Executive Summary: How do you deal with a profusion of social media metrics which often have an unclear context? We need metrics with clear semantics. Some of these metrics may be custom created for a specific brand, consumer profile, activity and social media context. We could create two categories of metrics- generic, infrastructure metrics of the type that are commonly thrown about and need contextual understanding, and functional metrics that have clear semantics attached.
The Story So Far
We covered a need for strategic thought behind social media marketing investments below:http://randomjunkyramblings.blogspot.com/2009/07/to-strategize-or-not-to-strategize.html
The next step is to generate a picture or customer touchpoints/ interactions with the brand across various channels. Besides qualitative insights, you would like concrete measures that support these insights.
There are challenges in tying in consumer behavior in a "regular" distribution channel with that across social media channels. Leveraging your existing, real world consumer profiles in the social media world is a separate theme. Our focus in this post is to find ways to measure and track consumer behavior in the social media channels.
Challenges with Interactive Metrics Today
There are two challenges with social media metrics today:
1> A profusion of metrics.
2> A need to understand the context in which these metrics are being generated.
David Berkowitz has a great post here on the various metrics available to marketers today, and a proposed Cost Per Social Action (CPSA) metric:http://www.marketersstudio.com/2009/08/cpsa-cost-per-social-action-the-new-pricing-model-for-social-media.htmlThere are third party companies like Visible Measures doing interesting work as well.
As for context, a wise man once said, context is everything. Does a metric mean the same coming from a face to face interaction as opposed to one over twitter, or even one from a different social media platform?
A Potential Solution
Some new metrics are needed. However, they need to be functional in nature. By functional- I mean that the metrics need to carry a consistent meaning for brand marketers. CPM clicks could be meaningless in some contexts. You might argue that this is true of all metrics. True. Hence the need for metrics with specific meaning and context attached to them.
I am not saying this is the end of the existing metrics. We could have two classes of metrics- the infrastructure metrics and the functional metrics. All metrics have semantics, hence I am calling these new metrics "functional" metrics, instead of calling them semantic metrics.
Future Shock
There lies the key. While generic, industry standard metrics are important, there is a huge *future* potential for metrics customized to the brand. These will hinge on the data collection capabilities of social media platforms, and their ability to share it in a cheap, safe, anonymized manner with third parties for further analysis. Additional factors that come into play- quality of data, privacy concerns and analytics capabilities.
What Can We Do Now?
While it is great to theorize about the future, there is opportunity today to develop measures that make sense for a specific brand, consumer profile, activity and social media context.
You are welcome to contact me for a conversation on these.
Update 1 (Thanks to David's followup): Functional Metrics Example
Craig has a great illustration of my distinction between infrastructure and functional metrics here:
http://www.funnelholic.com/2009/03/12/memo-to-the-cfo-3-lead-generation-metrics-that-matter/
Cost Per Lead (CPL) could be called an "infrastructure" metric, as opposed to Cost Per Opportunity (CPO) which could be called a "functional" metric. CPO is tied to the lead and pipeline generation funnel, and not to the various tools and mechanics that cause CPL number variation. CPL feeds into CPO generation.
Update 2: Caveats and Another Functional Metrics Example
The challenges the metrics are expected to address:
1. In metrics, we often miss the forest for the trees. As I have mentioned before- Marketing is following Social Media.
2. Given the context of the million dollar Superbowl ads, we need to build the kind of "bridges" in social media that already exist in traditional media and which allow traditional media to justify its spend to some extent. That's a separate problem.
So taking the sales theme further (you can see I am trying to leverage my B2B sales/ account management experience) here's what I would call an infrastructure metric derived out of a sales force effectiveness ratio: social media effectiveness ratio = social media "wins"/ customer "contacts".
Now, you might call sales force effectiveness metric a functional metric that has been translated into an infrastructure metric. True, wins and contacts are tied to the platform. We then build a cross platform metric that takes this data and spits out the "functional metric" results.
The Four Philips brand equity measures- Uniqueness, Relevance, Attractiveness and Credibility- are a tougher portability nut to crack. However, a quick metric that is "translatable" that would be familiar to brand and category managers- ACV.
What do you think?
Additional Background
A backgrounder to help you develop your own perspective on the ideas here:
http://randomjunkyramblings.blogspot.com/2009/06/brands-economics-blink-twitter-facebook.html
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Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts
Monday, August 10, 2009
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Sustaining a Brand Conversation: To Strategize, or not to Strategize, about Social Media? A Note to Brand Marketers
Why should you care about the Social Media industry beyond what you are doing in it? Why should you care about how it evolves?
You care about sustaining a Customer Centric Conversation with your customer. That's why.
You are already a step ahead of the competition if you are asking these questions.
