Joan talks about accepting the challenge of developing her own content for her presence and reveals the genesis of her #BeOriginal blog / project and how she overcame the challenge of developing meaningful content for her worldwide social presence, and how she has used social media as a tactic to reach out and connect with other thought leaders, regardless of their location on the globe.

What kinds of obstacles does Joan face in using more social media or using it better?  As an established business leader, writer and public speaker, Joan cites that social media was not a start-up strategy, as it is for many businesses, it is an expansion of the thought leadership, visibility and publicity programs she already had underway and she compares the use of social media in a traditional marketing / advertising model for institutional companies vs. the tactics and tools used even a few years ago.  She cites how social media as an institutional advertising tactic is quickly emerging and how CorePurpose has transitioned all their institutional advertising to online and an expanded, long term ‘word-of-mouth’ campaign.

She diagrams some of the tactics on how Avnet, her employer prior to going solo, as an example on how a F500 company has adopted social media in a segmented model to connect to audiences in a B2B model – the segmentation strategy is one she uses herself and a topic we covered in our first episode. 

The biggest obstacle to using more social media is the irreplaceable commodity of time.  She also shares her opinions how self-proclaimed social media experts that do not listen to their audience and have feeble followings – how can they be an expert if they cannot develop their own following or if they leave their tools lying fallow in a cornfield?

Play / Download Joan Koerber-Walker / CorePurpose Episode 2 Podcast Here

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

Episode 1 – Segmenting Your Approach to a Social Media Presence

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.

Related posts:

• Establishing Performance Indicators for Social Media – ROI of Social Media podcast – Joan Koerber-Walker / CorePurpose – Episode 3
• Translating an Online Connection to an Offline Relationship – ROI of Social Media podcast – Joan Koerber-Walker / CorePurpose – Episode 4 of 4
• Segmenting Your Social Media Presence – ROI of Social Media podcast – Joan Koerber-Walker / CorePurpose – Episode 1

In this episode, we conclude the interview and explore the ability of SM2 to be able to detect the sentiment and tonality of a social media mention as it is picked up by SM2 and how the tool can be ‘educated’ to provide better and more consistent results. 

Can the computer really understand tone and sentiment though? As Aaron has said in a previous episode, it’s more of an art than a science right now, but that is primarily because the nuances of human communications are more subtle than the system can understand. 

At one point, Mike references the Turing Test, as an example of the kind of complexity a fully automated assessment of tonality and sentiment would require.  The Turing Test was designed back in the 50’s to assess whether or not a human could detect the difference between the projected presence of a computer vs. a human during an interaction.  As a science fiction buff, I relate it to the kind of challenge I see in Ray Kurzweil’s impending Singularity – according to Ray, the ability may be as not be far off as many think.  In the context of the conversation with Mike and Aaron, we all agree that it is a complication that drives the need for human intervention in the monitoring process.

The topic of Social Media Optimization (SMO) comes up relative to the ROI and how it drives ROI.  Aaron explores the SMO concept as developed by Rohit Bhargava on Influential Marketing Blog, where Rohit presented 5 rules of SMO. 

Here are the five that Rohit cites in his original post –

1. Increase linkability
2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy
3. Reward inbound links
4. Help your content travel out
5. Encourage mashup

Since the original post, the ‘rules’ have been expanded to more than a dozen with input from the likes of Jeremiah Owyang / Altimeter Group and other great minds in the realm of social media marketing and optimization. 

Aaron observes that these kind of characteristics are very different than 10-15 years ago when early bloggers attempted to make their content proprietary and contain where and when it was re-posted. 

We revisit the need to first establish a strategy before you pursue tactics and Mike encourages a process that establishes knowing what you are trying to do first is part of a structure that encourages identifying activities and identifying influencers and audiences that are receptive to your content.  We wrap up with information how to connect with Alterian (and they are listening all the time BTW, the RT’s by the Alterian team are really a treat – thanks you guys!). 

