Twitter ROI is 965% higher than Adwords. Guest post by Ehsan K

All businesses around the world operate in different ways and have different objective but, they all have one very important goal in common;  ROI.

ROI is a question you hear everywhere and almost by everyone; but in different shape and form of course.

Businesses adopted almost every new technology and platform to ensure they are seen by their customers and prospects at all times. This is particularly true when it comes to social media. However one thing has remained vague since adoption of social media, in 2009, by businesses; and that is ROI!

According to Javier Burón, Founder and CEO of SocialBro, 88% of marketers want to know how to measure ROI of their social media activities. Javier presented an interesting slide in which he broke down different channels (most used by marketers for advertising); and Twitter clearly stands out!

SocialBro

As it is evident above, every channel is pushing ROI; and of course deployment of a specific channel would depend on type of business and target audience. Thus, it is critical for businesses and marketers to know their audience well before spending money on any channel; in particular on social media where everything is all about conversation and content.

Good social media content has to be a combination of relevancy, reach and quality. Needless to say, no-one can guarantee and even achieve ROI in social media unless they are relevant and meaningful to their audience; which begins with listening. This is possibly why Twitter is constantly improving its usability and accessibility; to be easier for people to use the channel.

According to some anecdotal research, well over 65% of Twitter users are more likely to buy from brands they follow. So you can guess what would be the case if brands don’t interact with their followers on Twitter and mobile has a major role in converting Twitter followers to actual business customers. Therefore having an attribution model in place is very important; something can substantially help measuring ROI.

Search Engine Watch

So, unlike many brands competing for more followers on Twitter or more likes on Facebook; numbers, including number of posts by brands, are to some large extent irrelevant to success in social media, proactive engagement and meaningful conversations are the way forward. So, don’t worry about ROI, just try to make sense; and remain transparent and authentic at all times. this way people trust you and happily spend their money with you; then ROI in social media will no longer be vague.

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Category: Customer Service, Social Media, Twitter | No Comments »

The Cost of Social Media

The Real cost of Social Media

With social media at the height of its popularity, advertisers and companies find it an easy and trendy means of expand their marketing horizons. While many companies may be fooled by the free cost to open a social media account, many fail to consider the expense that goes into running a social media campaign. Do the benefits really outweigh the costs?

“How can you squander even one more day not taking advantage of the greatest shift of out generation? How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?” – Seth Godin

Cost

The true cost of a social media campaign depends on the size and reach of the campaign itself. These are some factors to consider:

  • Staff costs – Once cost often overlooked is the cost of your marketer’s salary. Without a dedicated social media campaign manager you will need to work out the amount of time your other employees will spend maintaining the social media site. Community managers are also need to answer customer inquiries and to maintain a spam-free zone for your clients and customers.
  • Advertising – The biggest myth about social media is : “if you build it they will come.” Merely setting up a Facebook page or a twitter account will not guarantee any ROI. It is necessary to add your own advertising to the mix. This can include targeted adds on the platform, adding follow buttons, share buttons on your companies website or email advertisements.
  • External Fees – If your campaign is not in-house, do you out source all parts of your social media campaign? If thats is the case then you will need to figure out the breakdown in billing and how you will be charged. Since different agencies have different rates for different strategies, you’ll need to work out if this is a continuous cost and whether it affects you return value.
  • Other – While many basic tools for social media are free, more in depth tools, such as tracking, require some escalated cost. Any other technical and creative costs may also be assumed. What happens if you are highly successful? Do you have the backing and budget to expand?

Estimated Cost
Below is a breakdown of what a fallout social media campaign may cost in a year. The amounts are estimates released by Danny Brown, CEO of Bonsai Interactive.

Benefits

Considering the potential cost if a target social media campaign, are the benefits really worth the effort and money?

In a recent survey, marketing executives where asked what they felt were the main benefits of marketing through social media. Not surprisingly, only half the respondents felt that ‘low cost’ was a benefit.

So what is the economic potential of fans on Facebook. Syncapse took a look at twenty brands – here are the results:


On average, fans spent an additional $71 on products for which they are fans of, compared to those that are not fans on Facebook.

Twitter has also provided some great case studies.  Take DellOutlet, they sought to expand their brand awareness heavily through twitter. Soon after their  pages where launched thay had generated over $3m worth of business from followers who clicked on links for purchases.

Sometimes the ability of social media is the ability to create a central forum fopr new consumers. Take the case of the Old Spice brand, a new commercial was launched which generated alot of media attention. The Twitter and Facebook pages became a rallying point for these new adopters.

