I recently had the privilege of presenting at the GDOL Digital Talkfest in Istanbul. The focus of the event was very much in line with my current work. GDOL tracks the new generation of consumers who do everything online and the impact they now have on popular culture, society and ultimately business. I refer to this generation as Generation-C.

Prior to my trip, I met with Capital Magazine for an in-depth interview. They asked some very important questions, questions that you may be pondering now. Not only did I answer them, I over answered them. I did so to help provide clarity and guidance for those seeking substance and not fluff, or as my colleague at Altimeter Group Charlene Li likes to say, “meaningless platitudes.”

Here’s the full interview, unabridged…Sit back. Buckle in. Let’s go for a ride.

1-What is the formula of success in social media?

There is a great myth that a winning formula exists for success in social media. If we can introduce the right viral content we can get more views or friends. If we can maintain a rhythmic editorial calendar we can spark conversations that create a social effect. If we can develop the most amazing app, we can rise to the top of our customer’s attention span! And, my personal favorite, if we get our company in social networks, we can build better relationships with our customers.

Perhaps businesses should ask another question…what do successful customer relationships and experiences look like in social media?

The formula for success in social media begins with first defining what success is and how it will be measured. This is one of the most important steps in any social media strategy, yet it is the first step that many businesses miss. The truth is that there is no formula for success. It requires something special for each strategy and it’s dependent on the people you’re trying to reach, their expectations, your business objectives and how this engagement ties specifically to your organization (sales, marketing, service, products, etc.)

To help, there are 5 Ways to develop a strategic social media presence

1. Listen, Search, Walk a “Daily in the Life” of…
2. Define Your Online Brand: What do you want people to see and appreciate?
3. Develop a Social Media Strategy: Make your presence matter and tie it back to key business objectives
4. Build and Invest in Your Community: Participate and earn affinity to become a trusted resource
5. Learn: Repeat steps 1-5 over time to stay relevant as technology and behavior evolves

2- Which companies are successful in social media in your opinion? And why?

I pay attention to any company that pays attention to their customers and stakeholders to inform social media and social business strategies. Social media is more than marketing, but it’s hard to tell when the industry celebrates campaigns, not business transformation. Real success is about developing new business models around a different type of customer and this is the point that makes finding a series of success stories difficult.

I can share an long list of companies that run amazingly clever and creative campaigns in social networks such as Nike, Red Bull or Old Spice. I can point to businesses that understand the importance of rapid customer service in social networks such as Comcast and AT&T. I can applaud advanced customer loyalty programs that employ gamification, social graph data, and connected experiences across Facebook, web sites and mobile phones such as American Express. But for the purposes of this article, I want to celebrate the companies that are looking at how social media requires a complete transformation of the business from the inside out. It is companies such as ARAMARK, Dell, and Tyco that realize that the culture of the organization, the vision of the company, the brand itself, must adapt to earn relevance among a new generation of connected customers and employees.

The headline literally translates to “Follow Generation C!”

3-Where do you think companies are mistaken in their social media applications? What should be taken into consideration to not make mistakes in social media?

I believe that most businesses are actually anti-social in their social media approaches today. Anti-social is defined as anything that goes against the norms of a society and certainly Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and every social network out there created more than just engaging platforms, each host a unique culture thus becoming a unique digital society.

Many businesses are still broadcasting. Even though they’re active in some of the biggest networks and building notable communities within each, they really are taking old school marketing techniques and dressing them up in new “social” disguises. Customers are only intrigued now because all of this is so new. But, we’re already starting to see the beginning of great unlike and unfollow movements where customers are opting out of brand engagement because there is no value in keeping the connection. In fact, not only is there no value, customers can’t run away fast enough. Remember, they joined social networks to get away from the spam that plagued their inboxes or traditional mailboxes. And, they’re starting to realize this…

A majority of social media efforts are already siloed in the marketing department. As such, businesses are placing an inordinate investment in campaigns and not necessarily in orchestrated efforts to improve customer service, experiences or sentiment across multiple fronts. The new consumer journey is not relegated to a traditional funnel. The customer journey is now dynamic and it introduces new touchpoints that social and mobile media can now reach—and it’s constant. It’s what we put into these channels, it’s how we listen, how we learn, and how we adapt to meet or exceed customer needs and expectations that defines how customers make decisions for or against us. It also defines the role customers play in shaping and steering the decisions of other customers.

The Dynamic Customer Journey

4- Before, there was neither Facebook nor Twitter in our lives. What could be the most important social media channels in the future?

I think we need to take a step back and figure out the need to ask and answer this question. I receive questions now about what social strategy should look like for Pinterest, Highlight, and every other new network that generates buzz. The reality is that you only need to be in the networks where you can earn a notable return based on the concentration of your customers, prospects and stakeholders.

Now that’s not to say that new networks aren’t important. Your social media strategy will of course evolve. Networks or their value will shift. It’s critical that you embrace innovation as part of the culture of your organization. The goal is to have a process and a supporting system for recognizing opportunities and piloting them as they arise. The trick is to understand the difference between emerging and disruptive technology to only focus on those that will deliver and not distract.

5-Many companies publish social media guidelines for their employees. And among them there are companies, even media companies, that ban the individual use of social media. Why do some prefer to ban it?

Most companies have a history of undervaluing new technology as it relates to employee productivity. For example, over the years, the telephone, PC, email, the Web, cell phones, were all at one point either banned or significantly restricted. Social media is just the new kid on the block. As in every technology that’s come before it, studies show that providing access actually increases productivity rather than hinders it.

Social media guidelines and policies serve as a good start. People can benefit from a formal set of guardrails and do’s and don’ts to frame engagement, what to say and what not to say, and also how to use these tools to do their job better. The key is for leadership to define how to use these tools to improve customer and employee experiences and relationships. That takes a vision for doing so and thus sets the stage for a new era of engaged and connected businesses…but it starts with a new vision.

6-How can social media activity increase the revenues and profitability of a company? 

I’m a firm believer that everything begins with the end in mind. This means that if increasing revenues and profitability is important to your social media strategy, then it should be designed into the program. However, attempts to sell directly in social media is not without its risks. It requires a delicate balance of value, exclusivity, and relevance. No one wants to be sold. But, people are willing to engage with businesses in transactional relationships if there are benefits in doing so.

To activate social commerce requires that you define an experience around the transaction where the outcome is of course the sale, but the journey is in its own way engaging and fulfilling. Here you must define a click path from a social network to a destination that facilitates a transaction but is also in alignment with the expectations of a social consumer. Too often, businesses take the customer experience for granted, without intention, because it’s easier to group all digital consumers together. However, with a social consumer, they’ve made it clear that they do not prefer to go to websites. Yet, studying many social media initiatives, businesses tend to not provide a “click to action” where consumers are provided with an experiential click path toward a desirable outcome. And when they do provide a click path, it leads to a static or undesirable landing page that’s not optimized for social or mobile. It’s time to think of the connected customer as a different breed of customer. And nothing in your arsenal today, not even social networks, will have an impact with them unless you can design a complete end-to-end experience that captivates and guides them to a mutually beneficial result.

7- What is the future of social media? Do you think it will pull ahead of classical media?

Social media has given birth to a different type of customer, the connected customer or otherwise what I refer to as Generation-C where “C” represents “connected.” Gen-C is not bound by age. They’re not defined by income or education. They live the digital lifestyle and traverse across all demographics. These consumers do not surf the web like other customers. They don’t learn nor make decisions like that of their traditional counterparts. They live and breathe in social networks and rely on smartphones or tablets as their windows to the world. And, when you compare the size of the market for traditional consumers vs. Generation C, only one of the two segments is growing while the other is shrinking over time.

If you had to invest in the future of your business to earn attention and ultimately relevance, the greatest ROI is tied to the connected customer. So, you ask, what is the future of social media. Right now it’s about a balance between reaching the traditional and the connected consumer. And, that balance right now is different for every company. Traditional customers still find value in classical media. However, social or connected customers want a more engaged, enriching, and efficient relationship. You must design for both and monitor the performance of each for optimization and also insights. Eventually, new media will become the new classical media with something new arising that will eventually disrupt it.

8- What kind of a social media strategy should be designed in different social channels? Why does a certain strategy work in Twitter’ but doesn’t work in Facebook?

I like to think of Facebook as the web site for the social web and Twitter as the pulse of the business. Facebook serves the role of a dedicated presence with a hosted community that offers a digital archive of the company’s activity in one central repository. The timeline within a brand page is there for those who appreciate going back in time or to provide customers with greater context. Facebook allows for richer, more interactive experiences hosted within the confines of a branded and captive environment. The more interaction you can spur, Likes, Shares, comments, app installations, etc., the more your business can benefit from the social effect.

Twitter is a bit more fleeting in design, but no less valuable as it serves as a your window to real-time relevance. It’s just different as it boasts a unique culture and also requires a divergent set of rules of engagement. Its brilliance lies in the ability to listen to conversations involving your business or your industry in general to translate that activity into intelligence and ultimately actionable insights.

This is why I often say that social media is about social science and not technology. We must first study customer behavior in each network to get an idea of what they’re saying, what they expect, how they communicate and connect, and why. At a minimum however, we can assume three basic roles for connected customers in Twitter, Facebook and perhaps even Google+. The roles typically span 1) Marketing, 2) Sales, and 3) Service. How you execute these strategies within each network is different though.

