To prep us Joe linked to Tracking the Influence of Conversations and Distributed Influence: Quantifying the Impact of Social Media, which were interesting, however not very enlightening, reads. Both documents had the lofty goal of “starting a conversation” on the subject and while there was definitely some insight, there were few, if any, tangible and practical thoughts on actual measurements.

The one contribution that I would like to make at tomorrow’s roundtable is to keep the conversation away from the notion of “one metric to rule them all”. However, I also don’t want the conversation to devolve into “every prorgam is unique” rhetoric, since I believe that both paths will likely spur heated debate, but bear little useable fruit. I propose that a middle way is the most reasonable way to approach it.

I believe that there are a finite number of communication objectives, each with their own stable of relevant metrics. So here is my opening salvo into this conversation:

The 10 Communication Objectives

Generate Awareness - Simply to inform the market that a commercial offering exists. This is often combined with other objectives.
Example Tactics: Mass advertising, media releases, public events or stunts
Example Metrics: Reach, frequency, impressions, page views, media clippings, ad equivalency, search frequency

Drive Trial – This objective focuses around getting the audience to test drive the product either virtually or in person
Example Tactics: Web site product demos, test drives, trade show demos, private betas, events, direct mail
Example Metrics: Time spent, leads generated, sign-ups, attendance at events, response rates

Product Launch: Closely related to Generate Awareness, but a special case, where a product is new or significantly changed.
Example Tactics: Industry Events/Trade Shows, Journalist/Blogger trial, Media Stunts, Mass Advertising, Media releases
Example Metrics: Media coverage, blog posts, retail enquiries, pre-orders, impressions, reach, frequency

Establish Need/Want - In new or underrepresented categories, establishing the problem and positioning a companies offering as the solution.
Example Tactics: White Papers, Feature/Benefit focused ads, media relations
Example Metrics: downloads, incoming links, blog posts, video views, media coverage

Product/Service Comparison – Comparing two or more products, brands or approaches with the intent of positioning one as superior or more relevant to an audience
Examples Tactics: Survey/Poll news releases, comparative ads, Award show submission
Example Metrics: Media pick up, share of market, awards

Positive Association – Essentially linking the product, service, or brand with anything that is likely to create a positive impression in the audience’s mind. This is also a subset of Generating Awareness
Example Tactics: Sponsorships, entertaining ads/viral with tenuous connection to product, celebrity endorsements, games
Example Metrics: Impressions, traffic, increased activity surrounding association

Form/Change Opinion – To create or change an opinion within the mind of the audience
Example Tactics: Political Campaigns, Lobbying, Crisis Communications, PSA Ads, White Papers, Blogger outreach
Example Metrics: Polls, political decisions, votes, Op-ed media, lack of media coverage (for Crisis Comms), increased donations, supportive blogger posts

Influence the Influencers – Another offshoot of Generate Awareness, but tactically distinct by generally avoiding mass methods in favour of niche and one-to-one methods
Example Tactics: Social Media Press Release, Targetted media release, invitation events/betas, Direct Mail, Social Media outreach
Example Metrics: Positive/relevant blogs or media, incoming links, trackbacks, technorati (or similar) rankings

Drive action/traffic – Trying to get people to something like visit a retail or online store,
Example Tactics – Sales Events, Direct Mail, Targeted display, Search Engine Marketing, Friend-get-Friend,
Example Metrics – Sales conversion, redemption, response rates

Establish/Regain Trust - This one is tricky to define, but basically the goal is to shine light on a positive societal aspect of a brand or recover from a damaging event or portrayal
Example Tactics – “Green” products, Charitable events/sponsorships, Crisis communications, corrections or media follow up, General Do-goodery,
Example Metrics – Polls, stock price, survey results, sales, change in media tone

This list is almost certainly incomplete, and several of these overlap, but I think they are distinct enough to warrant their own listings. Happy to edit this as others have suggestions or edits.

The purpose of this was not to lay down the law, nor to start a meandering conversation, but to put down a skeleton with enough meat on it that it may lead toward a useable metrics library based upon type of initiative.

This kind of stuf has been on my mind alot and I have been wondering about the whole conversation thing and how much does it really mean to business. I am not a naysayer, in fact I still consider myself an evangelist for Social Media in genera, but personally I wouldn’t trust any evangelist who can’t look themself in the mirror and question their own faith. The presentation is a bit cute, but I do believe it makes a good point.

