SOCIAL MEDIA

Success in social media doesn’t come by chance – and it certainly doesn’t come over night. It all starts with a plan; and the Eise Social Media Tool will help you formulate the perfect one.Start with this worksheet. Work through it and identify your goals, find out where your organization currently sits on the social media spectrum, and learn the challenges you’ll have to overcome and tactics you’ll have to employ to achieve your objectives and experience consistent success in social media.

STEP 1WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ACCOMPLISHThe first step to any strategic plan is defining specific objectives for what you want to achieve.Defining measureable and targeted objectives is also the only way to win over the social marketing skeptics who control the budget. The best way to accomplish this is to align objectives with metrics traceable back to financials such as ROI and sales conversions.

Later in this workbook, you will align these objectives with target audiences and corresponding metrics. This alignment is important because it enables an organization to measure its progress in achieving the objectives and proving ROI whenever practical. Seemingly obvious, this step is often overlooked.

PART 1: WORKSHEET: Rank Your Objectives: Complete the following worksheet to rank these common social media objectives.

STEP 1PART 2: GOOD TO KNOW Winning financial support for social marketing is no different than winning support for any other business initiative – you have to prove its value to the organization.

Considering that social marketing is at a very early stage in its lifecycle, it’s outstanding that it received a 7% confidence rating indicating it produces measurable ROI and should be funded liberally.

Conservative budget increases by half of all organizations at budget time, based on the promise that social media will eventually produce ROI, demonstrate another vote of confidence in the tactic for the longer term.

The 17% of organizations who still believe social media marketing is basically free – and should stay that way – are destined to get what they pay for.

Social media is a promising tactic and will eventually produce ROI. Let’s increase budget but conservatively.

Social Media value is unkown and something we do only as time permits. Why invest more?

Social Media is basically free. Let’s keep it that way.

Social Media is producing measurable ROI. Let’s increase budget liberally for continous improvement.

49%

27%

17%

7%

CHART: HOW ORGANIZATIONS PERCEIVE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING AT BUDGET TIME

STEP 2DETERMINE WHERE YOU ARENow that you know your objectives, you need to determine where you are in the social media lifecycle to see how far you need to go.

To complete the worksheet, circle one number in each row that corresponds with the column heading that best describes the process you use for each tactic.

For example, if your organization has a formal, documented process that it routinely performs for gathering intelligence on target audiences, their use of social media and your competition in the space, circle 5 in the first row. If your organization has not begun to formulate a process for this tactic, circle 1. After circling one number in each row, sub-total each column and combine columns for your total score. Matching this score to the phase shown in the bottom row will determine where your organization is now in the social marketing maturity lifecycle.

STEP 2PART 1: SEE HOW YOU COMPAREIs your company in the Trial Phase, Transition Phase or Strategic Phase when it comes to social media? See how you compare with others who took part in the MarketingSherpa survey.

19%

47%

34%

We have a formal process with thorough guidlines we routinely perform -—STRATEGIC PHASE

We have an informal process with a few guidlines we sporadically perform -—TRANSITION PHASE

We do not have a processor guidlines for performing social marketing programs —TRIAL PHASE

STEP 3UNDERSTANDING AND RANK CHALLENGESKnowing the challenges you are likely to face when developing a social media strategy can help your prioritize.

PART 1: WORKSHEETPlease rank the following challenges you are having in achieving your social media objectives.

Improving brand awareness or reputation

Developing an effective and methodical social marketing strategy

Increasing website traffic through social media integration

Achieving or increasing measurable ROI from social marketing programs

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

Achieving or increasing measurable lead generation from social marketing

Improving search engine ranking positions

Integrating social marketing data with CRM and other marketing systems

Integrating social media monitoring and analytics into a single dashboard

Recruiting interdepartmental staff to perform social marketing activities

Improving the quality and cost efficiency of customer support programs

RANK CHALLENGE

STEP 3PART 2: HOW YOU STACK UP?What are your biggest challenges? Here are the challenges of your peers as reported to MarketingSherpa in their 2010 survey.