What’s common across the board is that your business requires an infrastructure that can support each initiative within the respective network. Meaning, that you must design inputs, outputs and supporting systems and processes that connect people within the organization to customers on the outside to efficiently deliver solutions, experiences, and mutually beneficial outcomes. To do this however, takes more than technology, workflow and guidelines. It starts with reexamining the view of the customer and a vision of what the ideal customer experience and relationship looks like in these new networks.

Finally, only a culture of true customer-centricity will allow the business to connect with customers in a meaningful way and in turn, earn support and loyalty as a result.

#AdaptorDie

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Vincenzo Cosenza is a new media strategist living in Italy who has over the years, designed some of the industry’s most comprehensive infographics on social media’s global footprint. Recently, he asked if I would write the foreword for his new book, Social Media ROI. And, as I’m a fan of his work, it was an easy decision. As usual however, I asked for permission to share it with you here and his publisher agreed. This is the only place where you can read this in English…

For the record, I also wrote the foreword for Olivier Blanchard’s book, Social Media ROI in early 2011.  Yes…same name. I’m not a supporter of the fact that the publisher of this latest book did not take Olivier’s title into account. But for the purpose of this post, I’d like to focus on the evolution off the topic. In Olivier’s book, I concentrated on the disconnect in POVs between executives and social strategies, where ROI for all intents and purposes represents Return on Ignorance. His book makes a compelling case for convincing the c-suite and also empowers social strategists to design meaningful ROI initiatives.

In Vincenzo’s book, I look at ROI through a different lens, exploring its relationship to influence. It’s a complementary approach and here, a bit more theoretical as I try to raise the bar for strategies overall.

In the book Engage, I introduced a metric that tracked Return on Influence. Here, I wanted to expand on the methodology of that metric to better define the relationship between cause and effect and the role you play in it. Thus, ROI in this context becomes the Realization of Influence. The idea was to raise the stakes in the equation, to design desired actions and conversion into our strategies so that ROI measured real change, outcomes, and the progress of transformation. While similar, it’s a subtle nuance that’s powerful.

Influence: To cause effect or change behavior

New ROI: Measure caused effect and outcomes and/or the tracked change in behavior over a fixed period of time

In the development of new ROI strategies, the result is a truly a measurement of influence. No, it’s not a score. It’s a metric of cause and effect. As such, you become an architect of influence as you define the change or actions you wish to see. In the strategies that you develop over time as by definition, you introduce initiatives that cause effect or change behavior and you can measure it. While you still calculate return on investment, you are also measuring the realization of influence. And, it’s far more accurate than a traditional influence score.

When ROI Represents the Realization of Influence

In social media, one of the most often asked questions is what’s the ROI? Surprisingly, this question is voiced without an understanding of why it’s asked in the first place. If the answer is “I don’t know,” it makes it a simple and grounded decision to either minimally invest in social media pilot programs or not invest in any new media efforts whatsoever. If the answer is, “this is the ROI we can expect from the following initiatives,” you’ll witness an incredible transformation of doubt or skepticism into curiosity and eagerness.

Indeed, new media represents a necessary change in direction to improve customer relationships and experiences, develop more significant products and services, and increase overall reach and market share. But remember, what you know and what decision makers need to know are on two different sides of the same coin. Both seek relevance and success for the organization. The difference is that only one side will attempt to unite everyone around a common vision for the future. And in this book, Vincenzo Cosenza will help you address one of the most important questions hindering the evolution of modern business, “what’s the ROI?”

The reality is that no matter how creative the idea or however brilliant the strategy, it is the responsibility of decision makers to evaluate proposals based on merit, thoughtfulness and impact to the organization. People, time, capital, technology, are finite resources. It really comes down to opportunity costs. If the organization invests in new media initially, it either must “create” new resources and funds or it must borrow from elsewhere. For you to realize your vision and to bring your plan to life, you must tie everything to Business objectives and priorities or demonstrate how your strategy will push the organization forward.

It comes down to numbers and core values. Will your ideas perform against or exceed existing business metrics and KPIs? And, do they align with or improve the values of the organization and the universal aspiration for building customer relationships. Performance metrics are a key part in measuring progress and communicating whether or not you’re on plan. They also force us to think through strategies at the beginning of the process, so that initiatives unfold as designed or intended.

In many ways, performance metrics are a subset of influence. And, influence is an underestimated or misunderstood business purpose. Influence is the ability to cause effect or change behavior. And as you think about ROI, think beyond numbers. Become an architect of relevance where cause and effect become the foundation for how you build the business of the future. Developing strategies where cause and effect are the catalysts for performance inspires strategies rooted in significance whereas metrics and KPIs document real transformation. I like to think about ROI in this regard as Realization of Influence…tracking the relationship between cause and effect or the change in behavior.

As such, packaging raw numbers requires deeper consideration to demonstrate progress toward business objectives and priorities.

These can include:

- Brand Lift/Awareness
- Brand Resonance
- Advocacy
- Sales/Referrals
- Endorsements
- Sentiment/Perception Shift
- Thought Leadership
- Demand
- Trends
- Audience/Community
- Behavior
- Influence

Vincenzo Cosenza’s Social Media ROI is now available online, in ebook format, and also in bookstores across Italy.

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“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
- Albert Einstein

Say hello to my little friends, R.O. & I.

Yes. Return on investment have become the bane of an entire new media industry. However, avoidance is not the answer.

While the question of “what’s the R.O.I. of social media” is difficult to answer, it is necessary as it forces us to dig deeper. The result is maturity.

This conversation is important as you are expected to answer it not just today, but and also over time.  The source of the question though, may also impede innovation and experimentation. Why?  The answer in of itself is as elusive as the question asked. As much as the previous sentence sounds like a riddle, it is a very real observation. Often it is asked without a clear understanding as to whether or not the answer will actually change the company vision or the current course of business. Sometimes it is genuinely asked to do just that, change the vision and the course of business toward relevance. Either way, this is an opportunity to show how new media enables desired business outcomes.

Before we tackle the question, let me share a quote with you. After hundreds of executive discussions, I’ve stitched together a recurring theme that I believe will help you…

“If you come to me with a request for budget and resources for social media, to make it a priority for our business, you will lose every time…If you tie social media to our business priorities and objectives and demonstrate how engagement will enable progress, you will win every time. Social media must be an enabler to our business, just show me how.”

- Your CEO

Your job is to connect the dots between the value of new media, the expectations of your customers, and the business roadmap the company is operating against.

So, when it comes to R.O.I. in social media, perhaps we’re asking the wrong question.

Again, the answer is difficult, but not impossible to answer. If I ask you, “how are you?” you will probably respond with “fine,” “ok,” “good,” or “great.” But if you take a moment to think about it, each of those answers begs a follow-up question to deepen the conversation, “why?” Or, “why do you say that?” Otherwise the question serves no real purpose other than to casually acknowledge another person or to run through the traditional ritual of easing into a conversation. The same is true for R.O.I.

If we are indeed to discover the “Return,” we need to tie it to more than the “Investment,” we need to understand the circumstances, intentions, and potential impact and outcomes business leaders need to see in order to understand new or foreign opportunities. Said another way, we need to define the “R” that defines tangible success and work out a formula that allows us to find the answers. Therefore, R.O.I is specific to an outcome or a goal, which means that there is no one answer.

To help, Susan Etlinger (@setlinger), my colleague at Altimeter Group, recently published an open research report, “A Framework for Social Analytics.”

The report opens puts ROI in context to help you focus on business value in your social media efforts:

“What is the ROI of social media?” This is one of the most frequently asked questions related to social strategy. While 48% of social strategists reported earlier this year that their primary internal focus is to develop ROI measurements,2 ROI is just one metric in the social business toolkit. Rather than focusing on social media as a monolithic entity, businesses should evaluate it based on its contribution to a range of business goals. Says Richard Binhammer, Strategic Corporate Communications, Social Media. and Corporate Reputation Management, Dell Inc., ‘There is no single ROI for social media.’”

As we see in the executive quote earlier in the post, tying social media to business objectives and metrics helps them see a clearer picture. We have to remember that executives most likely do not use social networks personally. It’s impossible for them to see what you see, therefore taking the extra time to connect the dots helps you make the case and in doing so, brings the R.O.I. answer into focus.

Susan also does a wonderful job of not only showing us how businesses should view R.O.I, but she also helps businesses identify how to develop analytics frameworks that define the “R” or the return for specific business objectives.

Prep work: Assess how your business is measuring R.O.I. on other fronts today

Step 1: Align your strategy with business objectives

Step 2: Determine how you will measure success and also define critical milestones

Step 3: Evaluate your organization’s readiness to measure social media and bridge the gaps

Step 4: Choose the right tools to measure progress and outcomes

Remember, there is no one way to measure R.O.I. There are many business pillars that stand on a solid foundation for growth. Susan introduces the Social Media Measurement Compass to guide businesses as they’re planning social media programs. Remember, social media doesn’t just belong in the marketing department, a social business is customer-centric and social media enables more effective engagement, learning, and adaptation. Therefore, it is the responsibility of other critical business functions to engage.

1. Innovation: Collaborating with customers to drive future products and services

2. Brand Health: A measure of attitudes, conversation ad behavior toward your brand

3. Marketing Optimization: Improving the effectiveness of marketing programs

4. Revenue Generation: Where and how your company generates revenue

5. Operational Efficiency: Where and how your company reduces expenses

6. Customer Experience: Improving your relationship with customers, and their experience with your brand

The three tenets of social business, Connected, Engaged, Adaptive create a transparent relationship with customers that opens the door to meaningful metrics to measure success and improve everything in between. In the end, understanding the relationship between business objectives and social media tactics will create a series of relevant strategies and critical links that in of themselves serve as opportunities for measurement and the establishment of R.O.I.

