Ken Burbary moderated the panel. David Alston and Don Bartholomew joined me in sharing their ideas on how organizations can measure and realize ROI from social media engagements.

David pointed out that there is no magic button that calculates ROI. Measurement for every organization will be different. We agreed that a social media strategy needs to be meeting business objectives and be measurable. It’s important to speak in the language of the C-suite in order to sell social.

Don also talked about utilizing social data for market research creating models to anticipate behavior.

Here’s the deck that I put together.

How are you measuring your efforts?

In March Jeremiah and Ray Wang of Altimeter published their report on Social CRM: The New Rules of Relationship Management.

Altimeter has partnered with Web Analytics Demystified to provide frameworks for social media analytics.

Measurement is one of the biggest challenges facing community managers and social media specialists. How can you quantify the progress of your efforts?

Jeremiah & John have created a report that outlines the main areas and also have provided a simple equation to calculate each one.

Make sure that you benchmark and choose the ones that make sense in your case. Then track your metrics from month to month against those.

Here’s the complete report and you can pop on over to Slideshare & download a copy there.

Yesterday, Jeremiah Owyang & Ray Wang of the consulting group, Altimeter, released a report on the use cases for Social Customer Relationship Management (social CRM). As Community Managers we all know that the customer is our first priority.Yesterday I presented a five hour workshop on the same topic in the UK. I have been sharing these use cases for quite awhile. I’m in the process of writing white papers on the ROI of social media monitoring. The first is available.

At Alterian we are also starting to quantify the value that advertisers are realizing on the social web. We used Alterian SM2 to measure the conversations around the Super Bowl advertisers and defined a Social Engagement Index that shows the reach and influence of the ads. And we also calculated the Social Sentiment Engagement Index which takes into account how people felt about the ads.

Jeremiah & Ray have put together an awesome report that consolidates interviews with vendors and experts. It’s a must read. They underline that the customers are leading the conversation.

Here’s the whole report. I totally appreciate their sharing their findings in the true spirit of social media. We are fortunate that such talented people (both were at Forrester) are willing to openly share their work! Where is your organization at in this scheme? Are you listening to your customers?

The report highlights:

1. Identifies 18 use cases for Social CRM
2. Captures the best practices of 100 customers in 18 use cases.  More to be added over time.

1. Companies will expect ROI from their Social Media efforts.

Social Media will shift from being experimental to mainstream. Larger organizations can’t justify embracing it without having it meeting their business objectives. It has to increase their bottom line. I have been working on an ROI series and that will kick off in January. It is possible to establish metrics around your efforts and measure progress! Can you afford not to? How will you grow your program and justify the resources if you’re not showing the progress & return? Olivier Blanchard has a great slide deck on Social Media ROI!

2. The Social Media Specialist (Community Manager) position will become mainstream.

Companies are going to quickly find that they need someone to guide their efforts externally and internally. Social efforts should be extended across the board.Jeremiah Owyang had a great post on how companies should plan a holistic approach and use social beyond marketing. My series will address that and it’s the foundation for my work at Alterian. My list of Responsibilities and Goals for a Community Manager continues to be my most read post.   

3. Cultural shift inside of companies.

This is going to be a challenge for many companies. In order to be successful in connecting with customers, organizations are going to have to have communications channels in place and the openness to utilize the information. I shared a diagram of how a community manager can increase sales & the many departments affected. Management is going to need to have a level of trust for their employees interacting online and understand that the risk can be mitigated by education & training.

4. Social Media Monitoring will be a necessary component

My colleague, John Tonini, made the prediction earlier this year that the market would shift from brands wondering if they should be monitoring social media to ‘What tool should we be using?’. 2010 will see a huge shift in the adoption rate of social media monitoring. January of 2009 kicked off a wave and I foresee that growth in the industry continuing. The tools are going to evolve quickly too. Our customers are driving that process.

5. Agencies and companies will hire data analysts

A new position is emerging. My favorite title is Social Media Metrician. Social Media monitoring tools don’t drive themselves. They need more than a human touch. They require people who enjoy digging into the analytics aspect, looking for patterns and trends. Web analytics people will be able to expand on their roles. Brands and agencies are going to need this new specialized position to drive their marketing intelligence. Marshall Sponder lists many predictions in regard to the role of the data analyst in 2010.

6. Integration of platforms and processes will be critical.

My job as Community Strategist at Alterian has me cognizant that marketing is going to be radically changing. My CEO listed our top 10 predictions at Alterian. One of them is:

There is a proliferation of things to monitor, measure and manage, making it very difficult and time consuming for marketers to pull together the overall picture for integrated campaigns. There will therefore be a move towards single integrated software platforms so that campaign planning and management are integrated with web and email.

Forrester is also looking towards the integration of platfroms too.