In the summary, Mike shares an anecdote from the merger / acquisition process.  When the board chairman asked why they needed to get involved with social media, Mike showed him how social media was already acting on an existing brand of another company the chairman was involved in and how that was the ‘ah-ha’ moment for him.

Play / Download Aaron Newman and Mike Talbot of Alterian Episode 6 Podcast Here

To support the effort in uncovering the ROI question in social media, we’ve set up a Fan Page at Facebook, a LinkedIn Group, a Google Wave 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.

Here are links to the previous episodes in this series -

• Episode 1 – What to Consider When Trying to Measure ROI / Hard and Soft Investments
• Episode 2 – Do Not Be Afraid To Measure Social Media; You May Be Better Than You Know
• Episode 3 – Attributes of a Measure in Social Media
• Episode 4 – Ad equivalence as a metric in social media
• Episode 5 – Assessing Sentimentality and Tonality in social media

Transcript and Extended Recording

Transcript of the original recording

All six (6) Episodes in one file / recording for download or to listen to

This is the final post in the interview with Aaron Newman and Mike Talbot of Alterian.

Guy and I both would like to thank Aaron and Mike for their time and willingness to meet and share their perspective on the topic.  Above are links to material related to the interview that you may find useful; a transcript of the discussion and the entire conversation in one extended recording.

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 an interview held November 30, 2009 between Aaron Newman, Mike Talbot, Guy Powell and Steven Groves.

The podcast interview was recorded at FreeConferenceCall.com, downloaded and processes in Audicity, downloaded from SourceForge 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:

• The ROI of Social Media Series – Mike Talbot and Aaron Newman / Alterian SM2 – Episode 4
• The ROI of Social Media Series – Mike Talbot and Aaron Newman / Alterian SM2 – Episode 1
• The ROI of Social Media Series – Mike Talbot and Aaron Newman / Alterian SM2 – Episode 5

One of those tactics is a drawing or door-prize that uses a contest model.  The conversation on how to develop an online contest has come often enough and over the holiday break, I took the time to use my favorite ideation tool to develop a model.

There are two legs to this model – one is low ‘hard cost’ and just requires a good deal of manual labor to implement, monitor and manage.  The second leg assumes most all of what is in the first, but allows for a more robust implementation assuming a funded budget for custom programming and monitoring tools.

What would be the results of this kind of a campaign?

• Increased awareness of the brand / message
• Increased followers / fans
• Some combination of the two

How would you determine the ROI of the effort? Begin with tracking the initial investments and setting the baseline of what’s happening now.  Establish what a success looks like and monitor measure and readjust as needed.

There are probably a few more aspect than I have considered here though – what would you add?

The model used MindManager from Mindjet to create the Mind Map of the Online Contest Model.  Make sure you are current with Adobe Acrobat8 and Flash9 installed and this mind map & player should work (MindJet requirements).  Mac users may have issues – contact me to send you the MindMap itself if you have the Mac version of MindManager.

FCC Disclaimer – TSMB Media is a registered reseller of Mindjets Mind Manager products and receives no remuneration / compensation

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• 10 Things Social Media Will Not Do For You in Enterprise 2.0
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• Logo icon for the ROI of Social Media

A commonly used metric is called ‘Advertising Value Equivalence’ which attempts to establish a value for a news article or print interview by comparing the value of the article to an advertisement, an ad equivalent. (note – it is not uncommon to see this term alternately used as “Equivalent Advertising Value” or abbreviated as some combination of the letters i.e.; ‘EAV’, ‘AEV’, ‘AVE’, etc.)

In this episode, Guy poses the question about using ad equivalence as a metric in social media.  Aaron responds and cites how we’ve become almost immune to a broadcast media message anymore and that we, as a culture, are seeking more pertinent input from the community.

Social Media is at it’s core a ‘word-of-mouth’ tactic, but the technology underpinnings have extended the community to a global scope.  Andrew cites that the trust level of the community has evolved to be a more significant influencer than the marketing message constructed by the marketer.

