Dan Soschin

Social Media & Metrics – Where is the Disconnect?

Erik Sass for MediaPost writes, “Social media week has drawn a lot of attention to both the strengths and weaknesses of social media as a marketing tool — and it’s clear that measurement continues to be one of the main areas of weakness.”

Erik continues by discussing various reports and firms focusing on this area of social media.

And the points are fairly valid, but I believe we DO have the tools and metrics to make sense of our investment in social media.

Social media ROI analysis is in its infancy. I believe this is a result not because we lack tools and metrics, but rather there is a disconnect between data analysts who lack understanding of social media, and social media managers, who lack an understanding of analytics. Thus, we are at a bit of an impasse. I presented at Social Media Week DC on this very topic (how to measure the ROI of social media) in an effort to help social media managers take charge of their efforts and lead the analysis front for their organizations.

You can read Erik’s article here: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/168356/social-media-metrics-flourish-but-roi-is-still-up.html?c=93671#reply#ixzz1n9tHJiG1
The Short List: Social Media Monitoring & Measurement

I’m always being asked about which tools are the best for monitoring and measuring social media. That’s a difficult question for me to answer without first understanding your business objectives, of course… and all my fellow blog followers know, the first question you have to ask before starting any marketing project is:

What is your objective?

Once you know that, we can drill into both free and paid products.

Last November (which somehow was already about four months ago), I co-presented on measuring and monitoring social media with John Mohr of System’s Alliance at their annual user conference in Baltimore, Maryland. John and I put together a short list of products we were familiar with and I’d like to share that here.

I always suggest starting with Google Analytics. It’s free and easy to use. If you’re not using it, I suggest not bothering with anything else until it’s up and running. Analysis is the basis of nearly everything you will do with measuring social media, so you need a good foundation, and GA is just that. If you’ve sat in on any of my sessions lately, then you already get it.
Social Media Week DC – Value of Like Recap
Thanks to all my fellow DC social media gurus for coming out to Manassas and completely filling the conference room on Wednesday. What a thrill. We had standing room only!

When I originally agreed to host a session, we had booked the University’s conference room which can hold about 40-50 people. I’m glad we moved down the street to the Holiday Inn so we could squeeze some more folks in to the session.

We had a lot of great questions and I had a good time sharing some of my tips and strategy for measuring and reporting on social media ROI.

As promised, I’ve got some great “takeaways” to share with you from the session:
And finally, if you missed the session, you can watch it in three parts on Vimeo:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

If you have any feedback regarding the session, please feel free to post your comments here or tweet them to me @Dan_Soschin. If you have an upcoming conference that you’d like to have me participate in, just drop me a line.

Thanks again for making our session so wonderful! Until next time…
What is the ROI of Social Media?

What exactly is the ROI of social media? When Gary Vaynerchuk was asked this question, he replied, “What is the ROI of your mom?” Obviously Gary was illustrating that just because it may not be possible to provide a quantitative assessment of a campaign, doesn’t mean it lacks ROI. And, for that matter, it doesn’t mean you cannot measure it.

I’ve written about this topic before, specifically about Facebook’s ROI, as well as measuring social media. Last week I presented on the topic at the Social Media Strategies Summit in Las Vegas.

Tomorrow (2/15/2012), I will be presenting on the subject live, in Northern Virginia as part of Social Media Week (DC). You can find more info about my presentation and how to attend for free here:

http://socialmediaweek.org/event/?event_id=1176

We have nearly 200 attendees registered.

If you cannot make it, I will be uploading parts of the presentation (recorded) as well as some materials to this blog later in the week. So bookmark this post and check back in a couple of days for those materials.
Social Media Response Flow Chart – Updated

I just returned from the Social Media Strategies Summit in Las Vegas, NV hosted by GSMI where I presented on measuring social media for the SMB. One of my leave behind handouts was this flow chart I adapted from the US Air Force.

You can use this flow chart to evaluate whether or not should respond to a post you find on the web, be it positive, negative or neutral. It will help you understand what you should consider when responding, escalating, and addressing negative posts, in particular.

Social Media Assessment Flow Chart

If you’d like to understand how to respond to a negative post, please read my related posts:

Responding to a Negative Post

Managing Negativity on Facebook

Policy for Engagement

Employee Social Media Policy
Google CPCs and Sitelinks

If you want to learn more about the relationship between you average CPC (cost per click) and AdQuality score, and how those might be influenced inversely by way of ad extensions, check out this great article by ClickZ:

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2143667/solving-mystery-googles-q4-cpc-drop

In a nutshell, as you leverage ad extension you you ultimate goal is to improve conversions as well CTR. Google ocourse wants both as well. Higher CPCs yield more ad revenue, while conversions keep advertisers happy.

So, ad extensions such as Sitelinks (one of my personal favorites) are essentially designed to do both. An interesting sideeffect of this is an improvement in your AdQuality score (because your CTR increases). In turn, your CPC decreases, a nice bonus. Over time this benefit will most likely diminish as more advertisers take advantage of the features. Therefore, being an early adopter of these types of technology can yield some nice benefits.

So it is more important than ever to ensure you stay up to date on the latest trends in the industry.

On a side note, this is my first post made from my iPad, and I’m doing soLin the airport waiting for my flight.
Social Media Strategies Summit – Las Vegas – February 7-9, 2012
I will be presenting at the 2012 Las Vegas Social Media Strategies Summit at the Mirage Hotel.

Session Overview:

Social Media – How to Monitor, Measure and Report for the SMB

So you’re adding social media to your game plan for your organization, moving it from an afterthought to front-and-center. You’ve even got a staff member ready to roll up their sleeves and manage your social media strategy for the organization (and that person might be you!) But now what? In this session, we’ll explore three key aspects of getting started with social media: monitoring, measuring, and reporting.

