsjacking case study:

  • The post provides a valuable and quotable industry perspective
  • Payne crafted and posted this blog post quickly
  • The blog post contains verifiable details and statistics
  • Oracle buried this news story in their website
  • He outflanked a larger competitor (e.g., Oracle) using new media tools   

Payne’s Blog Post Earned Major Media Attention, Credibility, and $1 Million.  When industry analysts and journalists searched Google for news about Oracle, they found Payne’s content-rich blog post.  And, they quoted it verbatim.  

In the following examples, I attached the hyperlink to the actual media coverage if the page still exists: 

The aforementioned media coverage (and other coverage) increased Eloqua’s credibility.  In addition, Payne and his team combined the blog post’s media coverage with immediate, next-morning business development follow-up.  These combined activities brought Eloqua software deals worth $1 million in new revenue among six (6) new clients.

That’s a great outcome especially without the luxury of a multiple phase PR campaign or massive advertising budget.    


4. Chapter 7: Become the Go-To Gal (or Guy) in Your Industry


Blogs Are Powerful Newsjacking Assets.  Long form content achieves four (4) things:

  • Provides keyword rich content for search engines to index
  • Increases the probability journalists will find your blog post when searching Google
  • Delivers context rich details (hard to do in Twitter and Facebook)
  • Positions newsjackers as reputable and credible reputable industry authorities

Here’s a direct quote from David: “If a blog develops a reputation for serving up informed, insightful, authoritative, articulate, quotable and timely commentary on issues in your industry, journalists will learn to seek you out when issues arise.”

Knowing Your Issues / Topics Cold Leads to Long Term Credibility.  Newsjack the issues and topics in which you are well-informed.  That knowledge will make your newsjacking perspective valuable, credible, and authoritative.  

Long term credibility is vital in building an authoritative reputation and relationships with journalists.  Even more importantly, that credibility and reputation dictates why journalists may or may not seek your input in future news stories.  

Why Amdocs and Jeff Barak Are Telecommunications Billing and Customer Care Industry Authorities.  In Chapter 7, David describes how Amdocs and Jeff Barak used their company blog to comment on regulatory changes in their industry.  Barak wrote this blog post, No Need to Be Bill Shocked, while the FCC conducted meetings in late 2010 to discuss legislation about bill shock.

Journalists searched Google for the latest news about this FCC legislation and found Barak’s blog post.  His post earned coverage from industry publications (like this one from Penton Media’s Connected Planet blog post — Not Being Shocked by Bill Shock).


5. Learn from Newsjacking Mistakes: The Golden Rules 


The Kenneth Cole Twitter Blunder.  Remember, this infamous tweet from Kenneth Cole during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution:

Kenneth Cole #Cairo Tweet

 


Unfortunately, Cole used poor taste and judgment when he tried to newsjack this news event.  And, massive public relations backlash resulted.


To prevent a social media blunder like this occurring at your organization, David provides these newsjacking objectives and guidelines:

The Golden Rule Objective (Direct Quote).  “When intervening in a news story you should add value – information or insight that contributes to the public’s understanding of the situation.”

The Four (4) Golden Rules.  Kenneth Cole didn’t have the benefit of David’s advice before sending out that tweet.  We now have that luxury:    

* Be dignified and statesmanlike.  See the Joe Payne / Eloqua Case Study Above (#3)

* Be positive and upbeat, never mean or vindictive.  Again, see the Joe Payne / Eloqua Case Study Above (#3)

* Write articulate text in full sentences without chatty slang, industry jargon, corporate-speak (i.e., mission-critical or cutting-edge) or social media shorthand (e.g., IMHO)

* Don’t get too cute or clever — especially where human suffering is involved.  See aforementioned Kenneth Cole tweet


6. Newsjackers Monitor News 24/7 Via RSS Feeds

 
RSS (Real Simple Syndication) Feeds Are a Newsjacker’s BFF.  David describes how setting up RSS feeds to your favorite news sources, analysts, industry publications, and blogs enables real-time news monitoring.  And, staying abreast of leading news events gives you the competitive advantage to respond fast.  David mentions these RSS services in his book:

  • Google Reader
  • Newsfire

Fast Responders Earn Attention.  Here’s a how-to video I made two years ago on using RSS (e.g., your iGoogle Home Pages) to monitor postings of your favorite blogs to increase your chances of being an early commenter on new posts.  Why? Early commenters earn the author’s attention (especially if you’re the first commenter).  