7. I will be meeting more of YOU in the new year!

The first six were very serious so I needed to lighten this up! The amount I traveled in the second half of 2009 made me quite aware that I no longer work with a startup! One of the exciting things about 2010 is that my calendar has me on the move! I love the TripIt feature in LinkedIn. It reminds me of who in my network live near my destination. And even more amazing, it shows the trips that coincide. I came close to meeting a friend from Spain when we were both in NYC! So if you use TripIt connect with me and I look forward to meeting you next year!

What would you add to my list?

I shared that information last week in a webinar that covers best practices for social media monitoring & reporting.  I included:

• Common Applications of Social Media Monitoring
• Search Design
• Dealing with Noise and Spam
• Reports and Analysis
• Actions Based on Insights that Result in ROI

Here’s the slide deck and the recorded version of the webinar is available.

And you may also be interested in the webinar that Surresh Vital of Forrester presented on how social media monitoring is impacting marketing.

I have a growing library on SlideShare on the topics that I speak about (building community, monitoring, measurement, etc). Check out the widget on the right side of my blog.

Please ask if you have questions.

I covered the following:

• Which objectives to consider when defining your social media monitoring (SMM) strategy
• What types of tools are available
• How to make sense of the data that is gathered
• The ROI and benefits of social media monitoring

During the webinar it was interesting the exchange of Twitter usernames transition to  requesting to continue the conversation in a community. It underlined how people with a similar affinity will want to gather! Everyone is welcome to join our Community .

One of the challenges that I have in presenting webinars is that I feel like I’m talking to an empty space. But that wasn’t the case in this one. There was a lot of conversation happening in the chat box. I had 5 poll questions and that generated more conversation on the side as well making much more interactive. Here are the results:

Many of those that chose ‘Other’ posted their background in the chat.

I found this to be very interesting that the majority were B2B’s!

This explains why we’re so busy. Social Media monitoring isn’t mainstream yet. People are still learning.

Attendees were primarily from Europe, and there were a lot of questions about language capabilities.

It’s really important to know what your objective is for listening.

I will post a link to the recording of the webinar when it is available.

Here’s some additional commentary to go with the slides:

One year ago I was contracted for a few hours a week. Two months later I went full time. As a community manager, I relied on social media marketing. We had an ambitious team of 5 and no marketing budget. (I learned new words like ‘boot strapping’).

When I started demo’ing SM2 there was a huge learning curve if the attendee didn’t know about wikis, twitter, etc. So, after doing some ‘listening’ I realized that people on Twitter were early adopters and had achieved a certain level. In addition many were asking, ‘What should we be using for social media monitoring?’, How do you do it?, and the pro’s and con’s are debated.

Twitter was ideal because users are:

• early adopters & understand the basics of social media
• actively seeking information and options
• specifically interested in our service
• happy to share information with others which builds word of mouth
• very happy to see a listening tool actively engaged

To use Twitter for lead generation, listen for people expressing a need for your product or service. In our case I monitor for the phrase “social media monitoring”. If you’re a financial institution, then you may want to monitor for “mortgage calculator”. And a photography software company may monitor for “taking photos” and join the conversation.

After the presentation I hung out on Twitter and chatted. I saw my colleague, Jim Reynolds, confirm that we quit cold calling. He joined Techrigy two weeks after I did and is avidly involved in the conversation on Twitter.

And I caught this testimonial by @GavinThomas. Our goal is to provide value and we’ve made a lot of friends there. This underlines the idea that people don’t mind the connection on Twitter.

The whole Marketing Prof’s conference is available for 90 days. Enjoy!

At the end of the presentation I listed a number of business objectives that can be realized using Twitter. What have you found effective?

The second part is a case study on my work with Techrigy which is primarily B2B. Kellie Parker provided a case study on her work at Sega which is B2C. Both of us have been with our respective companies for six months.

For my case study I used screenshots from SM2 to show the increase in conversation around the brand since I started working with the brand (slide 15). At Techrigy my community isn’t on a hosted platform. We have our customers, our Freemiums and the extended community on Twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook.

*update* I see that Slideshare did a bit of reformatting. Here is the text

What questions do you have?

Here’s a link to all of the presentations at NewComm Forums.

More presentations are coming. On Monday May 11th we’re doing a day long workshop on How to be a Community Manager at Community 2.0 in San Francisco. And I’m also doing a presentation on the role of the community manager from both the employer’s & employee’s side. If you’re there definitely say ‘hi’!

For the past six months I’ve been working with a company that’s mostly B2B (business to business). We offer the ability to white label our software. In turn many of our customers are agencies that offer the service to their clients. We also have companies/organizations that use our tool for their own needs.

Some of our customers realize quickly that I’m not in sales. When I was hired, my CEO specifically told me that I was not doing sales work. There was a period of time where we were growing and I tried helping out with sales. It was quickly apparent that I’m much better at opening conversations rather than closing deals. But I am pleased to say that our sales team has written some contracts for my sales so there is hope for me if I need a career change!

People wonder how my role fits into sales? It’s a great question for two reasons:

1. Customers sense how my team has evolved a great model of how a community manager can compliment & enhance the efforts of the sales team.

