WHiBlog | The official blog of WHITTMANHART Interactive.

Behavioral Targeting Discussion: Education Should Guide Evolution

Nov
2

If you’ve been keeping up on your online advertising news this year you know there has been much debate and publicity around behavioral targeting. For those who haven’t heard, behavioral targeting is the practice used by publishers to track and identify consumers’ online interests and then serve ads deemed relevant based on browsing history. It has picked up great momentum and popularity among marketers who see it as an opportunity to increase efficiency of media placements; and likewise, publishers invest in building out behavioral networks because they can charge a premium. On the other hand, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) wants more regulation and stronger, simpler opportunities to opt-out users from behavioral targeting. Typically, I am a fanatic about protecting my own privacy online, but in this case I’m wondering is this targeting such a bad thing?

My husband and I bought a house recently and since then I have found my feelings toward advertising grow from slight annoyance to near disgust (Gasp!). Just yesterday I walked up to my front door to find numerous multi-colored flyers and ads shoved in my door. These of course went flying and hit me in the face as I attempted to juggle the door, my bags, and the flyers, which then lead me to scramble after the papers, trip over my mums, and fall on my face. So, obviously I was angry, but not because I took a nose dive, my anger actually bubbled up as soon as I saw the flyers on the door.

Many consumers are feeling increasingly frustrated toward irrelevant ads in all media channels. But what if those ads were indeed relevant? What if those flyers on my door advertised a fabulous yoga center in the area, or a great used book store close by…would I have gotten so mad? Probably not. In fact, I think it would be very refreshing to receive a mailer that actually related to me. And I’ve noticed that Google has moved in this direction. Google offers a tool available for users to log in and control what targeting they receive based on their search history. This transparency is certainly a change from traditional channels. If only I could do that with my TV and mailbox I might actually enjoy reading advertisements!

Critics of behavioral targeting, on the other hand, claim companies are collecting too much information and are not upfront enough with the consumer. However, again, the publishers beg to differ. In the case of Yahoo, the media giant has a very robust Privacy Center (which they claim only 75,000 people per month ever visit) allowing users the ability to completely opt-out of behavioral targeting altogether. Now, in all fairness, Yahoo does claim the site is “prominently linked” but, I would argue their definition of prominence is rather loose. Despite not finding a huge link advertising the page, I was able to locate the user controls within a few minutes. The site provides a great deal of information for consumers who want to understand exactly what is going on with their information online – they even have a privacy blog.

As things stand right now, internet users have the ability to opt-out of behavioral targeting. Interestingly, most do not demand that right. People either don’t realize they have the choice, don’t care to, or simply don’t have the time to spend learning about targeting options. Some FTC members support the opt-in strategy, saying that all users should have to choose to receive targeted ads. This makes sense when you’re trying to collect sensitive data, but for ad targeting? Microsoft says that concept is just not realistic. Rather, Microsoft is a proponent for more education for consumers. The fact is if most people don’t know about behavioral targeting how can we expect them to opt-in?

I also see a need for more education around behavioral targeting. I’m all for restricting the collection of PII (personal identifiable information). However, it seems many people are not at all aware of the extent to which they can be tracked. Working in this industry allows me visibility to the technical side of how targeting works. Yet most people may not fathom how we can see what ads they click on and what they do on websites. It evokes a sense of fear in some consumers. I’d like to be able to quell this fear. What I like to explain to people about behavioral advertising is that I do not have the ability to see what Mary Smith, the person, does. What I can see is an aggregate number of data points collected over time telling me, for example, that 100 people clicked on my banner ad and signed up to my newsletter in the month of July. I have no access to PII, but rather can see that my messaging resonated more against my target of women expressing an interest in health.

Overall, I think once the consumers are educated about the technology they won’t reject it. As media agencies, if we can find a way to quickly and efficiently educate consumers on what type of information is really being collected, we can help move them past any state of fear to see what behavioral targeting really enables. I mean if you have to see ads, why wouldn’t you want them to be relevant?

Interested to hear thoughts or feedback. What % of ads do you think are relevant to you in a given day?