Some might question why we need to think about market structures, channels, consumer behavior, and returns on investment in the Social Media industry. Fair enough. There is enough activity in the hyper-competitive Social Media market right now for folks to dive in and get a lot of the work done quickly in funky, interesting ways, while helping the market evolve as a byproduct. We could even discount research that discounts first mover advantage.
Recently, Facebook surged past MySpace in Monthly Unique Visitors. If that news made you wonder how you are impacted, or how your company's busy work in Social Media is impacted, you are asking the right questions.
If You want to sustain a conversation with your customer, without being distracted by the ebb and flow of the social media buzz around you, you know you want to tie in your social media tactics with strategic market insights.
Instead of steps that assist your journey toward an effective social media presence, your search leads you to information on how to get things done. Lets change that. Right here. Right now.
Here are four thought enablers that help you cut through the clutter to formulate a social media strategy.
The Interplay between Marketing and Social Media:
1. Marketing is currently following Social Media: What we define as conversational marketing right now, is just marketing catching up with social media. Social media can be abstracted as a process of developing new channels of communication. How you leverage these channels is driven by your brand. Marketing in these channels will mature when brands begin to consistently leverage the innovation in channels for improved resonance.
2. Marketing Future 2.0 goes beyond Web 2.0: Marketing has a few steps to take before it truly takes off, and leaves social media behind to become a platform. I will hold on my vision for marketing here.
3. The Social Media Industry is a Market: Social media will become a platform and will have a few dominant players like platform markets do. However, the innovation game is not over yet. While some players have taken an early lead and have shown the legs to innovate, social media tools have not reached a communication channel innovation plateau yet.
4. Value: Value, value, value! How do we justify social media spend to a corporate? How do we tie it into the brands, say, in terms of a Brand Equity Pyramid? This is the outcome of some ruminating on my previous blog here: http://randomjunkyramblings.blogspot.com/2009/06/brands-economics-blink-twitter-facebook.html
Needless to say, the note assumes that you already are pursuing social media opportunities for your brand. If you do not have your feet wet yet, you are welcome to read some of my previous posts below for some ideas- I would heartily welcome a conversation on those points of view.
http://randomjunkyramblings.blogspot.com/2009/06/economics-brands-blink-twitter-facebook.html
This loops us back to the next post that started this train of thought, proving that Execution -> Metrics -> Strategy are not linear, but form a circular reference, and spiral into greater maturity as the industry matures. Therein lies the risk and the reward.
While I am at it, here's a blatant plug: please feel free to contact me for more! You know how to find me.
Psst... Watch out for my Twitter game- BigBirdBots!
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Thursday, July 02, 2009
Consumer insights and Social Media trends... Updated: Preview Note to Brand Marketers
From the "Lies, damn lies and... statistics?" Dept. of Quibble-Over-Who-Said-What, The Mark Twain vs. Benjamin Disraeli desk.
At a wonderfully hosted interactive media event last evening, I sprung 2 stats at a social media strategist, while emphasizing the need to critically look at trends and consumer behavior. The bright strategist I was chatting with was aware of each of them, however, when we put them together and... here, I will let you decide:
1> Average number of Twitter followers: 126.
2> Over 30% of Twitter users tweet once, never to return.
On that note, let me splash some more statistics around this page for further insightful conversation with you: http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/06/new_twitter_research_men_follo.html
What do you think?
Update: I usually restrict my unrestrained editorializing to face to face conversation. However, thanks to a twitter (Thanks D.B.) note, I will let loose a little. :-D
From the Dept. of Stick-Yer-Neck-Out-And-Live-To-Tell, the Die-Hard-With-A-Clue desk.
Why should you really care about the Social Media industry beyond what you are doing in it? Why should you care about how it is evolving?
The statistics below kicked off an interesting conversation with a social media strategist. The math jumps at you. The average number of twitter followers could be skewed by the 30% who never return, and the Twitter BigBirds TM (Sidebar: CNN and Ashton Kutcher are Twitter BigBirds; No disrespect to Tweet TM). Our conversation converged on the fact that business acumen remains key to success here.
The theme of this conversation dovetailed with the theme of another with Susan Lewis who is at work finding sponsors for her Twitter game. The fundamental question here is: How do we help a corporate entity justify its spend in social media, beyond harking to the old Internet boom eyeball metrics?
Finally, is it just about measurement? What are we looking to achieve with the measurements? Stepping back from the metrics, how should brand marketers be thinking about their social media presence?
More on this in part Duh:
http://randomjunkyramblings.blogspot.com/2009/07/to-strategize-or-not-to-strategize.html
At a wonderfully hosted interactive media event last evening, I sprung 2 stats at a social media strategist, while emphasizing the need to critically look at trends and consumer behavior. The bright strategist I was chatting with was aware of each of them, however, when we put them together and... here, I will let you decide:
1> Average number of Twitter followers: 126.
