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Measuring Social Media ROI: 3 Things to Consider


This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

What’s the ROI of social media? That’s the million-dollar question that every marketer and brand manager would like to answer — and yet, we still can’t do it.

Earlier this year, a study reported that 74% of CMOs predicted that 2011 would be the year that social efforts were finally tied to hard ROI. And here we are, nearing the end of 2011, still not certain how to uniformly measure the economic benefits of using social media.

Instead, social media ROI is a mystery to most marketers, and the pros who are measuring it all have their own theories and practices. But there isn’t a one-stop tool that solves the problem of how to understand and calculate social media ROI. How then, are marketers supposed to measure campaign success?

Hal Thomas, a content manager at BFG Communications, recently spoke about how to approach the fuzzy world of social media ROI during his presentation at Geekend Roadshow, a technology-focused portion of the DMA2011 conference.

Instead of presenting a formula or product for how to solve for social media ROI, Thomas introduced three thoughts about how to approach social media ROI. Read on to hear his thoughts and add your own voice to the conversation in the comments below.


1. Social Media is the Vehicle, Not the Destination


“We often approach social media like it’s the destination rather than the vehicle,” says Thomas. Marketers often want to “be on Twitter,” but don’t consider that it’s actually a communications tool and that consistent action must be taken to engage a following.

Thomas compared measuring social media ROI to the task of calculating the ROI of a business card. Conference attendees rack up hundreds of business cards, but how do you calculate the ROI of all of the business cards that you hand out at a conference?

Like a Facebook fan or Twitter follower, a business card merely represents potential — so, you can’t accurately measure the ROI of a business card, just as you can’t measure the value of a Facebook fan, says Thomas.

This concept shouldn’t seem new, though, because traditional marketing — such as email marketing and telemarketing — runs by these rules, Thomas explained. Marketers don’t ask, “What’s the ROI of this email newsletter?” Instead, they ask, “What’s the conversion rate for our email campaign?” And telemarketers don’t ask, “What’s the ROI of a phone call?” They ask, “What’s the conversion rate of our sales calls?”

Social media should be treated the same way. “You can’t just ask, ‘What’s the ROI of social media?” Thomas says. “You have to ask, ‘What’s the ROI of specific activities that we engage in via social media?’”

Thomas noted, “[Social media] is not the stopping place. It’s the starting place. [Marketers] have to take action on their prospects — [they] have to take their fans and turn them from passive fans to transacting customers.”


2. Listen and Apply Learnings to Every Department


Thomas advised brands to listen to the conversations generated via their social channels and learn how those discussions can benefit every department in the organization.

Thomas also gave a great example revolving around a celebrity chef whose Facebook Page had accumulated more than 1 million fans — each time the chef posted on Facebook, his posts generated an average of 2,000 Likes and 600 comments. The chef came to Thomas asking if these numbers were “good.”

Pure numbers don’t say much, though. A more interesting finding, Thomas explained, would be to compare interaction levels on each post to find that the chef’s followers respond in higher volume when he posts about chicken recipes and much lower volumes when he posts about fish recipes. This data, if tracked over time, could be handy information for deciding what types of recipes to include in the chef’s next book, for instance. In this example, it would make sense to include more chicken recipes and less fish recipes. This should translate to a more successful book, and it further extends the usefulness of social media measurement beyond the sales and marketing departments.


3. Performance Metrics Are Media Agnostic


When measuring social media success, a business must first understand how social media is being used within the organization. It is important to understand which departments are using social media and then measure success based on performance metrics that are relevant to each of those departments.

Measuring the amount of or growth in Facebook fans and Twitter followers isn’t going to cut it. Instead, brands should be measuring effectiveness the same way they measure success in offline activities.

“It doesn’t matter whether you have a billboard, a magazine ad, an online banner ad or a social media channel. Impressions are impressions,” said Thomas. And that extends to all kinds of key performance indicators.

Sales teams run on specific metrics, while customer service departments operate on an entirely different system. Each department’s success measurements for social media should be based on their specific goals and metrics.


Your Thoughts


Thomas’ point of view helps marketers understand how to approach social media ROI, and his presentation introduced three important considerations for calculating social media success.

How does your business measure social media ROI? Share your methods in the comments below.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, pearleye

More About: analytics, Facebook, features, mashable, ROI, Social Media, Twitter

For more Business coverage:

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2011/11/15/social-media-roi-measure/?utm_source=feedburne...

