Book Review: Social Media Metrics: How to Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Investment, Sterne

Sterne writes about measuring the impact of communicating via social media in his book, Social Media Metrics:  How to Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Investment. He makes good points, tells some personal stories and delivers practical advice on the tools and methods and importance of measuring the impact of social media.

Chapter one sets the stage with familiar information about early social media initiatives. By chapters two and three, experienced practioners will begin thinking they should take notes. I found myself thinking, when is the last time I checked Technorati or is Twitter Grader still operating? My colleagues agree when I say I cannot keep up with the amount of change in technology. Just when I thought I was safe with the blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, dozens of Twitter accounts and YouTube, along comes Google Plus. Another mouth to feed another in-basket, more circles, more ripples.

Sterne quotes Jodi McDermott, talking about widgets and  the difficulties of measurement when things are changing on the fly, "This market is rife with start-ups in college dorms...They like changing things on the fly daily for fun."

I decided to try some of the tools Jim wrote about. I couldn't reach Twitter Grader. Twitalyzer.com reported my main twitter account earned just a "casual" score, even though it has almost 5,000 tweets and 2,500 followers. I found the same account downright invisible on wefollow.com for the main topic of the account.

I got this message once on twitanlayzer.com "You have been Rate Limited by Twitter
The technical explanation is that Twitter has changed their rate limit strategy for search, dramatically limiting Twitalyzer's ability to gather data on non-client accounts. We are working through this challenge now and hope to have a solution in the near future.

The non-technical explanation is ... Twitter won't give us the Tweets we asked for, the meanies!"

Getting back to the book, it provokes, it reminds, it will encourage you to think why measurement and objectives count. Most important what I walked away with, is that while Jim is explaining metrics, he very subtly reveals a strategic approach to using social media. Read the book.

The Memex

I am researching collaboration software as background for an upcoming talk I'll be giving at SES Standards Engineering Society, in Boston. During the course of researching synchronous and asynchronous document editing software, I found an interesting reference to a 1945 article in Atlantic Monthly describing a microfilm library, the memex, and you will have to read this yourself to understand that collaborative tools, the concept of hypertext itself, social bookmarking and much more date back to this very interesting article by Vannear Bush, As We May Think.

In part Bush was reacting to the destructive application of science in creating weapons and he conceived of a machine that would compress a whole library into a piece of furniture, allow people to create a new kind of encyclopedia and unlock knowledge. He advocates that scientists should devote their post world war efforts to the peaceful application of technology.

I particularly like this quote from Bush and I plan to use it in my upcoming talk and in my daily work advocating the use of new technology. "The summation of human experience is being expanded at a prodigious rate, and the means we use for threading through the consequent maze to the momentarily important item is the same as was used in the days of square-rigged ships."

I'll end here with a recommendation - please stop what you are doing and take a few minutes to read Vannear Bush, As We May Think.

10 Things You Can Do with Social Media and Some Common Perceptions

Here are 10 things you can do with social media:

• join a group or invite people to join a group
• post a news item or job to LinkedIn
• write a blog article
• tweet
• post a blog comment
• mine leads, find information
• read comments
• respond to comments
• post a video
• make connections with other people

In the last two years I’ve heard many objections to social media. Here are some common perceptions about using social media

• I won’t have time: it’s playtime; there’s no revenue opportunity; I don’t get excited about cost avoidance; I’ll be better off spending time on something else; sitting in front of a computer is for people with lots of free time; we don’t want to appear unresponsive
• My audience doesn’t use social media: e.g. Facebook is for kids; decision makers don’t use social media; CEOs and top executives don’t use Twitter
• I already communicate with my audience: people should meet face to face or communicate by phone; I use listserve and email
• It should be centralized; it is a function for the Marketing Communication team; it has to be monitored; there should be rules; we don’t want public criticism

No doubt in some situations there is an element of truth in each of these perceptions. Engaging in any activity means some time commitment. If it isn’t done well, there won’t be a worthwhile revenue opportunity. It’s true Linkedin is a more likely demographic for certain target audiences than Facebook at present. Certain interactions are more productive face to face and a corporate entity has to protect its brand identity and messaging.

The flip side to this is that all of these perceptions are also partially false. I’ve actually heard people who say that there’s no opportunity reverse course and say they fear they will be flooded with inquiries and won’t have time enough to respond. Being unresponsive can have consequences but social media is not a two way dialogue between the company and the group. Group members are relying on other group members to contribute and respond as well. A good practice would be to listen to what people are saying, facilitate the discussion and correct misperceptions. Plenty of busy CEOs, board members and top decision makers at the most prestigious organizations use Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook for personal and business reasons to stay in touch with colleagues, to follow developments in their field and to keep tabs on competitors. And no doubt meetings, email, telephone and traditional media are all important but as a matter of fact, they aren’t all really centralized under Marketing Communications. On top of that, communications about your company go on all the time between your customers and competitors without involvement or approval by your company. An online forum or group gives companies a chance to be part of the conversation.