Mike Talbot goes on to say that marketing departments are getting the message however and beginning to focus on social media as a marketing tool in the over all mix.

Play / Download Mike Talbot / Aaron Newman Episode 4 Podcast Here

To support our efforts in uncovering the ROI in Social Media, we’ve established a presence in a number of locations; you can select the one that’s right for you!  The   Fan Page at Facebook, our LinkedIn Group, and a special Discussion Group on the Social Media Bible Ning site. Come join us and let us know what the issues are in your efforts to determine an ROI in your social media presence.

Here are links to the previous segments in this series -

• Episode 1 – What to Consider When Trying to Measure ROI / Hard and Soft Investments
• Episode 2 – Do Not Be Afraid To Measure Social Media; You May Be Better Than You Know
• Episode 3 – Attributes of a Measure in Social Media

Related posts:

• The ROI of Social Media Series – Mike Talbot and Aaron Newman / Alterian SM2 – Episode 1
• The ROI of Social Media Series – Mike Talbot and Aaron Newman / Alterian SM2 – Episode 5
• The ROI of Social Media Series – Mike Talbot and Aaron Newman / Alterian SM2 – Episode 3

Social media is big right now; it’s a low hard cost tactic leveraging tools that run substantially less than comparable traditional media, but without some consideration, your efforts could be little more than just more noise.

What we’re seeing is executives at organizations large and small recognizing that they must do SOMEthing, and they want to do something NOW. Many are grasping at straws that predictably will lead no where – it’s the price of education as an entrepreneur I suppose, but it does not have to be.

There is a growing number proven tactics that can reduce the time to develop and deploy an effective strategy – corporate cultural changes, education, consulting and of course, hiring top talent.  Gone are the days when you hand it off to an intern or a young family member to ‘see what happens’ because we now know what happens when you do that – the effort is disconnected from real-world business objectives and it fails to generate an ROI that has any kind of resemblance to a sustainable business practice.

Under full disclosure, I did not come up with this idea or the initial list myself – I came across a post in the Q&A section of the CMO Group at LinkedIn which was posted there by Daryl Toor from AttentionGroup.com. 

The items in the post are pretty much Daryl’s with my edits, comments and thoughts on the enterprise application of social media embedded – wished I had thought of the list, but more than happy to give Daryl credit for work well done and build on it from another angle.

Social Media Cannot -

Daryl, your list is excellent!  Thanks for posting it!

Image Courtesy Intersection Consulting on Flickr

Related posts:

• Social Media to be Adopted as an Enterprise Solution in 2010 – Isn’t it?
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• How to Let People Know Where You Are in Social Media

If social media is going to be an additional tool in the marketers toolbox, the simple mention of the brand will have some value to it – repeated mentions by the same person might have you classify them as an ‘Brand Advocate’ and worthy of special treatment, depending on what they say of course.

Aaron provides these four attributes to help assess the value of a social media mention and discusses them in-depth -

• • Authority,
  • discoverability,
  • life time, and
  • sentiment

Aaron reiterates again that measurement is is still more of an art vs. a science today.

Mike goes further though and states that social media monitoring is not just about monitoring the campaign interactions.  There is a lot of value in being able to measure and read an unguarded, honest commentary stream to understand how a customer views the brand.

In this series so far, Mike and Aaron are uncovering great tips on the process of monitoring a social media presence – a few more episodes ahead of us before the Holiday!

Play / Download Mike Talbot / Aaron Newman Episode 3 Podcast Here

To support the effort in uncovering the ROI question in social media, we’ve set up a Fan Page at Facebook, a LinkedIn Group, a Google Wave 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.