Netflix says updated iPad app coming soon

Netflix rolled out a new Android version of its tablet app that'll soon land on the iPad. The updated app has a redesigned user interface that's bigger and more beautiful. The app manages to fit extra movie thumbnails per screen and presents them in a visually appealing way. Similar to previous versions, the Netflix app lets you view your Instant Queue and continue watching content where you last left off. It also includes selections from Netfilx's recommendation engine and categories so you can easily find new content to watch. I've tested the app on the Motorola Xoom and can't wait for it to hit the iPad in the upcoming weeks.

[Via TechCrunch]

Netflix says updated iPad app coming soon originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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from TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog http://www.tuaw.com/2011/11/15/netflix-says-updated-ipad-app-coming-soon/

MLB may implement subscription next season

Major League Baseball has embraced social media and mobile devices in a big way and it looks like this early adoption is paying off. The MLB At Bat app was downloaded 1.6 million times across all mobile platforms and is reportedly the highest grossing app in the iTunes App Store, according to a report from Fortune. To improve this popular offering, MLB may offer a new monthly subscription option that's available during the baseball season.

Speaking with Fortune, MLB.com CEO Bob Bowman said they could add new features as a monthly subscription which would be available in-season and could be canceled when your favorite team is doing poorly. Unfortunately, Bowman failed to provide any details on what these new features will be and how much they will cost. This subscription is likely an idea that's in the early stages of planning.

The current version of the At Bat app lets baseball fans experience the game from the comfort of their iPad and iPhone. Users can keep track of game stats in real-time, watch video replays of controversial calls and review game highlights. If you are at the game, you can check into a stadium, view tweets from other fans at the game and even order concession food that you can pick up without waiting in line. At US$14.99 in season, it's pricer than most App Store apps, but the sheer amount of real-time content available at your finger tips during the baseball season is well worth the expense.

MLB may implement subscription next season originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

from TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog http://www.tuaw.com/2011/11/15/mlb-may-implement-subscription-next-season/

20 TV Shows With the Most Social Media Buzz This Week [CHART]

OK, I admit. I had to do a little research to find out why the heck WWE Raw topped the cable social TV chart this week. Turns out, one of the most anticipated wrestling alliances happened right here in New York on Nov. 20 — The Rock matched up for the first time with rival John Cena to fight The Miz and R-Truth at Madison Square Garden.

If you’re more likely to recognize Dwaye “The Rock” Johnson from his Hollywood pursuits, then my guess is you tuned into the American Music Awards instead, which incidentally, topped the broadcast social TV chart. The AMAs also aired last night, which made this week’s social TV chart light up last-minute.

The data below is compliments of our friends at Trendrr, who measure specific TV show activity (mentions, likes, checkins) across Twitter, Facebook, GetGlue and Miso. To see daily rankings, check out Trendrr.TV


Image courtesy of iStockphoto, narvikk

More About: features, Social Media, social tv, social tv charts, Trendrr, TV

For more Entertainment coverage:

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2011/11/21/social-tv-chart-11-21/?utm_source=feedburner&u...

How Political Campaigns Can Turn Social Media Support Into Votes


During the last presidential election, the use of social media in political campaigns was revolutionized. The Obama campaign gathered followers through Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Today, all candidates have learned the organizing power of social media. However, a “Like” on Facebook, a YouTube view or a re-blog on Tumblr may not directly affect the ballot box. Each campaign must answer an important question: How do we turn a digital following into real-world volunteers?

Social media campaigns for candidates should be focused on getting volunteers in the campaign office door, on the phones and out in the community. There are three crucial steps to accomplishing this task.


1. Share Ideals, Goals, Accomplishments and Behind-the-Scenes Footage


By sharing a candidate’s beliefs and goals via social media, candidates can connect with existing supporters and reach out to voters who aren’t yet convinced. Accomplishments, such as campaign milestones, will get liked, shared, re-tweeted and reblogged.

People who have never been part of a campaign often don’t know the day-to-day activities at a campaign office, and social media is a way to share that experience. Training staff and volunteers on the basics of social media is a great way to accomplish this. A volunteer live-tweeting an event advertises that event and highlights volunteers’ work, giving them a sense of ownership in the campaign.

