Measuring Social Media

Measuring media has been a challenge of business for a long time.

Now with internet, social media and web 2.0, the challenge is even greater. This new media has “democratized” the press and proliferation is huge. Tracking this new media and combining it with “old media” measurement is the new goal.

Let’s first remember how much the media world has changed. Media was formally shout box from Brands to Consumers: TV, Radio, and Print: that was about it. Then technology and the Internet came along with a major curveball.

The world went online. All the news, weather, sports – everything went online. The sources of information increased dramatically. Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin etc became easily accessible to all. Plus, these medias had influence. But their influence varied based on the number and character of each site. They are not all of equal value. It depends on the quantity and quality of the readership. Measuring the sentiment and changes in sentiment became a challenge.

Listen carefully. The noise on the internet is your customers. Your place is determined by your competitors. You need to see where you stand. Measuring it is the new challenge. Twitter, Blogs and Web sites can make and break companies. And there is no professional editor checking facts. But the media value still impacts. Measuring social media is not like measuring the news. These are your very customers, the most passionate of the bunch, talking about the very products you
are trying to sell. Listen to nuances, the qualitative component of discussion. Discover the context, associated topics and sentiment-laden words. And then check for volume, exposure, and statistical relevance. Your focus groups are
fine, but this is better.

The world has shifted from a few huge media sources to a multitude of small ones. The tough challenge is – how do you measure all this new media? What is the value of it. The new term is Media value. Measuring it is the new challenge.

Marketing Impact Measurement – Whether it’s a product launch, public relations push, or advertising campaign, you need a yardstick to measure the reaction. In today’s world, Media is leveraged such that you may pay for your first set
of eyeballs, but the rest come as word-of-mouth. Media Value is a new way of attributing impact and measuring the success or failure of marketing initiatives. Your tracking studies can work, but this is better (and cheaper).

Brand awareness is the key. Where does your brand stand? Where do you stand compared to the competition? And importantly, is the perception changing positively or negatively? Knowing what people feel about brands is important. Or trying to get a brand onto the radar. Not only awareness, perception, sentiment. All these are key components.

It is good to have an early warning system. Something that can tell you if sentiment is changing for or against you or for or against a trend. It is also great to know and understand the value of that media.

Measuring marketing impact is the key. Social media can give valuable feedback on the success (or failure) of a media campaign. Having the public comments and weighing them can provide critical decision making data.

Marketers are turning to things like media value reports by General Sentiment to try to figure out the value of various social media mentions and to determine the trending – whether it is positive or negative.

50% of Advertising Will Be Digital, Says Google Exec

It’s a bold claim, but if we look at the how and why it makes a lot of sense.  Nikesh Arora, Google’s president of global sales says that he expects up to 50% of all advertising, within the next 5-8 years, will be digital. 

The paradigm shift toward purchasing online is the driving factor.  As the world continues to recover from a near disastrous 2008, people are spending more online than ever.  Though any business should see growth from year to year, the shift is exponential instead of simply a small percentile growth.

Arora states “People are shifting their spending dollars more and more to the online world – whether it be direct marketing, or advertising, or branding. And that follows industrial marketing logic which is that you have to go where the eyeballs are, where the customers are…I personally expect in the next five to eight years 30pc to 50pc of advertising will be digital”.

Google’s moves, most recently, have seemed to lie in the mobile realm.  With the impending AdMob purchase, there’s no doubt that a major focus of upcoming digital advertising will be in the mobile market.

Arora’s comments nearly solidify this thought: “Over the past five years we have tripled the number of broadband customers, more than doubled the number of internet connections and more than doubled mobile connections”.

One of the more interesting quotes, in our opinion, is Arora’s take on what advertisers are doing.  “There is a big gap between what businesses need to do and what they are doing so far.”  He goes on to reference crowdsourcing and brand recognition, as well as brand discussion via online portals such as Facebook.

What does the future hold?  Time will tell.  But when a company that makes 95% of its revenue off of advertising speaks, the world does well to pay attention.

by: Brad McCarty

B.C Lions ads leaves fans hanging

The BC Lions launched two television spots this week in time for the 2010 season, which kicks off June 20.

The campaign, which also includes print and radio, is the first effort from DDB Canada, which became agency of record in March.

In the ads, viewers get an up-close look at quarterback Casey Printers and defensive lineman Brent Johnson, hear the plays and see the game in slow motion, then are left hanging at a pivotal point of the play. It ends with the super: “Continued at Row N Seat 11, Empire Field” and the phone number to buy tickets.

It’s the first time in several years that actual players appear in the advertising.

“We wanted to put the focus on the personalities of our players,” said George Chayka, vice-president of business for the BC Lions.

