Brands are not yet settled into G+, but it’s reported that Google is looking for the optimum combination of brands and consumers so that it’s a more natural extension of how consumers want to connect to brands. My hope is that it is not yet another iteration of the interruption driven model that has predominated marketing for decades, but I got to wondering what would it look like if G+ actually addressed the paradigm and sought to try something better, what would a brand interaction in G+ look like? Here’s my take on what it might be like.

For brands to connect with consumers on G+, (when they can) the consumer will have to opt-in to the brand and include them into a Circle that they see regularly. I think we’ll see a permutation of the Google AdWords product that is smarter. Keywords will be scanned and the connection between the conversation and the offer will take on a better meaning. I think that brands will be able to better identify the real influencers in respective markets IF (and this is a big if) the brand can be given access to the social graph / Circle stats of the consumer. How will they get access? Consumers will grant it – usually in exchange for something of value. What kind of value? Some people will trade access to their social graph for a cup of coffee at , others will require a bit more consideration.

Accelerators to adoption will include connections between products like +Personal.com, which I really like, but do not yet understand how they’re going to be relevant if I cannot connect my permissions and profile to the social networks I’m using – profile fatigue is starting to set in with consumers and we, as an industry, have to find a solutions.  OpenID, Google profiles and Facebook Connect are just placeholders for now and the real power in this space I think has yet to emerge.

What to do for now is to develop a presence in the social space in a way that is both genuine and in a way that recognizes that your persona can vary relative to the audience you wish to address without being disingenuous.   Learning this, knowing it and being able to act on it for a brand though will be a challenge – too many of them are wrapped up in an old-school mindsets that places monthly and quarterly.

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Working at the intersection of ROI, marketing and social media in particular has been a topic that has drawn my interest since the early development of social media as a connecting consumer technology.

As social media came onto the scene, a debate cropped up that social media was a ‘tool of the people’ and that to propose its use as a business tactic was heretical.  We still see vestiges of that debate now and then, but by and large, we do not see much of it I think because the flood of early practitioners has subsided and the bar for entry as a social marketer has been raised past the point that creating a Facebook page and opening a Twitter account suddenly launched a new consultancy.  The discussions by marketers has risen to a point that business people recognize that marketing has an ROI that can be associated with it and that social media marketing can have a VERY high ROI indeed.

Social marketing ROI is not a dark, foreboding concept that only technocrats understand, at it’s base is the correlation of information from multiple points that helps us all understand how a marketing strategy that includes tweets or Facebook posts can impact revenues and costs.  The red-herring discussions of the ‘ROI of your phone’ or a ‘return-on-influence’, or ‘return-on-engagement’ are getting more and more hollow by the day.  I think it’s because we’re recognizing that these metrics are made up and promoted by evil minions of misdirection who may not know how to speak otherwise.

Truly savvy marketers are realizing that the only ‘I’ that matters in ROI is ‘Investment’ and that if marketing is going to get increased funding for their efforts, the rest of the organization (particularly those that manage budgets) speaks in business terms like these – so marketers are learning the particulars of ROI or facing the prospect of being replaced by someone who can talk the talk of the executive suite.

Just how much longer do we need to allow these minions of demonic misdirection to suck the life out of marketing initiatives and render them useless to management? *sigh* obviously longer than we should, but in order to get the conversation back on solid ground, I know we need to start with committing to a broader conversation about 1) where your customers are congregating and 2) then asking how best to reach them, always 3) seeking the genuine ROI along the way.  Either that or 4) drive a wooden stake thought their evil little hearts.

Steven Groves is co-author of “ROI of Social Media: How to improve the return on your social marketing investment” and your host at www.ROIofSocialmedia.com

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I was not sure if his question was for a survey, if he was looking for engagement or if it was a professional question he is trying to answer for CoursePark,  but his question made me think for a moment to a blog post series from July 2009 on ‘The Trinity of Social Media” that suggested the trinity should be a blog, a micro-blog and a social network.  I have thought of the post often and continue to wonder if the trinity might need an update eventually.  The 2011 edition of the Trinity I think does warrant a refresh and this will be the first in the series.

Let’s put the construct of the Trinity in context here for a moment; we’re talking about a business presence, not personal and we’re talking about spanning two of the relevant media networks; Owned & Operated (O&O) media and Earned media, which relies heavily on social media.  There is no distinction at this level of a B2B company presence or a B2C.

What’s changed for 2011 and beyond?