2> Over 30% of Twitter users tweet once, never to return.
On that note, let me splash some more statistics around this page for further insightful conversation with you: http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/06/new_twitter_research_men_follo.html
What do you think?
Update: I usually restrict my unrestrained editorializing to face to face conversation. However, thanks to a twitter (Thanks D.B.) note, I will let loose a little. :-D
From the Dept. of Stick-Yer-Neck-Out-And-Live-To-Tell, the Die-Hard-With-A-Clue desk.
Why should you really care about the Social Media industry beyond what you are doing in it? Why should you care about how it is evolving?
The statistics below kicked off an interesting conversation with a social media strategist. The math jumps at you. The average number of twitter followers could be skewed by the 30% who never return, and the Twitter BigBirds TM (Sidebar: CNN and Ashton Kutcher are Twitter BigBirds; No disrespect to Tweet TM). Our conversation converged on the fact that business acumen remains key to success here.
The theme of this conversation dovetailed with the theme of another with Susan Lewis who is at work finding sponsors for her Twitter game. The fundamental question here is: How do we help a corporate entity justify its spend in social media, beyond harking to the old Internet boom eyeball metrics?
Finally, is it just about measurement? What are we looking to achieve with the measurements? Stepping back from the metrics, how should brand marketers be thinking about their social media presence?
More on this in part Duh:
http://randomjunkyramblings.blogspot.com/2009/07/to-strategize-or-not-to-strategize.html
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Brands, Economics, Blink, Twitter & Facebook: Part II
Almost titled Part II: Economics, Brands, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, and Social Networking- Twitter & Facebook. Brevity is the soul of the blog... oops.
Part I of this Post:
Thanks to Twitter, I was reminded of an article on “Predictably Irrational” behavior:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19231906
Some more background can be found in my Part I post here:
http://randomjunkyramblings.blogspot.com/2009/06/economics-brands-blink-twitter-facebook.html
Marketing and Behavioral Economics.
The day care center experiment on the effects of social and market norms colliding provides interesting results. More importantly, it can serve as an interesting starting point for marketers to think about how to participate in conversations with their customers on social media sites.
Looking at the social media marketing vehicle as a "participant" on the social marketplace, it may help illuminate patterns that help the marketing vehicle navigate uncharted 'mindfields' with their experiential partners (read customers).
While this perspective should not be news to skilled brand managers, the key here would be developing patterns and tools that help brand managers make more effective decisions.
These theories could be used to:
1. Create markets with specific incentives (watch out for unintended consequences),
2. Make decisions that drive the market entity's/ brand vehicle's behavior within a marketplace, and,
3. Leverage various market players' behavior in a marketplace to your market entity's/ brand vehicle's advantage.
Points 2 & 3 can be interpreted as old school, carpet bombing, bulk-broadcast-media-buying strategy & social network or conversational marketing respectively.
Social Media and Behavioral Economics.
A potential application- could it help a brand decide which social media site to develop its presence on, especially if the brand could utilize all 3 approaches to negotiate? There are social marketers that would recommend using the third approach listed above as it is more "authentic". This seems to have become the prevailing thought in the B2C arena.
Where does Microsoft's strategic investment in Facebook, more a B2B deal that has B2C impact, fit across the 3 approaches listed above?
What do you think?
Update: To be even more explicit in my messaging:
1> Everything Must Go!?
As a marketer looking at the channels to reach out to your customer, you may need to understand how to leverage the new channels that have sprung up where your customer is not a "couch potato". As you learn more about the new channels and more about your customer, you will find new ways to apply your experience, knowledge and acumen in the new channels. You do not necessarily have to toss everything out of the window. :-)
2> Marketing Future 2.0
Marketing Future 2.0 arrives in baby steps- while there is an advantage to be being ahead of the learning curve, your best friend is still your ability to distill it into impact on consumer buying.
Now, what do you think?
Part I of this Post:
Thanks to Twitter, I was reminded of an article on “Predictably Irrational” behavior:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19231906
Some more background can be found in my Part I post here:
http://randomjunkyramblings.blogspot.com/2009/06/economics-brands-blink-twitter-facebook.html
Marketing and Behavioral Economics.
The day care center experiment on the effects of social and market norms colliding provides interesting results. More importantly, it can serve as an interesting starting point for marketers to think about how to participate in conversations with their customers on social media sites.
Looking at the social media marketing vehicle as a "participant" on the social marketplace, it may help illuminate patterns that help the marketing vehicle navigate uncharted 'mindfields' with their experiential partners (read customers).
While this perspective should not be news to skilled brand managers, the key here would be developing patterns and tools that help brand managers make more effective decisions.