The same principle applies when monitoring news sources in real-time and responding quickly to capitalize on a newsjacking opportunity:


 

 

7. Learn How to Maximize Twitter’s Real-Time Capabilities 


A Newsjacker’ Must-Have Weapon For Monitoring News Flow.  Twitter’s real-time capabilities make it the ultimate rapid response, news monitoring tool.  You can find great second paragraph content and breaking news stories by:

  • Catching key phrases by creating columns in Tweetdeck and HootSuite
  • Using Twitter’s search function
  • Setting up a “news” column in Tweetdeck or HootSuite (i.e., a dedicated news column focusing on all the news sources you follow)

A Powerful Fast Response Distribution Channel.  When it comes to publicizing and “pushing out” newsjacking blog posts quickly, Twitter rules.  Remember, journalists search Twitter to find differentiating second paragraph content.

Use Twitter Hashtags (#).  Therfore, include hashtags (the pound key – #) in your tweets to mark them with the unique identifier about a particular subject (i.e., #Cairo).  Remember, the hashtag, makes it easier for journalists to instantly locate in Twitter all references to a particular topic.  Plus, tweets with hashtags are curated in reverse chronological order (i.e., most recent first).

Twitter Can Help You Directly Contact a Journalist.  Most journalists provide or publish their Twitter ID (i.e.@firstnamelastname).  Verify their Twitter ID with a quick Google search.  Then, include his/her Twitter ID in your tweet so you can directly point him/her to your blog post.

 

Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist.  He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention.  Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.   

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The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 5 – How and What To Measure

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Scale 

This blog series covers insights shared by Chris Brogan, Charlene Li, David Meerman Scott, and Martin Giles (moderator) on The Business Value Behind Social Media (part of The Premier Business Leadership Series presented by SAS).  Part 4 covers the panel's discussion and suggestions on how to get started in social media (particularly for organizations late to the game). 

Part 5 highlights the panel's insights on measuring social media's business impact by:

* Defining what metrics are valuable (and which are not)

* Understanding how your company performs in search engine results (i.e., SERPs)

* Showing how social media activity "bridges or links" to an organization's bottom line

* Acknowledging the real reasons driving an organization's desire for measuring social media initiatives

This post highlights the panel's discussion from 36:57 to 43:18 of the embedded video.


 

Track and Measure Meaningful Metrics

Number of Followers, Fans, or Page Views Is Not a Valuable Performance Metric (37:07 – 39:18).  According to Chris, reliance on metrics quantifying potential reach or number of people "who possibly saw" your message is a mistake.  The traditional pubic relations imprint methodology for quantifying success is not what you want. Why then do people cite these figures?  Because people want to bring large performance numbers to the C-Suite executives supporting the social media initiatives. 

Customer conversion numbersare the more refined and accurate number marketers should cite (i.e., "how many people clicked on the link you wanted them to click on").  Chris elaborates that earning 1.5 million You Tube views isn't enough.  If none of these viewers takes action on the link that leads to your cash register (e.g., convert to paying customers or take a specific action), then you're missing business opportunities.

Track Metrics Articulating a Specific Business Outcome(s) (38:10 – 38:32).  Chris encourages his clients to track the following metrics when evaluating social media initiatives:

  • Revenue Increases
  • Lead Acquisition (particularly decreases in cost of lead acquisition)
  • Number of Subscribers to Company Newsletters
  • Impact on Open Rates to Existing Company Media
  • Percentage of Conversation / Percentage of Mind – Sentiment Metrics

Percentage of Conversation / Percentage of Mind ( 38:33 – 39:17).  Chris believes sentiment metrics are valuable because they provide an understanding of what and how often customers are talking about your company's products or services (especially relative to your competitors).  He suggests companies locate the most active online forums where their products / services are being discussed and track this metric:

  • How much percentage of mind is positive (+)
  • How much percentage of mind is negative (-)

The key is to remember how your choice of tracking metrics will always depend on the business goal sought.  Therefore, always tie your social media tracking metrics to specific business outcomes.

Understand and Improve Your Search Engine Results

The Importance of Search Engine Results Pages – SERPs (39:19 – 39:47).  David explains it's important to know two (2) things about search engine results:

(1) What are the important keywords and phrases relevant to your industry

(2) Where do your firm's products / services appear in the search results for these keywords and phrases.  Take careful note of how your results fare relative to your competitors in these searches.

