Here are a few recent nuggets of measurement metal you might find helpful or interesting:

1.     Radian6’s Practical Social Media Measurement & Analysis – In the March issue of their Community eBook, Radian6 puts together a concise and insightful guide to measuring and analyzing the primary objectives of social marketing including Cost Savings, Leads, Conversions and Sales, and Awareness, Attention and Reach.   Each section explains the process and includes example metrics you can use to analyze the performance of your programs and generate clear and visible results.

2.    Dag Holmboe’s Social Media ROI App – Dag has posted a series of Social Media ROI explanations on his blog, and his most recent post demos his Social Media ROI Application, which plugs in specific metrics of your program and spits out some interesting insights into its ROI.  You can demo the lite version of his app here.

3.    Google Analytics on Facebook Pages – This helpful how-to made the rounds late last week, and piqued my interest as I have made it known my disappointment in the current iteration of Facebook Insights.  I highly recommend this read and testing out Google Analytics on your Facebook page for further insights into referrals, visitor statistics, and more.

4.    Omniture Partners with Facebook – AdWeek announced last week that Omniture will be adding Facebook advertising data to its dashboard, allowing for greater insights and comparisons against campaigns running on other networks like Google.  This is great news; however, I tend to agree with KD Paine’s view that data may be incomplete.  Some of the most successful ad campaigns on Facebook direct users to a Facebook fan page, or the CTA is not a click-through but to fan the page from the ad itself.  Since the action is often not of direct sales, one must measure true success through the relationships developed by way of these conversions such as conversation volume, changes in sentiment, etc. which Omniture will not have.  I’m interested to see where this goes.

If you have additional stories regarding social media measurement and analysis please leave them in the comments!

As the new year hits full swing, we’re all in search of our list of hopeful (and overly ambitious?) resolutions for what the new year will bring. Eat healthier. Exercise more. Work hard. Play harder. My list seems to contain some variation of this every year.  So what will the new year bring to Social Marketing?

Many people believe this is going to be the “Year of Social Marketing” – a build upon 2009, which seemed to be the year of the Tweet, that catapulted everyone from @Oprah to your favorite brand (well, that’s one of mine) into the conversational micro-blogging social sphere.

Kicking down the new year’s door into the “year of Social Marketing” is a likely (and savvy) player, Pepsi, who has announced (to little surprise those familiar with their great marketing team) that they are going to forgo Super Bowl ads and instead utilize funds within the social space with their cause-oriented “Refresh” initiative. They know what we here at Affinitive believe – developing relationships with your consumers, your real consumers,  while providing them with a unique consumer value is what the landscape is dictating to be the strategy that is resonating.

We’re a fickle bunch of consumers. We want the best deal.  We want our voices to be heard. We want answers to our questions shortly after asking them. We expect to be engaged. The rules of acquiring our attention (and business) have quite simply, changed. We aren’t wowed by a Pepsi commercial starring Britney Spears, we’re wowed by a tweeting Britney Spears, sharing her behind the scenes tour photos with us directly (well, maybe it’s actually her, some of the time?) We want the information, straight from the source, we want to be on the inside.

While many have a hard time quite classifying exactly where social marketing starts and stops both from an execution stand point (who does what internally? is it PR? is it digital?) and from a platform perspective (no, Social Marketing isn’t just Facebook and Twitter) – it is hard to argue that it is truly a marketing REVOLUTION. The biggest strategic and tactical trend to emerge in quite some time.

So what does all this mean? This means that in 2010 -Social Marketing will continue to grow, and take a new shape – The REVOLUTION will be Socialized. Cheesy? Yes. But true nonetheless.

Social Marketing will stop being limited by many brands’ fear of execution or by traditional boundaries -  it will evolve beyond its current bucketed limitation (i.e., all videos should be on YouTube, you develop your own branded community under a navigational tab that says  “community”). It will head more mobile, the ever present question of ROI will begin to be answered and standards will be set, unethical players will be eliminated, and CRM will take center stage. This amongst many other things.

Ravit Lichtenberg from UStrategy.com over at Read Write Web already articulated all of this in his blog post “10 Ways Social Media Will Change in 2010“ far better than I ever could.

I suggest anyone looking to get a grasp of where “Social Media” could head in 2010 – head that way. Although I’m of the camp that believes it’s Social Marketing not Social Media, Social is the operative word and essentially it’s the same meat & potatoes.

Key takeaways from his post that I believe will ring true in Twenty-Ten:

• Mobile Mobile Mobile MOBILE (and not those pesky SMS to win campaigns…)
• Brands will establish a social marketing footprint (cohesive = key)
• It’s all about the ladies  (my mom has a lot of time on her hands, does yours?)
• Offline and online will continue to be integrated (and Ravit thinks in some bizarre ways, I’m not totally sold on that)
• Social Marketing will no longer be constricted by existing platforms & technology (think hybrids, emerging mediums/tools, augmented reality, anyone?)
• ROI ROI ROI ( the first question any marketer gets asked always ladders back to this. While I’m unsure a universal metric will magically emerge, I think key WAYS to measure some of them will)
• Your brand can’t afford NOT to join the Social Revolution (everyone else is already a few steps ahead of you, if you haven’t)

So there you had it. Bravo, Ravit. A fantastic read.

