web 2.0: social media buyer's guide

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SocialMediaBuyersGuide.com 1

Social Media Buyer’s Guide

Short Description

William Gaultier, CEO - e-Storm InternationalChris Heuer, Founder - Social Media Club

Month Year

PREPARED BY

Project Background

What We Did

• Surveyed over 140 respondents about Social Media Buying habits

• Confirmed results on call in show with various Social Media Experts

• Coordinated and detailed responses via Wiki, Blog, Twitter Hashtags

• Resources:– http://bit.ly/buyersguide for links to everything– Tag for project is #SMBG

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Total Survey Size

•From March 4 – March 26, 2009

– 145 Total Respondents– 46 Organizational Buyers

Geographical Location of Respondents

n=45 of 46 org buyerstotal respondents 145

Primary Goals of SMBG Analysis

Our Preliminary Findings

It’s Real. Social Media is Here to Stay.

• Two-thirds of respondents claimed they had a clearly defined social media strategy, but just over a third had resources with “social media” in their job title

• The perception is that while social media initiatives are in the process of justifying themselves, they do not yet warrant significant changes to a company’s or department’s structure

Does your company have a defined Social Media Strategy?

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n=21of 46 org buyerstotal respondents 145

“Over the past eighteen to twenty-four months, there has been an explosion of 2.0 technologies, and consumer participation in the social graph…continues to increase - not just people watching it, but also joining it and promoting it. Marketers and organizations are waking up to the potential opportunity to market to these audiences as well as learn from them through a research perspective, while also tapping this new channel as a way to manage the customer.”

Blake CahillVisible Technologies

"My first social media plan failed. It wasn't so much that the community didn't respond, but the employees didn't stick with it. The company wanted to see instant results and as the months went by with only a few traceable conversions the employees quit putting in the time.

Our new strategy (yet to be tested) is to make the social media plan a part of a specific department. Before I had a team of 5 people from every department. Now it will just be me and the content department.”

"My first social media plan failed. It wasn't so much that the community didn't respond, but the employees didn't stick with it. The company wanted to see instant results and as the months went by with only a few traceable conversions the employees quit putting in the time.

Our new strategy (yet to be tested) is to make the social media plan a part of a specific department. Before I had a team of 5 people from every department. Now it will just be me and the content department.”

Anonymous Participant

People in Your Organization Who "get" Social Media?

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Does Senior Management Support Social Media?

What are the roadblocks?

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“Operationally, everybody needs to be ready because the responses that come back, again from the community, may cut across the lines outside of the charter of the social media project…”

“If you’re launching out something for a marketing purpose and suddenly you’re getting inundated with customer service or product issues, the objectives of “I’m prepared to message and communicate with you with an objective around sales, or perception shifting or something like that, or engagement, and suddenly, I’m having to respond to service and product issues; I need to get my customer service team engaged in this.”

“Operationally, everybody needs to be ready because the responses that come back, again from the community, may cut across the lines outside of the charter of the social media project…”

“If you’re launching out something for a marketing purpose and suddenly you’re getting inundated with customer service or product issues, the objectives of “I’m prepared to message and communicate with you with an objective around sales, or perception shifting or something like that, or engagement, and suddenly, I’m having to respond to service and product issues; I need to get my customer service team engaged in this.”

Peter FasanoCoca-Cola/MassLogic

CHALLENGESCHALLENGES

Readiness: it’s not just being armed with the knowledge of social media, but also your team’s ability to scale…

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“Know your internal audience, and, get to know your external community very well so you can provide them the best service.”

Peter FasanoCoca-Cola/Mass Logic

Readiness: …and also how to rally your community to help when needed.

“The people who are most involved with social media - interns or very junior level marketing people - may get social media better than others, in terms of [their involvement with] Facebook. But they don’t necessarily get brand management to the degree that a senior brand manager does. That’s a real issue.”

David Berkowitz360i

Experience: Many involved with Social Media have an elementary or non-existent understanding of marketing.

Measuring ROI: Two different schools of thought on what matters most – from the pragmatic…

“When it comes to Social Media, ROI is not Return on Investment. It's Return on Interaction, Return on Involvement, Return on Influence, Return on Idea-sharing. In a nutshell it's a return on being part of the community through conversation and relationship development. Really no different than face-to-face networks. The one difference is the use of technology to have the interaction.”

