Talk It Up!

Links over coffee: social media measurement

My picks for the best links of the month on social media measurement. Grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and let the social media goodness wash over you.

• The Measurement Standard from K.D. Paine, more on how we've measured traditional media and how some are measuring "engagement." K.D. does a fine job of beginning to answer the question of "if not hits/traffic/pageviews, then what?" in terms of measurement.
• Social network analysis is going to become too ubiquitous for its own good An interesting post from Forrester on the dangers of organizations abandoning traditional measurement and feedback tools such as surveys and focus groups for exclusive social media analysis. The argument mirrors some of what we hear about the future of news: if we only monitor popularity and public opinion, the hard information will be swallowed by the public's taste for immediacy and celebrity. Will social network analysis cheapen market research as a result?
• Measuring social media marketing Another slam-dunk from Chris Brogan. Most useful is his list of things that he tracks, including percent of online conversation, percent of coverage improvement, numbers of new subscribers, new threads, new leads, conversions and unique visitors.
• Move beyond social media metrics. Dirk Shaw's clear, concise SlideShare presentation on what social media metrics are and how to match engagement and measurement to goals. (See below)

Move beyond social media metrics

View more presentations from Dirk Shaw.

How NOT to do customer service on Twitter

[Edit 12-18-09: As a follow up to this post, check out CRM News' excellent article, the Social Piece of the Customer Service Puzzle, discussing social media customer service strategies that will accurately reflect your company's brand.]

Social media monitoring is step one. Set up Google Alerts and Twitter searches for your company name, your competitors' names and keywords related to your industry.

Step two is applying all your existing customer service principles to the space.

Step three is NOT sounding like a robot and sending the customer away.

How not to respond via Twitter:

What did mumble-mumble Rent A Car do wrong here? Think of it this way: if a customer came into the store, face to face, would you say these words to her? Of course not. You're the customer service rep. Your job is to help her, right then and there, and give her a reason for her to tell all her friends about her wonderful brand experience. Instead, this car rental company:

• Failed to meet the customer in her space.
• Failed to engage with the customer in the space she choose.
• Sounded like a corporation, not a human. 
• Made more work for the customer by insisting on following company protocol instead of offering to help then and there.

What should Brand X Rent A Car have done?

Replied with: Can I help? Why:

• The "I" indicates that it's one human being reaching out to another human being, not a faceless company following protocol.
• The offer to help shows that someone at Brand X is willing to take action immediately.
• The transaction can take place personally, over direct message. If @shelikespurple is willing to DM her location and details, the CSR could make the call for her, with her, or at least be a listening ear. Even if the issue can't be resolved immediately, taking a personal interest rather than putting the burden of action of the customer is what converts a complainer into a raving fan.

And while we're at it, Brand X isn't helping itself by not following Twitter best practices. Using the Tweeter's profile photo instead of an impersonal logo would help with showing the company's human face.

What did you get out of Social Media Breakfast Seattle?

Inaugural Social Media Breakfast Seattle was a hit! If you missed it, check out the brief video summary here:

Takeaways:

• From Rod Brooks: "No one can be more local than we are"
• From Rod Brooks: "How can you raise the tide under all the ships, and then how can you send your ship in a place where others can't sail?"
• Eric Weaver on intellectual capital: "It's best to share it, and to share it early."

What did you get out of Social Media Breakfast Seattle?

Links over coffee: the future of journalism

Journalism is changing every day, and so are the pundits' predictions about what will become of the institution of journalism, the journalists in school today, and newspapers themselves. Have trouble tracking the chatter? My streamlined picks for the most insightful articles on the future of news this week:

• Living Stories: NYT and Google produce jaw-dropping online journalism form
  Breaking with good list form and putting the best first: this really blew my socks off, and this is from a gal who reads a dozen articles a day about the future of news. But this IS "jaw-dropping," as the article headline states. In the midst of all the conferences about the future of newspapers, the future of journalism, and government bailouts for newspapers, finally someone has actually taken a look at how users consume news and created a form based on how we seek and process information--and that "someone" is Google. Plus the New York Times. Plus the Washington Post. Rock on. Get on with your own bad self.
• Next year's news about the news: what we'll be fighting about in 2010
  Another insightful post from Neiman Lab delineating the old battles (bloggers vs. journalists, for one) and what we'll be arguing about next year. Great focus on the new media ecosystem and pointed questions about how we will produce, digest, relate to and converse about news, journalism and journalists.
• Journalism's hottest job
  Not at all surprising, as newspapers scramble to find and create new business models and adapt to an information-hungry but pay-reluctant public.
• 8 Must-have traits of tomorrow's journalist
  Vadim Lavrusik's newest article on the future of journalists. He's dead on with his first requirement--absolutely journalists will fail without a sense of entrepreneurial spirit.
• VIDEO: Clay Shirky on journalism: "things will get weirder before they get saner"
  Clay Shirky's prognostication for the future of journalism: our concern should not be how to build a big, new institution but how to cull together the patchwork that journalism is today

Culling your Twitter: Three tips for unfollowing

Now that you have techniques and tips for whom to follow on Twitter, you've diligently followed those who Tweet related content. However, when you hit the 2,000 following limit but keep running across shiny, new, fascinating Tweeters to follow every day, it's time to do some strategic unfollowing. It's time to cull your following stream and weed out and refine your following list.

