Entries Tagged 'General' ↓

Dave Balter and his hive of BzzAgents have published a white paper to trigger some thought provoking discussion around ROI models for social media and word-of-mouth.

Called “Valuing Advertising’s Original Medium: The Conversation,” the Bzz team tries to make a case for assigning value to word-of-mouth in a CPM environment, arguing that while advertisers recognize the benefits of consumer-generated media they really don’t know how to calculate a value to the medium. That’s not easy to do.

It’s an intriguing idea, especially when you consider the team’s methodology resulted in a whopping $300 CPM for word of mouth campaigns. BzzAgent does great work and like many in social media circles today, the need for better measurement models and tools remains very high.

If you don’t like the paper you can at least check out why Dave has the coolest CEO photo on the Web.

Two of the world’s largest PR agencies - Edelman and Ketchum - have released comprehensive studies that contain numerous insights related to social media and a variety of other worldwide corporate and media trends.

Edelman’s “8th Annual Trust Barometer” takes a global look at corporate trust and credibility. Some of the more interesting findings from my perspective include:

• More people in Brazil, Russia, India and China use social media for company information than here in the states;
• Google is moving up the ranks as one of the most trusted sources for corporate information, right up there with CNN and the BBC;
• Social networks ranks among the lowest in providing credible information about a brand in the minds of most consumers; and,
• young people seem to show higher levels of trust in business than older influential consumers.

Ketchum’s Report, “Media Myths and Realities” focused more on media usage than corporate trust. It’s key findings included:

• the way professionals communicate is out of sync with the way consumers use media;
• communicators need to include focusing on connecting with individuals in addition to mass media channels;
• consumers in emerging markets are setting the pace for media use; and,
• social networking sites lag far behind other established media channels and sites in overall usage by consumers.

It’s good to see these agencies and others including social media analysis in these annual reports.

Mike Spataro

Business Week’s 2008 Customer Service Champs edition contains a variety of interesting rankings, facts and sidebar articles that underscore the new media challenges faced by those in corporate America today. Although we’ve all heard most of these customer service horror stories before, it’s still good to learn about the progress some brands made from last year to now. The trend for many brands to do more is definitely up from last year.

Unfortunately, Business Week plays the scared tactic card again (like many publications have done in the past) in its Consumer Vigilantes piece - profiling angry out-of-control consumers smashing their products to gain attention and rebates. While there is no question that some companies deserve such wrath and need to listen more closely to their customers, the vast majority of brands have exceptional customer service. If you’re in the business of honest measurement of consumer sentiment about brands like we are, then you know most companies do a pretty good job at taking care of their customers. I doubt we really need to constantly profile out-of-control consumers to gain the attention of most brands today.

Business Week was smart though to balance its coverage with a more realistic view from Jeff Jarvis called “Love the Customers Who Hate You,” that points out how and why customer service is fast becoming the new marketing of this century. Lots of others, like John Bell and Pete Blackshaw also offer their views on the new rankings.

Mike Spataro

Everywhere I go these days it seems like I run into people who are scrambling to fill what appears to be the trendiest new job in corporate America today - head of social media.

Everyone from Harvard to confidential global brands are putting feelers out to find people who can lead their social media programs. It’s going to be interesting to see how things progress as more brands move from measurement to engagement.

In 2007, more dollars started shifting to social media, but the big turning point for many companies is the movement in the form of existing employees or new hires to drive strategies across multiple functional areas within a company. The leading brands in social media understand that corporate integration across the entire organization is crucial to success.

Mike Spataro

Michael Dell’s interview with Shel Israel provides a great glimpse inside his company’s strategic approach to social media – a term you almost feel the Dell CEO doesn’t like when you read between the lines of his interview. It’s easy to see why the tech giant has gone from the poster child for not getting the blogging community to among the best in the world at it in just a few short years.

To Michael Dell, it’s all just an extension of his company’s longstanding policy to listen and learn from its customers and detractors. The only difference is it’s now through this new channel on the Web. Rather than steal Shel’s thunder, its better you hop on over to his site for the full interview. My favorite Dell quote from the piece though is, “We don’t own our reputation, we just own our actions.”

And while Dell continues to get a lion’s share of credit for its social media accomplishments, dozens of other brands are doing just as well operating somewhat under the radar and outside the media spotlight. One of those companies is Disney. Even though its been up and running for several months, very few people have noticed or written about the wildly successful Disney Moms Panel of experts who advise people about visiting Disney Parks and Resorts.

I was fortunate in a previous job to work with the PR machine at Disneyland on several major campaigns. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Disney struggled for years with its Web strategy and wasn’t the first to jump into social media. However, a lot has changed over the past year and the Moms Panel is proof positive that change is underway in the land of Mickey. Yes, Disney hand-picked the moms and trained them, but they exercise no editorial control over responses.

The fact that more than 10,000 people volunteered to be one on the panel tells you how powerful social media can be for Disney in the years ahead. It’s hard to imagine a brand that doesn’t have more to gain - or lose - based on how it addresses the new challenges of communicating with its customers online. Keep in mind, this is a brand that has a history dating back to Walt himself of controlling every single item of what has been published about its global company and image, so getting used to giving up some of that message control is definitely a bit scary. Look for more good things from the folks at Disney this year.

Mike Spataro