We cannot measure, what it is we do not know to value…

You can download Susan’s report here and also follow her on Twitter for more insights into metrics and analytics.

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If you’re reacting, someone else defines what you’re going to do, rather than defining what people need to do.

Your businesses faces great change. This statement is true about customers, competitors, and everyone else affecting market behavior. The question is, what are you going to do about it?

Customer engagement, and specifically customer engagement in social media offers many benefits that businesses are starting to uncover, most of it unintentionally. While many champions knew in their gut that social media offered business value, to what extent is now something that is becoming a primary focus in 2011 to 2012 budgetary planning. From satisfaction and goodwill to thriving online communities to building loyalty and trust, customer engagement in social networks is revealing tangible advantages. Once champions recognize how to capture activity, document progress, and translate raw numbers into tangible business value, social media will become an integral and proven pillar in the foundation of not just customer service, but the very fabric of business.

For some of you, I’m preaching to the choir. Perhaps this comes across as rudimentary or common knowledge. But in my experience, social media is largely siloed in marketing departments. And for those businesses experimenting with customer engagement in social media, engagement insights and lessons are largely siloed within the service department. I challenge you to extend the value of social media beyond any silo to not just socialize the entire business but introduce new processes, systems, and methodologies that makes it more relevant and adaptive to an increasingly discerning connected customer.

The opportunity before us extends beyond Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and even in the communities that exist to connect customers to one another in branded forums. The challenge however lies in our ability to translate engagement into either direct or dotted lines to existing business metrics. Yes, we need to look beyond what I refer to as the 3F’s (friends, fans, and followers) to prove the value of social media. But this goes beyond just documenting converting numbers into KPIs that lead to ROI. This is also about translating insights into catalysts for business transformation.

To determine the ROI of social media, programs must be designed with the end in mind and compared to the performance of existing programs using existing measurement processes. Additionally, customers insights and trends must be documented to demonstrate the opportunity to improve customer experiences. For example, you can demonstrate that social media reduces inbound call volume and thus saves the company money over time. But that’s just the beginning. If you identify repeat problems, issues, or trends, your next step is to work with the affected business units to create or deliver a fix. Once this is communicated to customers through all available channels, customers en masse will feel acknowledged and appreciate the businesses ability to adapt to their needs and concerns. What’s the value of that experience?

As I introduced at the beginning of this post, using social media to react is just the beginning. But at some point it takes a shift to not only react, but also lead. Demonstrating the value of social media is our mission in 2011. In 2012, proving the value of the insights learned from customers and prospects in social channels will help connect disparate business units and functions into one connected and adaptive company.

This is about taking the perpetual switching of social media from on and off to on again and evolving campaigns to that of continuum engagement. A connected customer is always on and as such, an adaptive business must do just that, remain nimble.

Your task is not easy. The case must be made to leadership that there are material benefits in embracing change. To help, I’ve assembled three videos produced by Salesforce featuring my dear friend Dr. Natalie Petouhoff. In each of the three videos, you’ll learn how to build the business case, how to calculate ROI and how to make the cause for an adaptive business.

Godspeed.

Episode 1: How to Build a Business Case for Social Customer Service

Episode 2: Calculating ROI for Social Customer Service

Episode 3: How Social Customer Service Benefits the Entire Company

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ROI is as popular an acronym in social media as OMG or LOL are in TXTING. No matter how much you believe in social media, the reality is that management needs to know, what’s the ROI of Tweets in “the” Twitter or Likes in “that” Facebook thing that all the kids are talking about? Kidding aside, the future of social media within your organization and the value your customers experience in their networks of relevance is in your hands.

No one said this was going to be easy, and if they did, they didn’t report to the management infrastructure where you and I operate.  Change isn’t easy. But, these are the times we read about in books and see in the movies. A classic “Cinderella Story,” if you will. You are the person who will rise against the odds to bring about meaningful change within your organization. Like Cinderella or any other character in an underdog story, you’re destined to take the bumps and bruises before you realize the glory or validation you deserve.

The question remains however, what’s the ROI of social media? It’s a question that is in all reality, unavoidable, but achievable. The pursuit of the answer defines your destiny. Let’s start with a bit of the truth. You cannot measure the ROI of anything when the R, or the return, isn’t defined from the onset of any strategy. Nor can it be measured through the quantification of the 3F’s (friends, fans, and followers) or any other simple math formula tracking Likes, ReTweets, comments, impressions, mentions or sentiment. This is the time to apply a bit more science than history to better understand how to design social media programs that measure a click to action.

Like Me? Why Don’t You Love Me!?

In a classic twist of fate, brands rushed to social networks to seek acceptance in the form of “Likes” and follows. Once there, they found that connection was only the beginning. At the heart of these new communities was just that, a community. And, communities require an investment of not only time and resources, but value…value on both sides. This is about going beyond Likes, this is about loyalty, advocacy, and engagement.

HubSpot’s “The 2011 State of Inbound Marketing” report spotlighted the critical importance of Facebook and Twitter in 2011 business strategies at 44% and 38% respectively. That’s up from 24% and 21% in two short years.

With an increased focus on Facebook specifically, businesses will need a better understanding of what it is consumers want and how it is the company plans on delivering it within an interactive, peer-to-peer environment. eMarketer recently published a report, “Facebook Marketing: Strategies for Turning ‘Likes’ into Loyalty,” to help shed light on the importance of meaningful engagement. The title of the report says it all. Businesses will need to invest less in superficial interactions and more in driving loyalty and steering beneficial customer experiences. Everything begins with defining the value and the experience customers are seeking. Yes, it goes beyond the ask, “Follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.” The reality is however, brands aren’t outright expressing why consumers should do so. Instead the entire premise of many social media campaigns is void of expressed value or meaning and therefore absent of a solid foundation for measurement.

Measurement Starts with Benchmarking Against Progress Toward Business Objectives

In the early stages of social media marketing, brands experimented with measurement by tracking soft, but still necessary metrics such as awareness, engagement, sentiment, mentions, Likes, Followers, RT’s/mentions, comments, etc. Sometimes, these metrics were benchmarked against competitors to demonstrate position and change over time. In an unpublished study that I reviewed, over 50% of businesses admitted not knowing how or what to measure in social media. Without connecting the dots between intention and cause and effect, we are measuring nothing more than activity. However, defining what it is we’re trying to solve for and also identifying desirable outcomes is how we begin to design measurable programs. And, not only do social media engagement programs become measurable, they also by default, start to teach us how performance directly aligns with customer needs, interests and expectations.

In the third annual Benchmark Report: MarketingSherpa, sponsored by Vocus, focused a majority of the insightful 200+ pages on ROI. It begins with a telling sign of the growing importance of social and its ultimate collision with the C-suite. 65% of business’ budgets will increase social spending between 2010 and 2011. Along with that discovery, senior executives are expecting quantifiable results that contribute to ROI or to measurable outcomes.

As mentioned earlier, we cannot measure what it is we do not know to value. Therefore value must be designed into the programs to accurately capture progress and effect.

Moving forward, MarketingSherpa and Vocus found that the priority areas for businesses responding to executive requests to “show them the money” have several issues to overcome.

1. Developing an effective and methodical social marketing strategy

2. Achieving or increasing measurable ROI from social marketing programs

3. Converting social media members, followers, etc. into paying customers

4. Achieving or increasing measurable lead generation from social marketing

The list goes on and on.

The path to measurement starts with a clear picture of the destination and what it takes to get from here to there. Businesses that learn to measure effect and outcomes will discover engagement strategies mature naturally simply because they’re designed to deliver against customer expectations while driving meaningful and measurable experiences. Taking the easy road is tempting, but it’s the path that many are following. Your job is to rise above the fray and connect the dots between social, outcomes, and demonstrable progress toward business objectives. Doing so bridges the gaps that exists between executive management, social media, scale, and customer expectations.

Moving forward, businesses that will leapfrog their peers are those that identify customer needs and business priorities and then reverse engineer them to design informed and measurable programs. Additionally, establishing metrics that benchmark against the opportunity sets the stage for establishing links that connect performance to ROI and ROI to executive support and sponsorship.

Next…

1. Understand the need and the opportunity amongst customers and prospects.

2. Design programs that meet their needs, offer tangible value, and also tie to business objectives.

3. Design outcomes and returns and integrate KPIs that capture progress, performance, and opportunities for optimization.

4. Create a disciplined process that is replicable across the organization and the various social presences that exist or are sure to arise.

Now, show us the way.

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My good friend Olivier Blanchard recently released his new book, Social Media ROI, Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization. As he was nearing its completion, he asked if I would write the foreword and to be honest, I was flattered. I agreed to do so under one condition, that I get the opportunity to share the foreword with you here. Long story short, here we are. The book is extremely helpful and carries the endorsements of those I also respect including Chris Brogan, Jay Baer, Geoff Livingston, and Kyle Lacy.

ROI Doesn’t Stand for Return on Ignorance

I’m often asked, what’s the ROI of social media? To which I answer, you can’t measure what it is you do not value or know to value.

Sounds simple enough. But, the truth is, determining value is not an easy process. But then again, whoever said using social media effectively in business was easy…is wrong.

As in anything in business, the ability to tie activity to the business values is critical. If we are to commit time, resources, and budget to social networks our investments must be justified. Indeed, social media strategies must prove long-term value and contribution to the bottom line in order to evolve into a pillar of business success. But, how do you measure something when best practices, case studies, and answers in general are elusive? We are struggling to prove the merit of an important ingredient in the future success of business because precedents have yet to be written or tested.