“We felt it was time to focus on the brand of football and the players themselves and work on creating that experience with our fans.”

Chayka says the campaign is a real departure from previous ads and is targeting hardcore football fans and families, as well as lapsed fans who attended games when the Lions played outdoors at Empire Stadium 28 years ago before moving to the covered stadium at BC Place. Empire Field, on the site of the former Empire Stadium, will house the team while BC Place undergoes renovations.

“The fans are very much part of the action at a Lion’s game,” said Dean Lee, creative director at DDB. “We are giving people a little taste of the drama behind a football moment and inviting the fans to Empire Field where the drama continues from your seat.”

Prior to moving to DDB, the BC Lions worked with Vancouver-based Rethink for seven years.

The team will return to BC Place in the 2011 season. It will also host the Grey Cup next year.

5 Warning Signs of a Weak Social Media Strategy

Engaging your brand in social media is easier said than done. There are many factors to consider when executing an effective social media strategy. Instead of watching the train wreck hurt your brand, here are warning signs of a weak social media strategy that you need to be aware of before things really get bad:

1) Lack of Focus on a Few Social Networks

There are many social networks that can be leveraged but ask your team: “Why are we using Facebook? Why are we on Twitter?” It’s easy to get caught up in the newest tactics and techniques rather than focus on the established strategy meant to accomplish the set objectives.

Focus on a few social networks to create a strong presence in a few venues compared to near non-existence on 200 social networks.

2) No Responsibility for Executing Social Media Activities

There needs to be an emphasis placed on participating on your business’s core social networks. Profiles need to be updated at often; at the very least once a day. If there is little to no activity on your social profiles, prospects will perceive it with less value and go to the next popular profile: your competitor’s profile.

Consistency is necessary for implementing a successful social media strategy. Depending on how big of a splash the social media strategy wants to make, the delegation of social media activities may mean an employee spends a portion of their day on it or you hire staff specifically for the strategy and implementation of the social media strategy.

3) Daily Tasks are Not Aligned with Social Media Strategy

Social media requires taking small steps to accomplish big goals. A few small steps are replying to conversations with clients, monitoring your brand online, listening to your market, etc. But if there’s a solid social media strategy in place, consider how the current day-to-day activities are aligned with the goals of the strategy.

4) Metrics Are Not Being Measured

Metrics help define the effectiveness of your social media strategy. Without metrics, the social media strategy means nothing. The numbers behind the strategy dictate what worked, what didn’t and how you can replicate previous successes by ditching the fail attempts; it’s simple as that.

5) There is No Social Media Strategy in the First Place!!

Signing up for Twitter and Facebook is the first step to get exposure to your market and have the ability to start building relationships. Just because you have an account and post content randomly, this doesn’t translate as a strong social media strategy.

Ask yourself/your team, “do we really have a social media strategy?” If you’re not honest about this, all of your hard work will mean nothing. If you don’t have a social media strategy, stop putting it off and get started.

Components to consider:

• Why are you participating in social media? Exposure? Sales? Creating bonds with your clients?
• What’s the expected ROI? Are you expecting too much too early?
• What’s the content strategy? What will you post? Why are you posting that content? How is the content aligned with the reason why you’re on social media?

Where To Go From Here?

It’s time to be honest.

Reassess your social media strategy and the quality of implementation. If you don’t have a social media strategy at all, consider Jay Baer’s “Develop a Social Media Strategy in 7 Steps” to get started. Refocus and if you gained any insights or have another “warning sign of a weak social media strategy“, I’m all ears!

by: Nehal Kazim

Why Facebook’s Community Pages Could Give Brands a Headache

A couple of weeks ago I received a worried call from a friend working in PR for a large company. Her opening question went something like:

“What the heck are Community Pages on Facebook, and why is there one for my company?”

Community Pages 101

Facebook’s Community Pages are an initiative from Facebook to create “the best collection of shared knowledge” on a wide variety topics. Right now the content from the pages is pulled from Wikipedia (if available) and from your friends’ updates, so they’re often pretty bare but apparently Facebook plans to enable users to add content in the future. The social network launched roughly 6.5 million of these when they first launched.

In theory these pages should be a good thing for companies. The intent, according to All Facebook, was to take generic topics that aren’t necessarily brand-focused and to create Community Pages for them. Facebook states:

“Generate support for your favorite cause or topic by creating a Community Page. If it become very popular (attracting thousands of fans), it will be adopted and maintained by the Facebook community.”

So, if your Facebook Page falls into “owned media” in our social media ecosystem, Community Pages would fit more into “earned media.”