The objective has not changed – we want to drive traffic to the O&O site or network of sites.  Eyeballs on pages, not revenue at this point, but traffic – which is a proxy for awareness of our product, service or brand.   What has changed is the social technology and the features and capabilities of the various platforms.

Do any of the changes warrant a change in the model?

Yes – in one particular area: the social network component.  When the original Trinity model was introduced, Facebook Groups were supported and Business Pages were not yet introduced.  Are there be other changes?  Yes – but not in the tool selection I do not think.  The fundamentals are holding and IMHO the foundational tools and technology for an effective social presence are still a blog, micro-blog and social network.  The tactics we deploy however are different today than they were in 2009 and as we cover the new state of the Trinity, we’ll discuss the changes.

Audience Participation Notice

I’ll write the articles, but I’d like to include your comments.  Whose comments – you, the person reading this right now.  If I could reach through the screen and point at you I would.  Comment below on what you think the changes might be for you or send me an email with whatever your thoughts are.

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• The Trinity of Social Media

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.

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• 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!

I just had to take a moment to comment on a recent article I read over at MediaPost about copyright trolls, RightHaven, and their heavy-handed tactics in copyright enforcement. The article written by Wendy Davis cites a lawsuit brought by RightHaven against an autistic blogger for $150,000 for posting an image originally posted by the Denver Post.

Following what I understand is their standard modus operandi , RightHaven does not first ask for compliance, they file a suit first and ask questions later. No warning, no letter or email requesting compliance – just a lawsuit that the offending party needs to respond to or end up being thrown under the ever-turning wheels of justice. Justice?  Sorry, this action does not appear to be about justice – it seems to be about RightHaven lawyers looking for more and more billable hours I think.

In the article, Reporters Without Borders, (a free speech advocacy group,) has asked the Denver Post parent organization to please reconsider their association and behavior in respect to employing RightHaven tactics. They, and I, have no problem with a media agency wanting to retain control over its creative output, but is hiring a lawyer to bring suit the right first step if you believe a copyright infringement has occurred?

What ever happened to the idea of just asking to have the content removed?  Polite manners aside, what’s the ROI in paying a lawyer $250 an hour vs. a staffer $20 an hour to send an email that says the same?  If the offending party does not comply, maybe the $250 an hour lawyer IS the right way to go, but I’d make a bet that the $20 would often get the same result – and save the Denver Post thousands of dollars in legal fees.

This kind of behavior deserves the full light of the blogosphere to be regularly and constantly turned on it (stay in touch on these guys at RightHavenVictims.com).  As to RightHaven and the Denver Posts’ behavior – I just want to say shame on you guys! If you want to protect your content and save money, think about email and letters before lawyers. But going after a 20 year old autistic bloggers?! WTF?!

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What is most obvious to me is that social elements in marketing should not be considered apart from the traditional, non-social elements. Second is that the return on each part of the marketing mix can actually be measured pretty well – the social is actually the easiest part of it.  Today with the tools, tactics and technology at our disposal, we can definitely get the answer to these questions about what’s working.  The next question that seemed to come up then was “should the investment be made to measure ROI?”  Imagine it cost $20 to find out that a marketing campaign brought in another $5 in incremental revenue?  The investment in measuring the return on the campaign would just not make sense – it’s a question then of can we afford the ROI data itself?

What we’ve seen is that most marketers simply put no budget into measuring what the effectiveness is of the marketing effort at all.  Larger CPG or FMCG marketers appear to be spending 5% to 8% of their marketing budget on just getting the data and putting the tools to work to help determine what’s actually working, but other companies (small, medium & large alike) just are not getting data on what is actually working in their marketing.  Keep in mind that this is the investment set aside for just getting the data and putting in the tools and systems to know what is working – nothing on the actual creative or media buys.  Compare this for a moment to how much finance invests in measuring cash & cash flow in their relationship with banks – much more than they spend on finding out what marketing is actually working.  Seems a little backwards doesn’t it?

What we began with, as a class was a desire to connect social media marketing investments to data that helps with funding and increased investment in marketing and what we end up with is a well developed understanding that the ROI of all marketing is where a company really needs to start – not one media type vs. another – all marketing should be measured.

What I’ve also seen is that demanding a return on just the social part of a marketing effort has dropped off in 2011 vs. the last few years and investment in online & social media is growing.  What I am looking for is that we’ll see is a demand for ROI methodology in marketing overall – it might not manifest, but to their credit, marketers appear to be more interested in being able to state clearly the impact on revenue of all their efforts. 