While many companies are already investing in social media, the reality is that most are done without the ability to demonstrate any return on investment. The truth is that you cannot succeed in anything if success is never defined. The good news is that success is definable and attainable. It just takes a little work…well, honestly, a lot of work to tie intended outcomes to the “R” (return) in ROI. And, even though social media, as a platform and series of channels, is inexpensive or free to host a presence, time and resources still carry fixed costs. To that end, if we enhance our presences or apply greater resources, the investment goes up exponentially. It comes down to the old adage, “time is money.”

Everything starts with the end in mind.

Success is not a prescription. There isn’t one way to excel or measure progress. But, that’s the point. We must first design outcomes into the equation. What do we want to accomplish? What’s the return we seek? Are we trying to sell, change, drive, cause, or inspire something specific? Are we reducing customer problems as measured by inbound volume, open tickets, public discourse? Are we trying to shift sentiment to a more positive state that increases referrals as a result?

Success requires definition based on intentions, goals, and mutual value…across the organization from the top down, bottom up, inside out and outside in. Success is defined departmentally and also at the brand level. And, success is tied to desirable actions and outcomes. And, as we’ve already established, it’s impossible to measure the ROI for something if we haven’t first established the R (Return) or the I (Investment). No amount of new acronyms will change this yet we see new terms introduced as if we’ve already given up on defining ROI; Return on Engagement (ROE), Return on Participation (ROP), Return on Listening (ROL), Return on Fluid Listening (ROFL – yes it’s a joke), Return on ignorance (The new ROI). In the end, everything carries cost and effect.

The debate over ROI is only going to gain in importance. But, that’s where we need to go in order to gain the support we need to expand our investment in social media. You’re in good hands though. Olivier Blanchard is indeed one of the few who can help. Here, he has written a comprehensive guide that will help you at every step from planning to program integration to management to measurement.

Thanks to Olivier, you’ll find the answers to your questions and also answers to the questions that you didn’t know to ask.

As they say, failing to plan is planning to fail. The success of all things social media is up to you to define, quite literally.

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I’ve received many inbound requests for comments based on a report from Gartner, an IT analyst firm, that estimates as many as 70-percent of social media campaigns will fail in 2011. There are a series of discussions hitting the blogosphere and the Twitterverse exploring this very topic, some elementary and others on the right path. I contacted Gartner earlier this week and the problem is, that this data isn’t new at all. In fact, these discussions are fueled by information originally published in 2008 and in early 2010. Yet another example of the importance of fact-checking in the era of real-time reporting, yes, but, when I paused for a moment, I appreciated the timelessness of this discussion.

Are many of the social media programs in play yielding tangible results?

No…

Are they designed to impact the bottom line or are they tied to meaningful business outcomes?

No…

The truth is that you can’t fail in anything if success is never defined.

eMarketer recently published a report, “Social Media in the Marketing Mix: Budgeting for 2011,” that documents the increase in social media spend we knew was imminent. However, in addition to showing us that companies are actively investing in Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social platforms and campaigns, eMarketer’s Debra Aho Williamson says that businesses are spending more money for all the wrong reasons.

Indeed, business are moving from experimentation or ready, fire, aim approaches to deeper phases of implementation and integration.

Williamson shares a perspective long cautioned against here and in Engage, “many companies are expanding budgets for social media marketing not because they have been successful at it, but because they are relying on gut instinct—the feeling that ‘this is something important so I’m going to do it even if I don’t know why.’ Or worse, they have watched their competitors earn accolades in the press for their work in social media, and they are afraid of losing any more ground.”

#FAIL

Failing to plan is planning to fail and this is a lesson that strategists and practitioners will learn as they progress. If transparency and authenticity were prevailing maxims over the last several years, accountability, metrics, and outcomes serve as the foundation for social media success in the immediate years ahead. An effective social media plan must address business dynamics and it takes much more than a Facebook and Twitter presence. To keep things simple, social media are transformative…but essentially they’re channels, services, and networks used for intelligence, communication, and visibility.  If we introduced email to the organization today, would it focus solely on marketing or customer service? Of course not. Email is not owned by any one department. It extends the reach, voice, and capabilities of every person from the inside out and the outside in.

Viewed this way, we see that a social media strategy must gain attention from the very top of the organization and see its integration across relevant business teams. Activating processes and engagement in business units is not tied to one switch either. It takes time to learn, to visualize new processes and systems, to open doors between departments. But, doing so sets the foundation for the social business, for an adaptive business. Switches will get introduced as their needs are defined and the electricity is tied to each one in order to perform specific actions.

The lens in which businesses must view social media is through an integration aperture. Social extends and empowers every business facet that is affected by online activity. That includes marketing, communications, sales, CRM/sCRM, product development/R&D, HR, finance, legal, et al.

According to eMarketer’s report, integration is strongest in marketing and weakest in critical business functions. To envision the future of social media, we would see each of the grey bars slide from left to right, initially led by an internal team or business strategist to help with a change in culture, process, and overall goaling.

#WIN

To gain support, we need to make the case to the C-Suite. It’s the evolution from champion to business strategist. Everything starts with defining the mission and purpose at the top so that respective business units can perform according to goals and tasks. By focusing only on one or two aspects of social media, we narrow an important view of the 3F’s (friends, fans and followers) and what the real needs and opportunities are that lie before us. The answers you seek are not limited to catch blog posts that promise “The Top 10 Ways to Master Social Media.” Your answers require research…not just listening.

Approach the search box of social networks or monitoring and research tools such as ReSearch.ly, Radian6, Spiral16, etc. as a blank slate. Fill in the blanks to enliven the 5W’s +H.E.

Who
What
When
Where
Why
How
To what extent

Then categorize the information you discover to make the case for each of the affected groups within your company. Success here requires more than one community manager or one team leading the social effort. It’s not an easy process. But then whoever said social media was easy…is wrong. Unearthing the intelligence that exists when we read between the lines, we become the experts in which we initially sought guidance and we open up individual career paths beyond the social media “help desk.”

Success is not a prescription. ROI isn’t discernible when the R (Return) or the I (Investment) are undefined. There isn’t one way to excel. That’s the point. Success requires definition based on intentions, goals, and mutual value…across the organization from the top down, bottom up, inside out and outside in. Success is defined departmentally and also at the brand level. Additionally, success is tied to desirable actions and outcomes. Indeed, there’s much to do…

We are not simply competing for the moment, we are competing for relevance now and in the future. The future of business is indeed social, but more importantly, it’s adaptive.

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The new world of Social Media is among the most actively analyzed, misunderstood, and at the same time, celebrated mediums affecting businesses today. At the very least, it introduces a renewed sense of vigor that is challenging creativity and convention and also inspiring more human connections in the process. Social Media also introduces new channels and methodologies to drive and measure sales, service, and marketing. As such, discerning business executives seek direction to evaluate the opportunity costs associated with new media as well as establish the ROI of engaging in popular networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

If Social Media is truly transformative for businesses, why is it that we hear about the splendor of participating in conversations and forming relationships and only debates about the validity, need or standards for measuring performance and ROI?

In my experience, ROI takes a back seat to participation. There is a widespread desire to jump into social networking without all the answers. A 2009 study performed by Mzinga and Babson Executive Education only substantiates this perception. According to the report, 84 percent of professionals representing a variety of industries reported that they do not measure ROI.

Not making the attempt to explore metrics is not an option for those businesses with long-term vision and goals.

What’s the ROI of Measuring ROI?

Social networks and the connections and conversations that define them are catalysts for rethinking the value and definition of customer impressions, touchpoints, and influence. This is now an era when entire businesses will thrive through socialization and open leadership. The need to measure ROI thus becomes difficult to establish when the opportunities present within social media remain elusive and without an internal champion to ask and answer the right questions.

General advice, experience, and case studies are collectively establishing the golden rules for social media in blogs, conferences, how to videos and podcasts and a never-ending array of books. But if most businesses aren’t measuring ROI, then we can only assume that the examples we see are not intentional in programming, design or desired results. Much of what is showcased as the standards for “success” are merely examples of existing theories put into practice without their implicit success defined prior to execution or conclusion. In fact, many of the much-discussed business illustrations available today draw little to no parallels to our unique market challenges and dynamics. The true value of these lessons lies in the ability to pull inspiration from the elements that echo and resonate with our challenges and opportunities, but it’s up to us to define the specifics that bring us closer to our goals.

The truth is that we are all students of new media and as such, we need to answer our own questions instead of seeking guidance through “off the shelf” templates and theory that seemingly avoid business metrics.

The only way to make sense of social media’s opportunities and the infrastructure necessary to support it across the organization is to qualify and quantify it. Establishing business performance metrics and the process of calculating the return on investment is pivotal. And while it is difficult to assess, understanding why and how existing programs perform within the organization is a solid starting point and benchmark.

ROI Will Soon Take Center Stage, Because It Can

In this turbulent economy, any program that isn’t contributing to the expansion of market and mind share through an amplified share of voice is taking away from it. The understanding of which programs deliver value determines where further investments are made.

Whether or not we agree on the need, methodology, or instruments of measurement, these discussions are as productive as they are defining.

The Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG) and Anderson Analytics recently released a “Marketing Trends 2010” report that studied areas of focus for marketers this year. One of the more interesting developments in this year’s report is the importance of measuring ROI.