2. It underlines how invaluable community building can be in every organization.

One of the best things about my present role is that we have evolved together. I taught our sales team about social media and they in turn have taught me about the sales funnel. Because we have a web 2.0 product I believe that our company has to live and breathe it. I noticed that someone commented on my blog that my team should be closing sales rather than participating in social media. I disagree. I think that they all should be building community. I’ve created a team that’s well versed in my role. They are all practicing community managers!

My philosophy is that if a company provides resources & excellent customer service then people will purchase. This is how my role interweaves with the sales funnel.

• Outside the sales funnel – I build product awareness by providing information and interacting on the web at large. I help direct traffic if people are interested in learning more about our product. It’s a conversation though, not push marketing.
• In the sales funnel -  I provide high level training & specialized support. My team also knows that they can always call on my expertise in social media. This is not limited to sales but includes the executive level in regard to assistance with partnerships. Our focus is on building relationships & ensuring that the potential customer is confident that our product will serve their needs.
• After the sale – We are a software as a service (SAAS) so we really don’t have an end point  of sale but rather a monthly contract. It doesn’t matter to me because I would never consider a sale as the end of the company’s commitment. Once a customer joins the Techrigy family by purchasing they experience excellent customer service. Our customers are delighted with weekend support. This is the most important time to continue building relationships & educating on product use. We can see the result as people recommend our tool to others. Positive word of mouth isn’t something that can be bought. It’s earned.
• All around the funnel – No matter where I connect with people I’m continually gathering ideas & feedback on our product. This is imperative for our evolution. We need to provide what our customers need and what they don’t even realize they need.

In melding my role with sales the purchase cycle is 2/3 shorter in time. I have some ideas on why that has happened: 1) We have a symbiotic relationship that benefits our customers in every way. And our customers have not only noticed, but they want to know more. 2) The leads are people that are sincerely interested in our product & it suits their needs. They already know that before exploring a trial.

What could a community manager do for your business? Would you like to:

• shorten your purchase cycle?
• increase the number & quality of leads?
• increase your brand visibility?
• increase satisfaction with customer service?
• re-energize your sales department?
• gather product feedback directly from influencers, potentials and customers?
• gain market research ideas directly from the community at large?

Can you afford not to?

Every business wants to know how engaging in social media can increase their bottom line.

There are a number of challenges in explaining the value of social media:

• How do you show a direct benefit?
• How do you show an immediate return?

Answering those two questions is challenging because we also know that:

• much education needs to take place
• customer engagement is a long term commitment, not a short-range campaign

Social Media Monitoring Provides the Answers

Does the business have competitors? of course they do!

1. My suggestion is to set up keyword searches for the brand & it’s competitors. Then there is a two step process:

Depending on the results the discussion is indicated:

• If the brand has more conversation around it, then:
  • Doesn’t the brand want to maintain their lead online?
• If a competitor has more conversations around it, then:
  • Shouldn’t the brand get busy & consider their strategy?
• If neither the brand or competitors have any conversations around them, then:
  • Shouldn’t the brand get a head start on their competition? Seth Godin suggests that whoever is first will get a lead that’s difficult to overcome.

The next question is how to show an immediate ROI.

2. Use the results from Step One you now have a benchmark. This will provide a basis for setting goals.

Using Techrigy SM2 for social media monitoring offers many ways of analyzing the conversation. It offers an efficient way to measure brand presence, brand perception, opinion & tone. And it also identifies the conversations that the brand should be engaging with.

What will provide value to the customer?

• Is it improving customer service on the web at large?
• Is it identifying the influencers & engaging with them? 
• Is it increasing sentiment around their product?
• Does the business want to gather product development information & feedback?
• Will knowing where the conversations are taking place geographically be valuable?
• Is increased brand visibility important?
• What is the brand perception?

Once you have established what will be measured then goals can be set. What percentage improvement would the business like to achieve? That provides direction for the strategy.

I would also suggest incorporating web analytics into the strategy because those will most likely increase & are generally already a part of a business plan.

3. Finally what will be the ROI? The business needs to know what value the various points in Step 2 have. Using the goals & the cost of implementing the social media strategy then the ROI can be calculated.

Examples: each customer service call is worth $8 or each new customer signup is worth $5

The exciting part is that the conversations are benchmarked before you start. So moving through the engagement, SM2 facilitates the engagement, tracks it, analyzes the conversations & offers reporting at whatever level is needed.

Imagine if you could show your client the following chart. The blue line represents the benchline of the two previous months with no social media efforts. And the red line depicts the amount of conversation in the past two months surrounding their brand & products. With the tool you can help the client translate the ROI based on the value realized from their goals.

After reading his article on ROI vs Value, I’m going to call out Lewis Green for his input on this.

And what do you think?

Update: I’m doing a webinar on Business Cases of Monitoring Social Media on Thurs Jan 15 at 2 pm est

More info here & sign up.

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