These theories could be used to:
1. Create markets with specific incentives (watch out for unintended consequences),
2. Make decisions that drive the market entity's/ brand vehicle's behavior within a marketplace, and,
3. Leverage various market players' behavior in a marketplace to your market entity's/ brand vehicle's advantage.
Points 2 & 3 can be interpreted as old school, carpet bombing, bulk-broadcast-media-buying strategy & social network or conversational marketing respectively.
Social Media and Behavioral Economics.
A potential application- could it help a brand decide which social media site to develop its presence on, especially if the brand could utilize all 3 approaches to negotiate? There are social marketers that would recommend using the third approach listed above as it is more "authentic". This seems to have become the prevailing thought in the B2C arena.
Where does Microsoft's strategic investment in Facebook, more a B2B deal that has B2C impact, fit across the 3 approaches listed above?
What do you think?
Update: To be even more explicit in my messaging:
1> Everything Must Go!?
As a marketer looking at the channels to reach out to your customer, you may need to understand how to leverage the new channels that have sprung up where your customer is not a "couch potato". As you learn more about the new channels and more about your customer, you will find new ways to apply your experience, knowledge and acumen in the new channels. You do not necessarily have to toss everything out of the window. :-)
2> Marketing Future 2.0
Marketing Future 2.0 arrives in baby steps- while there is an advantage to be being ahead of the learning curve, your best friend is still your ability to distill it into impact on consumer buying.
Now, what do you think?
Economics, Brands, Blink, Twitter & Facebook: Part I
Almost titled Part I: Economics, Brands, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, and Social Networking- Twitter & Facebook.... As if that wasn't enough, did I mention Physics? I will, however, refrain from mentioning Star Trek... oops.
Some thoughts on Bob Pittman's perspective of the money making potential of the internet in this post, to give you some background:
http://randomjunkyramblings.blogspot.com/2009/02/consumer-behavior-and-robert-pittman-on.html
Behavioral Economics: Isn't that an oxymoron?
Have you read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell? There is an economics' field that seems to agree with Gladwell that human beings are not all rational masters of their emotions.
Behavioral Economics around us.
Thanks to Twitter (Paula Drum RT), I came across an article talking about behavioral economics:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104803094
Most of us have helped implement a behavioral economics based solution to the pension enrollment challenge: If you want people to enroll in the pension plan, then automatically enroll them — and let them opt out if they want to.
The article also covers an example of how government intervened to incentivize teens against getting pregnant. Predictably, this will get you thinking about how this theme ties in with prevailing thoughts on financial market regulation. The article cautions that the government could itself become an "imperfect decision maker" as a market participant.
The physicists amongst us must be wondering whether economics and psychology got together to give birth to either the observer effect or the uncertainty principle.
Behavioral Economics and Game Theory.
The article got me thinking about the interplay between behavioral economics and game theory. How would an approach to less-than-fully-rational-decision-making impact game theory cases like prisoners dilemma where rational decision making leads to "seemingly sub optimal" outcomes?
I found a paper that talks about behavioral game theory:
http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/hoteck/PAPERS/BGT.pdf
The tweet also reminded me of another article on "Predictably Irrational" behavior:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19231906
Now, what has all of this got to do with Marketing, Tweeting and Authentic Branding?
What do you think?
Some thoughts on Bob Pittman's perspective of the money making potential of the internet in this post, to give you some background:
http://randomjunkyramblings.blogspot.com/2009/02/consumer-behavior-and-robert-pittman-on.html
Behavioral Economics: Isn't that an oxymoron?
Have you read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell? There is an economics' field that seems to agree with Gladwell that human beings are not all rational masters of their emotions.
Behavioral Economics around us.
Thanks to Twitter (Paula Drum RT), I came across an article talking about behavioral economics:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104803094
Most of us have helped implement a behavioral economics based solution to the pension enrollment challenge: If you want people to enroll in the pension plan, then automatically enroll them — and let them opt out if they want to.
The article also covers an example of how government intervened to incentivize teens against getting pregnant. Predictably, this will get you thinking about how this theme ties in with prevailing thoughts on financial market regulation. The article cautions that the government could itself become an "imperfect decision maker" as a market participant.
The physicists amongst us must be wondering whether economics and psychology got together to give birth to either the observer effect or the uncertainty principle.
Behavioral Economics and Game Theory.
The article got me thinking about the interplay between behavioral economics and game theory. How would an approach to less-than-fully-rational-decision-making impact game theory cases like prisoners dilemma where rational decision making leads to "seemingly sub optimal" outcomes?
I found a paper that talks about behavioral game theory:
http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/hoteck/PAPERS/BGT.pdf
The tweet also reminded me of another article on "Predictably Irrational" behavior:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19231906
Now, what has all of this got to do with Marketing, Tweeting and Authentic Branding?
What do you think?
Part II of this post can be found here:
http://randomjunkyramblings.blogspot.com/2009/06/brands-economics-blink-twitter-facebook.html
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