Marketing ROI soared to the top of the list with 58% of participating marketers placing an emphasis on measuring return across the board. Social media also earned a top 10 slot with 42%, and social media ROI specifically appeared on the overall list behind blogging, word-of-mouth, and community building. But even the study, at least how it’s organized, doesn’t capture the extent of social media and ROI. If we examine the list of 2010 trends in which marketers are focusing their time, energy and budgets, social media inherently affects, complements, and even extends every item on the list.

Time is Money

The barrier to entry in social networks is much lower than most communications and branding channels available to businesses. In many cases, establishing a presence in these networks is free. Nothing in life is free and that saying holds true in social media. There’s a price tag on your time and resources don’t materialize without costs. Almost immediately, we can establish the cost of an investment simply by studying the amount of time and resources spent in establishing and cultivating social presences, interactions, and digital relationships. The “I” in ROI however, is meaningless without establishing the “R.” Instead of viewing social media as a reactive device, it is also rich with possibilities when designed to perform specific tasks or provide designated clicks to action that capture a desired result.

Certain companies have gone on the record to say how social media performs when devised to do so.

In one such instance, Starbucks set out to increase traffic in stores around the country through a “free pastry” program shared through social networks. The coffee company says that social media contributed to 1 million customers visiting local stores in one day. The company didn’t expound on total revenue generated as a result of word-of-mouth marketing conducted via Facebook and Twitter, but it’s reasonable to assume they know exactly how well it performed in revenue generation and ROI.
Marketing Via Twitter

Direct engagement is also measurable. Conversations can lead to outcomes, with conversion ratios demonstrating performance. The Roger Smith Hotel in New York tracks discussions related to N.Y. tourism on Twitter and offers advice and also coupons to lure potential visitors to the hotel. During an evaluation period, the small team of two estimated that they grossed an additional $20,000 in revenue as a direct result of contacting tourists via Twitter. Once time is subtracted from the campaign, net income and ROI materialize. The programs continue, so we can assume the ROI is encouraging.

In addition, the following examples share metrics that were either designed into the program or measured as one of several KPIs that documented progress to overall business objectives:

- Domino’s Pizza recently reported a 29% surge in pre-tax profits attributed to its partnership with Foursquare

- Dell reported last year upwards of $3 million in sales from its @DellOutlet account on Twitter

- Dell also realizes a notable savings by listening to conversations related to system conflicts and errors and immediately creating and distributing fixes before they become public crises

- Houston-based Coffee Groundz reports 20 to 30% increased sales and market share based on its interaction on Twitter

- Zappos claims that using social media to proactively share the company culture acts as a sales driver

- JetBlue and United Airlines know exactly how much income is derived from social networks as part of a special fares program deployed in social networks

- Comcast is measuring the cost of customer engagement in social networks against the lifetime value of each customer

Defining the “End” Before the Means

The return on investment is greater than the return on ignorance. For example, the cost of customer engagement also possesses inherent public relations and branding benefits in addition to the outcome of each conversational transaction. Not addressing a surmounting movement of public dissatisfaction in social networks carries its own price tag.

The facts are that funds and resources are finite, but at the same time, social media is imperative. The only question is to what extent is social media more or less valuable than other forms of marketing, service, sales, branding, public relations, etc. Piloting programs with pre-charted milestones or the destination in mind allows us to compare and contrast performance at a campaign level and against other initiatives. Social media requires that we first establish what it is we want to accomplish, at every level, and how we can then transcend conversations to conversions.

The promise of interactive marketing is not about establishing a means; this is defining and connecting the dots to create a means to an end. It’s the identification of that “end” that encourages us to reverse engineer the stops necessary to reach our destination or at least validate our path. And it’s the introduction of measurable milestones in this journey provides us with reassurances, insights, and rewards along the way.

The introduction of meaningful business performance metrics should serve as the focus for our education and experimentation. It’s this focus that will challenge us to create and introduce richer, rewarding, and effective experiences and engagements.
And, knowing what it is we want to change or the corresponding reactions and actions we wish to inspire will help us create socialized activities that unite purpose and performance.

This post is the unabridged version of my recent article in BusinessWeek.

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Social Media is greater than the sum of its parts, but it is these parts that define the socialization of business. Today consumers are interacting with peers, brands, and influencers in social networks at varying levels across more industries than you might possibly believe. The answers of who, what, when, where, how, and to what extent are out there; we just need to spend a moment searching for the insights necessary to galvanize meaningful social media content, branding, and engagement programs.

Instead of creating holistic programs that embrace social consumers through the distinct business channels that affect their decisions and experiences, we rush to networks to create a presence, one that may not fortify or represent the brand as well as we might think.

Hurry! Get a profile on Twitter, set up a brand page on Facebook. Let’s go go go!

While it may seem commonsensical or more importantly logical to create a strategy for social networks based on research, data, and perception, a recent study shed light on some interesting facts.

A May 2010 study by Digital Brand Expressions found that 52% of social marketers are running social media programs without a defined “game plan.” This finding is in line with an April report by R2Integrated that documented one-half of marketers were reacting to social rather than leading it.

Visibility is not the same as presence. In social media, presence is felt.

The Ingredients of Social Media Communications Plans

The Digital Brand Expressions report found that those who are approaching social media with a plan find that needs, concerns, and outcomes outweigh the current scope of activities. The study found that logistics contributed to visibility, but insight was absent from investing in presence. Most notably, resource allocation guidelines, registration of branded usernames in social networks and competitive research were among the top ingredients of a social marketing plan. Other tactical elements include:

71% establish metrics to measure ROI, which is in direct contrast with a previous study by Mzinga that found that over 80% of companies were not measuring ROI.

52% plan for ongoing monitoring

45% develop social media protocols and policies

39% create and distribute guidelines for professional and personal social media use

At the bottom of the list, we see that only 29% of businesses are introducing protocols and policies for the usage of social media by specific departments. As this is the socialization of business, multiple divisions will embrace social media at any one moment, from sales to service to HR to sales and marketing and everything in between. Social media indeed reveals the true 360-degree opportunity. The social consumer is many things to brands now and over time. And, to expect one representative or facet of business to track and engage with influential individuals in active and expansive networks is narrowing.

The question as to who owns social media is universal. Ownership begins within the team where social media championship is concentrated. As experience matures, social media extends and in many cases, “socializes” each sector. At the moment however, a land grab is in full effect with marketing taking the lead as the area responsible for the creation and management of social media plans. In fact 71% of respondents stated such with communications representing 29% , the executive team accounting for 16% and sales and IT tied with 10%.

The Last Mile Begins with the First Mile

In a recent post, I discussed the concept of The Last Mile and how social media would force businesses to adapt current practices to open-up traditional top-down methodologies by expanding engagement and interactive communications and feedback loops.

As previously stated, “Everything begins with a shift in perspective from viewing stakeholders as a separate entity, ‘us vs. them,’ to a singular view of ‘us ‘ as this enlivens a new era of community-focused marketing and engagement.”

The need for a new approach is inspired by the disconnect that exists not only between brands and social consumers, but also between the brand, management, and brand representatives in these emerging channels.

The socialization of business is forged in the last mile, but it is the first mile where strategy, planning, and the internal evolution of management and processes that inspires relevance and ultimately resonance.

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In celebration of National Small Business Week…

This year, Social Media marketing will gain significant support in resources and investment across businesses of all shapes and sizes.

So what’s new?

Now, a line is being drawn between edglings and underlings. Where we choose to stand affects the presence of our brand and value in new markets and our ability to capture attention where and how it is focused – both online and in the real world,.

On one side of the commerce quandary, business owners will have either flirted with or grasped the new media landscape and how it fits in with conventional touchpoints. On the other side, we have everyone else, those who will witness the possibilities and importance of the social Web via a pivotal “Aha” or “Uh-Oh” moment.

Aha’s will arise when the “consumer” that lives dormant inside each one of us finally awakens. Yes, outside of our business focus, we actively search for products and services. We are, in addition to many other things, consumers as well. We ask friends for recommendations. We research options. We make purchases. And, we share our experiences. Yet, we tend to neglect this useful and invaluable perspective when we operate in business mode. Suddenly everything we see, hear, and say is filtered through the eyes, ears, and voice of someone with a bottom line, responsibilities, goals, and not necessarily purpose and resolve.

Consumers are taking to the social Web to seek and offer advice and direction. Businesses win and lose in those conversations every day and as such, decisions are made with or without us.

Now, the Uh-Oh moment on the other hand, is inevitable and with it, a sense of urgency is thrust upon its unsuspecting victims. This occurs when we suddenly realize that our competitors are unusually succeeding while our revenue flatlines or even worse, declines. Or, depending on circumstances, we suddenly face an eruption of negative commentary and reviews that propagate detrimental experiences or sentiment.

In both cases, new media provides us with the tools and lenses that allow us to find and steer experiences, transactions, and sentiment. It just requires acceptance and dedication to learning, participating, and tracking how the creation of these new social touchpoints contribute to customer acquisition and retention.

Even though we make an official investment in something that’s not only new and uncertain, we expect a return on time, money, and energy. While experimentation is part of the process, dedication to improving our bottom line is something that doesn’t lose significance – nor should it. Therefore, our efforts must be designed with intention, purpose, and value in mind. Everything is measurable and as such, what it is we want to measure must not only be defined, but also balanced with the interests of the communities in which we participate.

The dichotomy between intention and outcome is defined by our actions and words. Ergo, the experiences we induce are measured by the reactions of those we engage.

Once we decide to focus our efforts and ultimately how, when and where we socialize service, marketing, communications, sales, and community development, essentially, every part of our business, we begin the beginning of our future.

