Are you Cooking the Social Media Books?

Posted in Optimizer for Twitter, Social Media Analytics, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Metrics, Twitter ROI by Kim Cole on June 28th, 2011

 

I read a great post today on socialnetconomy that talked about measuring social media ROI.   This topic is near and dear to us at Terametric.  This blog pointed out that increasing your Twitter Followers and Facebook Fans by purchasing them may boost your metrics today, but in the long run, you will dilute your true influence and damage your brand reputation.  The may be a quick way to “cook the Social Media Books” but what happens the next time you need to give a report to the CMO and your brand identity is suffering?

Personally, I don’t have many followers on Twitter yet, nor do I follow that many people.   But the followers I do have (and those that I follow) I have cultivated organically, and I know that the people are real, and are involved in social media.   My followers can count on me to deliver quality tweets revolving around social media measurement because that’s what Terametric is all about.  This is how you build your brand reputation and it takes time.  But it will pay dividends in the long run by ensuring that your voice can be trusted, and your community will be loyal.  And after all, that’s what we all strive for, loyal and happy customers.

You need to put in the time to develop relationships and develop a tangible and consistent brand that your community can rely on.  That way you will be able to trust the data that you gather when you’re calculating social media ROI.  You want to know what your customers are thinking or feeling about you, not random followers or fans.

I’d be interested in hearing how long it took you to build up your community to a “Critical mass” so leave us a comment below, and if you’d like to know more about, Optimizer for Twitter that will help you maximize your social media efforts by offering suggested followers and helping you focus you tweets based on real-time data click on the link.

Thanks for reading!

@KimberlyACole

Tags: ROI, Social Media Analytics, Social Media ROI, Twitter marketing ROI
Posted in Optimizer for Twitter, Social Media Analytics, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Metrics, Twitter ROI | View Comments

Reid Hoffman on Big Data, Social Networks and Web 3.0

Posted in Big Data, Social Intelligence, Social Media Analytics, Strategy and Analysis, Top Stories by Chris Selland on June 26th, 2011

 

There’s a terrific interview with LinkedIn and PayPal founder Reid Hoffman in this past week’s WSJ Magazine. He expands on the opportunity for what he calls ‘Web 3.0′ – which is the creation of new business models built on social data. A few key quotes:

I think data will be the driving force in Web 3.0. A whole host of companies will use data to build new businesses on. There are three kinds: explicit data, where you contribute your profile; implicit data, which is created by how you act online. And then there’s analytic data, which is information companies generate through an analysis of explicit and implicit data.

Data will be foundational in the next wave of mass applications that go to hundreds of millions of people.

We agree wholeheartedly, as the explosion of data on social networks have created new challenges but also massive opportunities for companies and their customers to interact and work together more successfully. It’s gratifying to see our ideas validated by one of the pre-eminent web visionaries, and truly exciting to have the opportunity to make that vision real for our customers.

Read the whole thing here.

Tags: Big Data, LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman
Posted in Big Data, Social Intelligence, Social Media Analytics, Strategy and Analysis, Top Stories | View Comments

Does Twitter Need Channels? Or Optimization?

Posted in Optimizer for Twitter, Twitter Chats by Chris Selland on June 24th, 2011

 

Interesting post on TwiTip today suggesting that Twitter needs ‘channels’ to help users screen out high-volume updates, particularly from activities such as Twitter chats.

Since we are doing our own series of Twitter chats starting next week (and since I just did another with Paul Gillin & IBM this past week) this topic particularly caught my eye.

I participate in a number of weekly TwitChats. These TwitChats are often very educational and can be a lot of fun; that is, for the participants. For everyone else, they can be a real hassle.

The problem is that while you’re having a heated debate about the merits of origami (no offense to origami fans), you’re going to have followers who couldn’t care less. Moreover, if you fire off fifty or sixty tweets during an hour long TwiChat, you can really flood some of your follower’s streams. I’ve had plenty of people unfollow me because of this and if you participate in TwitChats, I’m sure you have too.

