I guess I knew it would happen eventually.  After serving a a volunteer on the OTEF board for several years and helping stage the Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference for the first five years of it’s life, I should have expected to get invovled in something entrepreneurial in Colorado before long – and I did.  I like the mission of recognizing these second stage companies that represent the bulwark of our economy and I’ll do what i can to help in the mission.

The display was called ‘Terminal Kings‘ and represented 3 artists working to produce a functional art project of 100′x8′ panels that will be used as construction barriers for the next 5 years at Denver international Airport.  The combination of the art work, the venue and the company made for a pretty fun evening.  I had to return the next night and filled a Pinterest board with some of the images I liked best.

Colorado Companies to Watch (@ColoradoCTW and at Colorado.CompaniestoWatch.org) is a Denver-based organization I’ve thrown in with that recognizes ‘second-stage growth’ companies for being that essential part of the Colorado economy that these organizations represent.  The second-stage description means that the companies that have made it through the first few year of getting launched and they’ve becoming revenue generating.  As a ‘second-stage’ company, they are contributing to the Colorado economy with jobs, capital and innovation and through this program, they can be recognized and promoted.  The initiative is a joint public-private venture staged with the support of the Edward Lowe Foundation, the Colorado State Office of Economic Development and International Trade, an awesome group of media partners and sponsors and a hardy group of volunteers.

What’s next for my involvement with the group is to lend some assistance in content development (pics, & videos maybe?) and see how I can again support the building of entrepreneurial fires, in Colorado this time!  Thanks for having me gang!

Related posts:

• A Great Day for Arizona Entrepreneurs
• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-06-14
• The ROI of Social Media Series – Marcel LeBrun CEO of Radian6 Podcast Episode 2

First item at hand is that NPT did not make it easy for me to participate in the discussion on their topic – here they are espousing social engagement and then THEY do not allow a conversation on their post or article.  It may be that as it is a reposting of the content from print, they thought may never occurred to them to support a discussion on this very hot topic.   In my experience though, it is not unusual to see this kind of behavior – a lot of organizations see social as just another form of media and treat it like it was print, radio or TV which is all one-way.

Beyond them apparently not really wanting to engage, my sense of the article is that the writer seemed to be taking issue with stats that show MySpace is declining (it is), that ROI in nonprofits is somehow different from other businesses (it’s not) and that there is work involved in correlating the data that can show an ROI that is meaningful (and there is!)  They present a spreadsheet calculator for nonprofits (from Care2.com) that delivers a projected ROI of some kind of online effort. 

IMHO, projected ROI vs. actual ROI are often two very different numbers and using a tool like this is maybe helpful, but if you deliver results that are wildly off, what then? Imagine that for all the money finance puts into treasury services they’re somehow off on their figures?  What if they’re off 10% – heads would roll I think, but somehow we’re expected to allow marketing projects to be off to an even greater degree.  The travesty to me is that most organizations spend far more on items like banking to measure and track their money (already in the bank) than they spend on measuring their marketing (impacting future revenue / donations).

The article is just a bit too off for me to say that I think it’ll be helpful to NPO’s, but if it gets them thinking about how social can support their mission then it’s a good post.  What’s possibly more relevant is a discussion that every outreach effort needs to be tracked, just like a marketing campaign anywhere else.  An ROI model that considers all aspects of media and marketing is what really relevant here – the burden of suddenly asking social-based marketing to prove an ROI when previous marketing efforts have is somewhat disingenuous.  All marketing should be aligned with ROI; the really cool part about social marketing is that it is by far the most measureable form of media we have right now.

So whether your an NPO, commercial entity with regional, national or global reach you should be demanding and working towards a relevant ROI model for all your campaigns and marketing efforts.

Related posts:

• Social Media Here, Social Media there, Social Media Everywhere!
• Logo icon for the ROI of Social Media
• The Death of Social Media – Long Live Media That is Social!

– Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlett

I was talking to friend about the art / science of social media applied to business and we got to a point that I was reminded of a story about the great (albeit fictional) detective Sherlock Holmes.

In one of stories I seem to remember reading an exchange that went something like this (and I paraphrase extensively here) – Holmes makes a comment on some aspect of his companion, Dr. Watson.  In response to the comment, Watson asks “how ever did you come to that conclusion my dear Holmes?”  Holmes says he will explain how he arrived at his conclusion and after which he says that Watson will then conclude that the initial observation was obvious.  Watson promises to not jump to any such comment.   Holmes goes on to explains his process of deduction, arriving quickly at the conclusion he had just given Watson to which, Watson states, “well, now that you put it that way, Holmes it’s obvious…” only to stop short and realize that he had just broken the promise he had made to the master sleuth just a minute ago.

So it goes when working with an experienced professional.  They know what to do because they have seen or done the work before.  Once the layperson sees it before them, they jump to the conclusion that the result of the work was obvious – which in hindsight it may be but at the time of asking, the result and sometimes even the question was a mystery.

Working with an experienced social media consultant does not suggest the answer will not be learned by the business and become obvious – eventually; but the engagement with the consultant will mean that days, weeks and even months will be pared off the time needed to enact a successful strategy and the ROI of the engagement is sure to follow.

Take Away – Look for an experienced social media consultant and don’t offer to take them to coffee or lunch to ‘pick their brain’; offer to engage them fairly and you’ll save the irreplaceable commodity of time.

Related posts:

• What if the ROI was higher by being nice?
• A 3-Tiered Model for Measuring Social Media Success and How Social Media Saved Pitney Bowes $300K – An Interview with Aneta Hall / Pitney Bowes – Podcast Episode 2
• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-04-19

• My laptop died, had to get a new one and rebuild it
• I was uprooted / moved from one home / office to one in Central Phoenix (BIG transition there, still settling in)
• My 18 year old son moved in
• Took a business trip to Malaysia with Guy Powell & Jerry Dimos, my co-authors on the ROI of Social Media – able to talk to several new and prospective clients
• Opened files for several new / prospective clients here in Arizona – thanks to some word-of-mouth referrals made by some dear friends
• Lastly, and possibly most impactful was I went through a hugely disruptive spat of news regarding my dearly loved twin sister Stephanie and the potential diagnosis of her developing a brain tumor; a second opinion says she doesn’t have one and we’re all praying that that becomes a non-incident.

…and you get the idea.  No apologies, life has continued to happen and my media creation has lagged.

I am also way down on my media consumption; I usually read / review several hundred blog posts a day; not for several weeks have I been able to open a Google Reader that did not belong to a client project.  I always share what I like that I find and you can subscribe to my shared items here – I call it the ‘Best of The Best Feed’.

On the good side – there is a HUGE backlog of content on my computer that should start moving to the web here soon.  Podcasts from companies using social media with good effect, videos of the authors of the ROI of Social Media and a new community site for the book which should be coming up any day now. 

The ROI of Social Media community site is nearing a soft launch (click here to subscribe to this blog feed from Feedburner – you’ll get notice when it opens) – The community site will be a place where we’ll concentrate content from the book and invite people into a dialog focused on the models we present in the book for measuring and managing media.  It will be a place where we all can exchange ideas, improve the case studies and we can fulfill the promises for online content we made in the book – one of the elements we present is a model for evaluating measurement and monitoring tool and we promised to provide an online crowd-sourced director of tools.  We’ve seen some really good directories on this topic so far, referencing what we all know will be a part of the community function.

In any case, I’m feeling a bit more balance coming back into my efforts so the content should start back up.  Thank you to everyone who has supported me in these efforts over the last few months, especially Cynthia, who is my girlfriend, best friend and who has been the ‘wind beneath my wings’, supporting me in just amazing ways.

Look for more content soon!  Good to be back!