Here are links to the previous segments in this series -

Episode 1 – What to Consider When Trying to Measure ROI / Hard and Soft Investments

Episode 2 – Do Not Be Afraid To Measure Social Media; You May Be Better Than You Know

Related posts:

• The ROI of Social Media Series – Mike Talbot and Aaron Newman / Alterian SM2 – Episode 4
• The ROI of Social Media Series – Mike Talbot and Aaron Newman / Alterian SM2 – Episode 1
• The ROI of Social Media Series – Mike Talbot and Aaron Newman / Alterian SM2 – Episode 5

These are words that social media specialist and consultants hear from business people exploring as to why they should make ANY investment in social media.  It’s a fair question.

I also hear often enough a comment that goes something like this – (for a large business) “…our marketing intern just opened us up a Twitter account.  We’re going to see how that goes before we invest anything else”, or (for a small business) “…my <insert young family person pronoun here> has a Facebook account, I think they can handle that for us.”

When I hear those objections to creating a well considered social media strategy, I explore a bit further and see if those positions have been adopted because they really do not understand where social media is going – in which case I offer education in the form of a copy of The Social Media Bible, the Ning website, webinar offerings or consulting – if they do not have a budget for education / strategy / consulting, I begin to look at my watch and listen for the opportunity to end the meeting and head out for door.

I’d love to take the time to convince them otherwise and convert them to be believers in the power of a social media presence, but there are many prospects who do see the power and eagerly want to invest – I am blessed that I get to work with some and there is a growing number of them everyday.

In this episode, Guy takes over the questioning and asks about the perspective that many social media professionals are still suggesting you cannot measure social media, much less the ROI of the effort, but he asks ‘what do you measure?’

Aaron Newman (VP Social Media Marketing of Alterian) offers up the often recited Red Herring (yes, I know there is a red fox in the picture, not a herring – do you know why?) response of ‘Why are you trying to measure the impact of social media? Do you measure the ROI of a telephone?’ but he quickly comes down firmly on the side of the discussion that says you can show an ROI, but he suggests it is more of an art form than a science.  Mike talbot (CTO, co-founder of Alterian) adds that many social media professionals are afraid to measure ROI of their social media effort, primarily because they are afraid that it will not show a positive result and they will lose funding of whatever project / department they are running – Mike suggests that there is another way to approach social media ROI.

Play / Download Mike Talbot / Aaron Newman Episode 2 Podcast Here

To support the effort in uncovering the ROI question in social media, we’ve set up a Fan Page at Facebook, a LinkedIn Group, a Google Wave 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.

Here are links to the previous segments in this series -

Episode 1 – What to Consider When Trying to Measure ROI / Hard and Soft Investments

Image courtesy of arudhio / Flickr

Related posts:

• The ROI of Social Media Series – Mike Talbot and Aaron Newman / Alterian SM2 – Episode 4
• The ROI of Social Media Series – Mike Talbot and Aaron Newman / Alterian SM2 – Episode 1
• The ROI of Social Media Series – Mike Talbot and Aaron Newman / Alterian SM2 – Episode 3

Marcel LeBrun, CEO of Radian6, a tool in social media metrics and listening technology, sat down and shared an extended conversation about how he sees companies thinking about social media.

He observes three level of maturation in the evolution of using social media in business -

• Level 1 = listening
• Level 2 = listening /engagement
• Level 3 = listening / engagement / meaningful response

Marcel suggests that there are different models for different uses of social media in different business processes.  When it comes to a model of using social media in Customer Support, he cites the Comcast experience that recognized that the customers time is just as important as the customer support departments time – perhaps even more so.  The response is @ComcastCares on Twitter and a steady effort to find and support customers.

Guy Powell provided a segment that he recorded during his recent trip to / from Singapore. We add his comments perspective from the other side of the world to the back of the segment.  Welcome home Amigo!

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.