While I understand and can appreciate the need to screen out uninteresting noise (and certainly know the volume of updates that a Twitter Chat can create) I’m not sure I agree that Twitter needs to build yet more functionality into the platform. In addition, since the primary purpose of a Twitter Chat is to provide focused, intensive information on a specific topic, to screen such information out of one’s stream could be potentially counterproductive.

Rather, I might propose that what is needed is optimization – of the type that our Optimizer for Twitter platform can provide. Optimizer for Twitter is designed to provide a user with only the Tweets that our analytics suggest might have value and be actionable, and to screen out less relevant updates.

Perhaps the answer is both – there is certainly potential utility in ‘Channels’ – but since they currently don’t exist (and may never) we would propose that if your organization is struggling with filtering the noise (and finding the ‘nuggets’) on Twitter, you sign up for a trial and give Optimizer for Twitter a try. We look forward to your feedback!

Tags: Channels, Optimization, TwiTip
Posted in Optimizer for Twitter, Twitter Chats | View Comments

Terametric Friday: Top Stories in Social Media ROI

Posted in Social Media Analytics, Social Media Marketing, Social Media ROI, Twitter Marketing by Kim Cole on June 24th, 2011

 

Welcome to Friday, June 24, 2011, edition of “Top Stories in Social Media ROI.”  This is Terametric’s series where we keep you updated on the critical evolution of marketing Return on Investment in the Social Media Channel.  Our top stories for today are all Social Media and Twitter:

 

Endless Conversations and the Future of Marketing

We have entered the age of Endless Conversations — thoughts, messages, links, photos, video, SMS — all carried along in the massive social river — to be discovered, shared, commented upon, curated, stored, analyzed, and more.

Wall Street Starts to Embrace Twitter

Last year the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority- FINRA, established rules for social media use, but Wall Street has been slow to let brokers participate.

Customer Service Complaints: Taking to Twitter

At BlogWorld Expo in New York last month, more than one panel discussed the phenomenon of people complaining publicly on Twitter and Facebook before even reaching out to customer service. Fact is, it’s easier. And, frankly, anyone who’s ever dealt with customer service for a large company probably thinks they’ll get a response faster that way than if they went through regular channels.

Does Social CRM Really Matter? A Quick Look at Yesterday’s IBM Infoboom Twitter Chat

The June 21, 2011 IMB Infoboom, featuring Chris Selland, our VP of Sales & Marketing here at Terametric, focused on the importance of Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM). The chat began by defining SCRM and differentiating it from traditional CRM, which is a term that has been around for many years. There is a lot of controversy over what exactly the topic of SCRM is comprised of.

Tags: Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Measurement, Twitter Marketing
Posted in Social Media Analytics, Social Media Marketing, Social Media ROI, Twitter Marketing | View Comments

Does Social CRM Really Matter? A Quick Look at Yesterday’s IBM Infoboom Twitter Chat

Posted in Social CRM, Social Media ROI, Twitter Marketing, Twitter ROI, Uncategorized by Kristen Johnson on June 22nd, 2011

 

The June 21, 2011 IMB Infoboom, featuring Chris Selland, our VP of Sales & Marketing here at Terametric, focused on the importance of Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM). The chat began by defining SCRM and differentiating it from traditional CRM, which is a term that has been around for many years. There is a lot of controversy over what exactly the topic of SCRM is comprised of.

SCRM is different because it includes an additional “social” component that deals with direct customer interactions involving details about their social circles to help provide further insights that yield additional business value. Chris defines Social CRM as simply, “the intersection of where your CRM strategy intersects with your Social strategy.”  It involves the ability to interact with your social customers to achieve success, which derives from the ability to “go where your customers are, [and] understand their needs.”