By: josh.beane at 1:01 pm

Sharing My 30th Birthday

Oct
28

This past Spring my best friend and I went to Argentina to celebrate my 30th birthday. From the Iguazu Falls to the foothills of the Andes in Bariloche, we explored some of the most amazing places. Things that I will never forget. You’d think that I would of taken 100’s of pictures; especially since we both had our nice Nikon and Canon digital cameras. I think we took 30 between the both of us. Instead we captured the whole experience on my FlipHD video camera. With it being the size of an iPod and holding 60 minutes of footage before offloading by USB straight to my computer—it was a no brainer. We uploaded videos each day to our Facebook pages allowing our friends to really share in the experience with us at a whole other level. I would constantly hear things like “I feel like we are there with you.” Which is not something you often hear about a photograph. Video breaks through that wall and I think it will be hard to go back. Since we were gone for a little more than three weeks we couldn’t really just “walk away” from our lives at home. But video helped us with that too. My friend would communicate daily with his girlfriend using video chat/ Skype and I was using it to give my editor notes on a project we were finishing. Now I know we could of used other methods to communicate but I think my buddy’s girlfriend thought the “I love yous,” were more impactful as she watched him say it (even if she had to deal with seeing me in the background as I sat on the couch drinking beers).

Check out the amazing Iguazu Falls:

Iguazu Falls Video

Now I rarely leave my house without my flip. But even if I don’t have it, most of the accessories I carry with me daily (phone, iPod) capture video. And I also find myself communicating more and more using video chat because hearing someone’s voice or typing just isn’t enough.

While writing this blog I realized it’s my first ever “written” blog entry ever. No wonder it took me so long. I should of just pulled out my flip.

By: WHITTMANHART Interactive at 10:13 am

Augmented Reality – First Down

Oct
22

One of the hottest trends in interactive has been Augmented Reality and marketers are scrambling to figure out how to use it without falling into the “me too” category. AR is nothing new and has been around since the early 90’s. You may not have realized it but you have been experiencing AR in a variety of ways for some time now. It might surprise you but the yellow “first down” line we see on TV watching a football game is in-fact a form of AR. The technology broke though into main stream when it became possible to produce AR experiences in Adobe Flash, providing an unmatched user base (installed on 99% of all internet-enabled desktops) as apposed to developing proprietary plug-ins.

Augmented Reality is based on image processing and the ability to process a live video feed, such as from your webcam, and detect objects within the video. In this instance it is detecting a marker, typically a black square with a white pattern inside of it. The distortion of the marker within the video image, depending on how you are holding it, creates 3D camera information that can be applied to a 3D model. Other image processing techniques such as motion detection, facial recognition, optical tracking can be combined together to create meaningful interactive experiences. Utilize GPS to provide location awareness to your functionality and now you’ve got something. CPG, retail, social and gaming can all benefit greatly from these capabilities.

Pushing the limitations of AR within Flash is a tangled web because of memory consumption and image processing. Aside from performance why and when to use AR is a larger question, technology will always get better but ideas will stand the test of time. There are some great AR examples out there. We believe the work we did for Lucas Arts on www.jointheclonewars.com is obviously a natural fit and leverages AR to drive engagement allowing for a stronger connection with the brand. I know this Star Wars fan boy was gitty with excitement as I ran to the printer. Finding the right balance between utility, brand fit, engagement, performance and entertainment is the challenge as we all move forward.

whiBlog_yodaAR

Marshall McLuhan once said “We drive into the future using only our rearview mirror” and as a side note it’s interesting to point out that most AR experiences somehow try to take an artifact from our reality and virtualizes it. For example this is a new take at a T-Shirt design fitting room. Quite a bit of AR is for novelty and that’s ok, embracing technology is part of what we do as humans, but one example of AR that really sticks out as a useful tool is the Box Simulator for the US Postal Service.

whiBlog_uspsAR

It is a very exciting time to see where this AR train goes. With increasing support and interest in creating the applications the demand for useful compelling AR experiences is going to go up.

However, it’s going to require more lustrous graphic processing, mobile availability and most importantly engaging concepts. All in due time.

By: steve.bava at 3:35 pm

Driving Retail Sales with Social Media

Oct
19

Statistics support using social in your marketing mix, but how?

