At SXSW @smexaminer sent a tweet asking for contributing authors and I responded. I submitted sample posts from my blog here and included several ideas of what I could write that would be relevent for their readers. They liked my ideas and I wrote my first post. This is just one example of the power of social media. I have to say, I think it was one of my best posts so I’d love it if you took the time to check it out.

4 Ways to Measure Social Media and It’s Impact on Your Brand

Do you know how social media is helping your business? Want to find out how Twitter, Facebook and other sites are impacting your brand awareness?

The good news is social media has finally made it to the grand stage of “accountability.” A place where there are lots of people who want to measure it. The bad news is there isn’t a single clear-cut answer.

Check out the full article on Social Media Examiner.

I caught up with Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite at South By Southwest Interactive 2010 to ask about social media measurement. I wanted to see how a company that is inherently social was measuring their own success, as a leading social media engagement platform, Hootsuite is certainly leading the pack.

What do you think? How are you measuring now? What do you want to measure but don’t know how? Leave a comment to start a conversation.

This post was written for and is also posted at Folk Media.

I caught up with Maria Ogneva, Director of Community for Biz360 at South By Southwest Interactive 2010 to ask about social media measurement. I came up with 7 questions to help take the mystery out of social media measurement.

After you watch the video leave a comment below and let me know which category Maria fits in and why…

1) Houdini – all smoke and mirrors

2) Miami Vice – definitely trendsetting

3) CSI – Crime Scene Investigator – so smart with social media measurement that NOTHING gets by.

This interview was conducted for FolkMedia.

Leave a comment below.

I caught up with Amber Naslund, Director of Community for Radian6, at South By Southwest Interactive 2010 to ask about social media measurement. I came up with 7 questions to help take the mystery out of social media measurement.

 
After you watch the video leave a comment below and let me know which category Amber fits in and why…

1) Houdini – all smoke and mirrors

2) Miami Vice – definitely trendsetting

3) CSI – Crime Scene Investigator – so smart with social media measurement that NOTHING gets by.

This interview was conducted for FolkMedia.

Leave a comment below.

After my last post on social media measurement I had a nice conversation with several people at the recent #socialmediabaltimore Tweet up.  Joel Witt, over at FolkMedia, and I are all really interested in hearing other peoples opinions, so it’s Friday. How about we buzz about social media measurement?

Personally, I broke it into 5 categories. Exposure, Influence, Engagement, Action/Conversion, and Retention. I have assigned metrics for each of these categories and use a combination of Radian6, Omniture, and custom business intelligence reports to provide the reporting. We are just finally implementing them so I’m so excited to see our first round of reports!

What’s your take? How are you measuring? Join the conversation over at Buzz or add your comments on this post. http://bit.ly/8Ylx25

The big question all marketers are asking: “How DO I Measure Social Media?”

There have been many, many discussions around social media measurement especially over the last year. For some reason, nailing down the best way to measure has evaded us all. Most of the challenge is a result of having metrics that can be compared from one company to the next.

Without that, it is hard to say if what you are doing is good, bad, or ugly. This is exacerbated with a certain level of fear of measuring social because it can be difficult to correlate something like Twitter followers to new business.

This is certainly an understandable fear. Just remember that social media is just a tool in your marketing tool kit. If you measure social media using some of the same measurements you’ve always used, it will start to make sense and be easier to justify your efforts.

There are 5 categories in the social media funnel.

Exposure

This is just like the exposure you’ve been measuring for years. Essentially, you are choosing metrics which measure your reach. How many people are listening to you or talking about your brand? To actually measure this it is a combination of your normal web analytics, your Twitter followers, your Facebook fans, and running a search for your brand mentions. I use Radian 6 for this, but you could also do a Google search and look at growth in the number of returned results but this isn’t as accurate.

Influence

This is prefaced by saying that this category of measurement is a little harder if you don’t have Radian 6. By measuring the number of mentions for industry key words against the number of times your brand is mentioned with those key words you can get a measurement of your share of voice in the industry. You can also get a report on the top influencers from your industry. Finally, sentiment, while still imprecise, gives you a general measurement of whether people say you suck or you rock.

Engagement

This is fairly easily measured by tracking the number of clicks you get on the links you post, the number of times your messages are shared or retweeted, how many direct messages you get, and how many comments you receive.

