First, I want to thank you for the comments, links and advice I've received since I started the blog a few months ago. The reaction has been both surprising and rewarding and I hope to continue the conversation in the coming days.
Second, today I'm announcing that Jon's PR 1.5 is moving to a new home on Wordpress. I hope this migration will be an easy process. The truth is WP is just better for what I want to do with the blog moving forward.
If you look down the left side of this page you will see blog rolls from other writers including the new VCU Brandcenter Managing Director Kelly O'Keefe. The other blogs are from folks who I follow and have learned a great deal from on Twitter.
One of those smart people is Amber Naslund, the Director of Community for Radian6. Folks at THP can't wait to meet Amber and lots of other smart people at Blog Potomac in a couple of months.
So now we have a number of clients for whom we are doing various different levels of social marketing work. We're listening, evaluating, posting content, getting it to migrate, counseling on blogging and tweeting. YEA!
But there's a nagging question that they are asking and I'm frankly asking myself.
How do to truly measure a return on the social marketing investment?
Admitting you don't know the easy answer to a question on a blog read by your clients is a risk, I know. But I want to be able to help them understand and adopt. In the end it always comes down to money, how it is spent and what they get in return.
It is a similar question that is frequently asked of us in our traditional public relations practice. We are not advertisers. We can't guarantee media placements. We can't guarantee the media placements we get will say exactly what we want them to say. But we do know the value of the "third-party endorsement" and how that can drive credibility and traffic, so we develop some goals based on number of placements and even the dreaded number of impressions and the ultra-dreaded "ad-value equivalent" and do our best and keep mostly all of our PR clients pretty happy.
My sense is in social marketing the ROI question is even squishier to answer. Here's how I have seen others try to confront it:
At the very least it will help you manage your reputation as you can see what is being said about you or your company and engage in the conversation.
Your competition is doing it so if you are not then you are just surrendering this valuable new space to them.
By creating confusing charts with metrics that most folks can't understand with cost per acquisition blah, blah, blah, etc.
At the end of the day, I'm left with creating goals similar to a traditional media relations campaign and try to track the number of people coming to and interacting with the various social media platforms AND what you do on an ongoing basis to engage them. Sprinkle in some of the magic that happens when people start talking about what they saw or read to other people and there I can begin to explain to clients and set some goals.
That being said, if someone put a gun to my head and said I had to explain what kind of ROI they will get if they spent $10,000 on a social marketing campaign, my first instinct likely would be to say, "pull."
I would love some comments, insights, feedback on the question, "How can you truly measure and set some easy to explain and track benchmarks for social marketing campaigns. Thanks and HELP!!!
It is one of those movie scenes you never forget. The one in Risky Business. Now, not Tom Cruise in the underwear singing Bob Seger. The other one. The one with the interview with the Princeton guy when the party is going on. The one that changes Joel's life. (click on the box and remember)
Starting and running a small business is all about taking risks. Just the act of starting a business is a risk all to itself. You can manage it conservatively, adding business and people along the way. We have great respect for our friends and peers in Richmond who have done it, whether it was at about the time when we did, like the folks at Elevation Advertising, or more recently when John Sarvay opened up his facilitation practice called Floricane.
In the past seven years for my business partner (the unflappable Josh Dare) and me at THP, that "adding the people" time usually comes about mid-year each year. We look at our book of business, how hard people are working, our physical space and then we bite the bullet.
The cumulative effects have been positive. We have grown in revenue and in people each year. Most of our clients at least don't hate us, we do good work, and aside from the strange issue of employees' husbands dragging them off to Seattle (long stories), we've had little turnover and great people, our employees, watching our backs.
Three years ago we became partners in a building that allows for expansion (more on that to come), so we have room to grow.
This year, things are feeling a bit different, and that annual risk taking moment is a very different one, one I think that will change our business in many potentially exciting and scary ways.