Last week, I gave a presentation on “Driving In-Store Sales through Social Media” at the In-Store Marketing Expo in Chicago. After taking the crowd through our Sears Arrive Lounge and Mountain Dew DEWmocracy case studies, I was ready for questions.

I was surprised that the majority of the questions were about social media basics and how to integrate social not only into a company’s larger digital plans, but also into the greater marketing mix. So many marketers feel paralyzed by social media. They’re behind the eight ball and they don’t know how to get ahead. What’s worse, many marketers think that consumers are ahead. I argue that’s only because we as marketers and agencies are letting them get ahead.

Social media must be taken out of the context of traditional marketing campaigns and move into the context of customer relationship management. How will you keep your finger on the pulse of your consumers on an ongoing basis?

We’ve long known that digital communications allow people to immediately take action when they hear a message. The problem is most marketers are ignoring the consumer response. Now more than ever, we must pay attention to that action, and listen to the response. Yet we continue to be driven by the push mentality—pushing messages out to consumers.

For example, one of our clients saw an uptick in online sales, so they were ready to move all communications online and decrease their in-store presence. By doing Personas and truly understanding the customer’s online behavior, we found that people were actually using the store as an important information-gathering tool before making purchasing decisions. Three of the four Personas used both in-store and online tools to influence their purchase. You have to have both. If we wouldn’t have worked with our client to really get in there and understand how the consumer was using digital, we would have ignored a very important part of the purchasing decision. Marketers must appreciate that the true aspect of digital is multi-way communication. And they must learn how to capitalize on that.

For me, one of the most important benefits of social media for the marketer is knowledge gathering. Listen to what the consumer is saying, but then use that knowledge to speak to the consumer in a better, more informed way.

Immersing users in competitive game play increased brand interest

The DEWmocracy campaign we presented at the conference didn’t start as a social media campaign. Instead we were approached with a business problem—how does Mountain Dew come up with its next flavor? The process was taking too much time in R&D, and the client needed a different solution. So we looked at the Millennial target and their relationship with technology. We knew the target would want to be a part of the product development process. You couldn’t just shove a new flavor in front of them and expect them to embrace it, so we decided to build an online game and social network where consumers could actually create and then campaign for the next flavor of Mountain Dew. Users eventually aligned behind three top drink choices, formed teams and collectively worked to enhance each component of their drink candidates to make them stronger and more appealing to the public. When the game closed in January 2008, campaigning for the three finalized drink creations began. Campaigning ended in June, and Americans voted to ultimately determine the fate of the next Mountain Dew from July through August 2008. Based on our recommendation—knowing that the target audience would want to see, touch and feel the product—Mountain Dew actually sold the three contending flavors in stores. At the end of August, Voltage was declared the winner, and the new flavor hit stores that November.

The DEWmocrac voting site included assets to let users evangelize

DEWmocracy had an enormous participation rate of 1.5 million users, with numbers increasing 5-10% every few days. The average time spent per user on DEWmocracy was an astonishing 27 minutes. For reference, reaching just a mere five minutes on a brand website is an amazing feat. DEWmocracy has certainly brought forth an experience that users were interested in engaging with for extended periods of time, over the course of many weeks.

Why was it so successful? Because we listened to the target and engaged in a dialogue. We let them become part of the process. And organizationally, we didn’t pigeonhole social media in the marketing department. Instead we worked with

Top 3 user-generated flavors were sold and encouraged more social activity

R&D, marketing, packaging, merchandising and the in-store team. The entire organization embraced the campaign, and they were flexible enough to listen to what their consumers were telling them.

At the end of the day, my lesson to the conference attendees and any marketer entering or living in the social media space is that we as agencies and marketers need to use all of our resources and mediums (social included) to speak to, listen to and engage with our consumers in order to stay one step ahead of them.