2700% Increase of Twitter followers – 800% Increase in Facebook followers – 300% Increase in traffice to their website

So do the benefits out weight the costs? Tell me how you get on or if you like give me call and lets chat.

Category: FaceBook, Sales, Social Media, Twitter | No Comments »

Digital Influence

There is a great deal of interest and many different answers to the age old “what is the ROI of social media?”. To date I have not seen a definitive answer to this.

The other question I hear is “How do we measure success”, then – “what is the definition of success?”  Let me ask you this, do you measure the success of using email, instant messaging or the phone?

Why is there this obsession to measure social media when in essence its just another tool, another form of communication that, lets face it, is meteroic.

Yesterday Brian Solis, Principal Analyst from Altimeter released a report – The Rise of Digital Influence. A fasinating read if you have time. Link is further down.

Here are some of the highlights, I found interesting.

Lets begin.

The are many tools that you can use to measure influence. Before we take a look at what they are and what they measure, lets first take a look what defines influence. Brian mentions there are three pillars: 

Pillar 1: Reach: A measure of popularity, affinity and potential impact

Pillar 2: Relevance: The measure of authority, trust and affinty

Pillar 3: Resonance: The sum of the above, frequency, period and amplitude.

Now lets take a look at an action plan.

1) Benchmark: Understand where you are now so that you can track progress caputring sentiment, behaviour and awareness.

2) Audience: Who are they, where do they hang out, how are they connected and what information do they value

3) Strategy: Develop a strategy that connects the dots between you, connected consumers, and their communities.

Thats a rather brief synopsis of Brian’s full report which can be found here. The Rise of Digital Influence

So your ready …..

Lets take a look at the tools on offer:

 

Pillar 1: Reach

TwitterGrader compares Twitter profiles to millions of other users already indexed to establish a score between 1–100.
Using the  following elements:
o Number of followers
o Power of followers
o Number of updates (the higher the better)
o Update recency (the sooner the better)
o Follower/Following ratio
o Engagement (retweets and responses to an individual account)
Use Case: TwitterGrader is a performance metric for handles in comparison to other accounts. It’s ideal for quick one-to-one analysis when new, potentially influential individuals are identified using other services.

TweetLevel was developed by Edelman for communications professionals. It measures
40 different elements to quantify the varying importance of individuals using Twitter based on the context of their online activity.
TweetLevel’s measures of influence include the following attributes and output a number between 1–100:
o Buzz around specific topics
o Who the most relevant and influential users are
o The context of relevant topics
o What else people talk about and to whom
o What web links are most frequently shared
o Idea Starter metrics: does the individual generate new thoughts and content or merely amplify others
o Broadcast to Engagement ratio: assesses level of providing interesting and relevant content vs. engaging with others
Use Case: These services are purpose-built tools for the PR and marketing teams that give actionable insight into which people are influential within the right context in the right platform. PR teams can use the export feature to embed influence lists into their campaigns. These tools also offer insights into influential voices during crisis management.

TweetReach provides insight into the reach and exposure of a tweet or Twitter campaign. The service tracks any topic on Twitter and measures its exposure, activity, and contributors to identify trends and surface topical influencers.
Use Case: TweetReach offers data on the relevance, reach, and resonance of everyday conversations. Studying this information provides organizations with the ability to benchmark activity, benchmark against competitive activity, and also monitor the experiences of relevant individuals for later engagement.

EmpireAvenue.com is a virtual stock market that trades on the social capital of personal brands and real-world brands alike.
Use Case: Companies including Audi, Intel, Ford, and AT&T were among the brands that invested time and resources in EmpireAvenue. As businesses connect multiple branded channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, etc., they push newcontent into the EmpireAvenue stream. Investors will see this activity in their news feed and ,as such, engage, invest, and recommend the stock. Businesses claim to see
increased engagement within EmpireAvenue, as well as in their specific channels directly.

Pillar 2: Relevance

Kred calculates dual metrics for Influence and Outreach by analyzing a person’s ability
to inspire action and level of interaction with others. Influence, scored on a normalized
1,000-point scale, measures the ability to inspire action or influence others in the form of
retweets, replies, likes, new follows, and other actions.
Use Case: Gathering intelligence around communities of focus and interest graphs. Using the self-service dashboard, businesses can learn more about the people and their earned social capital related to key topics. It offers a glimpse of reach and authority based on individual activity and the related activity of those around them.

