Morgen um 10 Uhr veranstalten wir auf den Medientagen München eine Paneldiskussion zum Thema Social Media ROI and Metrics. Die Notwendigkeit, den ROI von Social Media Initiativen zu messen, ist unbestritten. Die Frage aber ist: Wie?
Some quotes & insights I gathered at the recent eMetrics 2009 in Stockholm – once again a very interesting event and good networking place
Jim Sterne’s Keynote full of great things: emetrics.org/101things/
Lars Johansson, mark red, in his landing page optimization lab:
“Best practice is somebody else practice!” It must not necessarily fit for your page – so get your one practice by testing
“Instead of doubling your ad spent better go for doubling your conversion rate”
Eric Peterson, Web Analytics Demystified, Testing clinic:
“Test your test” – make sure the testing tool works, is not slowing down traffic, etc.
“Don’t make your test too short” – Do not just test till you measure significant differences, test at least one or two weeks – consider regression toward the mean phenomenon.
Aurélie Pols, Web Analytics Demystified, announces strategic partnership between WAD and Sapient. The partnership allows Sapient and WAD to benefit from each other’s mutual expertise and client base and provide a full range of strategic and operational services.
Per Strid, InkClub.com:
“How to increase your conversion rate – and fool your boss 
– Get rid of affiliates with low value traffic.”
Or as Jim quoted a comment on the conversion rate hysteria: “I can double your conversion rate – Just stop advertising”
So better focus on increasing your revenue.
Lasse Rubin Skov, Canal digital Web (DK) with very honest insights into the every day live of an inhouse analyst:
“What’s the most challenging thing in Web Analytics? Complexity? Tools? Budget? No – a slow and uncooperative IT department.”
Jesper Astrom, jesperatrom.com, social media analytics:
“Talk to people through people” – find the tribal leader and engage into conversation
Killing a social media myth: “You cannot measure social media ROI – YES WE CAN” – Just track the orders from visitors coming to your site through the tribal leaders shared links
And maybe one of Stockholm’s best restaurants: grill.se – many thanks to Lars for recommending!
qype.co.uk/place/30392-Grill-Stockholm
The IAB just proposed a set of Metrics for measuring Social Media but this proposal still remains very conventional: Effectively measuring the success of social media marketing requires indicators that have been customized for particular categories in the social space and goals and have to go beyond reach and engagement. No other subject is receiving as much attention in digital marketing circles these days as marketing in social networks. This is no surprise given the ever-increasing number of active users on Facebook, LinkedIn and similar sites. Leading the way is Twitter, a micro-blogging service that has grown by an astounding 1,200 percent in the past year. Attempts to reach members of social networks using conventional forms of online advertising such as banners, however, have not been successful. When the German business networking site XING began embedding ads on the profile pages of its premium members, users were outraged. These communities simply will not tolerate intervention that impedes direct social interaction. One way around this difficulty is for companies to hire experts to enter into dialogue with users or to provide applications that offer users something more, like on Facebook. The main reason why many companies are still hesitating to try out these options is that they are uncertain how to gauge their effectiveness. As usual, marketing executives have to show exactly how much ROI their initiatives will bring. There is a widespread tendency to measure the effectiveness of social media marketing using conventional online-marketing KPIs, and the current IAB proposal is not going far beyond this. I tend to say that this the wrong way to go. Conventional online campaigns have a set length of time and are judged on things like Visits, page impressions, Duration of Stay or conversions. Social media initiatives, on the other hand, are usually designed for the medium to long term, plus they pursue different goals, like developing relationships with users and positioning influencers for the brand. Instead of subjecting social media goals and ROI to standard measures of campaign success, marketing professionals should apply metrics used in customer service and CRM. After all, customer satisfaction and customer retention are good signs of the success of social marketing campaigns too.
Before a marketing department can measure the success of an initiative, it is essential for it to define the goals of the initiative and to know what the company wants to achieve with, say, an application. What is it that will determine success? Will it be a certain number of followers or influencers? Or will it depend on reach? In addition to precisely defined goals, it is important to establish and follow a systematic approach that will enable comparisons with other social media initiatives. A framework of this kind should at least include four components:
These items are important when defining metrics for different social media areas and tools, However, analysts and strategists will need to break down special indicators individually, depending on the goals of the company and the type of application.
Social media – as a collective term – is not a single, neatly defined area. Each site has different goals and expectations, so different indicators are necessary to measure success. Just because you’re talking about Twitter or a Facebook application or even a banner on MySpace doesn’t necessarily mean you’re talking about the whole of social media. Standard KPIs like number of downloads are fine for a Facebook application, but very different indicators are needed for Twitter and online communities. A better approach for Twitter for instance would be to use listening tools and text-mining technologies to classify buzz. They give companies information about brand or product-related conversations, including how much is being said, how engaged the participants are and how serious the discussion is. More advanced tools like Twitalyzer can go far beyond that toward the quality of influencers and participant of the conversation. They do not ony reveal how frequently people send tweets on the subject to their friends, what keywords are being used, how often influencers contribute, e.g. by “re-tweeting” as well as the number of listeners and how they are being reached. Last but not least, they provide preliminary information about the tone of tweets. The posts of influential Twitterers can be monitored by a company and integrated in an internal workflow for further processing. Marketing professionals can measure the success of this strategy based on the quality and quantity of tweets posted on a certain topic and on the degree to which influencers “influence” their followers.