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0:31 Dave vainly tries to present a softer, gentler side of himself, by introducing the wishy-washy topic of everything new is old again. Doug smells blood in the water and writes a cheque his ass can’t cash.

1:30 The wide awake listener will notice that Dave doesn’t really believe that things have changed much. Doug snorts his contempt while spouting new media bafflegab like a tongue-tied politician on a filibuster. And so Shill hits cruising speed.

2:00 Doug shouts the obvious from the rooftops, claiming that infinite media tends towards zero value while Dave quietly laughs up his sleeves.

3:18 Dave tries hopelessly to make sense of the senseless. Doug verbally bludgeons Dave like an obtuse child while expecting retribution from the listener for his own obtuse claims.

4:49 Dave makes a withdrawal from the Clue Bank reminding us that there has always been more content than any human being could intake. Doug accuses the whole Internet of piracy by saying that to consume digital content is to copy. He also admits to boarding the SNL bandwagon en route.

7:30 Dave plays the Doug Whisperer and tries to tease some sense out of Doug’s ranting and wonders whether searching for needles in a haystack is a good use of time.

8:10 TRITENESS WARNING: Doug brings up Sturgeon’s Saw.. er Law.

9:05 Dave attempts to claim a point for Team Status Quo talking about the value of editors and the hassle of DIY media. Doug pats Dave on the head and says that the glut of content allows for blessings like LOLCats to thrive, which would have been impossible in traditional content.

12:31 Dave conjures the ghost of repeater bloggers and value creation wondering aloud how social media only took two years to be inane when it took traditional media a few decades.

13:35 Smug bastard Doug takes a cheap shot at Dave calling him linear in a networked world and then doubles the output at the abstruse factory. He further embarrasses himself using an archaic meaning of the word “Ho!” like a grade school Shakespeare play.

15:16 Dave comes to Doug’s rescue and makes his point for him that the network does indeed bring value to finding content of interest and admits to stalking his favourite echo chamberites via twitter.

17:10 Dave again wonders about the value of repeater blogs and attempts to close Shill where it started. This gets Doug’s goat and in a fit of irritation says that saying everything is the same is sloppy thinking, he then gives his own hypocrisy a hug.

21:12 Doug questions the value of the last 21 minutes and then like a teenager driving a manual transmission, Shill splutters and lurches to an end.

Theme Music:

“I Want To Hear What You Have To Say” by the Subways via the Podsafe Music Network.

Comments:

Let David and Doug know how dumb they are at shillpodcast@gmail.com or visit the blog at shillpodcast.com

Jerimiah Owyang’s The 3 “impossible” Conversations for Corporations is a fine post that would only be marred by my two cents. It isn’t groundbreaking and to some might be obvious, but it is well written, straightforward and perfect for forwarding to clients or co-workers who might not be drinking the Kool-aid.

These points will definitely be part of my next social media presentation.

1. Asking for feedback
2. Saying positive things about your competitors
3. Admitting you were wrong

h/t Michael Seaton of the Client Side Blog
[tags] Jeremiah, owyang, web-strategist, socialmedia, conversation, PR, [/tags]

0:19 False Start: Dave doesn’t make the appointed time for the podcast and leaves Doug with the audio equivalent of his pants around his ankles.

1:00 Do-over start followed by Doug’s personal cover version of the theme music for the entertainment of himself and surely no one else. Dave starts the show with an uncomfortable silence.

1:55 Drink of the day revealed 12 year old single malts.

2:30 Dave reads out a general comment about the show from Listener Lisa proving the fact that Shill has at least one listener.

3:15 Doug pulls the rug out on the audience theory by pointing out that it was his wife who made the comment. Doug and Dave agree that bias is a dish best served often.

5:00 Dave discusses the Corporate Kryptonite that keeps him from bashing his own clients, but predictably no guarantees are made about the future, unless it causes him to downgrade his net connection to High Speed Light. Doug doesn’t like talking about his clients.

7:15 Jaws drop throughout the podosphere as Dave declares Shill to be light on research and heavy on opinion. Doug and Dave declare the podcast to be under the jurisdiction of bar rules.