Your session leader will walk you through how to succeed in each of these key areas by taking a hands on and practical approach to identifying the tools, resources and processes that will position your SMB for social media success. Some of the topics covered will include:
- Identifying your objectives for using social media
- Defining the metrics and KPIs for success
- Why monitoring social media is important
- Free and paid tools to get you started with monitoring
- Policies and procedures for social media management
- Using Google Analytics and Facebook Insights for analysis
- Creating simple dashboard spreadsheets in Excel for reporting KPIs/ROI
Steve Jobs and his Lessons

Erik Qualman at ClickZ posted an article a while back entitled, “Steve Jobs: 10 Lessons in Leadership.” It’s a quick read and I highly recommend the post, whether you love Steve Jobs or hate him (or fall somewhere in between), there are some interesting concepts that will really make you think.

Now, it’s much easier to Monday-morning-QB Steve’s success after the fact, but since that’s all we have to go on, it’s not a bad place to start.

What the post by Erik fails to mention was that Jobs was not perfect. There were many failed products at Apple. The post points out that Jobs cancelled many products and that was okay, but do you think those failures tormented him? Perhaps… they may have also served as great motivators. After all, aren’t we supposed to learn from our mistakes?

Interestingly, people often forget to talk about Apple’s greatest mistake – the fact that it did not license its computing technology during the great home computer race in the 80’s. Instead, it kept the technology close to the vest and that allowed the PC market (dominated by IBM) to capture something upwards of 90%. Imagine if Apple had gone the other way? Where would we be today? Perhaps Apple would have had more innovative products or perhaps there would be no PC?

Regardless of the magnitude of that failed business decision one can argue it helped keep Apple products wholesome to Job’s vision without being muddled by inferior third parties. I would argue that while PCs got cheaper over the past 20 years, many of them got crappier too. After all, I am a firm believer of “you get what you pay for” in life.

I got my first iPod around 2003 or thereabouts, and am currently on my third one… I recently acquired an iPad for work, and after pleading incessantly with me, I purchased an iPhone 4 for my wonderful wife. I can tell you this, when I am awake, I have an Apple device with me nearly 100% of the time. My wife has yet to let go of the iPhone since December. I can’t really think of any other brand of technology that has become such a crutch in my household.
Who Should Run Web Analytics at Your Company
I just came across this somewhat humorous post on ClickZ by Andrew Edwards about a company’s IT department mucking up the web analytics project that was successfully run by the marketing team for years… So, it begs to ask the question: “Who should run web analytics at your company?”

The answer is marketing.

Here’s why:
1. Marketing’s role is to generate revenue opportunities for the company. The metrics for measuring these opportunities and the success of generating them are defined by marketing. They understand the objectives and therefore should be tasked with measuring the outcome. Having someone else do this who is less familiar with objectives and the outcomes inserts and element of risk.
2. Access to web analytics should be democratized. In other words, the system should be central, and business analysts and marketing executives should be able to access the system at will, create reports, collaborate on metrics and dashboards, and so on.
3. In my experience, marketing teams are collaborative by their very nature of having to communicate across departments to further the corporate objectives and coordinate consistent messaging, branding and awareness.
4. Conversely, IT departments (in my experience) often govern by limiting access, creating policy and strive to eliminate risk. This is okay perhaps for tech stuff (though I would argue that it isn’t, but that’s for another day). But for data and analysis, this is bad.
5. Blocking access to insight restricts a business’s ability to leverage it and make good decisions.
However, it is EXTREMELY important for the two shops (marketing and IT) to collaborate. For example, there is much insight in the data that would benefit IT with regards to planning downtime, fixing errors, load balancing, hosting and correcting errors. These are all issues critical to a business’s success. IT and marketing should work together on identifying these issues, the necessary metrics, and the course of action needed to further the business objectives.

For more on my view of technology within the marketing department, check out this post.

Above all, decisions about which platform to use and how to measure the business should be a collaboration between IT and marketing. As I have always preached, the most successful marketers are those with IT know-how and insight, as technology often is the genesis of marketing innovation. So why is it that these two groups at most companies often remain in silos?
CPCs fall in Q4 for Google as Ad Quality Improves

In a rare turn of events for search marketers, the average CPC (cost per click) search marketers paid to Google in Q4 2011 actually fell by 8% according to MediaPost’s report on Google’s Q4 analyst earnings call.

As a search marketer, this news is extremely timely, relevant and refreshing. CPCs have been escalating for years as more and more competitors flood search with their ads.

It seems that many improvements that Google has made to scoring ads (QualityScore) and better education of advertising best practices, has lead to an increase in the quality of ads and advertising campaigns. This has made the campaigns more efficient, which then can often lower the cost of advertising and CPCs. To summarize at a really high level, higher quality ads don’t necessarily need the highest bid to be shown first and win clicks. Google factors in many variables to determine rank.

However, advertisers should not necessarily breathe a sigh of relief. In certain industries that are highly competitive, CPCs may not have declined, and certainly not by 8% as reported. Only your own data will show how your business has been affected. But, it might make you take your foot off the gas a bit and back down on those bids. I have long pondered about what would happen if advertisers all backed off to form a reverse auction, per se… Where everyone kept lowering their bids. A crazy thought of course, one that probably cannot take place in free market capitalism; and it has similarities to a cartel so-to-speak.

Nonetheless, I continue to encourage advertisers to occasionally take their foot of the gas and focus on landing page quality and ad quality versus simply raising their bids constantly. Focusing on the quality will yield better long term results.