This is your time to become the expert you seek. By answering our own questions, we can participate in social networks in ways that boost visibility, attract customers, and empower a community of customers and advocates to create new business opportunities, improved customer service, and also a more valuable service offering as tuned by our stakeholders.

#Engage

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The influence and promise of Twitter is only now starting to materialize. Everything that occurred prior to Chirp has lead us to this moment and as such, is almost worthy of categorization as BC (Before Chirp). Everything that happens now, is almost symbolic of a new movement (AC, After Chirp) and as such, it essentially starts a new chapter in the evolution of Twitter.

To truly capture the State and Future of Twitter and all that was revealed during its first official conference, requires additional time and space. In Part One, we examined the sociological impact of Twitter on society, the true size of the network, as well as equally exploring its challenges and opportunities. In Part Two, we’ll review and interpret streams, interest graphs, and Twitters new advertising platform.

Streams Define the New Web

At the focal point of the entire event wasn’t just the developer community; the real beneficiary of all that was introduced, was us, as users as well as individuals soon to be introduced to Twitter. We took center stage as information and details of the “new” Twitter visualized new realities and brought the future of our experiences to life, today.

As Chris Messina, Kevin Marks, Stowe Boyd and others have long signaled, the Web is becoming less about pages and more about streams. Our behavior on the Web today places the power of content discovery and consumption firmly in our grasp. We decide who we follow. We choose which links are worthy of clicking. We determine the information that’s worth reading and more important, worthy of sharing.

The feeds to which we subscribe, channel activities of those we follow in our social graph funnel into the streams that flow through attention dashboards, TweetDeck, Seesmic, HootSuite, PeopleBrowsr, et al. The attention dashboard is how we learn. It introduces us to new discoveries. We’re gifted the insight to see what moves and inspires those we follow. It is also where we earn relevance and hopefully prominence, as what we share in turn, determines its visibility, engagement, and reaction within the attention dashboards and ultimately the streams of those who follow us and who follow them.

The Ties that Bind: Interest Graphs

Social networking is evolving beyond the mere connections to other individuals. We are forming contextual networks by linking to those we know as well as the people we’d like to know. These direct and indirect connections introduce value to our routines, aspirations, and missions from a distance. The most fascinating aspects of contextual relationships is that they mirror our patterns of behavior in real life, however, the interactions we form and cultivate online cast traceable imprints and they define our actions, interests, and alliances more effectively than we may realize.

As we are complex creatures, we are captivated by an incalculable amount of pursuits. While we may follow and are in turn followed by many, the inbound and outbound relevant networks we consciously and unknowingly cultivate expand, contract and reshape based on keywords of interest.

In the era of the real-time social Web, there are already tools in existence with many more to appear that can immediately analyze online activity to summarize your interests and the social graphs formed as a result.

As we learned at Chirp, Twitter’s COO Dick Costolo refers to the idea of themed connections as an interest graph, the linkages of Twitter users who form connections and host conversations around common subjects. It is these inbound and outbound relevant networks that lay the foundation for Twitter’s monetization strategies.

Twitter’s Business Model: Relevance

Prior to the dawn of Chirp, Twitter introduced Promoted Tweets. Much like the ads that appear in Google Search, Promoted Tweets will appear at the top of Twitter search results and the company promises that they will be “useful to you.”

Among the first to adopt Promoted Tweets include Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America—with more to come.

Promoted Tweets are clearly labeled as such, but their promise lies in the ability to look and act similar to regular Tweets, meaning that they retain all the functionality of a regular Tweet including replying, Retweeting, and favoriting.

Perhaps the greatest value in Promoted Tweets is their ability to remain atop the stream of relevance. While each of the initial companies experimenting with Promoted Tweets maintain Twitter accounts, the volume of content flying through the attention dashboards of followers inherently buries the most attractive of offers posted by any business.

According to Twitter, Promoted Tweets will also be timely. As much of Twitter’s activity takes places outside of the dotcom, developers can choose whether or not Promoted Tweets are integrated in their apps.

As the company defines, the connection between Promoted Tweets and individual interests provides a powerful means of delivering information relevant to you at the moment, in real-time.

Brands aspire to earn attention and reactions in the streams of both social and interest graphs. If consumers share information related to the brand, earned media then becomes the word of mouth catalyst that then spreads the information across the Web.  Organic Tweets that mention companies and their services, offers, value, etc., are considered earned media. Promoted Tweets create a hybrid of paid and earned media, something I refer to as sponsored media. Promoted Tweets begin as paid media and transform into earned media with every ReTweet.

Costolo shared the love, positioning the new revenue model as helping “the entire ecosystem making money.” Therefore, the company is splitting promoted tweets revenue 50-50 with distribution partners.

Relevance and Resonance

Promoted Tweets are perhaps less controversial than what the immediate future beholds. Today, Promoted Tweets will appear only in search results. Once the system and the culture of the community is tested and immersed, paid Tweets will then enter the streams that connect interest graphs to topics of interest. Again, the value to the advertiser is that these Tweets will appear in the streams of individuals who have repeatedly demonstrated and communicated their interests through their actions and reactions as representative in the Tweet history.

However, with opportunity, new challenges face advertisers. Promoted Tweets force relevance into their campaigns in order to trigger positive responses and ultimately word of mouth and measurable activity. Twitter is not only changing communications between users, it also represents the impetus for contextualizing and humanizing advertising, in real-time. Without the ability to connect to and inspire people, campaigns will fail miserably. Those that appeal to the emotions and interests of consumers will spark a social effect that reverberates across the social graph online and eventually into the real world.

Dick Costolo shared a tangible example, “If I tweet a lot about coffee, I could be a great target for Starbucks ads, for example.” And, it is Starbucks that appears to fully embrace the notion of the real-time interest graph.

Not only is Starbucks among the initial adopters of Promoted Tweets, the company is also running an innovative outreach program with influence measurement startup Klout. Klout provides everyday marketers with the ability to identify influencers who actively tweet about related topics and also maintain a level of measurable stature with Twitter. These influencers were recently offered a free sample of Starbucks Pike Place Roast because of their earned authority on the subject of coffee.

In many ways, Twitter’s Promoted Tweets mirrors this strategy, but now extends it from individual influencers to anyone interested in coffee, not necessary influential on the subject.

Two words that were repeated throughout the conference, resonance and relevance, underscored Twitter’s commitment to creating an advertising platform that would earn the support of the community.

As Costolo noted, “Tweets that don’t resonate with users will disappear.”

Resonance is the reinforcement or prolongation of social objects. A Tweet, whether it’s paid or earned, represents a social object as its introduction and exposure possesses the ability to spark conversations. The extent and volume however, are determined by relevance and the shareability of the social object however.

Twitter is using resonance as a metric as it measures all the different ways people engage with Tweets and as such, produces a resonance score that determines the effectiveness and overall lifespan of Promoted Tweets. Resonance examines the visibility of a Tweet and actions surrounding them including how often they’re retweeted, favorited, etc.

In addition to developers, Twitter seems to truly believe that the user experience is the source of Twitter’s past and future. As such, it is the experience that is also the inspiration behind Promoted Tweets. Initially these paid opportunities will be based on a CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions or 1,000 qualified individuals exposed to the Tweet). What caught my attention however, is that as Twitter learns about the performance, accuracy, and possibilities orbiting resonance as a metric, the cost model will migrate from CPM to a ROI model…yes, Return on Investment.  Details on the ROI model weren’t discussed, but I can assure you, anything that is introduced into the real-time Web triggers a response, even if that response is nothing. Advertisers will need to not only get creative, but also ensure that Promoted Tweets are both actionable, Retweetable, and, let me say that again, AND, advantageous.

Twitter’s metric could be applied to all forms of social media, from Twitter advertising to Tweets produced by its users to updates and postings across the entire social Web. Without relevance, we cannot trigger resonance, and without resonance, we cannot establish significance.

In social media, we earn the relationships, responses, and trust we deserve.

Previously: Part One - Twitter, by the numbers.

Next: Part Three – A look at the new features, technologies, and partnerships unveiled at Chirp.

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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. At the same time, the lack of ROI standards and established authorities unnerved many executives, preventing any form of experimentation until their questions and concerns were addressed.

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.

Business leaders simply need clarity in a time of abundant options and scarcity of experience and answers. As many of us can attest, we report to executives who have no desire to measure intangible credos rooted in transparency and authenticity. In the end, they simply want to calculate the return on investment and associate Social Media programs with real world business performance metrics.

Over the years, we explored ideas, driven by a passionate desire to find new meaning and vindication in uncharted domains. These discussions and the innovation they sparked, redefined the framework for traditional metrics, creating hybrids that would and will prove critical to modernizing business practices, improving products and services, and effectively competing for the future.

ROI: The Return on Ignorance

Where the “I” in ROI represents return on investment, marketers have also explored ancillary elements to address the socialization of media, marketing, and the resulting dynamics of engagement.

Adaptations included:

Return on engagement – the duration of time spent either in conversation or interacting with social objects, and in turn, what transpired that’s worthy of measurement.

Return on participation – the metric tied to measuring and valuing the time spent participating in social media through conversations or the creation of, social objects.

Return on involvement – similar to participation, marketers explored touchpoints for documenting states of interaction and tying metrics and potential return of each.

Return on attention – In the attention economy, we assess the means to seize attention, hold it and as such measure the responses activities that we engender.

Return on trust – A variant on measuring customer loyalty and the likelihood for referrals, a trust barometer establishes the state of trust earned in social media engagement and the prospect of generating advocacy and how it impacts future business.