Related posts:

• Launching theSocialMediaBible.com
• The Trinity of Social Media Explored Still Further – The Social Network
• Remembering Steven Groves II

In our last episode, Esmee Williams, VP of Brand Strategy shared ideas about the way they tailor the presentation of content for the platform the user opts to access the sit with.  In the first episode, we met Esmee and she gave us tips on how AllRecipes.com grew to become the worlds largest food and recipe site in the world.

What’s the most important metric for AllRecipes?

The most important metric used to be the unique visitor, but with so many platforms this metric is not as meaningful to them.  The most useful metric today is the # of visits per person and frequency, which is an indicator of engagement.  With the objective of wanting to be the site people come to provide everyday meals for everyday people.

Successful social media interactions is more about quality vs. quantity and that interactions should be useful and meaningful to the membership that are genuine, authentic and meaningful.  Esmee and the team have opted to not turn up the heat and generate a lot of noise and followers; they’ve adopted a sustainable steady engagement model that is more in tune with their brand and past tactics.

In this episode, Guy points at the Community Engagement Funnel from the upcoming book and talks about how it fits into the Media Engagement Framework (you can get more information on the Media Engagement Framework in our webinar – sign-up now!)

Off-site, in their social presence, AllRecipes can and does promote the brand, but Esmee shares that the once people get to the site, it is all about the visitor being able to quickly and easily get the content they came for; recipes – and if they choose, connections with the community.  AllRecipes job then is to just ‘stand out of the way’ and let people consume the content they came for.

Play / Download Esmee Williams / AllRecipes.com Episode 3 Podcast Here

To get our posts as they happen, follow us on Twitter (@ROISocialMedia) or subscribe to SocialMarketingConversations.com via email or your RSS Reader.

To support the work in uncovering the ROI question in social media, we’ve set up a Fan Page at Facebook, and a LinkedIn Group.  Come join us and let us know what the pressing issues are in your efforts to determine an ROI in your social media presence!

Related posts:

• What the Future of Computing in Food / Home Entertaining Looks Like for AllRecipes.com
• Why Consumer Brands Tiptoe in Social Media and How AllRecipes.com Helps
• How AllRecipes.com Became the Worlds Largest Food / Recipe Site

In this episode Andrew shares that the best ROI for Microsoft in social marketing come from the owned and operated media network they manage.  With over 650 million visitors a month to their owned and operated media assets (Bing, Windows Live, etc.), it easily represents the best place for Microsoft of promote and market their own products and services – but how do they get people there?

The flow of consumer awareness and engagement goes from the paid media Microsoft can buy, which helps create interest and engagement in consumers who produce their own content about Microsoft (both good and not so good) in the earned media network and ultimately, the engagement will draw consumers to Microsoft’s owned and operated media network where again, they can best represent the brand and products they sell to consumers and businesses.

Relative to their own marketing, Andrew predicts that eventually every company will need to be a media company in it’s own right, with similar owned and operated media media assets and it’s own content creation capability.

Predicting the future still further, Andrew sees that social media will go through a stage where consolidation will occur; he points at the effort he has to go through to manage his own social presence and that effort has him suggesting that there will be a broad single sign-on capability and an aggregation of where and how the user identity is managed online.  The second issue he sees that leadership in the industry will need to address is in the area of consumer privacy and how user information is handled.  Microsoft has been through that firestorm before and has come out the other end as an industry leader – brighter and better in managing those issues than they were before.

Caution, transparency and empowerment are the touchstones of how we’ll answer the privacy issue, quite possibly the final answer will be determined by some legal precedent.  Before that event occurs however, Andrew suggests industry leaders can demonstrate forethought and put in place appropriate principals beforehand.

Play / Download Andrew Pickup / Microsoft AsiaPac Episode 4 Podcast Here

To get our posts as they happen, follow us on Twitter (@ROISocialMedia) or subscribe to SocialMarketingConversations.com via email or your RSS Reader.

To support the work in uncovering the ROI question in social media, we’ve set up a Fan Page at Facebook, and a LinkedIn Group.  Come join us and let us know what the pressing issues are in your efforts to determine an ROI in your social media presence!