10:05 Dave accuses Mitch Joel of being a real person.

11:10 Doug happily begins sawing off the limb he is sitting on.

12:20 Dave ensures listeners that the Shit List door is closed to anyone who knocks. Doug question’s Dave’s gender and narrowly avoids getting on the Shit List himself.

13:25 Dave acts like the hen-pecked husband of Shill (what does that make Doug?) because he is hounded to make the podcast. Doug is unapologetic for dumping Dave to go out to dinner with Mitch Joel.

14:30 Doug takes a beating for screwing up Mitch’s promo and loses 30 geek points for not being able to operate an audio recorder under the influence.

15:04 Out of sheer pique, Dave decides to drive another episode of Shill over the cliff.

Theme Music:

“I Want To Hear What You Have To Say” by the Subways via the Podsafe Music Network.

Comments:

Let David and Doug know what you think about Shill at shillpodcast@gmail.com or visit the blog at shillpodcast.com

Note: I have written this from the point-of-view of a services company.

Objective – something that one’s efforts or actions are intended to attain or accomplish; purpose; goal; target.
Marketing Meaning: A measurable end point (i.e. 2,000 contest entries, 200% Web traffic increase, DM/Email Response rate, Mentions in X, Y or Z media outlets, etc.). If you can’t look back on a campaign and say yes or no to an objective – it wasn’t an objective in the first place.

Strategy – a plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result: a strategy for getting ahead in the world.
Marketing Meaning: This is a campaign idea or a roll-up of a series of initiatives that all fit on the same plan (i.e. If objective is X number of sign-ups for an email newsletter, then a possible strategy would be hold a contest with an opt-in option for a newsletter).

Tactic – An expedient for achieving a goal; a maneuver.
Marketing Meaning: The actions that are actually taken to achieve objectives or part of an objective. In above example of contest sign-ups, individual tactics might be: promote contest in paid media, send out press release, etc. A tactic cannot really be broken down further, it is a specific task that works toward one or more objectives.

Definitions courtesy of Dictionary.com

Now that all sounds easy enough, but there are two other things that complicate matters and cause untold problems in writing plans and briefs.

1. What is a strategy to one stakeholder, might be a tactic or even an objective to another.

2. A distinction must be made between business objectives and strategies versus communication objectives and strategies.

Here is an example:

A sports retail store chain wants to increase sales by 10% (business objective) and decides to dedicate a budget to a specific marketing campaign and task their agency (business strategy). They brief their agency on a sales flyer, front page mention on the Web site and a Direct Mail blast (marketing tactics).

The Direct Mail account people say that they want to produce a 5% response rate (communications objective) with a total mail out of 1,000 people. They then decide that the best way to achieve this is by purchasing a list of sports enthusiasts with local postal codes creating an incentive (communications strategy) and developing a gate-fold mailer with a buy one get one free coupon (tactics).

The people designing the flyer and the Web site would similarly break down the marketing tactic, into communication objectives, strategies and tactics.

No wonder I have been thinking “this is not an objective”on so many of the briefs I have received over the years…

[tags] creative brief, strategy, tactics, objective, marketing, plan, insidepr[/tag]

He blogs at:
PR Works

and his podcast is:
Inside PR

0:30 Introduction of David Jones

1:39 David’s recent move to Hill & Knowlton

3:50 Discusses changes to Public Relations brought on by social media and digital communications

6:20 PR and Ad people as the “middle men” in Social Media

9:15 Does social media change the practices of pitching journalists and citizen journalists

14:58 Chris Anderson and his decision to publish the email addresses of the people who send him irrelevant email

19:18 Do journalists have the upper hand?

21:31 What is the role of the advertising discipline in social media?

26:20 Differences in client relationships between advertising and PR

28:25 New Segment Indespensible Tools – David talks about Firefox add-ons such as the de.licio.us extension , Bloglines feed reader and the Berry Bloglines app for Blackberry, and Google Browser Synch

33:08 So Long and Bye-bye

All times are approximate

To leave an audio comment, please call 206-203-3565 or simply leave a comment on this blog.

[tags]Social Media Today, SMT, David Jones, PR Works, Inside PR, Chris Anderson, The Long Tail, podcast [/tags]

My initial reaction was “way to go, dude”, because I get frustrated by people with unethical behaviour who negatively affect the reputations of responsible PR people. Then I started thinking about it and reading the comments and realized what a truly bad idea this was.

