Social Networks

There have been a number of items in the online and printed press recently regarding measurement. It seems that when the going gets tough, the tough start measuring, and for digital media, things have never been tougher. I expect to see a lot more on the subject in the coming months as the recession bites, so I thought it might be useful to look at one area that commentators are finding particularly interesting.

Social media measurement has received significant attention, particularly since the elevation of Twitter as the application of the hour, but organisations were already discussing how social media in general should be measured. Just this week, Matthew Yeomans of Custom Communications was interviewed by Econsultancy on the subject. Yeomans identifies three areas that combine to provide ROI data about social media effectiveness in a campaign context. These are: Reach, captured from how many people are talking about a brand post campaign; Sentiment, from people during the campaign; and Competitor Analysis to identify how the brand compared to peers.

It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that the measurement of sentiment triggers the most debate when talking with clients. Methods range from software solutions that track words such as ‘like’ and ‘hate’ alongside mentions of brands, to detailed manual evaluation of comments made by identified influencers. The differences between qualitative versus quantitative methods and hybrid solutions leave marketers no clearer about the best approach. Even within the social media industry there is widespread concern that when discussing social media measurement, too many people are talking different languages and finding no concrete answers - yet.

Research conducted late last year by Marketing Sherpa added further to the conversation and the education. The US study looked at what worked in social media measurement, and where problems existed. It concluded that too many marketers were hung up on quantitative measurement when in fact qualitative measures added the most value. The survey found that the easiest things to measure (advertising for example) were actually the least effective, while the hardest things to measure (user reviews and ratings and relationships with bloggers) were the most effective.

Working in a research organisation, I understand why qualitative measurement is so important. 60% of the work we do is qualitative, although a great deal of that qualitative work is also supported by quantitative findings from parallel research in complementary areas (using web analytic traffic data to enrich findings from lab observation studies, for example). In our view both are needed to present the complete picture, but there are cost benefit arguments with every research project.

One thing is certain; there is a lot more to learn. Marketers will have to work through the noise to develop a clear understanding of how measurement should work for them. Establishing a measurement framework and strategy is work that can and should be done before even getting involved with evaluating solutions, and it should start far higher than the social media level. Providing your organisation with a measurement strategy is the gift that keeps on giving as it makes sure any decision making is firmly grounded in the business.

Returning to Twitter, we can see a great example of where an established strategy would help meet the challenge of measuring effectiveness. Trawling through pages of ‘Tweets’ to identify which referred to your campaign or website is not only time consuming it’s also very difficult to get right. Twitter’s prolific use of Tiny URL makes it impossible to see your campaign URL without actually clicking through each link. A better idea of what to look for can only help.

Businesses trying Twitter out today can write the investment off as innovation. Fairly soon though, senior people are going to start asking about ROI. When they do, we can expect to see a range of measurement solutions hitting the market very soon afterwards. By which time of course, Twitter will have been superseded by the next big thing. Do try and keep up!

Social networking sites have been banned by a great number of businesses in the UK, and mostly because IT departments fail to understand ‘bottom up technology’; that is, adoption before the IT department has had a chance to fully understand it.

Earlier this year, researcher firm Cutter Consortium narrowed down the motives of businesses choosing to block social media to three key reasons: security concerns, productivity loss and bandwidth ‘hog’. Senior consultant San Murugesan claimed that “to ban or not to ban social networks at workplaces is an ongoing dilemma” but also highlighted the fact that social networking simply reflects modern communications trends, and by failing to embrace it, businesses could well be making costly mistakes.

In business, we cannot fail to realise the benefits of mass communications of any medium, US President Rutherford B Haynes said of the telephone in the early days: “An amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one?” Just like social media the telephone was soon usurping face-to-face communication, just as social media is doing the same to the voice-to-voice communication of the telephone.

It is essential we embrace new technology if it is user-led, working out how best to exploit it safely for our own brand means.

Analyst organisation Beyond Analysis believes 2008 will continue to witness a great deal of evolution in the way in which social media is used, particularly regarding its impact on business. Strategy director Will Beresford has said that the customer experience in particular will only be enriched by data found on the social web, often superseding traditional sources and research tools, such as questionnaires and focus groups. Certainly, opinions and discussions circulating social media platforms are having an ever greater influence upon our purchasing decisions and our brand perception.

A good example of a company exploiting social media effectively is www.zappos.com, a US online shoe retailer. At Zappos all 429 of its employees, including the CEO, have a Twitter account. But instead of merely uploading a few words around where they are (like I do), they use it to better inform customers in an open forum. They share information about where their stock or order is, as well as any updates on other issues. If you log into the Zappos section of the Twitter site, you can see all the Zappos people communicating with their customers.

Publicly displaying information like this can be a dangerous game, but if you aim to be a transparent organisation, and get your customers loving you for you openness - then why not use media which they are most comfortable with, instead of creating long call centre queues or websites support quests that lead nowhere.

By Mark Gristock

The Daily Telegraph (a UK broadsheet newspaper) reported a story on 16 June 2008 regarding a High Court ruling that required an ex-employee of Hays to hand over business contacts built up on the social networking website LinkedIn.

The story has since been picked up in various publications including Brand Republic and Computer Weekly but none raise the obvious, more expansive question of what the repercussions of this ruling might be for the rest of us? Computer Weekly does make reference to a legal specialist that advises employers to add clauses to employment contracts and to ask employees to set up business-only networks, but I think this misses the point.

Social networks are just that - social. The dictionary definition of ’social’ is: “living or preferring to live in a community rather than alone”. These networks don’t have boundaries and certainly don’t separate colleagues from friends. In many ways if they did, it would defeat their object. For many, however, this level of transparency is unnerving.

I had lunch with a customer recently who talked about her younger sister connecting with her on Facebook. I have a similar scenario where I am connected to my niece and nephew. They have very different interests and circles of friends to me, being as they are, about 25 years younger. But what is my alternative? Deny their existence? Compartmentalise them?

Only five days earlier (11 June) Times Online ran a feature that advised people to keep their social and business networks separate. This is an interesting idea and there were various suggestions made by different people - all in recruitment (or ‘talent management’ if there is a difference). One suggested he used a nickname on Facebook that only his friends know, and then used LinkedIn for business contacts only. I don’t see how this can work. There have to be crossovers. Otherwise, what happens when you conduct business with family members or if your business contacts are among your best friends?

The article concluded with a suggestion that soon software will simply track you down by making connections between you, friends and colleagues, then bingo - your profiles are connected for all to see.

What this really means is we have to get ready for a time when virtually everything we post online will be attributable to us. Potential employers will be able to see our connections with dodgy friends and family members and start judging us across a wider set of values. Is this good or bad? I am certain there will be losers as there always are, but I think this is akin to businesses getting used to corporate blogs - which of course many have yet to do.

There are countless examples of businesses gaining stronger brands as a result of honest information about them going up on blogs. They are measured by how they respond to negative comments about poor performance. People realise that no business is perfect and actually, if you can see them warts and all, you tend to trust them more. The same will surely happen for individuals and I think it will be refreshing.

I predict that the transition will be ugly, but when we get there we may see a levelling of the playing field on a scale never seen before.