Search engine results matter because a buyer's intent starts with online search.  If a company's products / services are currently landing on the fifth (5th) page of Google searches, social media can improve those results so the company earns first page placement.  

Side Note:  I wrote a blog post on the value of page one Google results in organic search.  According to the research documented in that post, ~95% of consumers stop looking at their search results beyond the second page (regardless of the search engine used).  This is why search engine rankings matter. 

Bridge / Link Social Media Activity to Specific Business Outcomes

Duration of Sales Cycle Close and Linking Other Business Activities to Social Media (40:18 – 41:08).  Chris notes how tracking the time to close sales is important.  If you can accelerate / shorten the sales cycle duration, you are demonstrating how social media contributes to revenue generation.  Other valuable metrics:

(1) Number of Customer Interactions / Touches:  Research says you need to touch / interact with the customer approximately nine (9) times before making a sale.  With social media, an organization can increase the number of customer interactions and beyond industry benchmarks.

(2) Competitive Intelligence Data:  LinkedIn Company Profiles allows you to see which companies are researching your firm on LinkedIn.  Also, you can find additional information about competitors on the Company Profiles Pages.

(3) Link to Existing Sales Funnel Metrics – Car Dealerships and Test Drives:  Chris points out that number of page views on specific car model's home page is good, but that doesn't tell you a lot about overall impact on sales.  Therefore, car dealerships are linking and tracking social media activity's influence on number of test drives. By linking social media activity to number of test drives, the car dealership links to an existing and trusted sales funnel metric. 

To Chris, the type of linking described in the car dealership example is "the gold of social media."  Why?  The car dealership example shows how social media can improve customer conversion.

What's Really Driving the Social Media Measurement Obsession?

Is It Fear?  (41:25 – 42:47)  When David hears senior executives questioning the financial validity of social media, he thinks it's really a veiled response for "I don't want to be bothered with social media."  Therefore he addresses that objection by posing the following question:

"As soon as you can tell me the ROI of giving each salesperson a Blackberry, I'll tell you the ROI of participating in social media."

We Do Certain Things in Business Because It's the Right Thing to Do.  Here are additional examples of existing corporate activities that David cites as having no quantifiable ROI, but we do them because these are the right things to do:

  • Painting the walls
  • Maintaining a nice-looking corporate campus
  • Providing salespeople with Blackberry smartphones for client management (and as a company expense)

It's Not Always About Putting in $X and Always Getting $X Back .  David concluded his point-of-view with an important point.  Yes, measuring social media is important, BUT make sure you're divorcing your indvidual fears/ignorance/bias before justifying the need to measure something.

We Tend to Overvalue the Things We Can Measure and Undervalue the Things We Cannot (42:49 – 43:48).  Charlene cited this quote from John Hayes, Chief Marketing Officer of American Express, when describing the social media measurement obsession. 

She elaborates it's not a matter of "is social media worth it" because we already know there's value in it.  In the big picture perspective, she points out:

  • Is it really possible to value a relationship?
  • If so, how much value do you place on that relationship? 

Conclusion

How Much Do We Value Relationships?  This should be the governing question for all organizations when evaluating and measuring social media business impact.  Why? The resounding theme expressed by Brogan, Li, and Meerman Scott throughout the video always comes back to:

It's All About Relationships

Companies who've founded their reputations on this moral value are the ones genuinely investing the time, resources, and money to become relevant social media citizens.  Companies like Starbucks, IBM, Best Buy, Intel, H&R Block, Boeing, HubSpot, Amazon, Dell, fall into this mix. 

Cold, Hard Fact: Social Media is Reinventing the Power of Customer Influence.  The power of one individual (or a collective group) to influence a company's online reputation is significant — and that power is here to stay.  In fact, that word-of-mouth power (WOM) is escalating.   

This brings me to a simple question:

Is Social Media ROI really just Corporate Code for CYA? 

I would argue Yes.  Please understand, I strongly believe in measuring social media's business impact and linking its activities to targeted, business outcomes.  Doing so allows an evaluation and understanding of the social media activities making a positive business impact (and even more importantly, those that are not).  Making that determination is critical because successful social media initiatives require the significant investments mentioned earlier.  As a result, measurement drives informed decisions on resource prioritization.  

Therefore, let's not go down the paralysis analysis road to financially justify every aspect of social media participation.  Let's keep an eye on the ball and the big picture.  While you kindly invested time to read this post, someone is online.  And he/she is positively or negatively influencing your company's financial success RIGHT NOW. 