PeerIndex provides an overview of an individual’s stature, relevance, and reach within social networks based on cumulative activity. Sources include Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Quora, and blogs. PeerIndex consists of four components: resonance, authority, activity, and audience.
o AME (Arts, Media, and Entertainment)
o TEC (Technology and the Internet)
o SCI (Science and Environment)
o MED (Health and Medical)
o LIF (Leisure and Lifestyle)
o SPO (Sports)
o POL (News, Politics, and Society)
o BIZ (Finance, Business, and Economics)

Use Case: The PeerPerks program is a marketing program that delivers scalable word of mouth and rewards programs. It does so by characterizing what makes a likely socialadvocate for a brand and then helping brands reach and engage many thousands of those advocates at a time. PeerIndex also provides enhanced tools for behavioralprofiling and integration into a range of social platforms for select clients.

mPACT is developed by mBlast and is designed for marketing professionals in companies and agencies with an emphasis on identifying the specific individuals who are the established authorities on any given subject.
Use Case: Because mPACT’s strength is on topical relevance, the ability to identify connected individuals who matter to your market is revealing and insightful. Running a search by the keywords that define your industry will introduce you to the most relevant people who are already talking about your space, with or without you.

Traackr positions itself as an influencer discovery and monitoring platform. It uses a proprietary search engine and scoring algorithm to convert any keyword query into a list of top influencers ranked on the Reach, Resonance, and Relevance of each person discovered in the search.
Use Case: Traackr is dedicated to influencer identification and engagement. Focusing on communications rather than rewards, Traacker will help businesses create and manage ambassador programs and also shape influencer relations campaigns. Users can also track mentions and engagement metrics.

Radian6 developed an Influencer widget as part of its listening and engagement platform, which helps brands identify important individuals related to their markets across a myriad of social platforms, including blogs and Twitter.
Use Case: Radian6 provides social media monitoring, analysis, and engagement for all types and sizes of organizations. For communications professionals who focus on influencer engagement, it offers a deep and clickable path to better understand why someone is potentially influential and why he or she is important to the business. The Radian6 widget is ideal

Appinions is an influencer management platform, which is the result of over a decade of technology development at Cornell University. The platform is based on two key pillars: technology and access.
Use Case: Intended for agencies and brands, Appinions is designed to identify relevant influencers for intelligence gathering and engagement and is used by social out-reach, PR, strategy, and research teams.

Pillar 3: Resonance

Klout uses over 50 variables to measure what it calls the “standard for influence.” Its public-facing service presents the social capital and capacity for an individual’s ability to influence behavior and outcomes in social networks. Klout’s algorithm involves three separate stages of semantic calculation: True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network Value.
Use Case: Klout offers a free search tool to identify individual ranking by username. To use this tool effectively, brands must first have an idea of who they would like to learn more about and then use the search function to analyze their social capital. Additionally, organizations can partner with Klout through its paid Perks program to target influencers by Reach, Relevance, and/or Relevance.

Twitalyzer evaluates Twitter activity based on a deep set of factors to assess signal-tonoise ratio, generosity, velocity, and also clout.

Use Case: Twitalyzer offers a detailed Benchmark report that provides brands with ranked lists of Twitter users based on their stated location and the tags that have been applied to their profile. Reviewing this list of potential influencers and analyzing their activity provides brands with insight into the nature of the dialogue, as well as opportunities to engage influencers.

PROskore focuses its influence analysis on professional reputation. It scores and ranks individuals based on professional background and experience, peer validation, popularity, and engagement in social networks, as well as within the PROskore community. PROskore’s algorithm places emphasis specifically on LinkedIn, Facebook Pages, Twitter, and blogs. The end result is a score that is designed to help professionals network with partners and prospects to “generate business.”
Use Case: Whereas other influence vendors focus on helping brands connect to influential people in digital word-of-mouth marketing applications, PROskore assists businesses by introducing hiring managers to ideal employment candidates. PROskore also brings to light the notion of internal influence. By tapping personal brands as company stakeholders, the right influencer can spark important dialog from within and ultimately impact external conversations and actions. Although PROskore can help hiring managers and employment candidates, it also helps businesses identify leads and
sales opportunities.

eCairn’s Conversation platform was developed to help marketing professionals identify influential communities and the influencers who drive relevant market conversations.
Use Case: eCairn is an influencer relationship management solution designed to help brands find and engage with topical influencers and experts.

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