Related posts:

• Microsoft Marketing in AsiaPac a podcast with Andrew Pickup / CMO
• The 3 Digital Networks of Microsoft AsiaPac
• Managing Hundreds of Millions of Messages – Microsoft Marketing in AsiaPac

We begin our interview with Andrew as he shares a few bullets from his presentation at the recent ad:tech conference in Singapore on the Windows7 Launch.  The campaign focused on the aspect of the development of Windows7 that leverage consumer input and ideas and with 8 million beta users, the campaign put real users in front of consumer in a way that helped people to see themselves in the role of “I’m a PC and Windows7 was my idea’”.  The campaign was a great success for Microsoft and helped support the worldwide launch very effectively.

Microsoft’s approach to social marketing comes from a perspective that they should be a leader in social media and able to engage very effectively.  With 93 of out every 100 PC’s sold coming with the Microsoft operating systems and the majority of people are buying a PC today to connect to the Internet, most computer systems today present an opportunity to connect consumers with their social media presence.

For Microsoft, social marketing is an integral part of a campaign strategy that is embedded into their thinking.  When planning a campaign they look to 3 digital networks to get their message out –

1. Paid Media – this is the area that lets a company go out and buy media assets (content and advertisements) around the brand on sites (banner ads, SEM, etc.) 
2. Owned & Operated Media – Microsoft owned 3 of the top 10 site on the Internet; Microsoft.com, Windows Live, Bing.  In Asia Pacific they have a reach of the 160M consumers through Microsoft, MSN, Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger.
3. Earned Media – this is where social media resides in the marketing strategy; whether it is words, pictures or video, this is where consumers will pick up the content and re-purpose it and re-present their interpretation of the brand.

The three are inter-related and the earned media component Amplified and magnifying a message in ways that Microsoft might never have considered.

Play / Download Andrew Pickup / Microsoft AsiaPac Episode 1 Podcast Here

To get our posts as they happen, follow us on Twitter (@ROISocialMedia) or subscribe to SocialMarketingConversations.com via email or your RSS Reader.

To support the work in uncovering the ROI question in social media, we’ve set up a Fan Page at Facebook, and a LinkedIn Group.  Come join us and let us know what the pressing issues are in your efforts to determine an ROI in your social media presence!

Related posts:

• Microsoft Marketing in AsiaPac a podcast with Andrew Pickup / CMO
• Managing Hundreds of Millions of Messages – Microsoft Marketing in AsiaPac
• The Best ROI in Social Media is From Owned and Operated Media for Microsoft AsiaPac

Jeff observes that at least we can get some trending data from the existing tools, but the art & science of tone / sentiment analysis is still fairly human-centric and that organization would do well to put a person into the process.  The vagaries of language, jargon and the constantly evolving nature of slang will make this a task fit for human for quite some time to come. 

Where is Twitalyzer going and what’s keeping them up at night? The biggest concern for Twitalyzer is handling the continuing changes pouring out from the data providers, but they’re confident that the challenge is manageable and it is the work they are about.  Twitalyzer recognizes their part in answering the question of how social media is used for business and Jeff cites that social media analytics tools are at about the same place web analytics tools were about 5-10 years ago – growing fast and changing often.

Social media for business is growing and entering the main stream for businesses small and larger alike.  The tactics vary but the premise is the same and that is to connect with your customers and pay attention to the conversation.  Where Twitalyzer comes in is in being able to segment out the real influencers in the community and making sure the conversations stay relevant.

Play / Download Jeff Katz / Twitalyzer Episode 3 Podcast Here 

To get a hold of Twitalyzer, look at their website, www.Twitalyzer.com, you can reach Jeff directly at jeff@twitalyzer.com and he is on Twitter as @katzpdx.

This is the final episode of the three part podcast with Jeff.  Guy Powell and I want to thank him; we appreciate his perspective and taking the time to share it with us in our podcast interview!