In closing, if our customer and client relationships are strictly based on the bottom-line (e.g., transactional), then we're making a momentous mistake.  Here's a direct quote from MG Siegler's December 17th Tech Crunch article describing Yahoo's current financial and strategic challenges:

"Yahoo is all about the shareholders now.  It's all about the bottom-line.  That's all that matters.  It's not about the users.  It's not about building or maintataining great products.  It's about finding the ones that make the money and slicing the rest." 

Remember, at the end of the day, it's not about you or me.  It's about clients, customers, and helping them make informed decisions about the business challenges they confront.  It's about something bigger than ourselves. 

It's All About Relationships.

 

Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist.  He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention.  Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.   


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Thank you for spending your valuable time in reading this installment of The Business Value Behind Social Media.  Please tune in for Part 6 – Social Media and Crisis Recovery.

I'm targeting January 15, 2011 for publishing Part 6.  I want to get it right, and I'll also be catching up in my "regular job" after returning from vacation over the holidays. 

Many Thanks and Have a Safe and Happy New Year's Day! 


Photo Credit: By atomicjeep Via Flickr

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Fortune 500 Companies Achieve ROI with LinkedIn

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Money at HandA recent Fortune Magazine article, How LinkedIn Will Fire Up a Career, provides a great example of social media delivering significant financial savings to Fortune 500 companies. 

The article initially talks about how Accenture, a major player in management consulting, plans on hiring tens of thousands of new employees in 2010.  Then, the author asks its readers "will Accenture be able to find you" and further discusses the importance of online visibility (specifically through LinkedIn).  The article states: "If you don't have a profile on LinkedIn, you're nowhere." 

I agree with this opinion and have commented on this point in previous posts.  However, I believe there are other relevant insights from the article particularly LinkedIn's success in generating tangible return on investment (ROI) in Fortune 500 recruiting: 

 

1. LinkedIn Saves Fortune 500 Companies Significant Money and Time
According to John Campagnino, Accenture's Head of Global Recruiting, a major recruiting firm's fees can cost $100,000 to $150,000 per person.  Campagnino goes further and says: "Start multiplying that by a number of senior executives, and you start talking about significant numbers of dollars very quickly."  In addition, online services like LinkedIn decrease the time it takes to fill positions by nearly 50%.  Arlette Guthrie, Home Depot's Vice President of Talent Management, says time to fill a position is an important metric among recruiters.

In my opinion, these significant cost savings in money and time clearly demonstrate the financial value of social media.  Having a well-respected business periodical like Fortune publicize these results will increase the credibility and adoption of social media in America's largest corporations. 

2. Other Fortune 500 Companies Recruiting Successfully with LinkedIn
Here are some of the companies mentioned in the article on how they're successfully using LinkedIn (and these are major brand name corporations):

Accenture.  Campagnino further elaborates that he plans to make as many as 40% of Accenture's hires in the next few years through social media.  He says: "This is the future of recruiting for our company.

IBM.  Annie Shanklin Jones, Head of IBM's U.S. Recruiting, says LinkedIn "is a great equalizer" and "gives the recruiter an opportunity to reach out directly to a candidate."  She says, "LinkedIn is the most important social media site for reaching prospective hires."  Also, the article points out that IBM was a first-mover in experimenting with social networking particularly for recruiting talent.  It uses Twitter to broadcast job openings, and the company organizes its own talent communities.   

Oracle.  The firm found its CFO, Jeff Epstein through LinkedIn in 2008.

Home Depot.  Guthrie says Home Depot uses LinkedIn to find candidates for difficult-to-fill jobs such as supply chain, information technology, and global sourcing.  Their recruiters use LinkedIn to research potential hires, engage with them in groups, and respond to inquiries.

3. Fortune 500 Companies Target "Passive Candidates" by Using LinkedIn
Fortune 500 firms perceive that the most talented and sought-after candidates are those currently employed.  Headhunters categorize these individuals as "passive candidates," and LinkedIn provides a target-rich population.  Finding these candidates is difficult and explains why the recruiting industry is an $8 billion industry.

LinkedIn currently has 60 million members.  A typical member's profile is a college-educated 43-year-old making $107,000.  More than a quarter are senior executives.  According to the article, every Fortune 500 company is represented on LinkedIn — and that's why recruiters rely on it to recruit high-caliber talent.