Over time, Community Pages would reduce the number of errant brand-related pages set up by individuals – a good move from a brand’s perspective. As Christopher Heine at ClickZ wrote, “Big brands that have seen their official Facebook fan numbers hindered by third-party fan pages will likely welcome the move.” The piece also noted that “community pages will indeed help make official brand pages more distinct from third-party pages and groups on the site.”

Causing Headaches for Brands

Here’s the problem, though – alongside generic causes and topics, Facebook has also created Community Pages for many well-known brands. As my friend put it:

“But we already have a Facebook page! What do we do with this?”

Right now, she can’t do anything.

As Facebook states in its FAQs:

“At this time, there is no way for people who choose to connect with a Community Page to add their own pictures or edit the information.”

Many companies have spent time and money building sizeable communities on Facebook through their curated fan pages. Now they’re seeing Facebook roll out yet another form of pages which undermine their efforts. As it it weren’t confusing enough already, we now have:

• Pages – representing an organization or person
• Groups – for communities of interest
• Community pages – theoretically about topics, causes or experiences but seemingly also about brands

These Community Pages also create an additional challenge for companies – they’re a monitoring nightmare. Community Pages are pretty much impossible to monitor effectively, as right now each user only seems to see content posted from their own network. That means everyone sees a unique page driven by their friends.

As if there isn’t enough noise on Facebook already, companies now have to deal with a third wave of pages about their brands – and this time they have absolutely no control over them.

Let’s take Roots, for example (not where my friend works). They’ve created a reasonable-sized community of roughly 14,000 people through their Roots Canada page, and they maintain it regularly. They run contests and promotions, and have a solid level of engagement from “fans” (or whatever we’re calling them now – “likers”?).

However, that page now has to compete with other Community Pages including Roots Canada and Roots. These pages are effectively off-limits for the company, and compete directly with the community the company has already invested in developing.

This isn’t unique to Roots – do the same for Microsoft, for example. When I searched for Microsoft, for example, four of the eight results shown in the drop-down were Community Pages, at the expense of Microsoft’s own pages for students and for Windows 7.

On Control…

Now, I’m of the view that companies don’t “own” their brand – that brands are really the sum total of peoples’ perceptions about the entity in question. This isn’t about that.

I also get that companies don’t “control” their online presence – I work in social media; I actually appreciate the fact that people talk about things that interest or are important to them .  This isn’t about that either.

This is about the world’s largest social network encouraging companies to set up shop on their network and to invest in their presence there, then pulling the rug out from under their feet and launching a new aspect to the network that dilutes the investment for those companies.

It’s funny if you think about it – in the past Facebook would hand over control of fan pages to companies; now they’ve launched a new type of page that’s designed specifically so that brands can’t control them. It’s quite ironic given Facebook’s repeated moves toward enabling businesses to interact more and more with its users.

Managing Risk For Your Community Page

As for my friend and her concern about her company’s new, unsolicited Community Page, I had limited advice to offer. Most of the content, at least initially, is pulled from sources out of the company’s control, so I really only had two recommendations:

1. Keep a close eye on your Wikipedia page – your company’s information is pulled from there, so brand-jacking efforts may shift there even more if Community Pages take off.
2. Enter your company’s official website if it isn’t already included on the page – Facebook lets you enter that, at least.
3. Pay even closer attention to monitoring other social sites. Facebook still offers no effective way to monitor your brand; however as more and more Facebook content is made available on the wider web, you may see more spill-over if an issue does bubble up, and these pages make it more important than ever to catch those issues when they do.
4. Prepare in advance for how you’ll react if a crisis does emerge. How will you decide whether to respond? Where will you respond? How? Who will do it? Picture Nestle’s recent Facebook issues but in a forum where, even if you wanted to respond, you couldn’t.

What do you think? Is this move good or bad for marketers, and what other tips would you offer to help organizations manage their Community Pages?

by: Dave Fleet

Heat Website Campaign

MIAMI – Send dessert to Dwyane Wade’s table or start a standing ovation. Don’t ask for a car or display your D-Wade tattoo.

These, and other tips for Miami Heat fans, are now available on a website — http://www.wewantwade.com — unveiled Thursday by the team with hopes of keeping the 2006 NBA finals MVP in South Florida for years to come.

“We want to show Wade the love,” the website says.

Wade learned of the Heat’s web campaign Thursday morning, shortly after the team’s marketing department launched the new site — which was already getting posts from fans within a few minutes of going live.

“I thought it was hilarious,” Wade said. “But I appreciate it. I do, I really do.”