Action/Convert

Is any of this contributing to the pipeline? Measure the pieces of content that tie to your sales process whether it be a white paper, webinar, lead generation form, pitch or proposal.

Sales

Oh, the elusive white horse. How much money are these efforts generating? If you’ve measured this far, you can measure what translate into dough.

Retain

The step many forget. Don’t forget to follow these customers and look at their repeat business and retention rates.

Remember, social media is like the almighty assist. It can help add more opportunities to convert business, but at the end of the day it is just putting leads in the funnel. Your normal sales process is responsible for converting those leads.

This post was written as a guest post for FolkMedia.org

Restaurant Patrons Go Digital

Many small businesses are wondering how they can participate in social media to help grow their business. The one industry that can easily jump into the mix is the restaurant industry. Many small businesses are grappling with the challenge of not having enough staff to manage social media. Restaurants have a great advantage here, they can let their patrons do the work. With so many web-enabled phones on the market restaurants can take advantage of buzz that is created by their patrons in a few simple steps. Here are 3 simple tips for restaurants to capitalize on social media.

1) Reward your patrons for online reviews

Promote discounts to patrons who post reviews of your establishment while dining. From Zagat to Urban Spoon there are many review sites that consumers look at before deciding where to go for their next meal or happy hour. Offer a reasonable discount if  patron can show you their review before they close out their tab. This allows you to immediately know whether or not they are satisfied, and if they weren’t you still have a chance to make the customer happy before they leave your restaurant. An opportunity that is priceless if you want them to return again. Further, you will increase the number of reviews of your restaurant on these highly trafficked sites making it a great opportunity to generate more future business.

Tip: Be prepared with how you will handle negative feedback. Sometimes it is difficult to hear, but it is the only way you will know how people really feel so that you can fix it.

2) Offer Tweet Up specials

A Tweet Up is when a group of local Twitter users decides to get together and meet in person for a few drinks. Many times these social media junkies will tweet about their experience and upload photos of themselves and others at the event. Because they surely mention where the event is being held, this is great publicity for you. You probably already have a list of happy hour specials that you regularly cycle through take it a step further by offering a Tweet Up special. The key is to make sure that your Tweet Up special is exclusive to those who are actually attending the Tweet Up and not anyone there for happy hour.

Tip: Those who are actually attending will be more than willing to show you a tweet they have sent about the event as proof for a good deal, if so desired.

3) Create a FREE check-in shot

Have you heard of FourSquare or GoWalla? Well your patrons might have and there is a little competition happening to check in at businesses you frequent so that you can get points, badges, and rewards. After you check in patrons can add tips for others who check in after they do. The reason this is great for the restaurant is that when someone checks in they can share their location on Twitter and FaceBook letting all of their friends know where they are. Personally, I’m a FourSquare fan and within our group there is a friendly competition to become Mayor at our local hot spots something that can only be achieved by checking in more than anyone else.   What does that mean for the business owner? A competition for repeat business…Sweet.

Tip: Create a shot that you give to people who can show their check in for free. You could call it the GoSquare, the FourWalla, or some other creative name you come up with.

If you really want to join in on the fun create a Twitter account and FaceBook fan page for the restaurant. Post your specials and events for the day and upload photos of all the fun people are having. There is no better way to become the local hot spot than to give patrons lots of ways to tell their friends how awesome you are.

Recently, the Baltimore Chapter of the AMA surveyed its members on key movements within the marketing industry to see how Baltimore marketers are adjusting to the industry’s evolution. The survey resulted in 128 responses from area marketers and paints an interesting picture.
When asked what the biggest challenges Baltimore marketers face in their jobs, responses showed that measurement was leading the pack. However, measurement was broken into a few categories as you can see below.

Biggest Challenges Faced in Jobs

• 54%: Measuring effectiveness of marketing/market research
• 37%: Social media ROI
• 30%: Emerging technologies

This post was written as a guest poster on the AMA Baltimore blog. Click here to see the full post.

