Why Social Media GURU’s / Experts Don’t Agree?
I’m not sure why, but it appears to me, those who teach Social Media are really just teaching people how to use the telephone. Eventually, people talk, and figure things out, SM is not that big a mystery. What is a mystery, is how Social Media Guru’s / Experts don’t agree on the Social Media ROI or what they report to clients. Most report the wrong information, and sometimes….it’s reported on purpose. Social Media GURU’s / Experts, this is for you, and for those wanting to learn, some insight from a real professional.
One of my Favorite quotes from the Social Media ROI book by Olivier Blanchard is:
A Social Media Program Manager who only reports on “social media numbers” is just being lazy. Always keep your eye on the business objectives that your social media program is there to support.
– Gaining real-time insights into consumer preferences and perceptions
– Improving the organization’s crisis monitoring and response process
– Increasing the reach of marketing efforts
– Increasing the impact of marketing efforts
– Reducing customer service costs
– Improving customer service outcomes
– Amplifying a campaign’s impact
– Increasing sales through frequency, reach and yield (FRY) methodologies
– Humanizing or otherwise improving the organization’s image in the eyes of consumers
– Helping reverse an event’s negative impact to the brand (such as PR faux-pas, an ecological catastrophe, or an interruption of service)
– Improving customer relations to help increase customer loyalty
If you must report on typical social media metrics such as net new followers, views, likes, subscriptions, mentions, comments, visits, shares, and re-tweets, do so in context.
If you want the book, and I highly recommend it, go here — http://smroi.net/
I don’t get a kick back, but I do get a name mention in the book, see if you can find it : ) – just buy it, and practice what Olivier preaches.
End of rant : )
Spark Research & Reports
If I may, please visit a new business page for Spark Research & Reports – good friends of mine, and I am also a Senior Adviser for this fine group of people. Be sure to give your love by clicking LIKE while you’re there too. Bobbi will be posting new content there to help give you insight and perspective and a great many business ideas and concepts. Also, a new website was just launched, please let us know what you think: http://sparkresearch.ca/
Pay For Performance Has Changed
You know the business world is being turned on its head, even the old terms have a new meaning. This is not new, I’ve talked about this before, but today it’s become more real and in your face. Today it’s called pay for performance, the old name was called, “commission”. You got paid a commission for your performance, of what you sold. Today you get paid for something you do, not what you sold.
Businesses rely on transactions, the old way meant something was sold, a product or service was exchanged for money. Today, money is changing, it’s not hard cash that get’s exchanged, it can be as simple as a barter. It can be a new form of payment, pay with a Tweet, pay with finishing a mission on Empire Avenue, it’s no longer cash as we know it. What we used to call it a favor, is now a new kind of transaction. Today, merely referring someone reaps a reward. Your business now has to find ways to embrace these new transactions….and they aren’t that new, we’ve been doing them most of our lives, they now have a new reward. And I haven’t mentioned Bitcoin yet : )
How do you define pay for performance today, the old way, or the new social way? What do you believe to be the new social currency?
The Internet’s Own Boy – Aaron Swartz
Just finished watching “The Internet’s Own Boy – the story of Aaron Swartz” – not only was the government wrong, it was morally unjust, I’m still angry, I’m heart-broken and concerned about our future, a future that rely’s on government. They don’t always have your interest’s in mind. I’m concerned from the perspective of who we elect to office, and the power they use. I have always had a dislike for those who run for office, mostly because I believe their motive(s) is about money & control, not about making our communities and the world a better place. There are a great many injustices in the world, most from the lack of voter turn out, the lack of voters elects the wrong people to office. Voting is more important today than it has ever been, not voting merely guarantee’s we will continue to have more situation’s Aaron found himself fighting. He didn’t run to Russia, although he should have, he was steadfast, he didn’t hide, he stood for what he believed was right. I suggest we all should take his fight and example. What do you stand for, and are you willing to die for it?
The Future Of Business – The NEW Attention Shift
The modem was screeching, trying to make that handshake with another modem, if I could just connect to that modem, I could get the information I need. I had a book with pages of phone numbers for most of the BBS’s out on there in the world, they published books with theme as well. You could download drivers and programs, it was great fun, but it took forever on a 300 or 2400 Baud modem. The days of dialing into a BBS (Bulletin Board System) to get information are behind us, and when the Internet came along, most of these software packages built modules / add-on’s to connect a BBS to the NET. Eventually, that call into a BBS became an Internet connection at faster speeds of a modem, the world changed in one fleeting moment. You remember don’t you, when you had to send email via FidoNet, use a program to download a package of all your messages from the week before. That’s right, it used to take days, even weeks to get a response via email on a BBS. The more games, and or information you had available on your BBS, the more attention, the more visitors. There were almost no GURUS & EXPERTS, just people with some experience, and they were willing to help you for free, for the most part.
While the BBS world was quietly doing it’s thing, TV, Radio & Newspaper’s garnered almost all the attention, in some markets they still do. You didn’t hear about GURUS & EXPERTS that much because those medium’s were closely guarded. Not open, not free. To advertise, to get the word out, the mainstream media was the most effective way. Until the Internet.
The Internet changed the game, suddenly the attention shifted, and then attention game had no rules, no watch dogs, it was wide open, it was free…..for now. Out of nowhere the GURUS & EXPERTS appeared, suddenly there were more authorities on everything than you could imagine. I’ve often said, everyone knows something about something, but no one knows everything about everything. The narcissists would argue that point.
Blogging became the mode of communication, you could write about anything, it is a writers dream, a painters favorite kind of canvas. Blogs had the attention until a bigger beast appeared, Social Networks, and the attention shifted once again. These Social Networks are shifting as I write, a new shift, they want you, all of us to Blog on their network, on their channel, because they want content. Why? They want to win the attention war. It matters not how you access the social networks, it only matters that your attention shifts.
I find it puzzling that many would rather blog on Social Networks than their own Blog. Giving away traffic to the Social Networks, when the Social Networks should be driving traffic to the Blog…..funny how it gets turned around.
Personally, I would rather be the owner a Blog, and use Social Networks as tools to drive customers, readers, viewers back to my home-base, my Blog. Most Social Networks and other mainstream media sites want you to make their site your home-base, they want to be your homepage when you open a browser, much like the Industrial Age of control. They want your attention, they want to control your attention, but so do you the Blogger.
If you give away viewers, readers, and buyers, and traffic….you lose. Big business wins again, they got you to shift your attention, and the attention of those that were paying attention to you. Giving away your followers eyeballs means they make the money, not you, defeating the purpose you ventured in to.
Guard your fans, protect your followers, they truly are valuable, to you, and most definitely to big business. Think about where you put your content, you and only you can control it. There is an attention shift taking place, no matter how easy it might seem, don’t be fooled into giving it to groups and organizations that want to take it from you. Build YOUR platform, your home-base, that’s the only way to survive this attention-getting war.