But as we learn through experience, our views and techniques mature into more sophisticated strategies as we progress through the Ten Stages of Social Media Evolution.

For many businesses, the case for new metrics cannot arise until we have an intrinsic understanding of how social media engagement affects us at every level. To be quite honest, it is not as simple as counting an increase of subscribers, followers, fans, conversation volume, reach, and traffic. While the size of the corporate social graph is a reflection of our participation behavior, it is not symbolic of brand stature, resonance, loyalty, advocacy, nor is it an indicator for business performance.

ROI: Return on Investment

Sometimes we simply need ROI to signify a meaningful return on investment.

In 2010, Social Media endeavors are still funded as pilot programs to steer the brand towards perceived relevance in the hopes that they demonstrate momentum and as such, rewards materialize. Budgets are for the most part, borrowed from other divisions to fund the teams and programs lead by the internal champions who effectively make the case for experimentation. Where that money goes and from where it’s borrowed varies by department and by company usually tied to where champions reside internally today.

In many cases however, new programs are introduced without an integrated strategy. Money is allocated from existing programs, and if we’re going to take it away from something, we should therefore determine whether or not we’re justified in doing so.

According to a 2009 study performed by Mzinga and Babson Executive Education, 84 percent of professionals representing a variety of industries reported that they do not measure ROI.

Source: eMarketer

In 2010, executives are demanding scrutiny, evaluation, and interpretation. Even though new media is transforming organizations from the inside out, what is constant nevertheless, is the need to apply performance indicators to our work.

The Business of Social Media

The CFO, CEO, and CMO of any organization would be remiss if they did not account for spending and resource allocation, regardless of the allure and seduction of social media.

MarketingProfs recently published a study performed by Bazaarvoice and the CMO Club that revealed the true expectation of chief marketing officers. Bottom line, they want measurable results from social media.

Elusiveness continues to prevail however. The study found that the exact impact of social media tactics evade the grasp of CMOs.

- 53% are unsure about their return on Twitter

-50% are unable to assess the value of LinkedIn or industry blogs

More specifically however, roughly 15% believe there is no ROI associated with Twitter and just over 10% cannot glean ROI from LinkedIn or Facebook.

I believe this is the direct result of not tying activity to an end game, the ability to know what it is we want to measure before we engage. Doing so, allows us to define a strategy and a tactical plan to support activity that helps us reach our goals and objectives.

We first answer,

What is it we want to change, improve, accomplish, incite, etc.?

Doing so will allow us to establish goals and objectives that specifically tie activity to:

- Sales

- Registrations

- Referrals

- Links (the currency of the social web)

- Votes

- Reduction in costs and processes

- Decrease in customer issues

- Lead generation

- Conversion

- Reduced sale cycles

- Inbound activity

Customer Insight

Among the responses received from CMOs, customer ratings and reviews rose to the top of marketing activities that deliver tangible ROI insight. In 2009, 80% of respondents reported that customer stories and product suggestions shape products and services. As a result, brands earn the trust and loyalty of their customers for listening and responding – as long as they are made aware of their role and rewarded for it.

In 2010, CMOs will review opportunities for user-generated content sources to involve customers and advocates with many reporting…

- a 400% increase in use of Twitter comments to inform decisions about products and services

- a 59% increase in the use of customer ratings and reviews

- a 24% increase in use of social media for pre-sales Q&A

The Socialization of Monetization

Social media metrics will increasingly tie to revenue in 2010. To what extent seems to vary according to CMOs.

- 80% predict upwards of 5%

- 15% optimistically hope for 5-10%

In 2009, those companies that aligned social media investments with revenue estimate:

- 5% or less revenue tied to social in 2009 foresee an increase of an additional 5% in 2010

- 6-10% of revenue stemming from social is expected to increase more than 10%

- Those with greater revenues resulting from social engagement expect an escalation of revenue derived from social at 20%

Companies such as Dell are not only tracking the impact of Social Media on revenue, but expanding lessons learned across the entire organization. According to Dell’s Lionel Menchaca:

Our @DellOutlet is now close to 1.5 million followers on Twitter, and back in June we indicated that @DellOutlet earned $3 million in revenue from Twitter. Today it’s not just Dell Outlet having success connecting with customers on Twitter. In total, Dell’s global reach on Twitter has resulted in more than $6.5 million in revenue. In fact our Brazilian and Canadian accounts are growing rapidly too – and it was Canadian tweeters who asked to make sure Dell Canada came online to Twitter. Dell Canada responded because the team heard our customers. In less than a year, @DellnoBrasil has already generated nearly $800,000 in product revenues. Similarly, @DellHomeSalesCA has surpassed $150,000 and is increasing at notable pace.

The Forecast for Metrics in 2010

Earlier we mentioned generic forms of Social Media metrics. The survey revealed that indeed, many CMOs, 89%, tracked the impact of social media by traffic, pageviews, and the size of their social graph or communities. However, 2010 is the year that social media graduates from experimentation to strategic implementation with direct ties to specific measurable performance indicators.

In 2010, CMOs will seek to establish a connection between social media and P&L business goals. The study documents the adoption of three metrics:

- 333% surge in tracking revenue

- 174% escalation in monitoring conversion

- 150% increase in measuring average order value

A Call To Action

Among the most effective forms of any marketing initiative is the integration of a call to action. It is how I define influence as it gives us the ability to inspire activity and measure it – as designed. As stated earlier, revenue is only one form of metrics we can introduce, but defining the “R” in ROI is where we need to focus as it relates to our business goals and performance indicators specifically. Even though much of social media is free, we do know the cost of engagement as it relates to employees, time, equipment, and opportunity cost (what they’re not focusing on or accomplishing while engaging in social media). Tying those costs to the results will reveal a formula for assessing the “I” as investment.

When we truly grasp the ability to define action and measure it, we can expand the impact of new media beyond the P&L. We can adapt business processes, inspire ingenuity, and more effectively compete for the future.

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MarketingProfs recently published a fantastic report on the equality of B2B and B2C adoption and practice of social media. In “The State of Social Media Marketing,” the 242-page report shared how over 5,000 marketers and business professionals use social media to create award winning campaigns, measure ROI, and reach audiences. Jay Baer offers an interesting analysis at Convince and Convert. More of my thoughts on the subject of B2B and B2C social media are shared in my post, “The Business of Social Media.”

One of the more interesting charts shared was a look at company policy as it relates to social media use during business hours.  On average, about 60% of companies polled maintain a “common sense” approach to at-work usage of social media. As MarketingProfs observes however, that an increasing number of companies are banning access to social networks in general.

As Stowe Boyd recently observed:

Management often responds to the adoption of social tools the way that public policy has responded to texting while driving: they make it illegal to be social while working.

The far-sighted response will be to make it easier to gain the benefits of social business, and to rethink the organization and management of work around human nature instead to persisting in trying to ‘rise above’ what makes us people in the first place.

Removing the Blindfold

By all means, you will find the MarketingProfs report interesting. My area of focus, for this post specifically, is on the data shared in two charts specifically. The intent of the graphics was to share the distribution of attention and resources between B2B and B2C organizations across social media channels. The reality is that they also demonstrate a confined view of activity across the entire social web. As a result, most brands concentrate time, energy, and budget on identical social media strategies and tactics…

1. Facebook

2. Twitter

3. LinkedIn

4. YouTube

In 2010, executives will measure ROI and the direct impact of social media marketing on the P&L. In order to do so, management will experience three phases.

The first will reveal that measuring social media marketing, as practiced to date, is essentially meaningless.  Documenting the growth of friends, followers, and fans does not represent loyalty or advocacy. Increased pageviews and clickthroughs doesn’t equate to an increase in revenue, improvement of products and services, nor a reduction or elimination of outdated or inefficient processes.

Second, management will grasp the true cost of social media. In 2010, social media will cease to be free. Twitter will offer commercial services, service vendors will offer more sophisticated sCRM (SRM) solutions that will adapt to the new internal infrastructures that will have to be built in order to scale, and there are very real costs associated with human and intellectual capital. Management will have the prowess in 2010 to measure the cost of a tweet and the expected return on targeted engagement.

Third, as the entire organization socializes affected departments, strategists will embrace a holistic and informed approach to engagement. Audits will become standard in 2010, where each team analyzes relevant activity and conversations using the Conversation Prism or similar map as a guide to exploring all social networks and discussion forums. By documenting the frequency, volume, reach, impact, and state over a period of time, brands will amass the intelligence necessary to prioritize networks while also revealing the influential voices within each community.

As a result, social media marketers will shred the cookie-cutter manual and expand the focus based on real world activity. This is social media marketing with a purpose.

You ask who owns Social Media…your customers, prospects, and influencers define your markets, focus, and attention – where and when they congregate and communicate.

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Good friend Richard Binhammer of Dell (@richardatdell) reached out to let me know that the company is releasing the latest financial figures for its @DellOutlet account on Twitter tonight.

Last December, the company generated over $1 million in revenue through @delloutlet by posting special offers and also nurturing customer relationships on Twitter. Today Dell reported over $2 million in sales through its popular @delloutlet presence.  @delloutlet currently boasts close to 625,000 followers seeking exclusive deals available only on the micro community.

As Dell notes, “We’ve surpassed $2 million in revenue in terms of Dell Outlet sales, but we’re also seeing that it’s driving interest in new product as well. We’re seeing people come from @DellOutlet on Twitter into the Dell.com/outlet site, and then ultimately decide to purchase a new system from elsewhere on Dell.com. If we factor those new system purchases that come from @DellOutlet, we’re actually eclipsed $3 million in overall sales.”