Developing an effective and methodical social marketing stratgey

Converting social media members, followers, ect. into paying customers

Achieving or increasing measurable ROI from social marketing programs

Increasing website traffic through social media integration

Achieving or increasing measureable lead generation from social marketing

Integrating social marketing data with CRM and other marketing systems

Recruiting interdepartmental staff to perform social marketing activities

Integrating social media monitoring and analytics into a single dashboard

Improving search engine ranking positions

Improving the quality and cost efficiency of customer support programs

Improving brand awareness or reputation

54%55%56%

39%52%

56%

53%59%

56%

34%39%

33%

45%31%32%

25%21%

29%

22%29%28%

28%23%24%

17%26%

23%

21%22%

20%

5%8%8%

BUSINESSES — B2B

CONSUMERS — B2C

BOTH — B2B2C

STEP 3PART 3: SOME THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN LOOKING AT YOUR CHALLENGES

WHY AREN’T AUDIENCES ENGAGING?• Are you using social media channels for “push marketing/PR?” • Are you sharing information that isn’t timely or relevant?

WHY CAN’T YOU CONVERT FANS?• Are you selling a commodity or an experience?

WHY DO YOU HAVE AN INEFFECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY?• Have you completed audience research? • Do you understand how your market uses social media channels? • Have you tried to align your social media planning with organizational goals and objectives

WHY CAN’T YOU MEASURE ROI?• Did you set up proper metrics for each tactic and/or campaign? • Do you have analytics set up properly?

WHY ARE YOU STRUGGLING TO GET BUDGET FOR SOCIAL MEDIA?• Have you educated management internally? • Have outside resources been brought in for educational purposes? • Are there perceived risk challenges that can be addressed?

WHY CAN’T YOU FIND SOLID SOCIAL MEDIA PRACTITIONERS?• Is there a perception that social media is for kids? • Are you hiring people who don’t have a solid PR or business background?

WHY IS YOUR MANAGEMENT RESISTANT TO SHARING INFORMATION ONLINE?• Have you developed social media policies? • Has key management and personnel been trained in social media best practices?

STEP 4MONITORING TARGET AUDIENCES AND RANKING BY SOCIAL MEDIA BEHAVIORA huge part of a successful social media strategy is doing the research up front to determine who to monitor, and understand their role within the industry and social media space. Continuing to monitor your target audiences will help you gain a better understanding of the audiences in your social space, and what they are saying about your company, brands and competition. Monitoring will help you establish more defined metrics that are aligned to your public.

PART 1: WHAT TO MONITOR — A SAMPLE AND A WORKSHEETStart by creating an inventory of the details, keywords, and people you should be monitoring in the following categories. Below is a sample.

EX: Industry Experts

MarketingSocial MediaPR

Social Media Online MarketingPublic RelationsCommunity RelationsEarned MarketingContent MarketingWord-of-Mouth MarketingSEO

David Meerman ScottBrian SolisDeirdre BreakenridgeScott StrattenLee OddenAnn HandleyBeth Harte

WHAT DETAILS PEOPLE TO WATCHKEYWORDS/PHRASES

STEP 4PART 2: WORKSHEETFill in the following worksheet with the details about the people/groups you are trying to reach, and the topics that interest them.

Industry Sectors

Technologies

Companies

Brands

Products

Services

Key issues

Industry experts

Key employees

WHAT DETAILS PEOPLE TO WATCHKEYWORDS/PHRASES

STEP 4PART 3: GOOD TO KNOW! WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHEN MONITORING

• SOCIAL VOICE (OR STRENGTH)Determining the likelihood that your brand or search phrase is being discussed, based on a comparison of how often mentions are made.

• SENTIMENTDetermining the amount of positive, neutral and negative commentary about your brand or search phrase, or the ratio of positive to negative mentions.

• PASSIONA measure of fewer individuals mentioning your brand or search phrase more often as opposed to more individuals mentioning your brand or search phrase fewer times.

• UNIQUE AUTHORSNumber of unique individuals mentioning your brand or search phrase.

• SOCIAL REACHA measure of unique authors divided by the total number of mentions.

• TOP USERSIdentification and ranking of authors most frequently mentioning your brand or search phrase.

• TOP KEYWORDSRanking of the keywords used most frequently in searches linking to your brand or search phrase mentions.

• CONTENT DOWNLOADSAn indicator of subject matter interest, engagement and relevancy.

• CONTENT SHARINGHow often content is being shared is another key indicator of subject matter interest, engagement and relevancy.

• REVIEWS AND RECOMMENDATIONSThe level of positive, negative or neutral reviews about your brand, products or services is a strong indicator of individual opinion as well as an identifier of potential brand ambassadors.

• PLATFORM PREFERENCESIdentifying which social media sites your prospects and customers prefer to use, and how they use them, will tell you which social media platforms to deploy. For example, will the primary social network for your technical prospects be a LinkedIn group or a Facebook brand page? Or does this audience prefer to participate in a privately-branded forum or discussion group?