In May 2009, JobVite published the results of its second annual Social Recruitment Survey.  Here are some findings relevant to this post:

* 77% of respondents said they use social networks to reach passive candidates who are not actively seeing employment
* Among online sites used to research candidates, LinkedIn was first (76%) followed by search engines (67%), Facebook (44%), and Twitter (21%).

Bonus Round: Helpful Resources for Achieving ROI with Your Own LinkedIn Profile
I hope you feel this post made a good case for the financial ROI Fortune 500 companies are producing with LinkedIn.  Here are some additional resources you may find helpful in achieving ROI with your personal LinkedIn Profile:

* Mashable — HOW TO: Build Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn by Dan Schawbel
* HubSpot Internet Marketing Blog — 4 Minutes to Optimize a LinkedIn Profile for SEO by Mike Volpe

Photo Credit: From Flickr by Don Hankins

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Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah Levels the Marketing Playing Field

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J0105220[1] I am a huge fan of HubSpot and its founders, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah.  Their team members, Mike Volpe and Rebecca Corliss, generously share outstanding content and services (i.e., Inbound Marketing University) to help all marketing professionals continuously improve and reinvent their marketing skills.  This organization is the epitome of a social media core value: “It is always better to give than to receive.”

 Inbound Marketing Book Cover Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs is an outstanding and practical marketing strategy guide targeted to small and startup businesses.  Halligan and Shah have written this book with small and startup businesses in mind because their book shares numerous insights from their own experiences as entrepreneurs (i.e., Tips from the Trenches).

The Value of This Book.  Inbound Marketing makes a convincing case that marketing success is not limited by the size of our respective marketing budgets.  Instead, these limits are now a function of our own creativity and investment of time.  Inbound Marketing practically explains how small or startup businesses can practically and effectively compete with larger competitors by executing:

* Social media strategy via channels such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
* A lead nurturing and conversion process
* A sales marketing funnel process to measure campaign ROI


Inbound Marketing Versus Outbound Marketing

What’s Inbound Marketing?   Halligan explains the differences between Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing in this blog post: Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing.

Outbound Marketing = Traditional, “Push / Interruption-Based” Marketing.  The marketer pushes the message out far and wide hoping that it resonates far and wide with the target consumer.

Outbound Marketing tactics include:

  • Trade shows
  • Seminar series
  • Email blasts to purchased lists
  • Internal cold calling
  • Outsourced telemarketing
  • Advertising

Inbound Marketing = “Pull” Marketing Leveraging the Internet.  Any marketing tactic that relies on earning people’s interest instead of buying it.  Inbound marketing focuses on helping yourself “get found” by people already learning about and shopping in your industry. 

Inbound Marketing tactics include: 

  • Search engines
  • Blogs
  • Social media sites

The Inbound Marketing Process Transformation.  Three (3) business activities provide foundation for marketing transformation:

  1. Getting found online
  2. Converting visitors and leads
  3. Analyzing and improving

 

The 6 Practical Benefits of Studying Inbound Marketing

1. Understanding how/why Google plays a signifcant role in your marketing success.  Here, Inbound Marketing explains in non-technical terms why inbound links (e.g., links from other websites that connect to your site or blog) play a vital role in your website’s  “Google Juice” or Google Authority (e.g., the number of inbound links to your web pages and the authority of those pages linking to your site).

2. Executing practical and actionable “to-do” lists at the end of every chapter.  The suggestions are hardly rocket science but they require personal commitment, preseverance, and time.

3. Learning social media marketing tactics for use across all major social media channels.  Halligan and Shah ably provide specific examples on how to effectively deploy blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and YouTube.

4. Measuring the effectiveness of your social media marketing initiatives by channel.  For example, the book guides you on how to compare the effectiveness of a Twitter campaign versus a YouTube campaign.

5. Implementing a lead nurturing process in all marketing campaigns.  Why is this important?  Every prospect is at a different place in the buying cycle for your particular product or service.  Therefore, you want this prospect to have your organization at the “top-of-mind” even when they’re not ready to buy from you (because one day they will be).

6. Informing marketing decisions (e.g., ROI) by creating a sales marketing funnel process.  This process will enable your organization to measure and evaluate campaign yield along with ROI.

 

The 3 Audiences Who Will Benefit from Studying Inbound Marketing 

1. Amateur Bloggers.  You will learn how to build Google Authority for your blog by understanding why you don’t want your blog’s URL address to include the name of your blogging platform.  For example, if your blog’s URL address is www.myblogname.typepad.com or www.myblogname.wordpress.com that’s not good.  Make sure to address this problem — I did and my search engine results are all the better for it.