Chris shares his knowledge of best practices for success with SCRM. Here is a quick overview of some of the key points that were made:

• Go where your customers are, understand their needs.
• When it comes to achieving success, focus on metrics that are both customer-related and measurable, such as loyalty, profitability, retention and satisfaction.
• The integration of social technologies with your CRM platform and customer data is necessary.
• By focusing on these customer-related metrics, continued testing and measuring is imperative so that you can continue to enhance your social strategy over time.
• When it comes to “selling” a customer, listen and understand a customer’s problem, interact, and respond – that’s ’selling’ – and there’s no reason that shouldn’t be part of social strategy
• The “S” in SCRM will probably go away eventually and the ‘Social’ will become part of the core CRM because social is already simply part of the fabric for how we work with customers

…and that is just the beginning! If you missed the Twitter chat yesterday, don’t fret, you can get caught up on ALL the action by reviewing the full transcript here: Does Social CRM Really Matter?

If you enjoyed this chat, then please join us next Tuesday, June 28th at 1PM EST for our first very own #TwitterROI Twitter Chat featuring Kevin Palmer, Senior Director of Online Marketing for the Clymb. We will be focusing on the Drivers of Twitter ROI. RSVP today! We hope to see you there!!!

Tags: #TwitterROI, CRM, SCRM, twitter, Twitter Marketing
Posted in Social CRM, Social Media ROI, Twitter Marketing, Twitter ROI, Uncategorized | View Comments

Introducing #TwitterROI: Terametric’s Weekly Twitter Chats

Posted in Social Media ROI, Strategy and Analysis, Twitter Marketing, Twitter ROI, Uncategorized by Kristen Johnson on June 22nd, 2011

 

At Terametric, we’ve decided to launch a weekly Twitter Chat session focused around Marketing and Social Media ROI, with an emphasis on Twitter. We want to establish a place for weekly discussions among marketing and social media practitioners to exchange ideas, share methods and collectively develop best practices that quantify the impact of marketing and social media through ROI.

We will be kicking off our first #TwitterROI chat Tuesday, June 28, at 1PM EST! RSVP Today!

We will be featuring one of our beta customers, Kevin Palmer for the first chat! Kevin is an innovative and resourceful Social Media professional with over 5 years of intensive experience creating successful campaigns in multiple industries. A natural leader with a quantifiable track record for providing targeted, insightful, and catchy content that produces results from increased market share to enhanced revenue streams.

Kevin is currently the Senior Director of Online Marketing for the Clymb, a Portland based outdoor goods private sale network. For those who seek to live life outdoors, The Clymb inspires adventure by enabling access to exclusive pricing on premium brands and experiences hand-picked by our team of fellow enthusiasts and experts. An outdoor flash sale site the Clymb provides exclusive member pricing, from 40-70% off, on all your favorite brands like Arc’teryx, Keen, Mountain Hardwear, Merrell, and more.

What is a Twitter Chat?

For those of you new to Twitter Chats, they are pre-arranged chats through Twitter where users participate by using a predefined hashtag that serves as a way to connect the tweets together in a virtual conversation. To make things easier, we recommend you use TWebEvent to manage your #TwitterROI chat.  When users tweet from here, the hashtag is automatically added to the end of every tweet so other participants can follow along.

#TwitterROI Rules of Engagement:

Here we have a few ground rules to ensure each week we have smooth and productive chats…

1. For your first tweet, we ask that you tell us who you are and what you do and include #TwitterROI.
2. Retweet, and answer the questions: Q1, A1 for example.
3. Stay on topic and engage in a meaningful discussion!
4. Be yourself.
5. Please avoid self-promotion during chats.
6. Take personal responsibility on sharing. Use common sense and don’t say things that might hurt your business.
7. Be nice, but feel free to fully engage in debate!
8. And lastly, have fun, enjoy and we hope you take away some valuable insight each week!

Format:

Each week we will focus on the Drivers of Twitter ROI. We will use the discussion questions listed below to create a running dialogue. After that we’ll open it up for your questions and do our best to answer all we can! We will be featuring a special guest for every chat that will help lead the discussion and share how they have incorporated Twitter into their marketing strategy and what ways they have been able to gain value from Twitter.