“Number of New Leads/Prospects/Partners, Customer Satisfaction Metrics, # of New Ideas/Feedback”

Anonymous Participant…to the romantic.

Measuring ROI: Hard metrics go much further than brand sentiment, and most practitioners don’t realize how to measure.

“The questions we get on a daily basis often tie into ‘what is the ROI’ and ‘what is the best way to measure it.’ It often gets into some gray areas. It’s not like you’re going to necessarily sell more shampoo because you’ve got 5% more chatter on Facebook.

There are a lot of ways to get closer to figuring out what the value [of ROI] is. Looking at the sentiment along with the volume of conversation or whatever it is you’re measuring, whether it’s conversations, video views, or friends or fans you have on Facebook. I don’t want to knock the field entirely, but we haven’t seen any that replace just going ahead and doing it manually.”

David Berkowitz360i

Negative WOM: There really is a direct relationship to ROI.

“When considering ROI, companies should not ignore the Elephant in the room – Negative Word of Mouth. A study by London School of Economics showed that companies can generate 3x more ROI by just decreasing negative word of mouth – that’s a compelling story for anyone looking for Social Media ROI.”

William Gaultiere-Storm

Does Senior Leadership Listen to Social Media Feedback?

• Resource dedication is still not at the levels expected for all the hype of social media marketing.

• Only 48% of companies surveyed have an annual budget for social media initiatives, with only 2/3 of those containing dedicated line-items.

• Of those companies without allocated resources, the social media programs are either run by authorization of the marketing or PR budgets, or as a grassroots effort of the marketing department where the programs are run without a budget, or under the umbrella of a discretionary line-item.

Is enough being invested?

So how do brands get started on social media plans?

Do Corporate Buyers have an annual Social Media budget?

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Percentage of total budget allocated to Social Media in 2009

N=19 of 46 org buyerstotal respondents 145

When to invest in social media

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“Start to get a sense of is there stuff going on already? Is there some pressing need or is it just a low- level of chatter about that kind of brand and industry over the course of conversation? That could also help adjust marketers’ timing or overall thinking around it before they even start investing the money”

“One of the early stages of your readiness as an organization that it says, “I need to activate social media services”…“Operationally, you need to be prepared in a number of ways to deal with the response you’re going to get, positively or negatively”

David Berkowitz360i

Peter FasanoMass Logic

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The Buying Process•D

iscovery of Need

•Definition of Need

•Identify Potential Vendors

•Proposals and Negotiations

•Decision Making

•Follow ThroughOVERVIEWOVERVIEW MOTIVATIONMOTIVATION CHALLENGESCHALLENGES IMPLEMENTATIONIMPLEMENTATION MEASUREMENTMEASUREMENT ANALYSISANALYSIS

Top Social Media Objectives

So what are your top questions to ask?

What are the top 3 Questions you should ask social media vendors or experts?

• Many expressed concern of how consultants and vendors view social media in terms of business objectives

– Are the buyers hiring someone who knows how to rally people around a brand?

– Or someone who’s tying it in to overall corporate strategy for lead-generation, marketing, sales, customer service, and other units?

• More value is assigned to those who can clearly answer the second question

“What is your commitment to our brand to make sure it works?” “What is your commitment to our brand to make sure it works?”

Paula DrumH&R Block

“Do you understand the business I am in well enough to be a strategic partner in my communications efforts? How will you help me achieve my business objectives? How will you measure the results you have promised?”

Joel PostmanIntridea

“What needs does your tool/service specifically meet? What training will my users require to be able to use this effectively? Where would your tool work best, and in which situations would not be the best choice?”

Jeff MoriartyIntel

So how do you measure?

Do you currently produce reports?

N=16 of 46 org buyerstotal respondents 145

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What type of metrics do you use to measure Social Media?

Numbers vs. Emotions

• 23% of respondents claim to use just quantitative metrics (website visits, PPC, CRM) to measure the performance of their social media campaigns

• This figure is more than double the 11% that responded they only track using qualitative methods (tonality of feedback, public perception, etc)

Free Rein or Tight Leash?

• Roughly half the organizational buyers and corporate managers surveyed have internal measures to manage and track their social media program, whereas less than 7% rely on outside vendors

• This is perceived to be more an issue of control and knowledge of resources, than it is of trust

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“It would be difficult for an outsider to be able to interact and respond to (or route) people and understand the dynamics of our three organizations and how they work.”