I’m happy to discuss social media, in general, and also how it can drive in-store sales. I’d love to hear about the social media challenges you’re facing. Feel free to email me at: sbava@whittmanhart.com

By: Zac Rybacki at 1:41 pm

Real Economic Recovery

Oct
15

recovery.gov vs. recovery.com

So here’s an interesting scenario I suspect may be more common than I care to think. I recently read about how Onvia has had success creating a very useful site that tracks government stimulus monies as they flow from Washington to individual states to counties and communities. It’s essentially a toll for contractors and others who are looking to bid on these government projects. They’ve done a nice job of creating a clean visual interface and interaction design allowing anyone to drill into a community and see what projects are on the docket and there providing the correlating information to respond to an RFP or RFI. They’ve even enabled some nice social widgets (list) facilitating dialogue within the site. All great stuff.

At the same time our federal government has commissioned a similar site, recovery.gov. Their mission almost identical “…provide unprecedented transparency about how Recovery funds are being used…” This site also does a pretty solid job of synthesizing boat loads of data into a relatively easy to use interface.

social tool on recovery.com

I think there are at least two areas where they really differ. First, Onvia seemed to find a way to enable some dialogue. With their approach you can comment on projects and vote on projects you think are most and least worthwhile. You can also follow changes and updates to recovery.com via their Twitter account. And they employ a full set of “share” functionality via AddThis. Second, I’m pretty sure it didn’t cost Onvia anywhere near $18M to put this together.

OK, I’m not one of those people who want to privatize everything our government does, and frankly can be quite good at. Don’t want a private solution to military, school, etc. But $18M is a lot of Recovery for a website.

Here’s a suggestion. We spend a few thousand coming up with a really great piece of copy that sets the stage for the new recover.gov.

“Thanks for visiting recovery.gov. In an effort to bring the public the best access to information on how Recovery money is being spent we have partnered with Oniva who has put together a fantastic solution that accomplishes everything we want to accomplish and then some. We’ve decided to support their efforts to ensure recovery.com stay up to date for the next three years. The remaining $17.5M previously allocated to making this experience more like theirs has been redirected to other projects.

>> Click Here for Recovery.com

The lesson is one we’ve been talking to clients about for years “if it already exists, you may do better leveraging it vs. building it”.

By: alexander.ouvaroff at 5:33 am

The Practice of Paying Attention

Oct
13

I remember how my dad would always be reminding me to pay attention – like when I’d miss a tennis ball in practice or misspell the capitol of Honduras – and to be honest, I should have paid more attention to his advice at the time. Paying attention can mean the difference between success and failure in most endeavors. If Woody Allen’s famous line, “80% of life is just showing up” is true, then paying attention accounts for at least 10% of the rest.

Business Intelligence and Analytics is on my mind everyday and a part of every conversation with our clients. As a result, we continue to focus on what the critical role of BI really is, and how it is best employed to enhance business. What a surprise: It’s about paying attention.

I have yet to encounter an organization – large or small – that is completely comfortable with their own ability to understand their customers, measure and attribute success and failure, or reliably predict business outcomes from promotional activities. It’s not for lack of interest or intellect. Some of the smartest and most engaged executives are among those who readily admit to an inability to make sense of all the data their organizations create. They long for clear, actionable information to help them succeed. mediaPlan_small

As we gain ever more ways to interact with customers, the amount of data we can harvest grows; and the challenge of making sense of all the information multiplies. Twenty years ago, it was hard enough to measure the impact of a mail shot when broadcast and print were the only other drivers. With the explosion of new communication channels – online, email, social, mobile – and the shift from outbound to interactive communication, marketers are busier than ever trying to capitalize on all the possibilities. In the process of all this frenetic activity, we aren’t always able to pay attention to how we measure and act upon results. We are awash in an ocean of data, and John Wannamaker’s famous complaint about not knowing which half of his advertising is wasted is still the risk facing most organizations.

The good news is that we marketers now have good tools to harvest data, and the opportunity to note and pay attention to the things that impact success. This is where Business Intelligence adds value. BI allows us to fail or learn fast; but only if we pay attention. By making BI a central component of each campaign, establishing clear connections between business goals and success metrics, and refusing to execute any activity that cannot be measured, we can reduce waste and improve our ability to adjust and improve performance.