First, is this expansion of traditional public relations into the social marketing realm. While this is leading to many great opportunities for us, there is no guarantee that this trend will continue or that we will figure out its magic formula, although initial returns look promising.
Second, rumor has it that the economy is not exactly solid, although business for us has been good and the forecast is promising. We are always big believers in never taking the foot off the new business pedal and that has served us well.
Third, we have maxed out in our first floor space and while we can expand to the second floor, this will trigger a major commitment financially, some immediate investments and some over time. The payoff will be great but the road getting there more than bumpy.
Finally, we may decide that one hire is not enough. This may be the time to take the quantum leap. I have talked about content fueling the social marketing engine and we will need at least one content provider and equipment to create the content. We also need some account management support at both senior and junior levels. This will have an additional cultural impact in the business that we're not taking lightly.
I created this blog as a diary of sorts to record my journey from traditional public relations to a new PR or social marketing or marketing across the board world. Part of that world is growth. Some of that growth might be frightening and some exciting.
I frankly don't know what our final decisions on all this will be. I can tell you that when we make them, we usually do them without regrets and without looking back. It is the only way we know, and we have been successful that way. This decision may change things at our agency geometrically and things may never be quite the same in both good and not-so-good ways.
My sense is however, that it is time to take the risk, to play offense when others are playing defense.
If we're successful our business will be different next year than it is now, maybe very different.
If we're not, its probably "University of Illinois."
Interesting comments from my last post on including social marketing in all of our conversations and proposals moving forward. Here are a few:
Moreover, I think that educating clients about the dangers of social media in terms of control or the lack thereof in some cases is paramount. People think that social media is a panacea for all their problems and that is often not the case.
Debbie, I don't think I'd frame the lack of control as a danger, more like a shift in attitude toward transparency that clients need to be educated on. I think the biggest danger for clients in social media is not being open to hearing negative feedback and also not doing the appropriate amount of research before engaging in the social media space. (Interesting article on the topic of criticism: http://www.searchengineguide.com/mack-collier/why-is-your-business-afraid-of-negative.php)
My question for people who think they are in control, what control do companies have in other types of PR? Companies can control putting out the best product possible, how they chose to lead the conversation about their product and how they respond to feedback, but definitely not people's opinions. In my opinion, the sense of control is an illusion set up by familiarity with the traditional methods of PR. You can't control what reporters write about your brand and you certainly can't control what people say or think about your brand. As PR professionals, we certainly try to shape opinions and provide relevant information, but we can't control it.
The internet has just brought to light what people were saying to each other all along through word of mouth that could not be captured in an easy, cost effective way. All the more reason to be paying attention, educating ourselves and trying to learn from social media, not being afraid of it.
Thanks to Debbie and Sarah for commenting. In the spirit of full disclosure, Sarah used to work at THP before going on to bigger and things in DC with the American Red Cross and now with the social marketing arm of Ogilvy PR.
Sarah actually echoed some internal back and forth we at THP have had on this issue. The truth is PR practitioners never have "control" over future success. We sell off our past success and our contacts and relationships in the media world. We can never promise the same success we have had for other clients, but can promise that we know what works and can call on those relationships and our experience and see how it goes.
Control is an illusion. We have never promised it in the past, there is no reason to promise it now as our practice has expanded to these new online platforms. If a client or prospect is not comfortable with the lack of control, they are likely not ready to participate on those platforms.
So here is where I tread into some dangerous territory since I know that some of THP's clients and new business prospects are readers of this blog.
After engaging full force for the last several months into the that squishy place where traditional public relations and social marketing converge, I am more convinced than ever that the use of these platforms to communicate directly to friends and the broader public is here to stay at least for the foreseeable future.
As we have introduced these new platforms and tools to clients and new business prospects we have presented these opportunities as additions to what we normally do, priced somewhat separately from our regular services. This gives the clients options, one of them of course is to say no.
While social marketing is not for every company or client, I'm coming around to the line of thinking that we should be presenting it as less of an option and more of regular offering just like media relations, community relations, message development. This is not because we want to make more money, but because we'd be doing the client a disservice not to include it as a regular offering.