• AUDIENCE SEGMENTSSegmenting groups and individuals by their social media behavior and influence will help you determine content types and topics most relevant to targeted segments. More on how to segment target audiences appears in a later section.

STEP 4PART 4: MONITORING AND REPORTS

Eisen can help you reach and influence more buyers across social networks, online and through the media.

Let’s look at the news results, blog coverage and social conversation summaries for our airline. Based on these word clouds, journalists were talking about the impact that the strike had on unions. Bloggers, however, didn’t discuss the strike, and across social networks the strike was not particularly prominent. All this data provides an excellent outline on how to address each audience based on what they are interested in.

1. DETERMINE WHO IS SAYING WHAT AND WHERE THEY ARE SAYING IT

In our airline example, we see in the pie chart that Twitter is the biggest communication channel for this company at this time (and the channel that was least concerned about the strike). We can also see that Social Forums (blogs, industry forums) are a very active communication channel. These detailed charts highlight which channels are getting the most traffic.Drill down, and you can pinpoint individual tweeters and bloggers to see who you need to follow, engage and watch.

2. FIND INFLUENCE

3. UNDERSTAND TONE

Not only do you get insight into who’s talking, what they are saying and where they are saying it, but Eisen also provides a quick snapshot of tone – positive, negative and neutral. This is a far better indicator of how you are achieving brand awareness, customer satisfaction and sales goals.

4. SEGMENT AND PRIORITIZE

Eisen helps you really narrow in on your audiences. And sometimes you may learn things you didn’t realize. For example, this company can now see that their main contributors of positive and negative content are employees (blue bar).They can also see from the pie charts that traditional media is still keeping watch on their industry.

STEP 4PART 5: SEGMENTING YOUR AUDIENCE

One of the primary benefits of social media for marketing purposes is the viral effect – exponentially increasing the reach of the message beyond your immediate audience through conversation and content sharing. Understanding how different segments of your target audience use social media will help you determine the audiences to target and the content most likely to be shared with friends and peers.

This model is an example of an effective, yet simple way to segment target audiences by social behavior and influence. The segments are called the Silent Majority, Vocal Minority and Social Authority.

The Silent Majority and Vocal Minority can be characterized as information downloaders and information uploaders, respectively. These opposing roles are important considerations because, in terms of their impact on friends and peers for marketing purposes, the Silent Majority has little influence while the Vocal Minority has a strong influence.

The Social Authority is a different breed that often dominates a niche with extraordinary influence. It deserves a one-to-one relationship approach, just as traditional publicists would approach the editors and subject matter experts in mainstream media.

SILENT MAJORITY

VOCAL MINORITY

SOCIAL AUTHORITY

• Joins but rarely participates• Reads/watches/listens to UGC• Lowest level of social influence

• Joins but acvtively participates• Shares UGC and commentary• Medium level of social influence

• Builds/moderates community• Creates and aggregates UGC• Highest level of social influence

STEP 5ALIGNING OBJECTIVES AND MEASUREMENT

PART 1: DEFINING TARGETED AND MEASUREABLE OBJECTIVES FOR SOCIAL MARKETING PURPOSES

Defining specific objectives for a social marketing initiative is only half the battle. The other half is aligning these objectives with target audiences and corresponding metrics. This alignment is important because it enables an organization to measure its progress in achieving the objectives and proving ROI.

In the previous section, we discussed profiling social media audiences to determine which segments you want to target. Now it’s time to determine what you specifically want from each of these segments. Do you want to increase the number of Vocal Minority members in your user network? Do you want Social Authority bloggers that are covering your industry to be more aware of your products?

The metrics you use to track progress in achieving objectives will depend on your unique business. If your company is driven primarily by B2B leads, your metrics should include lead generation, qualification and nurturing factors resulting in success. If your organization is B2C and eCommerce-driven, then website traffic origination, consumer reviews and sales conversions may be your focus.