Here are links to material related to the interview that you may find useful; the entire conversation in one extended recording and soon, a transcript of the conversation

Play / Download Jeff Katz / Twitalyzer Entire Episode Podcast Here

Read / view the Jeff Katz / Twitalyzer Podcast Transcript at Scribd.com

We’re very interested in your perspective on the topic and, if you have a favored presenter or person who can add to the conversation, please let us know – we’re looking to interview him / her and put it up here!

Thank you again to you our listeners – hope you enjoyed the effort and work we put into it!

The Podcast and Credit For Where Credit is Due – This podcast / transcript was developed from a live interview on January 19, 2010 between Jeff Katz of Twitalyzer, Guy Powell and Steven Groves using FreeConferenceCall.com.

The podcast interview was downloaded and processes in Audacity, which is available from SourceForge.com, and with ‘4toFloor.wav’ music loop from member ‘Rooks’ and posted at SoundSnap.com.

The transcripts are provided by Social Marketing Conversations and the Introduction Voice Talent is Ms. Cynthia Propst.

Related posts:

• Social Marketing Benefits from Goal Setting, Planning and Benchmarking – Twitalyzer Supplies the Data
• If You Use Twitter for Marketing, Twitalyzer Delivers “Serious Analytics”
• The ROI of Social Media Series – Mike Talbot and Aaron Newman / Alterian SM2 – Episode 6 of 6

I read an article today over at AdAge.com by Pete Blackshaw titled ‘Who Owns Social Anyway?’ and enjoyed one thing in particular in his article.  Pete pointed out the left-brain, right-brain battle many of us feel in social media. 

For me at least, there is a desire to place some structure around our behavior and activity while simultaneously wanting to rebel and rail against structure in the pursuit of a social presence that is genuine and honest in the content and thus, often produced in the spirit of a just-in-time, get it our the door to share mentality.

This pushmi-pullyu split personality then asked if the advent of social media might have unintentionally lowered the bar for good creative efforts.  Witness the amazing visitor counts ‘Fred Figglehorn’ has produced on YouTube (471M at last count) and his stuff is, hmmm… to my ears irritating, to say the best and the product demonstrates low production values to say the least, but that is all a part of Fred’s allure – it’s fresh and edgy, which is appealing to that audience segment.

Contrast it to the segments of WillItBlend.com. This is another YouTube channel, this one for the people at BlendTec.  They have a higher degree of production values (sets, multiple camera angles and audio editing) and the content is directly aligned with their product, high-quality home blenders that can take what you throw at them.  They have a little over 108M views vs. Freds 471M, albeit Fred has a years head start on them.

So does social media lower the bar for creative? Is it more important to get something posted and out there than spending a lot more time & money on quality creative content?  *sigh* I think so… I believe it is much more important to engage the audience than to refine, refine, and refine again to the point the content is so flashy and the message is well presented, but the urgency and edginess that connects the producer to the audience to the moment is lost.

Should you do any production work then?  Yes, some scrubbing of video or audio prior to posting is good, you can lightly massage the content, leave in all the message, but the real message here is to get the content out there and let the audience decide what the value is.

Social Marketing Conversations Soft-launch

To that end I present to you all the new brand of ‘Social Marketing Conversations’ – a relaunch of my evolving personal brand and company around the upcoming book Guy Powell, Jerry Dimos and I are writing on the topic of ROI in social media – it is not done yet and there are several components of the business model that are still in process, but I felt it important to get the name and the company launched. 

I will put up a separate post on the new company, update my ‘About’ page and connect it to the new Facebook page (www.Facebook.com/SocialMarketingConversations), so you can get a sense on what it is all about, but the last several weeks have been a real grind in getting the manuscript to the point where we’re all about ready to release it and get it to the publisher (John Wiley & Sons – the same people who do the ‘Dummy’ series).

I read the Adage article and have been doing a lot of busy work, but this subject came up and I knew that a post on just get it out there was relevant and a great topic to get me posting again here at SocialMarketingConversations.com. 