The most important thing, though, is that each platform needs its own individual set of metrics that take into account all four key components– Engagement, Impact, Stickiness and Quality of Reach. We still mainly see definitions of Reach and Engagement parts but this is not enough.
Auf dem diesjährigen eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit drehte sich wieder alles um das Thema Marketing Controlling und Web Analytics. Anwender, Systemanbieter und Consultants trafen sich zum alljährlichen 2tägigen Meinungs- und Erfahrungsaustausch.
Der "Godfather of Web Analytics" Jim Sterne schrieb in seiner Keynote der versammelten Analytics-Gemeinde ins Stammbuch: "Be an analyst, not a reporter" – und wies dabei auf ein Problem hin, das auch in den Teilnehmerdiskussionen immer wieder auftauchte: Unmengen an Daten, die auf Zuruf an Fachabteilungen unhinterfragt reportet werden und dadurch bisweilen zu Fehlinterpretationen führen oder in ungeeignete Aktionen münden (wenn sie überhaupt umgesetzt werden). Vielmehr muss jedem Report eine klare Zieldefinition vorausgehen: "To measure success you must define success". Nur so kann eine zielführende Analyse wertvolle Optimierungsmaßnahmen ableiten. more »
Fortunate for Sapient Germany and for the organisation of the Webciety at the CeBIT in Hannover, Freddie Laker, Sapient US Director Digital Media and popular founder of the blog takemetoyourleader.com was participating in an open stage interview. The discussion was very open and following points were discussed: more »
Bereits am ersten Tag der CeBIT nahm Oliver Schiffers (Head of Marketing Strategy & Analysis, Sapient) innerhalb des Webciety Programms als Diskussionspartner am Panel "Social Media Marketing" teil. Das Thema des Panels ist in soweit für Oliver und Sapient hoch interessant, da die Analyse und das Monitoring von Social Media entscheidende Erfolgsfaktoren für das Marketing darstellen und die Strategien neuartig und oft ungeplant aufgesetzt werden.
Die Diskussion brachte nun folgende Statements und Erkenntnisse hervor: more »
The first two days have just been gone at the CeBIT in Hannover and I am trying to collect and share the recent impressions, feedbacks, insights and experiences in order to give you first picture what is going on here.
We are located right at the heart of the "webciety" area in hall 6 of the CeBIT, next to the speakers and panels corner. This means all the web2.0 and new media interested people are passing by our booth and have the opportunity to learn about what Sapient is doing and what kind of services we offer. The eye-catcher is definetely the conceptual iPhone application demonstration with the name "swarmi" which includes more »
"…schon wieder ein Agenturblog!"
Klar, habe ich in letzter Zeit öfter gehört.
"Eigentlich ist das ja schon total überholt. Und ausserdem extrem unglaubwürdig in der Blogosphere. Und wen interessiert Eigenwerbung eigentlich?"
Jaja, auch gehört.
Warum machen wir es jetzt trotzköpfig trotzdem?
Die kurze Antwort: "Weil dies eben KEIN Agenturblog wird."
Die lange Antwort:
Wir hier bei Sapient glauben an "Thought Leadership" und dieser Begriff steht nicht nur für eine Qualität kreativen Denkens & Handelns in fachlicher Hinsicht, sondern auch für die Überzeugung, dass der offen geführte Dialog über Unternehmensgrenzen hinaus unabdingbar wichtig ist. Je öfter ich an internen Diskussionen zu verschiedensten Themen unseres interaktiven Geschäfts teilnahm desto klarer wurde: Wie schade, dass uns eine solche dialogische Plattform fehlt, die
- diese inspirierenden Einzelstränge verknüpft
- anderen zur Verfügung stellt
- und somit eine einfache Möglichkeit bietet, auch in breiterer Form ausserhalb unserer Büros diesen Dialog zu führen.
Und so entschlossen wir uns (trotz der o.g. Pseudobedenken diesen Blog zu starten, weil das per Definition diese Art von Plattform ist. Um anzuregen, und um angeregt zu werden.
Also da ist er, mehr Euer, als unser Blog. Nicht für die Selbstbeweihräucherung, sondern wegen Themen, Meinungen und Köpfen. In Zukunft werdet Ihr hier auf Deutsch oder auf Englisch interessante Posts von interessanten Menschen rund um die aktuellen Themen/Events/Meinungen aus Interacive Marketing, Creation, Technik, Usability, Mobile, IA, etc. finden. Und hoffentlich auch kommentieren und mit uns in Dialog treten. Und hoffentlich entwickelt sich daraus etwas von dem viele profitieren, was viele gut und anregend finden können, was erweitert werden kann und sich entwickelt, was mehr als "nur ein Agenturblog" von Sapient ist, sondern "Thought Leadership".
In diesem Sinne: "Ab geht der Post."
LG,
Markus Spiller
P.S.: Gäste ausdrücklich willkommen. Wer nicht bei Sapient ist und gerne posten möchte, wende sich unter Angabe seiner Daten sowie dem Wie & Warum an guestpost@sapient.com