Organizations need to help in order for BI to be most effective. How?…by paying attention. BI is not just a stack of incomprehensible charts and graphs that grow like sedimentary rock on the marketers’ shelves or sit heavy in unopened emails. Rather, it is a discipline that converts data into knowledge and knowledge into actionable insights and recommendations. Embracing BI as an integral part of an organization’s growth and operations and working with BI resources to understand and refine what is delivered will ensure everyone is paying attention to the right stuff, and limit the distraction of irrelevant data. Like so many things in life, what you get out of it depends on what you put in. Pay attention to how and what you need to measure and the result will be knowledge worth much more than you’ve paid.

By: ken.cellak at 12:10 pm

My Baby Has More Friends Than Me

Oct
1

More and more I notice that friends of mine are involving their children—even ones yet to make their life debut—in social network sites that they, as adults, frequent. Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter…you name it, if it’s a website and it has social component to it and if you have kids, chances are you are doing it, too.

But that’s okay. Just learn to accept that your children are on the cusp of being more popular (and smarter) than you; and their circle of friends, and friends’ friends, and friends’ friends’ friends will one day destroy—in sheer numbers—your rather tiny group of friends, colleagues and acquaintances. By the way, book club meets at my house this week. Exactly.

So, social media and kids. What does it mean? A lot of things, actually. The ever-evolving presence of children in social media channels has impacted the way we perceive these online channels in various ways. For example, privacy for children. Facebook doesn’t allow children under 13 to have their own profile, period. Which means you cannot create a profile for them anymore—well, you can, but once the privacy cops figure it out, Facebook will delete your child’s profile immediately, with no warning.

But check this out: Circle of Moms. It’s a parenting site that has an application within Facebook where moms can create individual profile pages for each of their children. From there, moms can have fun updating their child’s status, upload photos and start connecting their children with siblings, family members and others. Here’s a look at my son’s profile.

Another way we see the impact of social media on children and their parents is the way moms and dads are scooping up domain names for their young ones. The phrase ‘domain squatting’ comes to mind; however, is it really squatting if your intention is to hand over the URL reigns to your child once he/she is old enough? Chances are you are not banking on profiting from a few domains you have set aside for your children.

Then there’s Flickr, Twitter, YouTube…the list just gets bigger by the day as new social networks spawn and people continue to make babies. I myself am guilty of creating a Flickr and YouTube account for my 4-year old daughter. Really, all I did was name the accounts after her and feature content that involves her romping around our house, saying crazy things like “Daddy, who painted eyes on us?” and tackling an unsuspecting boy at our local Gymboree. Again, this is a great way to aggregate pictures and videos of your children—plus, with the ‘commenting’ functionality on social media sites, you capture sentiments from loved ones regardless of where they live. They do it online, on their time, and it’s real (versus a boilerplate greeting card or something like that).

Of course, though, as parents continue to involve their children in their own social media endeavors, the more we’ll hear the divide over what’s appropriate and when parents are simply going too far. For example, should you have a separate Twitter account for you child, or could you just broadcast to your followers what your son is blurting out via your Twitter account? Is one YouTube account sufficient for the entire family or is it necessary for Junior and little Jane to have their very own pages, all wallpapered out with their favorite colors and patterns?

Personally, I say, “Why not?” If the technology is there and you are using good judgment and your intention is to connect your children with family and friends in an immediate, engaging way, then go for it. It sure beats calling grandma in Phoenix and holding the telephone up to my daughter’s mouth hoping she’ll say something cute on the spot. Instead, grandma can check out YouTube to see a ton of video of my daugher in all her goofy glory. Plus, once you’ve established a social network for your child via Facebook, for example, you begin making more connections with parents who may have things in common with you and have similar parenting philosophies—then, within the parameters of that site, you can exchange parenting tips/advice with other moms and dads, instead of scouring the Internet for sites that may not be credible or interesting.

Finally, as marketers and parents of young children, we are already immersing our children in the world of social media, and there’s no doubt that how they perceive and utilize social media as they maneuver through adolescence and adulthood will be more sophisticated and effective in both their personal and professional lives. Just imageine how they’ll use Facebook and Twitter as a marketing tool as they join the ranks of strategists, interaction designers and technologists of their generation. That is, if Facebook and Twitter are still household names.

So, what do you think? Are you for social media and kids, or do you think it’s just too much too soon for parents to get their kids involved?

