Finding The Values Of Social Media Marketing Options

[AbleReach]

For those of you who are skeptical, or skeptical and also enthusiastic about Social Media, here are a few articles by David Harry that delve into some of the potentials and pitfalls in a practical way.

These are a good, balanced read from an enthusiast who wants to see the bottom line... if it's been defined yet or not.

In my quest to find meaning in the warm and fuzzy world of social media marketing I touched on the fact that quite possibly valuations from other disciplines should be a consideration. That is to say part of the ultimate value in SMM are not being fully realized. For example it easily crosses over with areas such as;

SEO – there are some inherent link building advantages among others from a SMM campaign.
CRM – customer service and relations are obviously benefited by an integrated program.
R&D – the research and development teams can also be enhaced through your efforts.

These are very important considerations for those of you looking to quantify social media marketing in terms of (engagement) metrics and conversions. By optimally leveraging the cross-over disciplines you can offset some of the actual costs via budgetary diversity. What also avails itself is an entirely new view of not only measurment but application as well. If you are only looking at things from a quantitative view then you are missing the oportunities afforded by also integrating qualitative research into your efforts.

The Value of Social Media Marketing

the Value of Social Media Marketing Part II

Qualitative research and Social Media Marketing

[iamlost]

SM is not paved with gold nor does SMM cure cancer.
I am shocked, another delusion bubble popped.

Pardon my grumpy synopsis.
Web wanderer and renaissance man (great tag line), David Harry, does a much nicer and far more coherent, cohesive, and comprehensive investigation of the claims and realities of SMM. Well worth reading. Good further reading list as well. Thanks for pointing out his posts, AbleReach.

My personal take is that many SMM folks (the pitch[wo]men) have little idea what or why they are doing whatever it is they say they do so well.

You see, regardless of what the proponents pimping the social goodiness tell me, my business contacts and fellow marketers are often not altogether sure of it's purpose, goal setting processes, metrics and valuations.
...
While conversions were commonly referenced in my travels, I personally still see it as a secondary consideration in the end. While SMM can play a part in the development of product reach, saturation and the distribution life cycle, often the direct traffic is not easily monetized (initially).
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I found it interesting that no one had really looked at how social media/networking could be used for qualitative research which could potentially glean some interesting demographic and market trend information (cross-over with the R&D/CRM departments even). One would have to consider that once you have a reasonable access point to your demographic that utilizing some interactive elements to gain insight into one’s target market (via qualitative means) would be a strong consideration.

The Value of Social Media Marketing Part II

The right fit of SM to one's niche (we all know the breadth and depth that is SM) is not only immediately valuable for branding and customer relations but equally valuable as a filter to pre-qualify traffic.

Mr. Harry has picked up on the 'reach' of SM - trend spotting, R&D, self-filtering target groups, etc. It goes far beyond traffic spikes and mass linkage of indeterminate value. The only area where I differ is that I tend to appreciate more the direct conversion aspect of targeted SMM.

[thegypsy]

Hiya Kids. I suppose I am a bit late on this one huh? Hey, I am in SEO, not SMM so ‘buzz monitoring’ isn’t exactly my forte ;0) – heck, turns out I registered here long ago and drifted away… neat.

I am fortunate to talk a lot with some folks in the SMM game and those articles reflected my ongoing mis-trust and caution with the world of social media marketing. There are many folks out there writing about SMM that hardly even do it professionally; the professionals themselves seemed to vary in approach.

Ultimately with folks trying to get a grasp of what is more a qualitative valuation with quantitative means seems counter-intuitive. That is kind of what lead me down the path of Qualitative market research in the follow up. Leveraging social media/networking is certainly more than mere metrics IMO… but hey. Just a search geek playing with the fine folks in the SMM sphere…

…while I am still looking into the implications of qual research and SMM (just fer fun) – I am also chasing another holy grail for the ‘sociallittes’ which is; Social Search Engines. Those same cohorts have also discussed with me how social search is the wave of the future or the path to perfect SERPs… as U may imagine as an algo-holic, I have my doubts about any pure social signal or even predominant signal…

But that’s the next thing I want to play with…. Break out the crystal ball,

Thanks for the interest tho, I am not nearly as much of a forum fly as I used to be, but I shall try and get back now and again :0)

[projectphp]

Wow! Am i glad I read these. Nice work Elizabeth!!!!