Ron Paul’s Facebook page does a good job of sharing ideals, highlighting accomplishments and posting behind-the-scenes footage.


2. Engage Followers


With social media, engagement is key. By responding directly to followers, a candidate adds a human touch to a campaign that may otherwise seem inaccessible. Digital followers who feel connected to the campaign will be more likely to make the leap from online supporter to offline volunteer, which is step number three.

Herman Cain has used the hashtag #CainCast to respond live to questions posted on Twitter.


3. Turn Digital Followers into Real-World Volunteers


Once a digital following is built, it must be mobilized in the offline world action through “calls to action.” While it is easy to “like” something on Facebook, it is a different matter to commit time and energy to a political campaign. So how is this crucial final step accomplished?

Zachary Green is CEO of 140Elect, which builds Twitter campaigns for the 2012 election. Green believes location-based organizing is the key to turning online followers into volunteers. He breaks this step down into two parts.

First, organizing by location.

“To turn Twitter followers into active volunteers offline, location must remain the unit of action to enable local work,” says Green. “Organizing Twitter followers by location is essential to building teams for action offline.”

But that’s problematic. According to Green, less than 1% of tweets mentioning a candidate running in 2012 have been sent with geo-location enabled. So how can campaigns sort their digital supporters by location? Green’s solution is content.

“We now track every mention of a Senator, House Representative, or Governor. That allows us to build a list of every person that mentions a Democratic incumbent in California, for instance. If they do this multiple times, or for multiple Democratic incumbents in California, we can assume that they are from California.”

Green then builds state-by-state lists accordingly, and moves to step two: engaging by location.

“The key to grassroots organizing isn’t issues, but relationships,” says Green. “Help followers bond online with others in their location and they will be eager to then meet in real life.”

When supporters do meet offline, “their activity can be the task you [the campaign] want them to perform,” such as a voter registration drive, a phonebank, or a neighborhood canvas.

Finally, Green says it’s crucial to use social media to highlight the real-world accomplishments of volunteers, but they should be empowered to upload and share it themselves. “[It] makes them feel appreciated, and shows others how much fun this was.”

This online reporting then brings in more digital followers, who can be turned into offline volunteers, and so on.

By using social media in a geographically focused manner, encouraging supporters to meet and work with other local neighbors offline, and empowering volunteers, political campaigns can turn Facebook “likes” and retweets into votes come Election Day.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, bns124

More About: 2012 presidential campaign, campaigns, Politics, Social Media

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2011/11/17/social-media-political-campaigns/?utm_source=f...

Who Should You Follow on Social Media? Proliphiq Knows The Answer


The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Proliphiq

Quick Pitch: Proliphiq filters social media clutter and focuses on what’s important to you.

Genius Idea: Social media search tool that lets people see who is credible in the areas that interest them.


“Who should I follow?” You may have asked yourself this question after logging onto social media websites like Twitter and Facebook, only to be overwhelmed with millions of profile options to follow or subscribe to.

Proliphiq helps you find the answer to that question.

Proliphiq is a social media discovery tool that helps you find the most credible contributors within the topics that interest you. The search tool filters social media clutter by aggregating profiles that are most relevant to your search topics and finding the best contributors based on personality, level of engagement and credibility.

“Proliphiq is different from a search engine like Google in the way that we don’t help users search for content or videos,” says Adam Roozen, CEO of Proliphiq. “Proliphiq looks for the sources of the content and videos to help you identify who to follow and to also help you build relationships with those contributors.”

To begin, users must log into either their Facebook or Twitter accounts on Proliphiq’s website. They search for topics that interest them, and Proliphiq will provide a visual, intuitive ranking of the most relevant profiles based on those topics. The search results may change based on who their friends search for, rate, and are interested in.

ProliphiqTopicBar

Drag the slider, choose a topic, and watch the map populate with credible profiles for that tag.

Each profile is ranked according to their interaction with the community, the community’s opinion of them and their audience on social media sites such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. Select any of the profiles to view their live feed, rankings, credibility, engagement, content and audience.

ProliphiqUserProfile

Click on a user profile to see stats and rankings.

These detailed profiles provides essential information to help users decide whether they want to follow that person or not.

Anyone can rate a profile using the “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” options. If you don’t think a specific profile applies to a topic, feel free to share your opinions about that person.

