Three reasons why the “experts” are wrong about social media mea There is an argument around the blogosphere that is DRIVING ME CRAZY. When it turns to the topic of measurement and social media marketing, many “authorities” flippantly rely on the “double standard” argument — If you’re trying to measure the value of SM, you might as well measure the value of a cell phone, the company car and the receptionist. One popular blogger and author recently said if your manager asks for the ROI of your social media initiative, you should ask him for the ROI of his pants. Their point is that you just need to accept the social web as something ubiquitous and necessary, so why worry about it? This is lunacy. Here are three reasons why this “no need to measure” view is an irresponsible position: 1) Never get caught with your stats down Let’s examine the argument that you don’t measure the value of a company car, or email so insisting that we measure social media is a double standard. 2) The fallacy of free But just how much money are we talking about?
Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social Media, Web Marketing By Jeremiah Owyang, from Silicon Valley In many respects, Silicon Valley sits atop the world. Its growth and influence has made it the globe’s top location for innovation, STEM jobs, IT patents, venture capital funding, and Internet and software growth, and Unicorn startups galore. And yet there’s also been a shift in the Valley’s culture. One could argue that there’s an emergence of signs that strikingly resemble Detroit in the glory days of the age of transportation. In Detroit’s case, where I visited earlier this week, the Motor City reveled in its dominance in the 1950s, but growing social unrest soon culminated in a massive riot in the late 1960s. Here are four threats, aside from natural disaster, or whole scale physical attack for Silicon Valley today, along with a futuristic probing of their possible conclusions in the coming decades: Threat Two: Lack of Economic Diversity Means FragilityOne industry in a single city is a risk.
Word of Mouth and Social Media: A Tale of Two Burger Joints | Fo Image by tray via Flickr I moved to the Bay Area from Milwaukee about five months ago. Among the things I miss from my hometown are my two favorite burger restaurants--AJ Bombers and Sobelman's. Both have used Word of Mouth (WOM) to become successful small businesses, but while one built its buzz over 10 years, the other used social media to become a success in just one year. Sobelman's is a little hard to find--it's located in an industrial part of the city rather than in a fashionable neighborhood--but that didn't prevent it from building a broad-based following since opening in 1999. The road to success for AJ Bombers was considerably shorter, although there were plenty of reasons to think the business would fail quickly: It was launched in the middle of the worst recession in generations and was located at an address that had seen at least five businesses fail in recent years. Of course, just like Sobelman's, AJ Bombers' success starts with a great experience and a great product.
10 common social media mistakes | Blog Many businesses are increasingly comfortable with social media, and many more have decided that social media is far too important not to experiment with. But the growing level of maturity in the world of social media doesn't mean that mistakes are uncommon. To the contrary: many businesses make the same mistakes over and over again. Here are 10 of the most common. Overfollowing. Using every tool available. Falling off the wagon. Letting the new kid or a low-level employee manage your profiles. Pretending that social media is free. Publishing first, thinking later. Ignoring metrics. Assuming ROI isn't possible to calculate. Expecting the world. Photo credit: David Farrell via Flickr.
Been told you can’t evaluate social media? Here are 20 (free) wa Like almost every other agency out there in this space, at Rabbit, we use a professional monitoring and sentiment analysis system. Rather than the market leader Radian6, we tested a few and went for ScoutLabs…though I am thinking of giving Sysomos a go… Having said that, the thing about the paid for tools is…they get the job done, but from what we’ve found they are never 100% perfect. Plus sometimes you just want a quick overview rather than an in-depth look via a dashboard. So we tend to use them in combination with other services, which to a large part happen to be free. There are dozens of these free web-based tools around – here’s the 20 we’ve found work for us Rabbit. They all measure slightly different things (though they over-lap), they are generally good for taking snap-shots (as opposed to detailed analysis), and with the ton of Twitter applications and plug-ins out there, there is a bias towards measuring Twitter. 6 – Mention Map: A personal favourite.
The Must Read Enterprise 2.0 Articles – A Guide | CloudAve Browse:Home/The Must Read Enterprise 2.0 Articles – A Guide By Mark Fidelman on April 2, 2010 Whenever there are a series of thought provoking articles on Enterprise 2.0 – those that actually teach you something, I like to share them with you. The list of articles with links Noteworthy Tweet Award Mark Fidelman EVP Sales of MindTouch.
ROI: How to Measure Return on Investment in Social Media inShare62 What follows is the entire version of my recent post on Mashable, “The Maturation of Social Media ROI“ Over the years, Social Media experts attempted to redefine ROI for a new era of influence. While some introduced alternative philosophies for measuring the nuances tied to social media, others wondered aloud whether ROI simply wasn’t necessary as the tools and methodologies for analyzing yields didn’t yet exist. And furthermore, by focusing on justification and metrics, we were distracted from the primary objective of building relationships and cultivating dialogue. The debate over ROI inspired certain brands to cannonball into popular social networks to join the proverbial conversation without a plan or strategic objectives defined. But that was then and this is now. In 2010, we enter into a new era of social media marketing, one based on information, rationalization, and resolve. ROI: The Return on Ignorance Adaptations included: ROI: Return on Investment Source: eMarketer - Sales
4 Myths About Social Media and Business This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. 25% of small business owners said they plan to spend more on social networking in 2010, according to the Ad-ology Small Business Marketing Forecast. Facebook ranked as the most beneficial social network for small businesses, followed by LinkedIn and Twitter, according to the November 2009 report. The 1,100 small business owners surveyed said the biggest benefits of social networking were the abilities to generate leads, keep up with their industry, and monitor the online conversation about their business. But despite the enormous growth of business presences on social networking sites, there are still many misconceptions about how best to use social media. Myth #1: Small Businesses Must be on Social Media “I wouldn’t dissuade that B2B company from dipping a toe in. “It’s hard to put a price tag on that,” he said.
30 Top Blogs For Social Media Updates | Showcases Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers. In nutshell, Social media describes websites that allow users to share content, media, etc. Common examples are the popular social networking sites like Friendster, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. Here we listing and describing Top Blogs For Social Media Updates that you should read. Social Media Networking really important for people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Social networking has created new paths to communicate and share information. Components Of Social Media Publication Tools :