MEASUREMENTMEASUREMENT

What's the ROI?

• ROI and tracking/measurement seem to be the most top-of-mind for brand managers seeking to implement social media strategies.

• Experience is vetted not so much by knowledge of social media platforms, but rather case studies and track record of success.

What's the ROI?

“It depends on what the tactic is that you are using online. It can be very difficult.

ROI means a few things to us. We track how much content we’re growing, how much traffic we’re getting. We try as hard as possible to drive it back to some metric we can measure on, especially from a goal-setting perspective.”

“It depends on what the tactic is that you are using online. It can be very difficult.

ROI means a few things to us. We track how much content we’re growing, how much traffic we’re getting. We try as hard as possible to drive it back to some metric we can measure on, especially from a goal-setting perspective.”Luc Levesque

TravelPod

Christopher BargerGeneral Motors

“It’s on more of a brand and even vehicle level than the entire experience somebody has with General Motors from end to end. [...There are...] multiple kinds of measures of success.”

What's the ROI?

Isabelle ChristensenRECsolar

“What I do internally is for the type of business that we do, we track two things for all of our marketing efforts. Number one is the cost per lead. That is something we can track. Secondly, is the payback for this investment to launch this campaign? We don’t have any fancy tool at this moment to track the lead generation and the payback. Basically, we use Google Analytics and Excel spreadsheet to track that information.”

“The first vendor to show me an actual numbers-based ROI get's all of my business. We all believe that social media has infinite potential to spur social change and civic action, but right now we're all still talking to each other 'inside the bubble'. I'm ready to start breaking out of that bubble and affecting change (in real life).”

“The first vendor to show me an actual numbers-based ROI get's all of my business. We all believe that social media has infinite potential to spur social change and civic action, but right now we're all still talking to each other 'inside the bubble'. I'm ready to start breaking out of that bubble and affecting change (in real life).” Jonathan Coffman

So which approach is best suited for Social Media with your strategy? Why?

Short Term Revenue Driving

Isabelle ChristensenRECsolar

“For 2009, the marketing objective for the company really is more short term than long term. It’s mostly for lead generation; therefore, based on those criteria, the social media advertising really doesn’t support our objective.

I would use social media advertising when my marketing objective is for long term demand generation and branding”

“For 2009, the marketing objective for the company really is more short term than long term. It’s mostly for lead generation; therefore, based on those criteria, the social media advertising really doesn’t support our objective.

I would use social media advertising when my marketing objective is for long term demand generation and branding”

Long Term Brand Preference

Christopher BargerGeneral Motors

“How do you impact the consideration of your products? Are there people who, prior to their interaction with you, weren’t even going to be willing to consider an American vehicle or a GM vehicle, who are now looking differently at it.

Have you shifted the tonality of their conversations on their sites? Have you shifted the tonality of the conversations in whatever platform you’re engaging? Are you increasing the consideration? Are you increasing the brand affinity? Are you increasing the number people who are just willing to say, “I’ll give you a chance, where I wouldn’t have before the engagement”?”

“How do you impact the consideration of your products? Are there people who, prior to their interaction with you, weren’t even going to be willing to consider an American vehicle or a GM vehicle, who are now looking differently at it.

Have you shifted the tonality of their conversations on their sites? Have you shifted the tonality of the conversations in whatever platform you’re engaging? Are you increasing the consideration? Are you increasing the brand affinity? Are you increasing the number people who are just willing to say, “I’ll give you a chance, where I wouldn’t have before the engagement”?”

Long Term Brand Preference

“One of my big measurements is how do I increase consideration in my brand. You might have to look at different ways to get to a bigger brand building measure, such as changing consideration. Definitely, the micro measurements of ‘did I increase search rankings, how many people, and what activity has happened’ is one of them.

PR mentions would be another one, but then you might have to put something in or alter your brand tracking studies or your product tracking studies to be able to get to something that might be a higher level metric.”

“One of my big measurements is how do I increase consideration in my brand. You might have to look at different ways to get to a bigger brand building measure, such as changing consideration. Definitely, the micro measurements of ‘did I increase search rankings, how many people, and what activity has happened’ is one of them.

PR mentions would be another one, but then you might have to put something in or alter your brand tracking studies or your product tracking studies to be able to get to something that might be a higher level metric.”