We’re Pretty Stoked

Sep
24

Four of our recent digital solutions have been recognized by the fine people at the Web Marketing Association and honored with 2009 WebAwards.

Lots of efforts on so many fronts. From East Coast to West and smack dab in the Midwest; from informed strategy to user insights to creative solutions and proven execution; and from client services to the clients themselves for being part of collaborative-as-hell teams that helped produce this work.

So snatch a few minutes from your day and check out the winners here…

Scion Website

Harley-Davidson V-Rod Muscle Microsite

James Bond: Quantum of Solace Website

Harley-Davidson Ride True Microsite

Congratulations and thank you to all involved.

By: joe.mastrangelo at 7:35 am

The Emerging Impact of Physician Reviews

Sep
23

It hasn’t happened yet but I suspect it will happen soon enough – a physician’s office manager or receptionist will ask me to sign waiver agreeing to NOT review the physician online. This request has been a growing trend in the medical community over the last couple of years.

The American public has shown a willingness to use Web 2.0 tools and functionalities to rate and share everything from the mundane coffee selection to the most serious personal detail. Considering this, it’s not surprising that this nouveau word-of-mouth has touched healthcare. Physician reviews can be found on comprehensive review sites such as Angie’s List and specialty sites such as RateMDs.com.

Angie's List home page

Often the reviews are more about the how the how physician interacted with the patient than the actual treatment decisions made. The physicians themselves do not seem to care to be reviewed. They are concerned about potential negative consequences, either from an inaccurate review or from a patient with an axe to grind. As a result, physicians are fighting back – some are requiring patients to agree not to review them prior to treatment. This trend has even resulted in one company being formed – Medical Justice – to specifically help physicians in this effort.

MedicalJustice.com Anti-Defamation page

So what does this mean? Good question.

To begin with, there are some legal issues that need resolution:

What happens if a patient agrees not to review yet does so anyway? The waivers make it clear to the patient that the physician can pursue litigation in the event the patient violates the agreement, but is that really the answer? Suing ones patients is not the best way to build a practice.

Where does the First Amendment come into play? Legal experts have expressed doubts that these waivers would hold up in court.

There are also some questions consider regarding how this trend may impact healthcare as we know it:

What happens when a patient declines to sign the waiver? Most of the discussions reviewed centered on the impact to a new patient at a physician’s office. In this scenario it wouldn’t be surprising to see the physician and patient part ways before any healthcare takes place. It will be interesting to see what happens when a long-time patient refuses to sign. Will the physician send him/her away? Will the physician relent and not seek the signature? This may also be impacted by the financial situation of the physician.

Where do hospitals fit in this trend? I can just see it now – ER physician says, “um, patient in the ER, would you mind signing this waiver before I fix your broken arm?” Clearly there is a limit to how far physicians can push this issue.

Finally, what will this mean in terms of where and how patients are treated? Will patients only go to those most highly rated? What happens to physicians that are not rated, are they perceived negatively due to the lack of commentary? Will there be standards put into place to help take the subjective nature out of these ratings? Will physicians provide the best care or the care that will result in the best rating? (The last question may seem like heresy but let’s face it, there are dermatologists out there who will see a cosmetic patient immediately while making a medical patient wait a month – NYTimes link: http://bit.ly/4fHtfF)

What can marketers learn from this?

Though I would suggest that physicians, as a group, are not handling this trend in the best manner, there are lessons that can be learned from their behavior – lessons that marketers can likely apply to their own business:

These new technologies are here to stay: I imagine if you were to poll physicians on this trend, they would like to see it just go away. That’s not happening. And the answer isn’t to erect barriers and threaten litigation. All of us, physicians include, need to use this opportunity understand what is of concern to our customers and use this information to better meet customer needs while still providing quality services.

Improved communications are a good thing: Let’s face it, most physicians are not known for having a good bedside manner. In fact, sometimes it seems as if a bad bedside manner is some kind of badge of honor. Well, it is possible for a physician to have a good bedside manner (NYTimes link: http://bit.ly/bNzmq). Ultimately, better communication will lead to better understanding and, consequently, stronger influence – something we are all after as marketers.