The former league scoring champion will exercise his right to become a free agent, and he’ll be clear to talk with other teams at 12:01 a.m. July 1. He has said many times that his preference is to stay with the Heat, which can offer him a deal for six years and worth about US$127 million — more years and more money than any other club could offer.

Signing him, of course, is the Heat top priority for the off-season.

The website touts itself as the “place to show your support for our MVP and to help keep Dwyane Wade in Wade County! … And we’ll be adding things right up to the start of the free agency period, so check back often for the latest D.Wade info, events, downloads and more.”

Wade said he didn’t expect a website in his honour, but has learned not to be surprised by any approach when it comes to his future. Everywhere he goes, he’s asked by fans where he’ll play next season — and, more often than not, begged to sign in their city.

“You get a lot of people respectful of you and you understand that they want you to be in the city — whatever city that is,” Wade said. “They express that opinion no matter where you go. I’ll never be surprised of anyone who says it.”

The site was an instant hit: The Heat said it was overwhelmed quickly after launch, and the team said it would be switching to larger servers to handle the interest.

Free agency is only one significant issue for Wade this summer.

He’s embroiled in a bitter divorce and custody case in Chicago, and in Miami, is facing a lawsuit brought by former partners in a failed restaurant deal. Wade is also seeking damages from those partners over use of his likeness, and other suits involving plans to sell memorabilia and attaching his name to a charter school are pending.

“I’ve got to continue to try to live my life and enjoy my life, but at the same time, knowing and understanding it’s a trying time in my life,” Wade said. “For me, this summer right now, it’s all about my kids and my family, trying to spend time with my loved ones and getting my mind away from everything that’s going on.”

That’s why little bits of levity — like this new Heat website, or even the reaction in Chicago about what he wore to a hearing there involving the divorce and custody cases earlier this week — are welcomed by Wade.

And this won’t be the only website designed to woo free agents. Not even close.

Even though the NBA conference finals haven’t even started, plenty of eyes are already on the looming off-season personnel bonanza, when Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh are expected to headline the deepest crop of superstar free agents in league history.

In New York, The Daily News has launched http://www.getlebron.com — replete with a photo of James in Knicks colours. On Facebook, there’s a page called “The Official Pitch: Keep LeBron Jatmes in Cleveland 2010,” and Bosh created a stir in Toronto and around the league last month by asking his Twitter followers “Should I stay or should I go?”

How scrutinized is every hint, perceived or otherwise? It became big news in Chicago on Monday when Wade — who will likely be courted by the Bulls this summer — showed up for court in red and black.

Red and black are Bulls colours.

“I thought it was Heat colours,” Wade said. “Always looking for an angle, everyone. I just laugh at it and keep it moving.”

-TSN.ca

Facebook becomes largest display Advertiser

In the first quarter of 2010, Facebook became the largest display advertiser, serving 176.3 billion display ads, versus Yahoo who served 131.6 billion banner ads according to new comScore numbers. The measurement is only of display ads within the company websites, not those included through external networks. As the Wall Street Journal points out, the large reach of Facebook ads has not yet translated into equivalent revenue streams. While Facebook is expected to generate more than $1 billion in revenue this year, it’s a fraction of the revenue being generated by Yahoo, who earned $6.5 billion last year, much of which came from advertising. The growth of Facebook ads is impressive. As Jessica Vascellaro points out, “Nielsen Co., another measurement firm, found that Facebook’s share of the U.S. display-ad market grew to 20% in April 2010, up from 2% in April 2009.” While Facebook may not have translated all that traffic into equivalent revenue, there’s no doubt that Facebook is growing their base of businesses using the service. In addition to global corporations who are funding Facebook’s growth, a growing number of small businesses are turning to Facebook for promotional purposes. Performance advertisers and affiliate advertisers have also been pouring money into Facebook Ads as the site’s audience continues to skyrocket. While Facebook hasn’t publicly stated any recent projections on revenue, we’d expect that the company’s ad revenue will continue to grow, reflecting the massive growth in dominance of display ads on the web.

By: Nick O’Neill

History Will be Made Jaroslav Halak

Here is a video which is part of this years campaign but should be included into next years with a tag line of “History WAS Made”

NHL: History will be Made Commercials

The following is a string of videos by the NHL for the 2009-2010 campaign for History Will be Made.

Patrick Roy

Mario Lemieux

Wayne Gretzky

Bobby Orr

Unique way to sell season tickets

Given that I am a Marketing major, I tend to look around the internet to find some cool marketing strategies and ideas. I came across this marketing campaign from the Tampa Bay Lighting, used to sell season tickets. This is actually really cool!
PS: PUT YOUR REAL PHONE NUMBER! ITS REAALLY COOL!!

http://www.channel1media.com/lightning/2009/