Paula DrumH&R Block

What is the Most Important Advice for Other’s Buying Social Media Technologies and Advertising?

• “Ownership” is imperative for buyers seeking to ensure accountability and success of the initiative. As one responder states:

Stop talking. Start doing.

“Don’t take the vendor’s word at face value.”“Don’t take the vendor’s word at face value.”

• “Actionability” was a key concern of many buyers who feel the hype of social media has diluted the value of new technologies and platforms.

Stop talking. Start doing.

“If you are looking to hire a Social Media expert/tech vendor, verify they have actually used the tools and networks. When it comes to Social Media, it's all about the D-O-I-N-G.”

Further Advice From Your Peers

Advice on Purchasing Social Media Technology

“How can you provide us confidence that adoption rates are going to be successful? How do we measure that success? What’s the incentive for the people in my organization to actually use this new technology, and how do we make sure that value to the end user is very clear?”

“People are always worrisome about change. If a company is using email and file attachments and Office suites today, and you implement a new 2.0 solution to them, companies say, “How are we going to train these people? How are these people going to want to start using this solution as opposed to being forced into using this solution?

“How can you provide us confidence that adoption rates are going to be successful? How do we measure that success? What’s the incentive for the people in my organization to actually use this new technology, and how do we make sure that value to the end user is very clear?”

“People are always worrisome about change. If a company is using email and file attachments and Office suites today, and you implement a new 2.0 solution to them, companies say, “How are we going to train these people? How are these people going to want to start using this solution as opposed to being forced into using this solution?

Alan LepofskySocialtext

Ensure vendors know how to manage change

Three criteria that corporate buyers should use in evaluating social media providers (e.g. technology)?

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Peter FasanoCoca-Cola/Mass Logic

1. How much are we saving or how much are we gaining in efficiencies against buying search ads, or against buying display ads, versus putting it out on TV [or other means]?

2. Did we save any money by handling customer service online or with our community that has been handling it online on our behalf, and avoiding phone calls?

3. Can we use social media as a market research tool, e.g. focus groups? – Coca-Cola does it, and others do it too.”

1. How much are we saving or how much are we gaining in efficiencies against buying search ads, or against buying display ads, versus putting it out on TV [or other means]?

2. Did we save any money by handling customer service online or with our community that has been handling it online on our behalf, and avoiding phone calls?

3. Can we use social media as a market research tool, e.g. focus groups? – Coca-Cola does it, and others do it too.”

ANALYSISANALYSIS

Understand how the provider measures ROI

What are some of the questions to ask of vendors (e.g. technology)?

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Blake CahillVisible Technologies

“Can you collect the data?”

“Can you sentiment it?”

“Can you help me find influencers?”

“How can I appoint the conversations to subject matter experts inside my organization?”

AND “Once I’ve listened, and I start to interact, how can I integrate that and manage that across my organization?”

“Can you collect the data?”

“Can you sentiment it?”

“Can you help me find influencers?”

“How can I appoint the conversations to subject matter experts inside my organization?”

AND “Once I’ve listened, and I start to interact, how can I integrate that and manage that across my organization?”

ANALYSISANALYSIS

Analyzing and applying the data

Initial study foretells a maturing industry• In general, the reasoning behind embracing a social media

initiative is becoming more critical, as brands are asking more about ROI, effectiveness and value to core business objectives.

• There is high awareness that there is a social media “bubble,” and as such, verifiable experience is key among buyers, who actively seek metrics to support ROI.

• However, there’s still too much hype in social media industry – very low barriers to entry for vendors has flooded the market with unqualified vendors and consultants.

With Special Thanks To:•A

ll respondents to the Survey•I

sabelle Christensen - REC Solar•J

eannette Gibson - Cisco•M

ichael Walsh - Social Media Club Seattle• Blake Cahill - Visible Technologies• Alan Lepofsky - Socialtext• David Berkowitz - 360i• Peter Fasano – Coca-Cola/MassLogic• Paula Drum VP of Marketing - Digital Division H&R Block• Christopher Barger - Director of Social Media Communications, GM• Luc Levesque - Travelpod• Jonathan Coffman - PBS

There is so much more to discuss...

Social Media Buyer’s Guide #2 with IDC, Gartner – coming soon!

So join the conversation at http://socialmediabuyersguide.com/

William Gaultierwilliam@e-storm.com

twitter: @wgaultier

Chris Heuerchis@adhocnium.com

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