@delloutlet has been active on Twitter since June of 2007, but as the chart visualizes, connection to Dell’s special pricing and the company’s vigilant focus on service and customer attention has helped attract over 500,000 followers in three months.

Current Dell involvement with Twitter focuses on listening, learning, and engaging in direct connections with customers. There are ~ 200 Dell employees using Twitter to interact with customers, including the product development team for Dell’s Mini line of fashionable and functional netbooks (@dell_mini).

In particular the Dell Mini team is leveraging Twitter to develop the next generation of netbooks. Other examples range from individuals in the CTO’s office to those who work on technology for education @edu4u and @paradigmshift, and of course the company’s largest business involving corporate data centers and servers (@dellservergeek, @brucerericatdell).

RichardatDell noted, “Like you say in your book Brian, this is about putting the public back in public relations where relationships are direct. The dedicated practice of connecting with customers generates real results on many levels. While this announcement focuses on revenue results and referrals to dell.com, they are also reinforced by the relationships and direct connections we have with customers everyday using the Web.”

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- The State of Public Relations, Marketing and Communications: The Future is You
- Is Twitter a Broadcast or Conversation Platform (or Both)?
- Is Twitter Evolving from the Facebook to the Myspace of Microblogs
- Time Spent on Twitter Soars by Over 3,700%, Facebook 700%
- Gazing into The Twitterverse
- This is Not a Sponsored Post: Sponsored Conversations & the FTC
- Reviving the Traditional Press Release
- Twitter, Acquisition vs. Retention
- You Are Significant
- The Art and Science of Blogger Relations – Updated eBook
- In Social Media, The SEC Removes “Relations” from Investor Relations
- Twitter Flutters into Mainstream Culture: The New Competition for Attention Starts with You
- The Social OS, The Battle Between Facebook and Twitter is the New Mac vs. PC
- The Domino’s Effect
- Can The Statusphere Save Journalism
- The Conversation Index
- Social Media Influences Buying Decisions
- Is Social Media Recession Proof?
- The End of the Innocence
- The Social Effect and Disruption Theory
- Twitter and Social Networks Usher in a New Era of Social CRM
- Humanizing Social Networks, Revealing the People Powering Social Media
- I Like You The Emerging Culture of Micro Acts of Appreciation
- The Ties that Bind Us - Visualizing Relationships on Twitter and Social Networks
- Make Tweet Love – Top Tips for Building Twitter Relationships
- Are Blogs Losing Their Authority to the Statusphere
- Twitter Tools for Communication and Community Professionals
- Reinventing Crisis Communications for the Social Web

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This isn’t an attempt at sensationalism, this is a clear message for all businesses, in every market – Engage or die! If you don’t, you’re competition will. Those who engage with customers and markets will cultivate loyalty in ways never before possible. Traditional marketers will lose, unless they embrace new media.

The key however, is finding ways to measure everything in ways that mean something at every level of corporate communications.

In any given day, I will sell, evangelize, educate, and defend social media to clients and business prospects. But then again, I seem to have to do the same for PR – as to this day, most executives have no concept of how PR works, nor the understanding of how it helps them.

But either way, when it comes down to it, businesses want metrics.

Last week, I had the opportunity to meet with a new player in an already crowded consumer electronics marketplace. It was a fascinating experience, because while it’s considered by many experts to be a commodity play, this company happens to be one of the oldest, most trusted brands on the planet.

While we discussed PR opportunities, both traditional and 2.0, their greatest enthusiasm unveiled during potential ideas surrounding social media and the ability to engage their customers in conversations. More importantly, it was a glimmer of hope as it revealed that they too, might have held reservations about the potential for success.

Last week, Factiva invited a group of Social Media Practitioners, Bloggers, Corporate Program Managers, and PR consultants, to discuss metrics in Palo Alto and what was important to them as influencers, their executive team, and clients. Jeremiah Owyang hosted the roundtable and Daniella Barbosa from Factiva made it all happen.

This post isn’t intended to serve as a summary of the discussion. Jeremy Pepper, Jeremiah, Christopher Kenton, and Daniela Barbosa, among others, have already captured it brilliantly.

Jermiah Owyang

My platform for the event was many-fold, as I wasn’t there simply as a PR person. I’m also a blogger, and more importantly an advisor to many tech companies in a variety of industries including enterprise, consumer electronics, and Web 2.0. With each hat I wear, my answers vary.

Stowe Boyd, Greg Narain, Daniella Barbosa

My goal here is to emphasize key observations and critical points that must surface in order help social media permeate into day-to-day marcom campaigns – including skeptics and evangelists alike.

Jeremy Pepper

Here are some of the questions we discussed and attempted to answer?
- Do you believe Consumer Generated Media is important and should be measured?
- Who is creating Social Media? What are they creating? And is “the who” more important then “the what?”
- If you are producing Social Media, how will you measure ROI?
- Do you think that Social Media needs a structured, mutually agreed upon measurement techniques and metrics (e.g. MSM’s ad value equivalence and article impressions) to make monitoring a more serious practice?
- So what should be measured, and how do you want it delivered?

I think we all agreed that CGM (the term) is dead. Let’s just call it social media, and absolutely, it’s critical that we track it. We call can agree that customers, peers, competitors, basically, everyone can and is generating social media. But it’s not just about who, it’s about “what” they’re saying.

In this case the “I” in ROI becomes much smaller than previously factored. And, while we’re at it, ROI for social media, should be measured in terms of “ROP,” return on participation. Why? Because ROI is iffy at best when measuring the true value advertising, branding, event marketing and especially PR.

The mistake that most executives make is that they try to tie everything to sales. Advertisers link everything to circulation and page views. PR people tie column inches and online articles to ad value. How does any of this apply to social media?

Those of us in the space are actively finding ways to measure ROP – and many of the processes are painfully manual. Services such as Technorati, Buzz Metrics, Blog Pulse, Buzz Logic and Alexa help, but wouldn’t it be incredible if there was a Techmeme or Tailrank for tracking conversations based on key words? Now that’s a winner right there! It’s the only service that could measure “conversations” and we all (or we should all) know, that markets are conversations now more than ever.

ROP is specific to the measurement of “participation” which is, at the end of the day, what separates social media from traditional marketing. ROI is a metric when marketing at customers. ROP measures conversations with customers and customers conversations with others.

After all, social media isn’t only for companies that “get it.” In fact, my greatest challenge is trying to help those companies that need it, understand and embrace it to not only succeed, but also survive.

Some of the ideas that were introduced for measurement include (through my creative mashing-up of many of the ideas tossed out there):
- Relevance
- Influence and reach
- Community, engagement, participation, comments, etc.
- Demographic
- Sentiment/tonality of the post
- Ranking, via Alexa, Feedburner, downloads, etc.
- Blogroll
- Meme, tracking conversations
- Readers and loyalty

Based on the voting, the following were the results:

Photo Credit: Jeremiah Owyang (see more from the set)

The Results, Photo Credit: Jeremy Pepper

#1 Participation – Engagement
#2 Influential ideal, memes, path
#3 Relevance
#4 Sentiment / Tone

According to Jeremiah, “Measurement depends on what the business goals are. Some folks tied measurement back to hard ROI: (Does Social Media shorten the sales cycle/reduce cost, and does it increase revenues).”

However, most of the discussion focused only on measuring bloggers. To me, bloggers only represent one, albeit highly influential, piece of the social media landscape. However if we’re talking about social media as it relates to CGM, then services such as YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, flickr, Yahoo Groups, LinkedIn, among thousands of others are also relevant for metrics.

One important observation regarding bloggers is that it’s not just about the most influential bloggers out there, it’s about the “magic middle.” These are the people who recognize valuable content and in turn share it amongst each other. With the right tools, conversations can then be tracked throughout the traditional marketing bell curve, while inside the tornado, riding the cluetrain, crossing the chasms along the way.

Perhaps the most critical element of any of this is to combine existing metrics with new measurement standards in order to make this whole process tangible and easier to embrace. ROI + ROP.

Engage or die!

Andy Lark

Here’s a partial list of attendees courtesy of Factiva’s Glenn Fannick
- Stowe Boyd, BlueWhale Labs /
- Andrew Lark, Founder, group lark
- Ed Terpening, VP Social Media, Wells Fargo, Wells Fargo Blog Index
- Christopher Kenton, MotiveLab,
- Jeanette Gibson, New Media Communications, Cisco
- Brian Solis, FutureWorks PR / PR2.0,
- Ian Kennedy, Product Manager, Yahoo, flashpoint
- Jeremy Pepper, Social Media, Weber Shandwick / POP! PR Jots
- Jory Des Jardins, Co-Founder, BlogHer, LLC;
- Mike Manuel, Strategist, Voce Communications, Media Guerrilla
- Andrew Vignolo, Director, Market Trends & Analytics, Levi Strauss & Co.
- Jeff Beckman, Director, Worldwide and U.S. Communications, Levi Strauss & Co.
- Tony Obregon, Director of Social Media, Cohn & Wolfe

For more pictures from the event, please visit the stream on flickr. You can also visit Jeremiah’s set on flickr.

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Roi rop social media social+media factiva pr bloggers metrics jermiah+owyang daniella+barbosa jeremy+pepper cgm web2.0 web+2.0 technorati buzzlogic techmeme tailrank alexa feedburner stowe+boyd greg+narain brian+solis pr2.0 pr+2.0 blogher Andrew+lark grouplark group+lark lark marketing advertising marcom communications public+relations