Unfortunately, there is no mass unfollow Twitter tool. And who would want one, anyway? There are still certain people you still have an interest in following. But when you're following over 1,000, it can be tough to remember which ones are essential to retain and which to cut out.

A few tips for culling your following list (or brutally slashing and burning) so that your Twitter stream can revert to that tool you first knew and loved:

1. Don't be polite. Don't auto-follow everyone who follows you. Instead, choose a program such as SocialOomph that allows you to vet each new follower. Choose those you follow carefully, as Twitter does cap those you follow at 2,000.
2. Have criteria for choosing whom you follow. Choose your own criteria based on your own Twitter participation, engagement, strategy (if you have one) and needs. For example:
• Is the person interesting?
• Does the person act and respond like a human?
• Does she Tweet content you find compelling?
• Do you often reTweet his content?
• Did you meet the person in real life and want to keep up, even if it's just to know what he had for breakfast? 
• Has the person Tweeted in the last 30 days? If not, reserve the space for someone who does Twitter compelling content.
• Do you find her stream boring, even if you wholeheartedly support her organization?
• One difficulty with social media participation is the sense of obligation to follow certain organizations in order to show support rather than a genuine interest in engagement. You can support a person or organization and still choose not to follow their Twitter stream. Unfollowing doesn't mean you don't support the organization. Friend or Fan them on Facebook and unfollow on Twitter.
3. Weed your stream daily. When you see a lame or boring Tweet, click on the user and scan the last dozen Tweets. If none are compelling, unfollow immediately. Weeding out two or three followers a day can mean not having to sit down and unfollow hundreds later.

This comes as I'm working with several clients who did originally opt to follow back everyone who followed them and hit their 2,000 follow cap. Now, not only can they not follow new thought leaders they come in contact with, they must engage in the time-consuming process of culling through each of those 2,000 people they followed, asking, "Why did I follow him? Do I really want his Tweets in my stream? Is he adding value to my life?"

Save yourself hours of aggravation later; be selective in your follows now.

Dealing with negative WOM online

Linda Bustos recently posted this research on how consumers use social media to both complain about customer service and evaluate service before a purchase:

About a year and a half ago I posted an article Negative Word Of Mouth: Crisis or Opportunity? which included some findings from a Society for New Communications Research study:

• 59% of consumers use social media to vent their frustrations about customer service experience, and research other companies’ customer service before dealing with them

• 74% choose companies/brands based on others’ customer-care experiences shared online

• 72% research companies’ customer care online prior to purchasing products and services at least sometimes

• 84% consider the quality of customer care at least sometimes in their decision to do business with a company

• 81% say blogs, online rating systems and discussion forums can give consumers a greater voice regarding customer care, but less than 33% say they believe that businesses take customers’ opinions seriously

• Search engines are the most valuable online tools for this research. Those rated of no value include micro-blogging sites like Twitter (39%), YouTube (27%) and social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace (22%)

via www.getelastic.com

What does this research mean for companies and organizations?

First, organizations must monitor social media--period. Companies need to know what their happy and unhappy customers are saying and how their brand is being discussed online.

Second, if 59% of customers are complaining via Twitter, their blogs and Facebook, brands must go where they are and meet them in their spaces. Don't expect customers to play by your rules and call in their complaints via your comment or complaint line; outreach is essential.

Third, offer to help. Online complaints deserve online responses. Frank Eliaison of Comcast has the right idea: simply go in asking, "can I help?" No defensiveness, no addressing customers' exaggerated claims. Just askwhat you can do.

Fourth, track your own customer service ratings and interactions online. The number I found the most stunning here was that 72% of consumers check a company's customer service reputation online before purchasing goods or services. I pessimistically believe that if that were really the case, companies such as AT&T and Dell, with notoriously bad customer service ratings, would never garner any new customers. Still, knowing that consumers are educated and verifying our reputations means that companies need to, too. And doing social media outreach such as Comcast is modeling right now can cause a huge shift in attitude, even if overall customer service is still lacking.

Finally, read Linda's great advice in the above-quoted article on managing reputation online. She gives some great tips for handling negative comments and feedback, especially via Twitter.

Book Review: Gary Vaynerchuk's Crush It!

Great hat tip to Maya Bisineer for not only hosting the Social Media Book Club but also for arranging for Crush It! author Gary Vaynerchuk himself to join us via Skype! It's rare that we get to discuss our reactions to the book with the author himself, and Gary was abuzz as always and more than willing to take questions. His passion and enthusiasm are contagious, and he brought a dramatic energy to the gathering:

My review:

Social Media ROI: Socialnomics

This vibrant, fast-paced presentation offers a plethora of statistics to justify the ROI of participating in social media. At the same time, the question of "why are we measuring new channels like traditional ones?" is acknowledged and addressed. If you need quick case studies and examples to bring home the argument for social media, this is the video to view.

via www.youtube.com