Friday Addition: 55 Facebook Fans Can’t be Wrong

Posted in Strategy and Analysis by Matt Carter on February 24th, 2010

 

Terametric has 55 Facebook fans and we’re damn glad to have them. I know what you’re thinking. 55 fans? Really? Just 55? Doesn’t that “I hate ‘Battery Low’” fan page have more than 2.2 million fans?

It’s true, just 55. Believe it or not, it was much worse three short weeks ago. On February 3rd, our fan count stood at four. 1,2,3,4. In fact, the count on February 3rd was identical to our fan count at the end of the page’s first day of existence (October 1st).

Four months with four fans. Let’s take a moment to thank our first four stalwart fans for sticking with us and really believing. Oh wait, I was actually one of the first four. I guess that means we had three fans.

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Ever the bandwagoneer, Wendy Troupe, our founder, only recently became a fan. I guess she was busy. (Just kidding about that bandwagoneer thing, we’re glad to have you aboard, too)

What, you ask, catapulted our fan page into this meteoric rise in popularity? How did we manage to saddle the lightning of public popularity?

It was simple really.

On February 5th Facebook began to roll-out its long-heralded design and features updates. One particular feature update caught our interest immediately:

Facebook has also streamlined the Live Feed and News Feed sections, which enabled users to see what their friends were doing at the moment. Both have been integrated into a single News Feed, with a “Most Recent” tab for live updates, and other highlights filed under the “Top News” tab.

A single news feed? And guess what? The algorithm that determines what gets featured in that single news feed favors images, links and video. That’s right, multimedia updates are given priority and are more likely to appear in a person’s streamlined, new news feed.

Leveraging this, we changed the nature of what we offered to our fans (all three of them) to better match how facebook would actually serve up our fans’ news feeds. Rather than just another link to our latest posting (though those are in there too), we started featuring images and video on our page. Not just any images or video though. We mostly limited our content to those juicy infographics that you stumble across on the web and instantly realize that they perfectly encapsulate and support a case you’ve been struggling to make. You know the infographics I’m talking about — the kind that surreptitiously end up in your next powerpoint and make your boss marvel at your diligent research skills.

And the rest is history. We optimized our content to leverage the algorithm and have been climbing the modest pop charts ever since.

And now for some shameless self-promotion: Visit our infographic-laden Facebook page and throw a fan our way if you like what you see. Who knows, the next infographic we find and post might just be the exact information you need to sell that next Social Media initiative internally.

Photo by Jewe

Tags: Customers, Engagement, Sentiment Analysis, Social Media, Social Media Measurement, Social Media Strategy
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The World’s Largest Source of Target Data

Posted in Strategy and Analysis by Matt Carter on February 21st, 2010

 

Wendy Troupe and I were speaking to Nathan Gilliatt this morning about the nature of analysis, measurement and social media. The conversation ranged across a variety of topics: from his recent and very successful AnalyticsCamp in Chapel Hill to the occurrence measurement silos (we all agreed, by the way, that measurement silos stink and rob you of true cross-channel, big-picture insight). During that conversation, Nathan said something that stopped the coffee cup halfway to my lips. It was eloquent, simple and yet, profound:

“[If you set aside the corporate desire for engagement], Social Media becomes a set of really powerful, publicly-available, data points.” (paraphrasing, Nathan said it much better)

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Social Media is an almost limitless source of data about the habits, lifestyles, opinions, relationships and behaviors of an incredibly diverse pool of people. According to a post by Brian Solis, covering the latest Neilsen report, that pool is growing at an amazing rate:

Global Visitors to Social Networking Sites

More than 100 million people have swelled the ranks of social media visitors in just two short years. Today, the total pool of individuals stands at more than 300 million strong, roughly the equivalent of every man, woman and child in the United States. It should be noted, however, that less than half of the social media citizens (142,052,000) are actually from the United States.

Not only does Social Media provide detailed data on an incredibly diverse group of people, it may also eliminate what Quantum Theorists like to call, “observation contamination”:

“One of the most bizarre premises of quantum theory, which has long fascinated philosophers and physicists alike, states that by the very act of watching, the observer affects the observed reality.”

