After another recent nationwide swing to meet with companies about their social media initiatives and speaking with a few industry colleagues, I’m more convinced than ever that now is the time for social media measurement providers to come together to establish their own association to address the difficult issues we face before it’s too late.
I know the concept of yet another industry group sounds difficult to swallow and that a lot of people think social media is nothing more than a niche segment of word of mouth marketing and should fall under WOMMA, but I disagree.
As a discipline, social media analytics has grown up over the last few years and now warrants its own industry-policed association run by people who work in the field. Some of the brightest minds in our industry work at companies like Nielsen, TNS, J.D. Power and Dow Jones. I’ve seen a real passion across the industry about how to help companies convert insights from social media into actionable business intelligence.
We could call the group The Social Media Standards Association, or something similar. The name isn’t important.
The last two years of explosive growth underscore that now is exactly the time for social media listening and measurement companies to work together to better define the basic parameters of this industry. We need to do a better job of helping brands understand how social media insights fit within the corporate environment and can really help companies build customer loyalty and revenues.
As an industry, we doing a great disservice by not creating agreed upon measurement standards that all brands can understand and apply to their operations. The recent Forrester Wave Report on the world’s best “Listening Platforms” alone contains in-depth background information about how the top seven vendors in the field define measurement, and the differences alone would make your head spin. (A free copy of the report can be downloaded from our site).
Some of the topics and issues, to name just a few, that require the industry’s immediate attention for common definition include:
- what constitutes a social media data source?
- which author attributes should be included in defining influence?
- what are acceptable minimum standards for sentiment analysis?
- how to define community vs. individual influence?
- how social media data complements other forms of corporate research?
- what are acceptable standards for social media engagement?
The list goes on and on.
Some of the people I’ve spoken with also feel brands need help understanding the underlying technologies that support the industry’s research capabilities.
Word of mouth marketers helped build their credibility when a group of forward-think industry types like Pete Blackshaw, Dave Balter, Jonathan Carson and others came together when no one else thought the idea held water. That’s exactly what our industry needs to do now too. You could argue there is a lot more momentum in social media now than when WOMMA began five years ago.
As always, I’d love to hear what you think too.
6 comments ↓
Martin from Techrigy here- it’s interesting because Aaron Newman, our founder, and I were just talking about this, creating a standards group for social media monitoring, measurement and analysis. We’d be in.
I believe one exists that sounds similar to what you are advocating. It’s called the Social Media Advertising Consortium. I know of it because my CEO (Dave Balter) is on the board (there’s my disclosure), though it was not started by us. Here’s a link: http://smac.gather.com/
Hi Mike,
Looks like we’re on similar tracks. Take a look at: http://tinyurl.com/inflsc about the Influence Scorecard.
What do you think?
Martin - The need is so obvious it’s good to know that you guys are thinking along the same lines. Perhaps these pockets of discussions can lead us all to a better plan on this. Thanks for chiming in.
JoeC - Thanks for the heads up on the SMAC group. I just joined too. I’m for any discussion that moves the whole industry forward. I just want to be sure we are talking more than just advertising here.
Philip - Interesting perspective. The concept of the scorecard is something I have to think about more, but you’re definitely on to something there.
I will keep you guys in on any new momentum on our side. I think this has real legs and is a real need.
Many of us are working towards the most valuable measurement standards for social media. I couldn’t agree more that generally accepted standards for brand marketers, corporate communicators, and other business owners is one of the single biggest challenges towards social media adoption.
I do not think that a new “Association” of measurement vendors will deliver it. The most exciting place for true disciplined measurement in social media is WOMMA (www.womma.org). Social media is hardly a niche of Word of Mouth Marketing. It is the single biggest focus for the membership (disclosure: I am on the board). If you had visited the Research and Measurement Sympsium in November, you would have seen the most promising and sophisticated models for social media measurement.
Great models were highlighted:
- Customer Value Matrix – the bottom line benefits of new customer acquisition and the reduction of acquisition costs
- NetPromoter Economics – the value of increasing one’s Net Promoter Score to the growth and revenue performance of the company
- Social Value of Opinion Leaders – the value do ‘influencers” bring to sales and conversion
- Conversation Value Model – how positive word of mouth drives new customers via the G2X model
and more….
Our Measurement Council is probably the single most important initiative for the organization. That being said, it will all go faster and be more successful if individual members like yourself jump in to get more involved. We would love to add your good thinking to a group that already includes brand marketers, brand communication executives, technology innovators, social media and word of mouth marketing experts.
The solution has to be born from a multidiciplinary team - brand marketers, customer service experts , communication leaders, technologists, researchers, etc…. It must be an open and transparent model with absolutely no prorietary parts.
Ultimately measurement must be aligned with the business needs of the marcom executive who is responsible for moving the needle on their business which today means not just building revenue but saving jobs and the overall health fo their business.
Let’s use the forums we have - WOMMA is my clear choice. And let’s do as you say - work aggressively to create standards that make sense to all.
John,
Thanks for your usual outstanding and thoughtful assessment of the current social media environment. While I am aware of the research efforts within WOMMA and would welcome the chance to participate more (we should have gotten involved earlier), there are specific measurement issues associated with social media research companies that need to be addressed for the overall good of our industry and clients. Our conservative estimate is that brands spent more roughly $100 million in 2008 alone with just the top 10 social media measurement companies and still do not have a clear framework for how measurement standards cross these platforms. I agree that a multi-diciplinary team is the way to go, but any measurement efforts underway that do not include representatives from all of the firms in the recent Forrester WAVE Report is not going to solve the problem as fast as it needs to happen. That could happen within the framework of WOMMA, but I’m not sure the willpower exists among our colleagues and competitors.
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