Our experience so far is that it is getting harder to separate social marketing out of the mix. The traditional tools need to feed the new platforms and vice versa. It is hard to build a Facebook Fan base without using the more traditional tools and you can't reach the 180 million people on Facebook without having a Fan Page. Twitter is slightly different but it helps to let people know you're there.
The Bottom Line is social marketing is becoming less optional.
The question is do we make it less of an option for the lion's share of our clients and include it (and its associated costs) in all of our proposals?
And given the feedback on the new Facebook and how just about everything posted on Fan Pages ends up in the individual Fan's stream, I can't say I blame people for wanted to cut down the chatter and the clutter.
We have been experimenting on the THP Fan Page, as I'm guessing others have as well. When every time you post a client's success ora status update it ends up being blasted to fans, that's at least one or two posts a day. Multiply that by the similar updates from friends and other "fanned" pages and you have the new Facebook information barrage that people are explaining about.
For marketers this will likely mean continued experimentation and a period during which they will gain and likely lose some people. Not because those people aren't fans any more, but because they don't have the time, patience and energy to be fans to as many as before.
Over time, marketers will learn when to crank the volume up or back off. Facebookers will also learn that there are tools built into the program to filter out specific friends and Fan Pages.
But for now and a little while longer, all of us including me will have to develop a think skin.
Record breaking response to my blog post earlier this week about Facebook Fan Pages and how they compare to online newsrooms.
The were also a number of comments including from some in the online newsroom business who are friends of THP. In the spirit of providing equal time, here are two of the comments from experts in the online newsroom field.
We also heard from Steve Momorella of TEKgroup, his comments are included below. While there was no intention on my part to minimize the service that Eric and Steve's companies offer, I do think a dialog on social marketing content and tools - especially since they are changing daily - is healthy. These offerings should be reviewed on a regular basis to make sure they fit into your and your client's or company's marketing mix. Here's Steve...
Jon,
Thanks for your post. I agree with the rest that Facebook, and its 175,000,000 people, are a great distribution outlet for your PR and marketing activities at Hodges.
In today's economic environment, everyone can appreciate the need to reduce costs and use your PR and marketing dollars wisely; however, below are some reasons that you may want to consider sticking with your Online Newsroom and leveraging it to help expand your social media initiatives.
Branding With Facebook you really have no control over the look and feel and corporate imaging of your site. It is all very templatized (by design) and mixed together so that you are really unable to group and categorize your content into clear and easy to find sections – such as PR Contacts, Executive Bios, Featured Stories. You have very little control over the design of your site, the layout and placement of certain items, and the overall color. This is important and while Facebook has certainly come a long way over the years, the lack of control over your image is a big reason to still recommend a web presence.
Access As mentioned in some of the above responses, with Facebook, people have to be members to fully engage with your Fan Page. Not everyone is on Facebook, and some reporters on deadline might not want to wait for the confirmation to gain full access to your site. Likewise, you are unable to password-protect any areas within your Facebook Fan Page. You are unable to embargo releases or photos, or create special areas for your “A list” journalists to have access prior to releasing to mainstream. Further, there are no publishing controls, such as providing the ability for one administrator to publish only to certain areas of the site, or to lock down certain areas from other administrators. These are all important aspects of your Online Newsroom, allowing you to provide all of your content to as many people as possible in an open way.
In going to your Facebook Fan Page, I noticed some photos. I saw one with “Caroline and Governor Kaine” but I only had access to the thumbnail image. If a journalist on deadline wanted to get a high-resolution version of that photo to place in their magazine, or wanted a larger image to use as the lead story in their blog, they would be unable to do so using the Facebook Fan Page photo gallery as it currently stands.