Thanks for visiting and reading – see you in social media!

Image Courtesy of Shane Willis / MC MECHANIC – HAND FIXING HAND – Homage to MC Escher

Related posts:

• ROI of Social Media is now live on Amazon!
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The use of social in a business-to-business setting is really an extension of the idea that people do not do business with businesses, people do business with people; the transparency that social media afford is relevant and is important as the adoption of media channels with social elements emerge and are more widely adopted.  The consumer, whether in business or personal transactions must first trust and believe in the people and team behind the brand.

The value of an online presence and how it translates to an offline presence is relevant for business as well.  A listener in the audience of the Blogtalkradio.com broadcast we did asks about the use of social media to create a real-life connection.  Joan responds that she sees “meet-up” as opportunities to gauge the effectiveness of the online strategy, but whether the meet-up is impromptu or planned weeks in advance, the events that begin online allow people to meet and share their passion.  These days it is often a passion about social media. So she dive a bit deeper and suggests that a meet-up that is a meet-up with other social media people is often not an application of time CorePurpose invests their time in.

She also explores how the use of social media has benefitted a non-profit she heads up, that would be the Opportunity Through Entrepreneurship Foundation, or OTEF (disclaimer: Joan and I both serve on the board of OTEF).  She shares her educational journey in social media on her blog where she chronicles the things she has learned during the last year through trial & error and a little help from her friends.

She advises business to not lose sight of the social media marketing channel and to respect that it is an extension of a  communication strategy that uses a different medium – one that demands socializing, which is sometimes a very different medium than the business might be used to.  Nonetheless, Joan suggests that you still need to go through many of the same questions you have to go through using traditional media, which is –

• who is my audience,
• what are they looking for,
• where will I access them, and
• how will I interact? 

Summary - Find out what your audience wants, where they are and then simply go there and deliver it.

Play / Download Joan Koerber-Walker / CorePurpose Episode 4 Podcast Here

Here is a link to the previous episode in this series -

Episode 1 – Segmenting Your Approach to a Social Media Presence

Episode 2 – Generating Original Content

Episode 3 – Setting KPIs for Measuring Social Media

To support the effort in uncovering the ROI question in social media, we’ve set up a Fan Page at Facebook, a LinkedIn Group, and a special discussion group on the Social Media Bible Ning site.  Come join us and let us know what the pressing issues are in your efforts to determine an ROI in your social media presence.

This is the final episode of the podcast with Joan and Guy Powell and I want to thank her; we appreciate her perspective and taking the time to share it with us during a live BlogTalkRadio.com broadcast!

Here are links to material related to the interview that you may find useful; the entire conversation in one extended recording and soon, a transcript of the conversation

Play / Download Joan Koerber-Walker / CorePurpose Entire Broadcast Here

We’re very interested in your perspective on the topic and, if you have a favored presenter or person who can add to the conversation, please let us know – we’re looking to interview him / her and put it up here!

Thank you again to you our listeners – hope you enjoyed the effort and work we put into it!

About the Podcast, Transcript and Credit For Where Credit is Due – This transcript was developed from a live BlogTalkRadio Show on December 15, 2009 between Joan Koerber-Walker, Guy Powell and Steven Groves.

The podcast interview was downloaded and processes in Audacity, available as a free download from SourceForge, and with ‘4toFloor.wav’ music loop from member ‘Rooks’ and posted at SoundSnap.com.

Introduction voice is Cynthia Propst / TSMB Media, LLC.

The transcript provided by Cynthia Propst / TSMB Media, LLC.

Related posts:

• Establishing Performance Indicators for Social Media – ROI of Social Media podcast – Joan Koerber-Walker / CorePurpose – Episode 3
• Being Original In Your Content – ROI of Social Media podcast – Joan Koerber-Walker / CorePurpose – Episode 2
• Segmenting Your Social Media Presence – ROI of Social Media podcast – Joan Koerber-Walker / CorePurpose – Episode 1