In a recent post, we explored this tenet of Quantum Theory and applied it to the Social Media space:

“This premise has long cast a tiny shadow of invalidating doubt on all manner of research. Primary marketing research like focus groups, usability testing, interviews and even surveys are no exception. The simple act of observing an action or response can to some degree skew that action or response.

Yet, today, an array of Social Media tools provides marketers and brand managers with an unprecedented way to access the actions and conversations of a particular group in such a way that the group isn’t cognizant of the observation.”

Couple this amazing pool of data with the elimination of “observation contamination” and those companies with the right analysis tools have an opportunity to learn about their targets in unprecedented ways.

In yesterday’s #SocialMedia Chat, Ken Burbary discussed how Social Media is changing the nature of target segmentation. Ken did a great job of providing an interesting framework and guiding the discussion when needed. Participants all agreed that Social Media doesn’t just change the nature of target segmentation, it forces it and our notions of what’s knowable to evolve.

Our understanding of the target is no longer limited to static demographic, psychographic and geographic data. We can now study their interactions, relationships, use of platforms, personalities, preferences, habits and behaviors in real time. We can literally watch them unfold before our very eyes.

If your company isn’t leveraging the power of social media to study the target, you can bet your competitors are. Social Media analysis should be a part of the customer study in every strategic marketing plan. If your company is like many, you may need to shift dollars from another marketing program to fund social media’s inclusion. If so, maybe it should come from your marketing research budget?

Tags: marketing channel, ROI, Social Media Analytics, Social Media Measurement, Social Media ROI, Social Media Strategy, Social Media Tools
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Are You Blindly Optimizing Your Marketing?

Posted in Social Media ROI by Matt Carter on February 15th, 2010

 

You can’t measure what you can’t see. If your tools are limited to measuring volume of mention, share of conversation, +/- sentiment, degree of influence, etc there may be a lot you’re not seeing. In fact, if your current analytics tools aren’t measuring the effect that your social media initiatives have on other communications channels, then you may be attempting marketing optimization while blindfolded.

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Many of today’s leading social media monitoring and analysis tools are fantastic at providing a cornucopia of social media metrics coupled with exciting data visualizations. They slice and dice social media issue trends, the strength of your brand’s influencers and the power of your brand’s voice across social networks. Some even quantify the reception your multi-channel messaging efforts receive in the social media space.

Yet, how valuable is that insight in relation to your total, multi-channel marketing efforts? Aren’t those metrics really just a single step up in complexity and sophistication from tracking the number of friends, fans and followers?

Brian Solis, in his Social Marketing in Twenty Ten, posts states:

“Measuring sentiment analysis, would-be referrals, and increases in share of voice are entry-level techniques that do not necessarily capture the potential of socialized media channels.”

As organizations begin to harness the true power of social media and strategically incorporate it into the wider marketing plan, it becomes increasingly important to understand and quantify its effects on existing channels and vice versa. Only through understanding the performance relationships between all channels can today’s marketer truly optimize.

Terametric’s measurement and scoring methodology studies the performance of each channel at a molecular level, breaking it down and analyzing its inbound and outbound attributes. As initiatives are deployed in one channel, it begins to affect the performance of inbound and outbound attributes (measured through multiple data points) in other channels. The scores of those other channels automatically adjust in response to their own performance fluctuations, giving marketers an accurate gauge of channel performance correlation.

A note on our scoring methodology from our What the #$%&@ is a Social Intelligence Engine posting:

Many scores can be absolutely meaningless when taken in isolation. Who’s to say that a score of 46 is better than a grade of E? The true value of our social intelligence engine’s scoring methodology is derived from studying the delta or degree of change over time and having sufficient data to correlate that change to specific events, initiatives, campaigns or efforts. True score validity comes from studying and scoring a company and its competitive set to establish a benchmark and then re-scoring periodically to reveal performance fluctuations.

This cursory glance at Terametric’s methodology may create more questions than answers. If so, let us know where you’d like more clarification. We’ll either reach out to you individually or if enough people respond with similar questions, we’ll develop a follow-up posting to address them.