2. Marketing Professionals (especially CMOs).  You will make better marketing decisions by creating a sales marketing funnel so you can measure campaign effectiveness per channel using campaign yield and ROI measurement techniques.

3. CEOs.  You will learn how to monitor your competitor’s activity and progress by tracking seven (7) attributes.  These attributes can be tracked using free tools on the Internet.  These attributes or tools are:

* Website Grade via WebsiteGrader.com
* Number of Delicious.com bookmarks
* Number of inbound links
* Number of Facebook fans
* Website traffic via Compete.com
* Google Buzz of your brand name relative to a competitor’s brand name

If you’ve read Inbound Marketing, please leave me a comment and let me know what you thought of the book.  I’m curious to know what you found helpful or valuable.

 

Did You Enjoy This Post?

If yes, please share it with your friends and subscribe to my blog. Many Thanks!

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Part 4: What Tina Brown and The Daily Beast Measure to Drive Competitive Advantage and Audience Engagement

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I've been blogging since August 2009.  It's a continuous learning experience that's all about trial and error.  That process goes beyond understanding what content people find interesting and includes figuring out a writing process for ideas, setting weekly writing goals, experimenting with the TypePad blogging interface, registering a domain name for this blog (sometimes to great frustration, but that's the topic of a future blog post), and getting better at promoting my blog to more people than just my wife.

On a daily basis, I study the Google Analytics results that measure traffic for Social Media ReInvention Blog (even though I already know the traffic volume is small — Ha!).  For now, I'm okay with that because my 12 month goal is to continue learning how to improve my blog's content and promotion.

The starting point for all improvement is measurement.  One of my favorite professors in business school, the late Dean Kropp (and a great guy too), passionately shared the following mantra about operational strategy to me and his students: "What Gets Measured is What Gets Done."  Those words continue to have a lasting influence on me.

For Tina Brown, one of the reasons she measures and evaluates The Daily Beast's performance is because her primary investor, Barry Diller, wants to know how his investment is performing.  She didn't go into specific detail about how they measure ROI at The Daily Beast, but it's clear they're implementing metrics.  Here's what I took away from Tina Brown's keynote address regarding performance measurement.

Learning #1 Employ Metrics that Increase Your Organization's Competitive Advantage
J0400509[1] According to Tina Brown, The Daily Beast books ~59 television appearances per month for its contributing writers.  In addition, she estimates that ~30,000 blogs link to The Daily Beast per month!

It's very telling that Brown mentioned her love of working with talented writers. She remarked how so many people have so much to say, but they lack a credible and visible forum to voice their views.  There's no question Tina Brown wants The Daily Beast to become the writer-driven forum of choice.

My rationale for that opinion: The Daily Beast measures and promotes metrics showing why a talented writer professionally benefits from The Daily Beast's reach and exposure.  Tracking and espousing these outcomes gives The Daily Beast a competitive advantage in attracting outstanding writing talent.  If you're a writer searching for an influential and visible forum to expose your ideas/opinions, these metrics demonstrate why The Daily Beast is a compelling professional destination.

Learning #2 Evaluate How Specific Audiences Interact and Engage with Your Content
J0382632[1]It sounded like Tina Brown and The Daily Beast are trying to measure audience engagement via a process similar to BusinessWeek.com's current audience engagement initiative (i.e., ratio of writer output to reader input and segmented by topic, author, etc.).  If you'd like to learn more, here's a link to the August 2009 eConsultancy interview with John Byrne, Editor-in-Chief of BusinessWeek.com. 

Brown believes authentically engaged readers "participate in the day's conversation."  I agree because engaged Web 2.0 participants (or is that now Web 3.0) exhibit engagement through measurable social media behaviors. 

In my opinion, a back-of-the-envelope list of these measurable social media behaviors could include but are not limited to:

* Tweeting or retweeting specific article links on Twitter
* Writing blog posts inspired by a specific topic (like this one)
* Document content links in those blog posts (e.g., inbound links)
* Sharing content through social bookmarking sites like Delicious, Digg, and Stumble Upon
* Uploading and distributing the selected content via YouTube or Vimeo
* Sharing content and cataloging it in URL shortening services like bit.ly
* Posting discussion questions or opinions about the content in LinkedIn Discussion Forums (and the member comments these questions or opinions generate)