Metrics for Social Media

Marketers are in two camps when it comes to social media: those who believe social media is THE answer and tweet about everything and anything, and those that believe FaceBook and Twitter will soon join other irrelevant fads. Time will tell.

I happen to believe in social media. But that's not the point of the article. It's the age-old problem in marketing: how do we decide the level of investment to devote to social media and how do we determine if that investment is worthwhile?

I believe it's the message, not as much as the following. The message will get you the following. For example, the blogger down the street providing relevant information to his target audience is more likely to influence behavior with his 100 readers versus Ashton Kutcher with his million Twitter followers.

Let's look at traditional media. There we have been able to determine what matters: the credibility of the source, audience reach, and opinion leadership that can be quantified with useful metrics that ultimately allow us to make educated investment decisions about advertising and PR programs.

Most of the commonly used metrics for social media are: unique visitors, members, posts, pageviews, number of groups, comments & trackbacks, time spent on site, contributors, completed profiles, connections between members...you get my drift. These are a victory in themselves.

However, while we can measure the ability of sites like the Huffington Post to reach and influence an audience, it's nearly impossible to measure the reach or influence of blogs. The tools that allow us to become a citizen journalist through blog posts or Tweets fragments the communications streams to the point that we no longer have the ability to measure the impact of most bloggers.

Why I'm a social media believer: Through collective force, it can be a great influence. It's a great tool when you want a focus group. The value for me is using social media to help me understand the conversations and issues surrounding brands and topics.

For now, I suggest following three rules for social media:
1. Measure the value by the insights it provides, not the numbers it delivers (the medium may change, the message does not)
2. Just because digital media is easier to measure, don't confuse that with it being the end all be all.
3. Use social media as one component of your communications.

That's my two cents.

Brands & App Strategies

This September will mark two years into the age of the iPhone app. Doesn't it seem so much longer than that? I want to share some lessons I've learned in the process:

1. People will pay for value. Examples are my personal favorite, the $9.99 Pantone app along with national examples like the $9.99 MLB At Bat app and Kraft's $.99 cent app. Zagat's iPhone app is the 77th top-growing app in the Apps Store out of 58,000.

2. Apps must be real-time. Don't make an app that is your website--people's expectations with apps are much higher than that.

3. Figuring out the price. That's the million dollar question isn't it? Just remember, it's easier to drop the price than to increase it.

4. Don't be scared of feedback. People will point out flaws in your app on the web. That feedback is a free focus group people! Adjust your app accordingly and send through an update. Consumers want to know people are listening to them and you will earn their respect by listening.

5. Free apps do work. If you have a product or service, a free app is a great tool to drive sales. An example is Benjamin Moore's Ben Color Capture app, built to build brand awareness for its subbrand Ben, as well as drive traffic to stores. The app lets users snap a photo of something in the world that matches colors in the photo to pain shades in the brand's library. That often leads to paint purchases, and the app uses GPS to direct users to their nearest retailer. Genius!

6. Apps shouldn't be one-off projects--they should be part of integrated campaigns.

7. Engagement is better than downloads. You should be happier to have 100 engaged consumers than 1000 downloads.

8. Guerilla marketing is key: people find apps through other people. Get into the blogs, the forums and inexpensively market your app.

Digital Marketing Thoughts

While using new technology in itself will not bring success -- it's still about the content being creative and engaging -- there are some new trends I've been mulling over.

I have loved the use of viral videos when done the right way. What I'm excited about are viral video analytics becoming more sophisticated. YouTube is expanding its video analytics offerings, and small companies are jumping on board to provide comprehensive viral monitoring services across multiple online video platforms. So what I'm thinking about investing in is this: viral seeding strategies. Promoting videos via online influencers, Facebook video-sharing apps and targeted paid placements. And now I can develop and select ads with the most viral video potential before investing.

Still am not sure about mobile advertising vs online advertising. It's still a new medium and there remains consumer resistance (myself as an example) to mobile advertising.

Am investigating an interesting service called FourSquare--a mobile game that allows users to broadcast their location to a network of friends and other users in their cities. It allows marketers to tap into an engaged network of users, whether offering special promotions, etc all based on reported location. Am keeping an eye on this as I expect this to grow.

Would love your opinions on any of these topics!

Advertising Insights for 2010

I know I'm late in wrapping up 2009, but am reading Advertising Age, and column by Dana Severson and I wanted to share his/my thoughts with you. I will only mention the points I agree with though (or else why share? ;)



1. Print media is not dead. Don't even think about the research, think about your favorite magazine and how it inspires you in your everyday life. Magazines are closing their doors because advertisers are spending less. It's not because we stopped reading them. That's what makes it sad. Domino magazine: Come Back!



That being said, don't eliminate print from your advertising plans--just invest more in one magazine. Instead of doing small ad sizes in bunch, invest in the one that hits your target audience the best and go all out with a full page. It has been working for me: rates are cheaper, there's less competition for the reader's attention and your ROI will be much greater.



2. Social networking only works if you commit to it. Unless you are conversing with your audience, there's not point to use Facebook or Twitter. It's better to have none at all then have one sitting there with something you posted 6 months ago.



3. Your online banner ad still generates interest--the measurement of success from your efforts will show in sales numbers and can be totally unrelated to the number of clicks. The presence is still worth something. Ad networks have us all thinking that the only value in online ads is conversions. It's not true.



That's all for today folks. Thanks.