Metrics related to financial objectives like ROI are the most beneficial, but are not always practical to track. While it may be practical to track the ROI of sales conversions on an eCommerce site, tracking more granular metrics, such as how a blog referred customers to the site and contributed to ROI, will require substantially more effort. It would require mapping the cost of blog traffic to the eCommerce site and the resulting revenue. Balancing what is possible with what matters should

CATEGORY OBJECTIVE WHATWE WANT TO DO

TO ACHIEVE WHAT BY DOING WHAT WHERE TO FIND THEM

HOW TO MEASURE

WHO TO REACH

Brand Awareness/ Thought Leadership

Promote our brand

Monitor our brand

Increase awareness

Establish us as leaders

Engage in communities

Improved brand awareness

Increase search engine rankings

Increase Web Traffic

Improve brand or product/service reputation

Improve PR

Deliveringneeded insights and know-how

Providing details about our products/services

Identifying, listening to and engaging

Silent Minority

Prospects

Twitter

Facebook

Increase downloads by...

Increase social voice by…

Increase placement by...

Increase sharing by…

Increase visitors by....

Improve sentiment by…

Increase top social users by…

Improve reviews and recommendations-by...

Customer Support/

Customer Advocacy

Provide customer support

Create customer advocates

Other

Improve customer support quality

Reduce customer support costs

Monitoring the community

Servicing customers that need help

Creatingcustomer service channels and establishing response processes

Thanking loyal fans

Other

Customers

Sales/LeadGeneration

Generate interest at all levels of the sales cycle

Lead generation

Other

Increase lead generation

Reduce customer acquisition costs

Increase sales revenue

Use social media channelsfor salesand promotionalcampaigns

Coupon Offerings

Other

OBJECTIVES ALIGNMENT WORKSHEET SAMPLE

STEP 5PART 3: METRICS THAT MATTER

For this process, we are highlighting the four main social media platforms – blogs, microblogs, social networks and multimedia / content sharing sites – and the metrics that matter in each.

BLOGS: In terms of measurement, blogs have the advantage of being able to utilize many of the traditional Web analytics. As with a website, code can simply be added to a blog to track visitor traffic, source, behavior and other metrics. However, there are many social media metrics not applicable to traditional websites that provide a more relevant indication of blogging success:

• Comments – tracking both the number and sentiment of opinions shared • Subscribers – growth trends by email or RSS subscription • Conversions – depending on your specific definition • Inbound links – an indicator of blog authority • SERPs – search engine ranking position for key terms on major search engines • Blog Authority – blog ranking in relation to similar categories on blog directories

MICROBLOGS: While microblogging refers to the practice of blogging with posts of 140 characters or less, microblogs have more in common with social networks than blogs. Like social networks, the value and focus of microblogs is on the network of friends or followers. Metrics are, therefore, often related to social networking:

• Followers – the number of those opting-in to or following a microblog • Downstream followers – the number of those following the followers • Posts – referred to as “tweets” on the most predominant microblog, Twitter • Velocity – the growth rate of the follower network in a given period • Passion – the ratio of number of posts to number of followers

SOCIAL NETWORKS: As the name implies, social networks are primarily people-focused. However, businesses have learned to adapt the features of social networks for the purposes of marketing. This trend has not gone unnoticed by networks originally intended for personal use, which have transformed their features into commercially- viable marketing platforms like Facebook Fan Pages. While metrics are sometimes limited by the data social networks decide to share, there is plenty of tracking-worthy information available, including:

• Community – the number of fans, group members, contacts, etc. • Demographics – profile information on community members • Referrals – tracking the click stream from networks to content and conversion hubs • Discussions – tracking both the number and sentiment of group discussions •Applications – usage of widgets and social media applications by the network community

MULTIMEDIA CONTENT SHARING SITES: This category covers a number of multimedia sharing sites for video, photography, documents, presentations and audio content. These sites aggregate content and enable you to share it without having to rely on IT via links posted on blogs, social networks, email campaigns and other commu- nication channels. When it comes to content sharing, the metrics that matter most are related to the viral impact of content distribution, including:• Views – the number of content downloads • SERPs – search engine ranking position for key terms on major search engines • Subscribers – the number of those opting-in to the multimedia content stream • Referrals – tracking the click stream from content to conversion

STEP 6PART 1: FINDING THE RIGHT TACTICS: DISSECTING A SUCCESSFUL SOCIAL MARKETING ARCHITECTURE

The number of social media sites in your social marketing architecture is not important. What is important is that they each have a clearly defined purpose that supports your tactical plan of action.

Many of the most successful social marketing architectures have a common structure based on a hub and spoke design. In a hub and spoke design, the sites at the center of the architecture are destination points for content and conversion. The surrounding sites are for building communities, engaging friends, fans and followers, and directing them into the hub of the architecture to obtain content – eventually converting them to a lead or customer.

The following is a dissection of a very successful social marketing architecture developed by Cisco Systems for their Collaboration solutions.