Keep the little things from sabotaging you: How many times has a seemingly insignificant product feature or customer service interaction torpedoed the efforts of a brand team to consistently communicate its message and value to user audience? A billing issue, a misplaced test form, a whole host of possibilities can end up leaving the patient with a less than satisfactory experience, thereby contributing to a negative review. Paying attention to and addressing potential issues early can go a long way to creating happy customers.

Through a better overall understanding of their patients, an effort to improve communications and a push to establish review standards, physicians can turn this seemingly negative trend into one provides value to them and their patients.

So what do you think? Where do you think this physician review trend is heading? What do you think we can learn from it? Let me know… post a comment or email me…

By: tara.deville at 10:01 am

Social Media Metrics: Requires a Different Conversation

Sep
21

Marketers are embracing social media and technology to connect with audiences in new and unique ways. Social community participation, smart phone apps, UGC, gaming, blogging, and video are becoming key channels in which the brand plays. Along with this channel extension has emerged the increasing requirement of marketers to demonstrate the value and ROI from social media efforts.

At a recent social media conference, the topic of ROI surfaced early and often. I heard the same things I’ve heard from my own clients. “We feel those Facebook fans are valuable. We know that blog post has been referenced and shared. We see the RTs from our daily posts on Twitter.”

But how much time and energy should we spend on social marketing? How do we justify new resources to manage social initiatives if there is no clear “return”?

For starters, metrics that help us calculate return can no longer be a matter of visitors, engagement and e-commerce sales from our website. Analytics of social media transcend the corporate and brand site to include product conversations, branded asset engagement, social network participation and sentiment levels expressed about products, services and companies.

Start by Monitoring

Monitoring our place in the social space is an essential starting point. As brand managers, we need to expand our touch points and develop a model for understanding the value of those touch points to our customer relationship and purchase cycle. By establishing benchmarks, we can then measure how the integrated mix of social communications impacts those metrics over time. By evaluating pre-campaign attitudes and awareness and tracking changing views and metrics as the brand extends its social message, we can determine the value of the investment.

Some benchmarking questions to ask:

Are we currently part of conversations about our category or industry?
How is our brand perceived compared to our competitors?
How do we enable brand advocates to tell our story?

In my own experience, I have found success in justifying social initiatives by defining baseline analytics, monitoring touch points, measuring their change, and assigning value to those changes. With personas as a core part of our strategy at Whittmanhart, we measure social success in terms of the engagement metrics that drive those personas’ behavior to purchase or influence. Knowing what the conversion rates have been across those personas, we have a sense of what a better relationship with those users will mean to the brand. Specific activities, like social profile fans, forum participation, video views, app downloads, are measured over time. Using referral data and conversion rates, we tie those interactions to purchase intent and behavior, giving the brand a directional sense of how each channel contributes ROI (or doesn’t).

In the absence of defined online personas, it might behoove brands to consider Forrester’s social technographics ladder to identify the value of positively engaging customers in social media.

Don’t Forget About Cost Savings

Furthermore, ROI isn’t a matter of revenue alone. At the recent BDI B2B Social Conference in New York, Pitney Bowes shared how they translated social participation into cost savings to demonstrate ROI. In their low-growth industry, cutting costs is central to the core business strategy. Pitney Bowes developed a customer forum that enables customers to collaborate and share experiences about mailing, postage increases and the company. For Pitney Bowes, the value of time saved and resources reduced by the customer community has been estimated at 3x the development cost of the forum. ROI was reflected in reduced customer service inquiries, not an increase in acquisitions or revenue.

Ultimately, the metrics used to demonstrate value have to work for the specific organization. Until we begin to assess the value of what these engagements mean to our own organizations, we will only have the case for social to be “just because.” The analytics may trail the technology, but that does not mean we should blindly recommend strategy because one channel looks like the next best thing. We should reflect upon the cross-channel objectives and consistently look to recommend strategies, monitor, and measure our performance against those goals.

How do you measure social media? Let us know. Post a comment or email me…

Check back for more posts about the evolving nature of media and metrics.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Cowbell

Augmented Reality – First Down

Driving Retail Sales with Social Media

Real Economic Recovery

The Practice of Paying Attention

We’re Pretty Stoked

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