How ready are marketers to pursue an ROI-based strategy?  An indication of the readiness of marketing in being able to connect their marketing with revenue was the answer to the question of “how many of you can produce within 1/2 an hour, a spreadsheet of current and past campaigns?”   It was an illuminating response for sure – most could not.  This is the kind of response we seem to get from marketers regardless of location; when we narrow it still further to just social campaigns the response is even more sparse.

Where to go from here?  I for one am happy to be carrying this question forward and to be an evangelist for marketing and social media ROI.  There’s not a quick, single post answer to the question, but rest assured, there is one – welcome to the journey.

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Bravo Networks has made social media a part of their DNA and with really powerful results.  In this podcast series with Ellen Stone / Senior Vice President for Marketing for Bravo, she shares some of the work that she and her team have undertaken to develop some award winning brand concepts and programs. 

You’ll want to subscribe (to your email or RSS reader) so you don’t miss a minute of what is an excellent podcast series on how Bravo has adopted social media to extend their relationship with the audience in powerful, productive and profitable ways.

In this episode Ellen describes the Bravo brand and the five entertainment categories they focus their programming and content on ; they are food, fashion, design, beauty and pop culture.  She also shares that they see that the audience for Bravo really expects a connection in social media and she uses the terms ‘tech savvy and forward leaning’ to help describe the audience.

Their goal in content generation is to provide inventive and influential content that engage the audience and that the audience then talks about it with their friends.  As a pioneer in social content, Bravo was one of the earliest brands to get involved in social media with their connection with MySpace in 2005. which Ellen points out as proof that social is really a part of their DNA at Bravo.

The partnership with MySpace was for shared content around show premiers, building & maintain buzz around a series, and promoting branded products (such as cookbook, clothing.)  Their work today includes leveraging Facebook, Twitter and a wide variety of new properties to better connect to their audience.

In the way of a true market leader, she suggests that their biggest obstacles is also a benefit too – it is that with the social environment changing so quickly, they get to / have to decide where and how they use social media to connect to their audience in ways that are helpful to the brand, have the audience talking and impact the audience with the messaging they want to get out there.  With the growth in social it hard to determine just what tools and tactics will work best early & impact-fully.

Play / Download Ellen Stone / Bravo Networks – 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.

ROI of Social Media Community Site

Guy Powell and I are avid about uncovering the ROI of marketing.  It’s work we are both passionate about and enjoy. 

To support our work in exploring the question of ROI in marketing and social media, we’re launching a community site using the Ning platform at www.ROIofSocialMedia.com where we will be posting a wide variety of content for our readers and fulfilling our commitments we made in the ROI of Social Media book to provide fresh and updated content around the question of ROI in marketing and social media.

We have set the community as open for anyone, but a membership is required to access content like the complete episodes of all the podcasts and as comprehensive a list as we can possibly generate of social media monitoring and measurement technology and tool vendors.  

Come join us and let us know what the pressing issues are in your efforts to determine an ROI in your social media presence!

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– 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.

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Michael is the Director and General Manager for the Global Small and Medium Online Business at Dell, and is responsible for the overall online business and strategy for Dell SMB worldwide.  When he spoke with us from his offices in Stuttgart Germany, Guy Powell and I were able to find out a great deal about how Dell manages and measures their social marketing and their online presence.

In our first episode, we learned about the Four Pillars of the online marketing strategy they employ and in episode 2 we heard about the five Customer Value Drivers and the five key metrics they apply to measure the success of their online efforts.  In our last episode, Michael shared how Dell works hard to present a broad offering of online communities and communications options to support the B2B and B2C initiatives and to give customers a chance to have their voices heard and to drive the innovations in products and services they want to invest in from Dell.

In this episode, we wrap up the conversation with Michael with him sharing how Dell is absolutely committed to social media as a fundamental tactic because they see success in it and they see how well the customer base responds to it.  He also points out that the massive increase in social engagements in other geographies, away from North America, to other regions that including Brazil, Russia, India and elsewhere.

A second area of focus for Dell is an increased effort on Search; Michael suggests that search is where customers are looking for information and they expect to increase and improve their presence in search engine marketing (SEM) and as for a business like Dell, you should ‘fish where the fish are’ with paid advertising in the search engines.

The next key element he suggests will be businesses targeting market influencers.  Influencers can expand your exposure and credibility in social media and influencers provide a multiplier effect to your efforts – he sees Dell and other companies beginning to target those influencers with a more consistent and focused effort.

The fourth element he shares is an encouragement for businesses to development an engagement ecosystem of online and offline media assets that present a cohesive and consistent message for customers so that the marketing message carries between them seamlessly.

