Digital ROI: BizWorks360 Blog

The panel was moderated by Paul Kontonis, SVP of Branded Entertainment at MATTER and Co-Founder of For Your Imagination. All panelists have deep experience in building and developing social media campaigns.  At the same time, as they all understand the integrated marketing eco-system, they did not discuss social media as "the marketing solution".  Their collective insights were based on real world challenges and what it takes to make social media work.

 

At the start, all the panelists mentioned that their focus is on helping clients craft social media solutions that translate to the bottom line.  However, what their clients do and the social media measurement can be different depending on the client vantage point.

 

 

All the panelists liked Foursquare, the location-based social networking platform, with Sandra Fathi calling Foursquare the "merging of social networking and reality".  Several pointed out that Foursquare can be a very effective platform for marketers.  However, with only 500,000+ users at this juncture, Foursquare cannot compete against the reach of a 30-second television advertising spot for a company like McDonald's.

 

Big brands do look at followers on Twitter and fans on Facebook, but the data they need to rely on most is sentiment.  Positive sentiment translates into sales. At the same time, measuring sentiment still has issues. Ian Zelsko from Publicis pointed out that if a person writes that they love their iphone, but hate AT&T, social media monitoring services like Radian 6 and Social Radar cannot currently effectively qualify that sentiment.  In order for sentiment to become a better gage of sales predictability, social media monitoring services need to become more sensitized.  Of course, the panelists also acknowledged that some of the recent sensitizing developments bordered on the verge of Minority Report, the 2002 science fiction movie directed by Steven Spielberg.

 

 

For other marketers, particularly business-to-business companies, lead generation trumps sentiment.  Sandra Fahti discussed the current work of her firm, Affect Strategies (a public relations, marketing and social media firm specializing in technology and business-to-business clients) with Regus PLC, the global leader in workplace solutions.  In concert with Regus NYC, they launched a social media campaign [still running], including a Twitter page, a You Tube channel and a contest for securing a year contract for free office.  The campaign has resulted in a significant jump in leads as well as a seven-figure increase in contract signings. 

 

And while Regus NYC's Twitter count of 701 followers pales in comparison to the hundreds of thousands often following big brands, the campaign is already achieving its targeted goals.  Sandra added that her firm is now working with Regus in deploying comparable social media campaigns in other cities.

 

 

I found the contrast in social media approaches between large brands and business-to-business marketers very interesting.  Yet, what I consider most important is the unifying success parameters for both b-2-b and b-2-c marketers.  They both need to figure out:

Panelist Matt Tepper mentioned at the beginning of the discussion that he equated measuring social media to measuring broadcast.  While I am happy to debate the efficacy of broadcast measurement, advertisers are still investing $ 70 Billion a year in television advertising based on accepted measurement standards.  In contrast, eMarketer indicated that the 2009 investment in U.S. social network advertising was only $ 1.2 Billion.  While social media advertising will increase in 2010, measurement still has a long way to go before social media catches up with traditional advertising.  In the meantime, it is clear that marketers who know their goals and their audience have a lot to gain using social media.

 

Photo of wine bottle credited to Kelly Samardak.