- From the sounds of it there are quite a few dolphins caught in that Tuna net. It would appear that some people were wrongly accused (I can’t verify that, but Chris is playing the Judge, Jury and Executioner against the accused, which is always a bad idea).

- He is really only feeding the spam scrapers a whole raft of new addresses that continue to clog up the net (I believe I heard a stat recently that over 80% of email traffic is spam – surprised it isn’t even higher).

- This just escalates the constant battle between PR people and journalists. I get that journalists don’t like to be told what to write, but relevant press releases can save a journalist on a tight deadline a heap of research, that rarely do they even have the time to do. Releases are like crack cocaine for journalists, they might hate themselves for needing them, but they can’t seem to break the habit.

Here is what I propose for Bloggers/Journalists. A Creative Commons-like badge portrayed prominently on their blog with three colour-coded options: Green – Accept, Yellow – Accept with Conditions (and link to conditions) and Red – Do not accept) beside each of the following categories.

Press Releases
Customized Pitches
Product Trials/Demos
Preferred contact method (Email address, phone, Skype, IM, Carrier Pigeon, etc.)

I am sure someone could design it nicely and make it expandable so that people can clearly state their position on being approached. Additionally there could be central registry where people can register complaints against violators. The registry can then publish the names, contact the violators and perhaps even offer a special blogger email blacklist that will automatically filter out any future email from repeat violators.

The idea is a bit half-baked, but I do think that something like this could help rather than hinder the fight against spam.

Several people alert me to this, but my wife Lisa was the first.

[tags] the long tail, Chris Anderson, Wired, Spam, Email[/tags]

First DDB Radar. Big Agency launches Social Media arm, which I blogged about a while ago. David Jones comments on how they are not reaching out to the existing community, just the news trades – comment conversation ensues. Then today Steve Wright of DDB Radar writes a conversation-baiting post, saying half-in-jest that it was all part of the plan and by purposely shunning bloggers, Radar got blogged about.

The Second thing was a rant post by Jeremy Pepper on how Ad people are bad for Social Media and the rightful place of the practice is with PR practioners, which spawned a spirited rant from Hurricane Tamera again on Dave Jones blog when he supported Jeremy’s post (sorry I know this is confusing, but I am getting to the point now).

This stupid fight whether PR or Advertising owns, controls or is better suited to guide clients on social media has got to end. Anyone who knows jack crap about social media, admits that everyone is flailing in the dark (some just have slightly better night vision).

At great personal (and frankly uncharacteristic) risk of getting all Kumbaya on this issue, marketers of both stripes need to realize that the best advertising people are better at telling stories and being entertaining in communication. And ad types need to recognize that solid PR practioners are better at seeding conversations, transparency and influencing influential people.

Listen up, both sides, because I am more qualified* than the average marketing blogger to say this: We are going to need BOTH sets of skills in Social Media. The boring transparency of PR is just about as effective as the flashy lies of advertising in this new space – the gold lies somewhere in between.

* I speak the languages (ADish and PRese), my wife works in PR, I have worked at a PR company and major advertising agencies, I hang and actually like talking with PR and ad people, and more importantly I see huge value in both approaches to communications.

Update: Interesting post from Dave on DesignWalk about this topic, where he comments that marketing people should stay out of the blogosphere.

[tags] Radar DDB, David Jones, PR Works, Steve Wright, Jeremy Pepper, 3i, Tamera [/tags]

As the borrowed interest that advertising has relied upon since its inception becomes less effective and audience content sharing increasingly drives awareness, we as marketers must create content that people actually like, recommend and seek out. If you are a podcaster, videocaster, blogger, journalist, marketer, or content creator of any stripe, listen to this man. He mentions a couple of key points about storytelling and content creation that are absolutely critical, including;

• The story building blocks of anecdotes along with a moment of reflection
• Killing off the bad ideas mercilessly, so that something better can live
• Speaking from a personal and authentic tone of voice
• The amount of perseverance required to get the craft right

Part 1 is below

Part 2 here

Part 3 here

Part 4 here

hat tip to my bro Graham for the pointer to the videos

[tags]Ira Glass, NPR, This American Life, storytelling, content creation[/tags]