Play / Download Marcel LeBrun Episode 3 Podcast Here

Here are links to the previous segments in this series -

Episode 1 – How Social Media is Affecting The Fabric of Corporate America

Episode 2 – Hold The Phone!  The ‘Social Phone’ that is

Related posts:

• The ROI of Social Media Series – Marcel LeBrun CEO of Radian6 Podcast Episode 2
• The ROI of Social Media Series – Marcel LeBrun CEO of Radian6 Episode 4
• The ROI of Social media Series – Marcel LeBrun CEO Radian6 Episode 5 – Final Episode

Radian6 is one of the early developers in this space and continues to be a preferred monitoring and brand management tool in the space.  Marcel LeBrun is the CEO for Radian6 and he carved out a good deal of time to talk with us about the ROI of social media and how they see the space shaping up.

In this episode, Marcel and I discuss the question “Is social media the next enterprise application?” and we explore the use of the phrase “social phone” that Radian6 has coined and how it is a model of the conversational aspect of social media and inbound, consumer invitation-based marketing.

The previous podcast is here and the next one will be posted in a few days after I help facilitate the 4th Annual Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference, attend WordCamp AZ (maybe my blog will improve!) and my 3rd year of PodCamp AZ.  A very busy ‘Geek Week’ in Phoenix (use of the phrase Geek Week has been approved by Brian Shaler, a local Geek Week Proponent and Activist, and Brent Spore, who was interviewed by the Arizona Republic last week and ‘Geek Week’ was the headline topic!)

BTW: We introduced Guy Powell in the series, but Guy was (and is again) travelling on business.  He was not able to join us in the recording; he did get a word in edgewise on the last recording and will make it in future recording – no worries and safe travels Guy!

Play / Download Marcel LeBrun Episode 2 Podcast Here

Related posts:

• The ROI of Social Media Series – Marcel LeBrun CEO of Radian6 Podcast Episode 3
• The ROI of Social Media Series – Marcel LeBrun CEO of Radian6 Episode 4
• The ROI of Social media Series – Marcel LeBrun CEO Radian6 Episode 5 – Final Episode

They were coming from a position that they were getting tired of the mainstream usage of the phrase ‘social media’ and I was coming from an observation that in the very near future, all media will be social and that as a culture, we will expect, nay demand, our interaction with the media around us to provide the opportunity to be social.

The model of interaction and development of advertising, marketing and corporate communications is destined to undergo still even more radical changes based on the principals and paradigms of what we call today, social media.

The dampener on the explosion of social media is the inability of brands and corporation to control the messages related to their brand.  When this comes up, I find myself stating that “control is an illusion, at best, you can try to herd cats” when it comes to social media.

Case in point is a blog post I came across by a UK blogger, Henry Tapper, who writes at henrytapper.wordpress.com.  He posted a link on a LinkedIn group to his blog asking, “Do we understand the risks to our business of social media?“

I clicked through and read his post, in which he commented about the attention that needs to be paid to staff participation in social media, particularly when it involves a financial service company.  There is the potential for quite a lot of damage to be done by a rogue employee who posts trade secrets or confidential memos online.

At TheSocialMediaBible.com, this question comes up quite a lot from all types of companies.  While I cannot disagree with the sentiment, I predict that we’ll see companies who can withstand the scrutiny of an open, public examination prospering and those who try to shrink or control a social media-based interaction diminishing.

The impact that social media supports or, in another perspective threatens, is a function of the open, all inclusive characteristic of the genre – it’s organic, based on human need / desire to interact and I’m not at all sure that it can be contained.

If we look at it from another angle, I’ll ask how CAN you prevent staff from participating in social media?  With the growth of smartphones to facilitate access and short of making non-participation in any social media a condition of employment, I am not sure that this does not bridge over in to 1st amendment territory in the US.

So if the overwhelming movement in media is to a model that demands more and more social interaction, I wonder what the outcome will be.  An anarchy of uncontrolled messaging that impacts brands and companies at will, or even more attempts to contain the uncontainable nature of human interactions?

We live in interesting times, yes?

Related posts:

• ROI of Social Media is now live on Amazon!
• A Paradigm of Social Capital – Adopting Social Media in Our Culture
• How to establish ROI that matters / Steve Rubel – Edelman Digital