Discussion Questions:

1. What do you measure? Where do you focus your measurements? What channels do you use and how do you keep tabs on how they are performing? How does Twitter differ from other channels?
2. With Twitter, how have you been able to monitor how you are performing compared to your competition? What metrics do you look at?
3. What have you found are the drivers of conversions and ROI?
4. Have you experimented with Twitter marketing to achieve better results? What have you learned? Best times of the day? Days of the week? Do different strategies work for different audiences? What are the key drivers of success based on your data?
5. What insights into your analytics provided you with the means to improve the effectiveness of your tweeting?
6. Now we open the floor to you! What questions do you have about the drivers of Twitter ROI? Do you have any topic ideas for next weeks #TwitterROI?

Please join us on June 28th, share your ideas, pose questions, and hopefully take away some valuable information!!

Posted in Social Media ROI, Strategy and Analysis, Twitter Marketing, Twitter ROI, Uncategorized | View Comments

Social Customer Relationship Management: Does It Really Matter?

Posted in Social CRM, Social Intelligence, Social Media Analytics, Social Media Marketing by Kim Cole on June 20th, 2011

 

Customer relationship management (CRM) is an important part of business in today’s social world.  Social CRM (SCRM for short) means going beyond the traditional tactics of tracking direct customer interactions to include details about a person’s social circle that may reveal insights that yield additional business value. By tapping into conversations, we learn more about customers, identify new prospects and anticipate market shifts before they hit us between the eyes. Social CRM also involves building rich relationships between businesses and their customers that transcend traditional marketing and support interactions.

SCRM is a controversial topic, however. Some people believe that it’s only traditional CRM in another skin. Others believe it’s a transcendent way to redefine the way companies do business.

Join IBM Info Boom for an interactive Twitter chat on the topic of Social CRM with our own expert, Chris Selland @cselland on Tuesday, June 21, 2011 from 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. EDT (6:00 – 7:00 p.m. GMT). Use Twitter hashtag #IBSCRM.

In this Twitter chat, the following issues will be discussed:

• How do you use Twitter (specifically) and social media generally for business benefit?
• Where do ’social’ and ‘CRM’ strategies and technologies come together? What are the integration points?
• How do you choosing among the many analytics/monitoring solution that claim to enable social CRM?
• How do you put social analytics into action?

Tags: Social CRM, Social Intelligence, Social Media Analytics, Twitter Marketing
Posted in Social CRM, Social Intelligence, Social Media Analytics, Social Media Marketing | View Comments

Social Marketing & Credibility

Posted in Social CRM, Social Media Analytics, Social Media ROI, Twitter Marketing, Twitter ROI by Chris Selland on June 18th, 2011

 

Some interesting survey results were just published in this week’s Marketing Week:

• Three-quarters (73%) of CEOs think marketers lack business credibility because they fail to quantify the success of their campaigns, according to a report.
• CEOs feel marketers talk too much about brand values and brand equity as their parameters, rather than the results that “really matter”, which top management believe to be revenue, sales, EBIT and market valuation.
• About 74% of CEOs also say marketers focus too much on the latest trends, such as social media, but can rarely demonstrate how these trends can help to generate more business for the company (ht to Craig Rosenberg & Trish Bertuzzi for the link).

Three quarters! That’s almost enough to make a marketer reconsider the value of Social Marketing, right?

Wrong.

Because the fundamental problem isn’t that the Social channel isn’t delivering value, the fundamental problem is that marketers are doing a very poor job demonstrating & quantifying that value.

The report says marketers are “bombarding” their stakeholders with marketing data that barely relates to the profit and loss of the company and focus too much on the “arty and fluffy” side of marketing and not enough on its business science.

I have spent my entire career working with many successful marketers and also quite a few unsuccessful ones – and as I’ve argued many times - here and elsewhere – that the key to success is simple – focus your efforts where the customers are. There is little doubt – regardless of your industry and business model – that social networks are increasingly where your customers are spending their time.