Social Marketing – although still two very buzzworthy words – is a true marketing revolution.  It is changing the way consumers discover new brands, learn impactful information about brands, and ultimately, how they determine which brand to purchase.

The best way to develop true relationships with your consumers that will foster loyalty and retention is to Socialize.

Total spending on WoM marketing is expected to increase 10.2% to $1.70 billion in 2009 and grow at a CAGR of 14.5% during the 2008-2013 period, reaching $3.04 billion as more brands include WoM in their media mix and ROI metrics improve.

Other Key Highlights:

• “Spending on U.S. word-of-mouth (WoM) marketing increased 14.2% to $1.54 billion in 2008, as brands recognized the need to get involved in consumer and business conversations and allocate resources to WoM. Spending increased at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37.6% from 2003 to 2008. “

• “Spending on WoM content and services increased 13.0% to $1.26 billion in 2008, as major marketers integrated WoM into the media mix and shifted to specialized WoM firms that help drive long-term campaigns. Spending rose at a 37.3% CAGR of 37.3% from 2003 to 2008. “

• “Spending on WoM ancillary products increased 19.7% to $286 million in 2008, due to growing demand for return-on-investment (ROI) data and the impact of WoM campaigns on consumer purchasing behavior. Growth can also be attributed to the increasing sophistication of WoM tools that are being used to monitor online and offline conversations. Spending grew at a CAGR of 39.1% from 2003 to 2008. “

Who’s Investing in WOM?

According to the study, consumer product goods (CPGs) companies are the major adopters of WoM, accounting for 17.4% of spending in 2008. Other top categories include food & drink, finance & business-to-business services, electronics & telecommunications, and retail (they note that auto & transportation would have been in the top five if not for their industry’s recent financial woes and cuts in spending).

Shift in Consumer Behavior

Not really a surprise here, but the study notes/validates that consumers are abandoning traditional and ad-supported media, migrating to digital and consumer-supported media.

For more information (or to purchase the report), click here.

Marketing channels, such as Word of Mouth Marketing and Online Marketing, are expected to grow to an astounding 27% of overall marketing expenditures by 2012, up from 7% in 2002, according to a new research study recently released by IBM Institute for Business Value titled “Beyond Advertising: Choosing a Strategic Path to the Digital Consumer”.

The findings prove the changed landscape of the advertising marketplace and the necessity for companies to adapt in order to compete. The report reveals that companies are shifting spending away from traditional advertising in favor of more interactive and measurable ways of reaching consumers.

The study cites the four major trends that are emerging:

• Influence of the Digital Savvy Consumer – Today’s consumer is more more digitally savvy and wants to be engaged online. This year, 76 percent indicated they had already watched video on their computers (up 27 percent). Thirty-two percent indicated they had viewed video on a portable device or mobile phone (up 45 percent). And interest in mobile video content has more than doubled in a year, to 55 percent.
• A shift in advertiser spending – Advertisers are responding to this new breed of digital savvy consumer. Results show that Sixty-three percent of global CMO’s expect to increase online/interactive marketing spends while 65 percent expect to decrease traditional advertising.
• Digital migration of platforms – The emergence of digital forums such as social media and online video are blurring the lines between advertising and marketing in a move to what the study calls “brands-actional” advertising.
• Emergence of new capabilities –“Moves, by both new entrants and existing players, are driving new types of industry innovation, and accelerating the pace of change.”

“To succeed – especially in the current economic environment – media companies will need to develop a new set of capabilities to support the industry’s evolving demands, which include micro targeting, real-time ROI measurement and cross-platform integration,” says Saul Berman, IBM Global Leader for Strategy and Change Consulting Services and co-author of the study.

A participant in this discussion made the following comment at the end of the conference when asked what they learned that day, “I learned a lot about ROI.  I learned that no one knows what ROI is for communities so I get to make up whatever i want.”

As humorous as it was at the time, that comment defines an ever-present struggle of proving the worth of enterprise social networks.  An online community is a living, dynamic strategy that can produce many valuable returns on your investment, not all of which will have direct financial impact.  It’s difficult to quantify (simply) the returns on a strategy with so many moving parts.  While a community initiative might end up being a marketing spend, the returns are cross-departmental, which makes measurement difficult when companies are silo-like in structure.