Photo from Molly Orangette

Tags: marketing channel, Social Intelligence Engine, Social Media, Social Media Analytics, Social Media Measurement, Social Media ROI, Social Media Strategy
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The Sociology Behind Social Networking is Stalking

Posted in Wendy Troupe's Perspectives by Wendy Troupe on February 7th, 2010

 

Last Wednesday night at a fireside chat at the Vilna Shul, I had the pleasure of listening to Misiek Piskorski talk about his research of social networking behavior. Misiek is an Associate Professor of Strategy at Harvard Business School where he teaches a second-year elective entitled “Competing with Social Networks”. Misiek has been studying users interact in Facebook to identify their motivations and habits and he had some interesting observations – most notably, that 78% of users are active “stalkers”. That’s right – most of us are just interested in looking at other people’s profiles, pictures, relationship status and conversations rather than producing our own content.

Overall, the main objective for users in social networks is to build relationships. But more broadly speaking, Misiek covered the motivations of users, how businesses can leverage this activity in their strategy development, and what in the way of technology is here and coming to help us in these interactions.

MOTIVATIONS

Misiek’s data sampling included more than 350,000 Facebook users over a couple of years and the results are amazing but not surprising. The most active of the stalkers are men, in relationships and they spend most of their time looking at other women. This supports the theory that if you are building a social network, design it for women and the men will come, too. The sociology behind this behavior is that social networks become a tool that we use to do things that are hard to do in the real world.

For an example, LinkedIn is a tool that allows us to actively look for a job and network without openly pursuing it. For stay-at-home moms who are socially isolated, social networks are a way to meet others and provide a nurturing support system. So it begs the question, are social networks making it harder to form relationships that are meaningful or are they further isolating us so that we are spending more time behind the computer and less time interacting face-to-face? Personally, I find them an essential tool to reach out more easily with people with the ultimate goal of meeting face-to-face. Social networks are an essential enabling force to meet people and a tool that reinforces the relationships both with in-person meetings and online.

STRATEGY & TECHNOLOGY

Misiek contends that any business that thinks it can plaster an ad in a social network and get a response is going to fail miserably. He likened it to a salesperson sitting down at the dinner table with you and your closest friends and family and without an introduction, trying to sell you something. It’s about building relationships first. Start out with some small talk and connect with who you’re talking with (engage) and then offer them something that improves their relationships and their ability to connect with friends more easily.

Businesses should also consider their over arching business objectives when developing a social media strategy. Is it to reduce your servicing and advertising costs, customer acquisition, etc.? The answer to this question should provide insight into choosing the type of interaction and the technology that will drive the interaction. Misiek gave an example of how Expedia uses Facebook Connect to allow a customer who books a trip, notify his or her Facebook friends to see if anyone wants to travel with them and/or may be at the destination and wants to meet up with them. Expedia can also provide status updates and requests for friends and family if plans change.

Leveraging this technology to expand their customer base through services and special offers will allow their customers to enhance their relationships as well as build their own loyal customer following.

Overall, it was an interesting discussion about the fundamental changes that businesses face using social media and a total “about face” when it comes to using social media to market products and services. Ultimately, companies who can begin to change their business models and use technology to improve the customer interaction can easily sell to others in the social graph.

Tags: General
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5 Ways Social Media Strengthens Marketing Planning

Posted in Strategy and Analysis by Matt Carter on February 5th, 2010

 

As companies move from tactical experimentation to the strategic integration of social media in 2010, it’s important to update the familiar marketing framework to include social media and ensure that its capabilities are being leveraged to their fullest extent at each stage of the strategic marketing planning and execution process. Every strategic marketing plan starts with a form of Situation Analysis. It’s the foundation upon which a company’s marketing goals, objectives, strategies and tactics are built. Whether a company employs the 3 C’s, 5C’s, SWOT Analysis, or some platypus-like hybrid, each method organizes all of the relevant information needed to create a successful marketing plan. What follows is a potential situation analysis framework, strengthened by social media capabilities.

The 5 Components of a Socially-Activated Situation Analysis

CLASS

Traditionally, this “C” of the “5C’s” refers to “company”. We’re adjusting the title to increase its flexibility and relevance to various organizational subdivisions. A company that is truly embracing Social Media will become a flatter organization by necessity, distributing autonomy and authority to a wider group of people. This section of the Situation Analysis should fully define the internal characteristics of the entity (brand, business unit, product category, individual product) that will impact and be impacted by the marketing plan.

