Quantifying social media marketing/advocacy

Had a couple of really good questions from clients last week. Surprisingly they did not come from some of the more digitally savvy clients we manage but rather from two very 'old school' ones. In short, it revolves around how we quantify online advocacy... and more importantly, how does an agency get compensated for this.

Trust me, these questions was not part of 'negotiations' but truly asked to find an answer. At that moment when asked, I really had nothing to say... it really was a good question(s).

However, now I think about it, there may be a couple of ways I would look at putting quantifiable metrics and then put a revenue model around it.

In the mid-nineties, I remember working with a colleague of mine at Ogilvy PR in HK on a project for a Japanese tobacco manufacturer. As you can expect with the Japanese, measurement of success is a very strong component of their business and almost everything we do must have some form of metrics attached. I am pretty sure it's not new to all you PR practitioners out there but for a 'direct marketing' dude, it was an eye opener.

End of the day, the success of any PR campaign is measured by the amount of coverage (free or paid) any specific event/activity. On the most basic level, it's tracking the number of press articles about the event/activity. Obviously the more generated (positive of course) means the campaign was successful.

The question that was asked to her was roughly similar which is how to you quantify success since a) not all write-ups are positive, b) not all publications are of equal stature or reachs the right audience, and c) a one liner mention with no photo is not as good as a small para with photo.

Her solution: a point system which gave a specific point value to each 'type' of write-ups. The points vary dependent on the factors above. Of course these points are weighted and agreed to with the client before implementing. Now we start looking at a simple to understand point driven system to quantify PR and subsequent business value.

So, as you know, my belief that digital marketing is nothing 'new'... all it is a variation on the theme... meaning 'social media marketing/online advocacy programs' is just a variation on what PR practioners, DM specialists, we as people... have been doing for y0nks.... in other words, it's influencer marketing via social media platforms VERSUS a targeted DM with a MGM component, a focus group, a Fam trip for influential journalists, etc.

With this said and in this context, can we not use the point system to quantify online advocacy? Does this make sense? Due to the speed of information transfer in the blogosphere... is it even possible? Now that we put a point system together, can we put a monetary value next to them too so we can start looking at business value versus just success metrics?

Again my answer is still 'not sure' but it is something worth exploring and see if it works or not. End of the day, in order to drive digital marketing growth, digiteers must always strive to ID and establish clear accountability metrics to prove the value to clients.

Well... for those of you who reads this post... come to this week's WW since Ken will be there to share his thoughts and lessons learned whilst running Habbo Hotel. We can chat about this further (if you really want to :-)

Talk soon.

For all of those geeks like me out there

Just saw this surfing around on YouTube.

As I had mentioned in my first post... that I am a geek... I LOVE this video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkzAJs7NutM

Quick follow up to my last post: found someone who is doing something pretty cool with Twitter... and it is definitely not someone we would think of doing so... http://twitter.com/BofA_help

It's not marketing... but something that can bring tangible business value.

I stand corrected.

My first posting: Twitter Fact or Fiction

My first blog posting... well here it is... for those of you who know me, you may not rejoice nor hear angels heralding in the heavens because you are probably thinking: oh no, he has another forum for him to rant and rave... well - too bad. After much cajoling from KT and Goo, I am now an official blogger.

Here is my first rant: Why is Twitter so hot?

I swear, every client is calling me up and asking about 'Twitter' and what we can do with it.

My answer (and will remain so until someone can prove otherwise) is that 'Twitter' is not for everyone. Yes it can be an effective marketing tool but, we as marketers, must use it 'correctly'.

'Correctly'?????? Bah humbug... I can just hear the collective scream of my fellow digiteers. What the heck is doing it 'correctly'... 'we must test and learn'.... and 'it's really cool'... etc. etc. etc.

Well, yes I agree since no one really has used it enough to define 'correct' and is it the current big thing 'that we must all embrace or die' OR is it the latest marketing fad? I personally think it's the latter not the former (until someone gets it right of course).

Let me briefly explain what I mean...

I love data (yes I am a geek). Am very proud of being one. I am especially proud of being a data geek. I love data. Social media/platforms will eventually offer the 'ultimate' data source for all us data geeks out there. Frankly speaking, it's already there. Overlay the right data-mining tools on top of it and we can really get some great info. Hence I do believe that Twitter will grow into something sexy and viable as a direct marketing tool. But not yet.

When clients ask me this question, my answer is 'do you have a story?' My humble (wink) opinion is that without a story to tell, there is no point going into a social platform much less something so 'immediate' as Twitter. What do I mean by story? Well, if all you want is a quick blast out to 'your consumers' to talk about the latest offers from your company (even if it is LBS-ed) then i think you are missing the boat. Why does someone WANT to hear 'instantly' about your offers even if I am 20 feet away from that spa you just gave me a 20% discount to go to? Would you do it if you got the blast? Probably not (if the blast is so untargeted as this)... I sure wouldn't.

So if this is the case, then why would anyone do it? Why would you want to use something like Twitter to blast out messages? Wouldn't it be better (and less annoying for generally everyone) if you use Twitter to blast out messages that people find useful? Hence my question 'do you have a story'?

The reason why I proclaim (hear the trumpets) that Twitter is 'not yet' is because I want to discourage marketers who see it as the 'ultimate 1-to-1' tool for today. I don't want them to 'test and learn' yet. I don't want anyone messing with it until it gets more mature... when the data that is inherent to the tool is available and we digiteers can bring a solid offering to our clients. If we go and spoil this new potentially powerful tool... and piss off the consumers who are really 'twittering' now then we are just shooting ourselves in the foot in the long run because they are just going to get tired and move on.

I really hope they don't... I really really really really want to get that data.

Talk soon.