Next is the topic of mobile computing and this is getting to be a red hot space for businesses wanting to adopt social media.  Mobile is a big area for deployment of social media, particularly in light of the migration of social activity to other geographic areas that will have different connectivity models, one where mobile devices will be the dominate access tactic.

He restates that ‘Marketing is the New Finance’ and businesses wanting to improve revenues and reduce costs need to look to more efficient marketing to do so, but not without some metrics and measurement.  As social becomes a bigger part of the marketing mix, businesses need to understand how to engage and further to grasp the idea that a social campaign is not as streamlined as traditional marketing campaign.  Social media is still a bit of a jungle and businesses need to be prepared to handle a few mistakes along the way.

Lastly, and possibly most important is that Michael makes it clear that social media is not a gimmick for him and the team at Dell – it is a way of working and a way for we, as humans to interact with one another more and to deliver a higher degree of service to customers.  He suggests that if a company understands that, they can excel in their respective marketing effort, but social needs to becomes a part of the culture and not just a shtick or PR stunt – those efforts are a sure way to get your brand called out or worse, ignored.

Play / Download Michael Buck / Dell Episode 4 Podcast Here

You can find and connect with Michael at Michael_Buck@Dell.com, or via Linkedin, or on Twitter as @WorkingForDell

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

Play / Download Michael Buck / Dell SMB Entire Interview Podcast Here

Read / view the Michael Buck / Dell SMB Podcast Transcript at Scribd.com

We’re very interested in your perspective on the topic and, if you have a great interview who can add to the conversation, please let us know – we’re looking to interview them 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 recorded interview on April 13th, 2010 between Michael Buck, Director and General Manager for the Global Small and Medium Online Business at Dell, Guy Powell and Steven Groves.   The interview was arranged via Jerry Dimos.

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

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

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• How Dell SMB Supports Customers in Diving Deep in Social Media
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In previous episodes we met Michael Buck, who is the Director and General Manager for the Global Small and Medium Online Business at Dell, responsible for the overall online business and strategy for Dell SMB worldwide.  He spoke with us from his offices in Stuttgart Germany and first told us about the Four Pillars of the online effort at Dell that are a part of everything they do.

In our last episode, Michael shared how the approach differs for a business-to-business (B2B) customer versus a business-to-consumer (B2C) customer and how they make sure the top Customer Value Drivers are embedded in their tactics.  In that episode he also shares what the top five metrics are that they apply to their online marketing and social media efforts – all really great information.

In this episode, Michael declares that ‘Marketing is the New Finance’ because with the power of social marketing, Dell is able to affect both the revenue and the expenses of the organization.  He tells us that eCommerce is not the beginning of a relationship with their customers – it is an outcome of the relationship they build via the online elements they deploy to connect to their customers.  Michael goes on to share that they have been benchmarking social tactics versus traditional and find that social elements are so powerful that, in the SMB education they provide to their customers, in some cases social elements warrant a clear consideration to perhaps flat out replace some traditional components.

He explains that it is very important to start the relationship with the customer from a level of trust, a trust that is earned from customers; it is not a given for Michael that customers will engage with Dell online just because they produce a campaign to helps them do so.  He suggests that without that trust, the customer will not engage regardless of the tactic used.

A campaign that he refers to in the interview is the ‘Take Your Own Path’ campaign that leverages actual Dell users from a variety of industries to tell their own story and how Dell has supported them in their computing journey.  They encourage customers to share their stories and in this campaign, Dell has melded the online and offline components to present a consistent look, feel and message to the audience.  What you see in airport signage, magazines, billboards and online all mesh to share the message that Dell is a good partner to count on for your business computing needs.

To encourage user interaction for the Dell team, consumer choice is key in the Dell presence and they strive to support a broad offering of community and communications options that lets the consumer dive into the Dell experience as deeply as they wish.  An invitation to connect in social media though is not with out a caveat however, Michael suggests that if a company does adopt a social presence, they need to take the presence online seriously and to participate willingly; he suggests that if the online presence is perceived to be a gimmick to pump the same content and marketing message they can get offline and that there is no intention of engaging, elements of the audience will call you out and they 1) will not engage and 2) they will tell others that your presence is hollow.

Play / Download Michael Buck / Dell SMB 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!

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• Why Social Media is Not Just a Gimmick for Dell SMB
• What the 5 Customer Value Drivers and Top 5 Metrics are for the Dell SMB Social Presence
• How Dell Does Online Media – The Four Pillars