Historically, this section was limited to an often dated understanding of organizational structure, approval processes, stakeholder input schedules, sales/life cycle data, pricing information, budget parameters, etc. Today, however, an Enterprise 2.0 organization would have access to real-time data sets that more accurately reflect the day-to-day realities of the internal organization and it’s collaborative structure.

COLLABORATORS

This section details the external partnerships that help bring the “Class” to market. Previously, this section covered suppliers, distribution channel members, cross-promotional partnerships, etc. The ability to monitor, measure and analyze social media interactions has formalized two, very new groups of Collaborators:

• The Influencer
• The Affiliate Marketer

Brands can not only identify and monitor those who seem to hold sway over segments of their target, they can also dissect the factors that contribute to that “sway” and measure the strength of each Influencer’s “sway” to an unprecedented degree. With such data at a marketing strategist’s fingertips, the Situation Analysis can now include detailed profiles of these individuals, and categorize them according to a desired action:

• Empower
• Monitor
• Counteract

CUSTOMERS

One of the most important sections of any Situation Analysis, this section includes everything a company knows about the people that experience its brand and buy its products. The data that informs this section used to be confined to periodic marketing research studies that, through static data, sought to categorize and define the target’s relationship with the category, brand and/or product.

Through focus groups, surveys, purchase behaviors, etc. marketers tried to delve deep inside the mind’s of their target to bring insight to the surface. This is where the true power of social media shines. Static studies are limited to a specific period of time, certain artificial parameters, simulated scenarios and the pitfalls observation-twisted results.

The studied application of advanced social media monitoring, measurement and analysis tools can access the thoughts, motivations, communications and sentiments of customers in a natural, real-time social environment – negating the skewing effects of observation. The collection of such detailed data over time can often yield nuanced trends that more formal research fails to uncover.

Static market research (surveys, focus groups, A/B testing) all have their place in the Situation Analysis. Social Media can augment these studies with even richer data or even replace some of the more costly and complex research projects – one of the many avenues to demonstrating social media ROI.

CURRENT PERFORMANCE

Typically, a Situation Analysis will follow “customers” with “competitors”. In this adjusted framework, we move “competitors” down a rung and place performance benchmarking immediately after “customers”. As the Greek philosophers say, you must first “know thyself”. It is essential for companies to carefully benchmark their communications performance in relation to their targets.

A certain, emerging class of social media analysis tools, called Social Intelligence Engines, make it possible to study and quantify a company’s inbound and outbound marketing performance across all communications channels. While monitoring tools like Radian6, Scoutlabs and Techrigy’s SM2 can be great for getting a general sense of conversational themes and a broad sense of segment sentiment, it is important to formally quantify the company’s performance in each communications channel and as a whole. This allows a company fully understand the relationship between marketing effort and return as they deploy the strategic plan.

The more detailed the benchmark analysis, the better!

COMPETITORS

Historically, this section was limited to your competitor’s brand and product data (price, positioning, value proposition, etc), marketing spend data and their market share. Depending on the sophistication of the social media tool deployed, a company can now quickly aggregate publicly available data, measure and analyze it to create a situation analysis for each competitor as robust as the company’s own.

Many widely available tools make it possible to study the sentiment surrounding the competition and the product, track conversation themes and trends, identify influencers, monitor share of voice, etc.

A Social Intelligence Engine, however, allows a company to not only benchmark their own performance but, also quantify the competition’s performance across each communication channel and, most importantly, develop an understanding of how the competition’s performance affects the company’s own.

The standard Situation Analysis generally includes a separate section for “Climate” or “Environment” that describes the external, market factors that affect performance. With a socially-activated Situation Analysis, that information is integrated into each and every section to more accurately reflect the real-world’s impact on the strategic plan.

The importance of a detailed benchmark analysis can’t be overstated. An ongoing understanding of performance fluctuations as strategies and tactics are deployed is equally essential. By quantifying the effect of each tactic deployed, marketing planners have the ability to optimize their plans in real-time, ensuring greater success in the real world.

How have you integrated the capabilities of social media into your marketing strategy? Is it limited to outreach or are you leveraging it to inform the foundation of your strategies?

Photo by Scootzsx

Tags: marketing channel, Social Media Analytics, Social Media Strategy
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