Posts tagged 'social media'

By: tara.deville at 9:35 am

Government agencies weigh in on social media, but should they?

Jan
4

Near the close of 2009, two regulatory bodies, the FTC and FDA, took steps to revise existing guidelines governing advertising to consumers. The issue: the internet and social media.

As most of us know on a personal, if not professional level, social media holds inherent value as a channel through which we can quickly find information, credibly share experiences and intimately connect with others. With the growth in UGC and social conversations, individuals and advertisers alike have discovered means to monetize this content to provide additional benefits to themselves or other stakeholders. As a result, the concern over loss of information authenticity and public safety given the commercialism of social media has come in the cross hairs of the government.

In November, the FDA held hearings inviting speakers and presenters to demonstrate how drug companies use the web and other social media to promote pharmaceuticals as well as how consumers are influenced by social tools. On December 1, the FTC’s new guidelines for bloggers went into effect, requiring them to disclose any products or relationships they have with companies or advertisers.

So, why all the fuss? With more and more “sponsored” content, the question is in how credible the sources of information can truly be. There are protective rules in place to safeguard consumers and patients in the everyday sales transactions and consumption behaviors in which we all participate. The FTC works for consumers to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices and to provide information to help spot, stop, and avoid them. FDA ensures that food, drugs, biological products and medical devices are safe, and honestly, accurately and informatively represented to the public.

However, the new guidelines (or lack thereof in certain circumstances) from these organizations have come under intense scrutiny and debate ranging from is the internet being unfairly targeted as a medium, or how can the government possibly police and enforce these rules, to should an advertiser be responsible for monitoring the content outside of something they created?

My recommendation: Be transparent. Disclose, disclose, disclose.

It’s the right thing to do.

Based on the responsibilities of these agencies, it is not surprising that the internet and social media become part of their guidelines. I argue that by providing guidelines, advertisers can better leverage these new tools, as opposed to feeling uncertain whether or not something is against the rules. As advertisers, we have to be knowledgeable about these rules and regulations to conduct business in a fair and legal way. To summarize the outcomes of the two recent events, I will use two words, which I endorse as best practice for all advertisers: disclosure and transparency.

Disclosure: FTC Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials

The revised FTC guidelines as part of the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers or spokespeople who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service. I recommend to advertisers that proper disclosure of endorsements and sponsorship is in their best interest.

Transparency: FDA Hearings on Internet and Social Media

The hearings were successful in demonstrating the uniqueness and importance of the Internet and social media in informing and educating the public about health issues, including communicating risk and benefits of drugs.

As my colleague and I presented during the BDI Social Communications & Healthcare Conference in July, social media requires five basic tenets, of which transparency is imperative. The five basic tenets should guide companies as they being to leverage social media:

  1. Reciprocity
  2. Relevancy
  3. Transparency
  4. Authenticity
  5. Commitment

Transparency was the primary theme at the hearings and a number of best practices were presented to the FDA to provide responsible solutions to social tactics, such as space-limited messaging or paid search ads. I am currently working with clients and partners using these best practices in an effort to be more transparent to the public. For instance, beta Google search ads are being developed on behalf of our biotech/pharma clients to be shared with DDMAC. Likewise, I advocate the one-click rule for sharing ISI and PI, as well as rich media fair balance. These guides will continue to evolve as more feedback is provided by FDA.

In closing, I argue that any online strategy initiated by an advertiser, be it CPG, retail, B2B, or healthcare, must keep consistent with seeking outcomes that are legal, substantiated, and ethically responsible, regardless of the current state of any regulatory guidance. It’s the right thing to do.

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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.

Picture 3 Picture 5

Picture 4 Picture 2

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.

soren com 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?

Post a comment to share your thoughts.

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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.

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