ProliphiqRated

Share what you think about an individual

Proliphiq also gives users the option to see how that person ranks as a contributor among a network of friends as well as the rest of the social media world.

To earn credibility and increase website visitors, contributors can show their Proliphiq badge widget on their own sites or blogs. The badge widget is a good opportunity to get feedback from website visitors, improve their sites based on this feedback and increase their rankings.

Interested in trying Proliphiq? Although the site is in private beta, the team has provided an access code for the first 200 Mashable readers who want to test the website. If you want an inside look into Proliphiq, copy and paste the following exclusive code into the “access code” box on the home page – pqff_l0_21cafa289c202

Proliphiq has raised $500,000 since it began development in 2010 and plans to incorporate statistics from other popular social media websites in the future.

Image courtesy of Proliphiq, Proliphiq


Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

More About: bizspark, proliphiq

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from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2011/11/17/proliphiq/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=fe...

Facebook App Gives You Klout-Like Score for Your Social Life

How social is your social life outside of social media? A new Facebook app from Ultimat Vodka attempts to answer that question by measuring the frequency of your checkins and using facial-recognition technology that analyzes photos on your Page to see how happy your friends are to hang out with you.

The Social Life Audit app, released this week, rates your social status (measured by how many photos you appear in per week on Facebook). your crew size (the average number of people who appear in photos with you) and your activity level (how many places you check in to per week), among other factors, to make its determination.

There are 12 variables in all, which are illustrated below. Some of the measurements are pretty dubious. For instance your “hookup potential” is determined by the percentage of people tagged in your photos who are single. If you get a failing grade, as I did, then Ultimat will offer you some tips to improve your score.

The app, created by Stink Digital, may not ultimately become a Klout for your social life, but it is a clever piece of advertising for Ultimat with a lot of viral potential. Other marketers have attempted to cull Facebook data to cater to users’ narcissistic tendencies, most notably Intel’s Museum of Me, but Ultimat and its ad agency, Amalgamated, appear to sowing new ground with Social Life Audit. At the very least, it’s a good excuse to hit the bars.


[via Creativity Online]

More About: Advertising, apps, Facebook, Marketing

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2011/11/18/klout-score-social-life-app/?utm_source=feedbu...

Study: Half of Facebook Users Post Political Messages [INFOGRAPHIC]

Two-thirds (67%) of adult social media users in the U.S. voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race, although only a half (51%) would vote the same way if they knew what they know now. Market researcher Lab42 polled 500 social media users on all things politics.

The findings, presented in the infographic below, reveal top issues, candidates and news sources for social media users. When it comes to the 2012 election, almost half (46%) of respondents didn’t think it would be bad if most members of congress were defeated in the upcoming election.

While roughly half (51%) of social media users have posted political content to their Facebook walls, 36% have changed their opinions of someone based on political content posted to Facebook or Twitter.

Take a look through the findings and let us know what you find most interesting. How do you think adult social media users in the U.S. differ from the general population?


More About: election 2012, infographic, Politics, Social Media


from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2011/11/21/social-media-politics/?utm_source=feedburner&u...

Fatwood

There's not much new in the art of firemaking, and most methods are a few hundred thousand years old. But in the 21st century, getting a fire started in the fireplace can still be more difficult than it needs to be. Crumpling up inky newspaper as tinder under a full size split log is hit or miss at best, and gathering up sticks as kindling is a pain, especially for city dwellers.

This winter, I've solved the problem with the discovery of "fatwood" firestarters: small sections of resin-rich pine (most commonly from the longleaf pine Pinus palustris) produced from stumps. They just work: criss-cross two of them, light them and they will quickly catch and burn long enough to get the big logs going. They work every time. They smell good, they're inexpensive and they're sustainable. They come from existing stumps and the Fatwood company plants three trees for every one they use. Start a cozy fire faster with a clear conscience this winter.

-- Matthew Perks

[These firestarters are really great for getting campfires going in tough wet conditions, too (that is as long as you remember to toss a few in the back of the car).--OH]

Fatwood Firestarters
$15 for 10 lbs
Available from Amazon

For those interested in larger amounts my family has always gotten 25 lb increments of fatwood for $30 from LL Bean with free shipping.

Manufactured by Wood Products International

from Cool Tools http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/005946.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_med...