So then the real issue isn’t whether Social Marketing has value – it is demonstrating that value. Toward that goal, Terametric’s Twitter campaign optimization solution, Optimizer^TM for Twitter, incorporates more than 80 specific metrics and is specifically designed to help marketers analyze past performance and predict which activities are the most effective.

Terametric’s goal is help marketers close that credibility gap – by providing those metrics that are missing – as well as advice and guidance as to how to specifically improve.

If you’re interested in enhancing your ability to quantify and improve the value of Social Marketing, and in gaining the organizational and executive credibility that will come along with that, request a free trial today. We’d love to speak with you!

Tags: Marketing Week, metrics, ROI
Posted in Social CRM, Social Media Analytics, Social Media ROI, Twitter Marketing, Twitter ROI | View Comments

Terametric Friday: Top Stories in Social Media ROI

Posted in Influence, Social Media Analytics, Social Media ROI, Top Stories, Twitter ROI by Kim Cole on June 17th, 2011

 

Welcome to Friday, June 17, 2011, edition of “Top Stories in Social Media ROI.”  This is Terametric’s series where we keep you updated on the critical evolution of marketing Return on Investment in the Social Media Channel.  Our top stories for today feature tips for implementing successful social media marketing:

 

 Is  Klout a Good Measure of Your Social Media Influence

Have you used Klout?  Can it really tell you how influencial people are on line?  Can it be gamed?

 Influencer Marketing;  Facts and Miscomprehensions

The fact that consumers rely on opinions of peers, so-called influencers and (often unfortunately) celebs offers opportunities for marketers but threats for them and for consumers. The importance given by people to the opinions of others is well known by now. We pay a great deal of attention to what complete strangers say and think.

 The REAL Cost of Social Media for Business

One of the worst things anyone can believe about social media as it pertains to business is that it’s free. Just because using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube require no money, the “cost” of social media done right is far greater. With that said, is it worth the investment of time, sometimes money, and often emotional distress?

Tags: Influence, Social Media, Social Media ROI, Social Media Strategy
Posted in Influence, Social Media Analytics, Social Media ROI, Top Stories, Twitter ROI | View Comments

Terametric Friday: Top Stories in Social Media ROI

Posted in Social Media Marketing, Social Media ROI, Top Stories, Twitter ROI by Kim Cole on June 10th, 2011

 

Welcome to Friday, June 10, 2011, edition of “Top Stories in Social Media ROI.”  This is Terametric’s series where we keep you updated on the critical evolution of marketing Return on Investment in the Social Media Channel.  Our top stories for today feature tips for implementing successful social media marketing.  We also have a bonus story about ROI, we couldn’t resist!

 

7 Steps to the Perfect Social Media Plan

 via @socialmedia2day

Many business leaders wanting to get social dream about it.  They think they need it. The social media magic template. The one that includes the perfect strategy, tactics and themselves as the social hero of their company and social superstar of their market niche

8 Strategies to Ensure Success on Twitter

via moomkin.com

Most of the tactics and strategies of the social networking media remain the same irrespective of the fact that you are trying to get thousands of followers or your aim is to foster and deepen bond within a tightly knit community. Nevertheless, social media marketing remains as the go-to source for many companies as the ultimate marketing mechanism.

Social Media Marketing Checklist

Via @toprank

While putting together a presentation recently, I assembled a simple check list of considerations for a social media marketing effort.  We’ve written quite a bit about developing a social media roadmap, strategy and measurement in the past, but there are some important questions to answer when it comes to realizing what’s involved.  Companies can test and run tactics in silos but eventually, there will come a time when efforts need to be coordinated

Social Media ROI: Return on Influence

Via @VictorGaxiola

If 2010 was the year that corporations and individuals accepted the fact that social media was not longer a fad, 2011 will be remembered as the year that a return was expected. It’s not surprising that something so popular would be expected to be profitable. How else could you justify the expense in time spent participating. 

Tags: Social Media ROI, Social Media Strategy, Twitter marketing ROI, Twitter ROI
Posted in Social Media Marketing, Social Media ROI, Top Stories, Twitter ROI | View Comments