A few key takeaways emerged from our ROI discussion that I wanted to share:

Define the R -  It’s a good idea to define your goals and the appropriate strategy to achieve them before trying to justify the investment.  There are a lot of shiny new social networking tools and resources that are well suited for achieving business objectives but believe it or not, not all of them are going to work for your business.  Are you shooting for short term financial returns or more long term, value based returns?  Do you intend to build your CRM system, lower support costs, raise brand awareness, increase brand loyalty, glean marketing insights, increase sales, generate word of mouth, all of the above? If you dive in without clearly defining your purpose, you run the risk of botching the execution and potentially causing damage to your brand.

Quantify the R - After you know what you want and what you’re going to do, figure out how you’re going to measure it.  Peter Kim wrote a much talked about post back in December boldly stating that ROI is strictly a financial ratio and if social media marketing can’t be measured by ROI, then there’s no place for social media marketing; a sentiment often echoed by C-level executives.  Others believe the traditional metric of ROI is less applicable because of the complex nature of social media and the return is no longer as clear cut as a direct bottom line impact.  Methodologies such as Net Promoter, ASCI, Engagement Loyalty, ROBI ROCI and ROP, among others, are growing in popularity for measuring returns on social network marketing strategies.

Wait for It…- Online communities take time to produce results.  You’re probably not going to see them on Day 1, and you may not see them on Day 31, but if you have the correct measurement methodologies in place you can be confident that sooner or later that needle will start to move; how well you’ve executed your strategy will determine which way.

I would enjoy hearing your thoughts on the ROI debate, and how you measure the returns on your community investments.

Some suggested reading for understanding ROI in Social Media:
Do We Need To Shift The ROI Conversation: Crash Course on ROCI and ROBI
Don’t Say ROI Unless You Mean It
What Is The ROI For Social Media?
Social Media Study: Most Effective Tactics Are the Most Difficult to Measure Quantitatively Online Community ROI Models and Reporting Research Study
Engage or Die! ROI vs ROP in Social Media

I recently returned from WOMMA’s Word of Mouth Marketing Summit in Las Vegas. It was a fun (yet sleepless!) few days and it’s always great running into/reconnecting with familiar faces as well as meeting new ones.

Historically, these events have always left me invigorated and full of new ideas. But this time, something felt… “different” (and it wasn’t the shots of Petron that we did at the Wynn just a few hours earlier after an all-night Blackjack marathon )

In the opening “State of WOM Address” given by WOMMA President John Bell, he said something along the lines of the word of mouth marketing industry reaching a “tipping point“. I think what he meant was that WOM is about to transition from a “niche” form of marketing and a tiny part of the overall marketing mix to a more “mainstream” tactic that is on the top-of-minds of any C-level executive.

Yes! I agree 100%! But after two days of panels and networking with people from a variety of backgrounds (brands, agencies, services), I started to wonder, could word of mouth marketing, rather than reaching a “tipping point”, be “jumping the shark“?

Thinking back to the “early” WOMMA events (2005), there was an electricity/excitement in the air. It’s really hard to explain, but everyone was drinking the proverbial Kool-Aid. The excitement wasn’t about what had been done, but about the potential of what could be done. There were far more questions than answers, but that was fine, because it was forcing people to think about things like tactics, metrics, and business models. And for brands, how can they sell WOM to their boss and how do they budget for it?

Flash forward 3.5 years – word of mouth marketing has matured into a multi-billion dollar industry. There are tons of books, blogs, and even awards dedicated to the concept. So although I didn’t find it surprising that audience members (many of whom were new to the industry and first-timers at a WOM-related conference) were asking many of the same questions as back in 2005, the vibe was much less “electric” and more “uncertain”, and what surprised me was the lack of concrete answers being provided, in particular with respect to:

• Tactics
• Metrics
• ROI
• Ethics

How can that be possible? Are we, as practitioners, really still figuring things out? Or are we hesitant to share too much info with other agencies/potential competitors (since the event was probably 90% vendors/agencies)?

On the agency/vendor front, are folks jumping into the WOM/SM arena out of true passion/belief or are they just trying to latch on the next “big/cool” thing or make a quick buck? Will the industry simply become dominated by a small group of large PR Social Media agencies? If times become tough economy-wise and competition more fierce, will things like ethics be tossed out the window? Please tell me no!

However, I do truly believe that the industry is at a crossroads. The lines are being blurred between PR, marketing, loyalty/CRM, and customer service as these tactics increasingly overlap. Demanding accountability and establishing consistent metrics among both brands and agencies is the only way to ensure things “tip” rather than “jump”. Hopefully this stirs up some healthy dialog – I encourage you to post your thoughts below, or drop me a tweet!

Oh, by the way you can check out all of the live “tweets”/micro-commentary that were posted during the WOMMA Summit by looking for posts tagged #womsum (or just click this link).

I would also like to thank all of our clients old and new who have believed in us, as well as everyone on our team who continue to amaze me by coming up with innovative ways for companies to engage, empower and connect their most passionate consumers.

See you at 200!