[AbleReach]

Ultimately with folks trying to get a grasp of what is more a qualitative valuation with quantitative means seems counter-intuitive. That is kind of what lead me down the path of Qualitative market research in the follow up. Leveraging social media/networking is certainly more than mere metrics IMO… but hey. Just a search geek playing with the fine folks in the SMM sphere…

Hey, David Harry himself, as I live and breathe.

Thanks for stopping by, and I'm sorry I didn't see this earlier.

I think you hit the nail on the head re qualitative vs quantitative.

Maybe there will be language, soon, for something like usability that applies to the quality of SM interactions. Reachability? Connectivity? Either, plus some motivator and trust factor?

This is quite the time we live in.

[thegypsy]

Who knows where it's going... look at the SEO world, more established and still playing semantics over 'standards' - the SMM puzzle seems worse to me... there are a few important players in the game

Social Media Marketers
Analytics folks
Qualitative marketing researchers (ultimately R&D)
SEO peeps

All of the above, more so the first 3, have a stake in the social media/networking world as far as marketing is concerned. What I found though, is that they are living in vaccums. The analytics folks are arguing over engagement metrics and the qual researchers are looking to understand larger networks and data mining... The SMMs.... are playing with manipulation of said networks...and SEOs looking to build links.

The folks in the SMM game, IMO, should be reaching out to the folks in the other related disciplines to better valuate the SMM program as a whole. Guaging value in gross traffic, conversions alone seems short sighted. Branding activities have traditionally been difficult to properly measure, and this is no different.

It is early days for SMM... hopefully some of them will embrace the other communities to fully develop what it can be... we shall see....

This post has been edited by thegypsy: Apr 14 2008, 10:13 AM

[bragadocchio]

Hiya Kids. I suppose I am a bit late on this one huh? Hey, I am in SEO, not SMM so ‘buzz monitoring’ isn’t exactly my forte ;0) – heck, turns out I registered here long ago and drifted away… neat.

It's good to see you here, Dave.

Hope there are good things ahead in that crystal ball. The search engines do appear to want to become more social...

[thegypsy]

Hiya Bill... while not a buzz monitor maven, I catch the odd discussion around things I am on about... and here I am -- strange how 'social networking 1.0' has gotten quiet, I do admit I don't get out to many boards these days. I find them more interactive than social spaces... we're sooooo old man....

As you would know, search engines have looked at a variety of signals that I would call 'social' in that taken individually, or collectively, certain activities people have within results and beyond can be in some way be considered social signals.... can't wait to get into that angle more (hint hint... lemme know when yer done on my queries into the space ;0)

As for valuations of SMM as a practice/service, I think that the providers I have talked to seem to get overly focussed on hard metrics when much of it is not really geared to that. Though, many of the SMMs out there used to be SEOs/SEMs and so this is natural. I myself believe the others obvious benefits (qualitative/R&D) get overlooked with the rush to fuzzy 'engagement metrics' or straight conversions.

A few good posts lately on the whole metrics issues;

http://semphonic.blogs.com/semangel/2008/0...ement-as-a.html
http://semphonic.blogs.com/semangel/2008/0...ement-as-1.html

I feel that until the SMM marketers begin to better define the benefits and use real world equivalents (engagement metris are silly) that much like SEOs, they shall suffer the slings and arrows of being labelled snake oil salesmen (persons). It is early days for the artform, but I see little involvement of the SMM leaders in the Analytics and Qualitative Market fields. Instead there are reams of articles about 'How to' socialize, use various sites and so forth.... not much on the actual process of goal setting, benchmarks (not metrics or KPI) and cross over relvance to other marketing depts.



..... oh, and thanks fer the warm welcome gang ;0)

[bragadocchio]

Social networking 1.0 still has some life to it.

As you would know, search engines have looked at a variety of signals that I would call 'social' in that taken individually, or collectively, certain activities people have within results and beyond can be in some way be considered social signals.... can't wait to get into that angle more (hint hint... lemme know when yer done on my queries into the space ;0)

Will do. I think search engines are moving more and more in that direction, which is a good step.

It is going to be interesting to see how SMM benefits are defined by metrics.