Distribution This is one of the most critical aspects of your Online Newsroom. You are able to send emails to your media contact database directly from your Online Newsroom. You can not easily just email your video or audio or image or press release to a built-in list of journalists or influencers on Facebook. There is very limited distribution out to Google Search, Yahoo Search, Google News, Yahoo News, and several of the top social media outlets such as Digg and Delicious. There is very little Search Engine Optimization for your content since you are in a closed network with little control over the URL, Title pages, and META keyword tags. You are also unable to maintain distribution lists from within Facebook of targeted key influencers – analysts, editors, government relations, bloggers, consumers, employees – whereas with your Online Newsroom you have the full ability to maintain your media contact database.
Monitoring and Tracking Probably the single most important reason to maintain an Online Newsroom is the ability to report on your activity. How many press releases are being downloaded and by whom? How many press kits were downloaded last month? How many times were videos downloaded? There are no site metrics showing Time Spent on Site, User Sessions, Page Views, and there is also no tracking of how many email distributions were sent out. Facebook really offers little, if any, tracking and site metrics reporting which is critical in determining the success (or failure) of your campaigns.
Related Assets With Facebook’s publishing facility you are not really able to incorporate all aspects of a social media press release. Each asset in Facebook is part of its own area – photos, videos, notes, etc. – and can not easily be combined to create an actual press kit or informational page that would contain text, links, photos, and video all in one place, all related to a particular event or show. With Facebook, you can create a photo gallery and a video gallery, but you can not easily integrate and embed photos and videos into a press release. This is important as journalists and the general public want to see everything about a particular topic all in one place.
These are just some quick examples that I thought of off the top of my head. There are certainly others that center around credibility, stability, and security that are also important, but I don’t want to take up too much of everyone’s time.
In closing, while I think that Facebook (and LinkedIn and Twitter) are extremely important and help you meet some of your objectives, utilizing your Online Newsroom as a communications portal to manage all of your press materials, media contacts, and social media outlets gives you the flexibility, branding control, and security that you need.
It's been a week or so since the new Facebook fan page design took hold and as someone who's agency is spending a tidy some of money with an online newsroom company (and not using it btw), I'm wondering out loud...Can my company's Facebook Fan Page replace our online newsroom?
Don't get me wrong, a nice online newsroom where the media can find elements easily may still have a place in the world. But, and hear me out here, I have no problem steering a client or prospect in the direction of our fan page where he or she can see how we work and get results for clients in real time.
We can easily just add the FB logo on our front page with some witty line pointing them in the direction of the fan page to see the work we do for folks.
In addition, It is super easy to upload all kinds of content, and the fan page now segments the types of content into easy-to-use tabs. And you don't have to have someone else host it.
Also, now all our fans can see our updates in real time in their streams.
Plus, and this is the drum roll part here, the Facebook fan page is FREE.
I have yet to discuss this with the rest of the folks at Hodges but given the effort it takes to change content on our static website and the ease with which anyone can do it on fan pages, I will take a serious look at this.
Some quick thoughts after the latest Wizard launch in Northern Virginia.
Amazing how budget cuts have impacted large TV markets like DC. Two reporters were "one-man banding." Meaning they were acting as videographer and reporter at the same time. Would never happen in the old days.
Also amazing how many reporters and editors across the board are blaming lack of manpower as a reason for not covering a story. This will make social marketing even more important as our ability to push out and control content becomes more critical.
Facebook's new look and viral capabilities (as we've blogged about before) will make it even more important in social marketing effort. The pictures we posted yesterday on the Wizard fan page, immediately became available on the streams of all Wizard fans to be seen by all of those people's friends. Isn't that the true definition of viral?
Also look for Facebook to be used more and more like Twitter with people now changing their statuses more often to create a more Twitter-like conversation. Some will like it, others won't but it will quickly become the norm and more powerful.
Interesting comments from my last post on including social marketing in all of our conversations and proposals moving forward. Here are a few:
Moreover, I think that educating clients about the dangers of social media in terms of control or the lack thereof in some cases is paramount. People think that social media is a panacea for all their problems and that is often not the case.