Universities Fail to Deliver – Students Left Holding the Bag

Marketing and Public Relations Undergraduate students are less prepared than ever to enter the workforce. As these two industries rapidly change so too should the education system that supplies the industry with the human resources to do the job. The education system has long been known as a slow turning ship, but it seems as though most universities have forgotten their primary job. Many talk about providing a high level of education for their students. Sure, that’s important. But how would you define a high level of education? Is it a seal of approval from an Ivy League school? As a hiring manager, I say no. The job of educational institutions is to provide us with the next generation of thought leaders. Which means that students need to learn complex problem solving and most importantly how to think for themselves. When you add in the recent shifts in the marketing and public relations industry, many recent graduates are entering the workforce and immediately figuring out that their shiny new education depreciates much like the value of a new car as you drive it off the lot. Of course, after paying thousands of dollars for their education, students are left scrambling to learn the latest and greatest on their own so they can get a job to pay back all of those student loans. If you are an educator challenge yourself and your students to raise the bar and get the most out of their educational experience.

What are the schools missing that the rest of are dying to hire?

• Millennials (Generation Y) That Get Relationships – This has long been the critical piece in the puzzle. That hasn’t changed, but the facilitation of relationships has. People expect you to be where they are, to connect with them, to hear them. Not vomit your marketing messaging on them, which parlays nicely into my second point.
• Millennials That Get Social Media – I’m not talking about avid Facebookers here, I’m talking about graduates that not only understand the tools of social media, but can apply it to our business to help develop relationships. As Chris Brogan, brilliantly stated at Web2.0, how can we extend experiences and relationships and how do we develop relationships that yield? They may not have all the answers as recent graduates, but if they are at least thinking about it they are leagues ahead.
• Millennials That Break the Rules- These are the students that can think for themselves, play devils advocate, and constantly challenge what doesn’t make sense. Good enough is never good enough. They try to solve problems and have a decent idea of how to execute their solution. They aren’t scared to speak up, but know how to do it professionally.

How can professors go beyond the syllabus and teach young students marketable skills?

1. Put Down the Textbook – Go beyond definitions; get your students reading business books with real world examples. Show them videos and blogs from influencers. Use tools like Skype to get these influencers talking to your students and asking questions.
2. Stop Vomiting Information – Standing in front of the room with a slide deck isn’t going to develop thought leaders it will develop clones and rebels. Facilitating a discussion on a topic is far more difficult, but it will allow students to start thinking for themselves and learn how to problem solve.
3. Let your Students Lead – Present your students with real-world problems that companies are facing and ask them to try and solve them. Guide their thought process, point out fallacies and easy answers, challenge them to do something new.
4. Educate Yourself – Go to industry conferences in your specialty. While I’m sure the conferences for educators are great, sitting and mingling with a crowd of business people will give you a whole new perspective on what companies are looking for that you can take right back to the classroom.

The Value of a Beer...hanging with @JBluhm et al

Using social media tools you can expand your network with people you know and those you don’t know. I’ve connected with friends, former classmates, family members and others via FaceBook. I’ve connected with former colleagues and peers via LinkedIn. I’ve met other marketers through LinkedIn groups. I’ve followed and been followed by fellow marketers who I probably wouldn’t have ever met naturally thanks to Twitter. I see people connecting with new people all around me online. I’m curious about whether it is increasing or decreasing traditional in-person networking.

Are people hiding behind their computers and not getting into the real world to really meet others? Is the value of traditional networking associations declining? I don’t think so. I think it is even more important than ever to continue traditional networking activities. But the business reality is that the recession has led to shrinking reimbursement policies at companies for membership in local networking associations and business travel for conferences. What are you doing? Are you attending conferences and networking events? Is it status quo at your company or are you paying the bill on your own? Or just dropping out? Are you still meeting others at local tweet ups and meet ups?

As individuals are working to create their online personal brand it is equality important to step out from behind the computer screen and continue to meet and learn in person. Personally, the in-person connection with those I’ve met online has been invaluable. It helps to transition a follower into a friend and friends into followers. It lets people see a whole other side to who you are.

While you are growing your online network, don’t forget the basics. Take every opportunity to meet those around you face-to-face. If you met online, step offline and meet in person to learn what happens between tweets, status updates and blog posts. If you met in person, connect online and keep up to date on what is going on with each other between events.

Regardless of where you met, get out of your every day environment and share a beer, a cup of coffee or a couple of sodas…have a laugh…and share your stories. Get out from behind the computer screen, out of the office and join networking associations, attend tweet ups, meet ups and the like. Use the opportunity to deepen your relationships and develop new ones.

What are you doing? Has social media decreased your traditional networking efforts or expanded them? How are you prioritizing your time between online and offline events? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.