Emetrics Reputation and Relationship Management in A Social Media World

I got to meet KDPaine at the eMetrics Summit!

KD Paine's presentation rocked!  It included two excellent case studies and social media metrics- one on ASPCA and the other Georgia Tech. (some pics of slides are here).

She started her talk with "the word reputation is so 1990. Today, it's about relationships.  The notion that you can manage your reputation through social media gets you into trouble.   Social media is a world into itself and can't control it - do the right thing and see what happens. Listen, Respond, Stop Doing Stupid Stuff."

She talked about the importance of measuring your social media efforts.   This was a great positive spin -- rather than measure to show me or prove the impact, it's measure so you can quantify it.  "Social media has a huge impact, but if you don't measure you can't figure out the impact.   The reason to measure is to determine whether to continue or not.   PR people do things because they've always done it that way -- measurement helps improve."

"If you put a man into orbit, why can't we determine the effectiveness of our communication?" - James E. Grunig.

It comes down to what people are saying ....

Signs that it is the end of the world as we know it.  She gave these examples of how some companies are measuring the impact of their social media efforts:

• Best Buy measured the success of its internal network by how it reduced job turnover
• State Farm measured the success of its internal blog by improvement in morale
• ASPCA and MADD can track on-line donations and increased membership back to its public relations effort
• Dell measures ROI based on the number of useable ideas generated
• On Twitter, a start up company got 100 great marketing ideas for free, women raised $6,000 in a day and a wooden toy maker in NH got a nationwide contract

All the old dynamics are changing and its impacting everyone!

How do you know what tactic caused the sale?  People buy stuff because people recommended it. Where do they get the information?  Social media?  What has greater impact on sales or reviews on Amazon?  Structured product reviews written by people who the company didn't know -

It's no longer about reaching eyeballs. 

It isn't about the numbers.  It is about how to analyze the data.  It isn't about reaching the masses, but the right few people. 

ROI  ...  what's the ROI podcasting that cost $500 and sold more product that a $40,000 campaign.  Do the math - and you're going to do podcasts

She made the point that you can manage relationships, not reputation.  She break out the components of relationships:

Trust, Commitment, Satisfaction, control mutuality, exchange/control

She then showed how you might construct a survey to measure these aspects.

A key takeaway for me was a content or pattern analysis of what consumers were saying about Georgia Tech on Facebook - it was an analysis of over 4,500 mentions.   Someone in the audience asked if there was a tool to automate the gathering and analysis of this data.  KD Paine shared that they collected it manually - an academic designed a collection tool and they used college studies who combed through facebook and filled out the tool.  

She also presented a slide "Emerging Benchmarks for Social Media in Higher Ed" which included this metric - 12 comments on a higher ed blog is good.   I wonder if there is an emerging benchmark for nonprofits - which is probably too broad but would be interesting to be able to compare your blog comment numbers with sort of benchmark.

She also mentioned a measurement dashboard that integrates social media metrics along with pr and web analytic measures.

During the Q/A, I asked her when it is time for someone to move from "home grown" listening tools (e.g. technorati, RSS persistance search, etc) to an automated tool - like Radian6.   Depends on the volume - and what you want to accomplish.  I asked whether or not you were using an automated tool to collect data, what were some principles or best practices.  She talked about the importance of defining keywords precisely.

There was a slide that showed the 27 different types of conversations no matter where you have them.

So much of what she had to say is soooooo critically important for nonprofits who are looking an integrated social media strategy with communications.   Well, I'm off to go buy her book to I can learn more.  You should too.

Comments

[Deb Kolaras]

Beth, thanks so much for this post. I have a couple nonprofits I work with who will really benefit from this kind of information, not to mention others who always question the efficacy of social media in their business model. And yes, I will get her book, too, as it sounds like an awesome read.

[Anne]

I love how her message focuses on quantifying the effort -- not to PROVE the impact, but to IMPROVE the strategy. So often npos measure tons of irrelevant data for funders or Boards that have NO link back to management practice...if an npo is going to engage in social media, identifying the metrics, even creating a dashboard to monitor over time, is crucial to monitoring the implementation of the strategy - real time - and then making adjustments as necessary. I too am off to buy her book!

[David Alston]

Beth,

Thanks for this post. And big thanks for pointing out KD's great list of 27 types of conversation is taking place in posts. I had missed that earlier - I analyze posts organically without thinking about the different aspects so the list is cool because it breaks down the process I'm actually going through.

Also thanks for asking about when organizations know they are ready for a social media monitoring platform like Radian6. Yes, KD is right - it depends on volume and what you are trying to do. The "what to do" aspects could be anyone of the 20 different reasons I've posted recently on the Radian6 blog, as an example.

Cheers.
David

[John]

I find the info on this site very informative with great feed back here . I will continue to support this site and recommend it to friends. I was at the pre-launching party in Hollywood for filmstars08.com and they featured and recommened this site. Im glad I checked it out

[Katie Paine]

Thanks so much Beth! You should get a job with Cliff notes -- i've never seen anyone do a better job of summarizing an hours worth of presentation! Awesome. One correction, Jim Grunig might be insulted to think that we were accusing him of giving speeches in 1960, he's an a guru, but not that OLD a guru. :)
It was my father who said, in 1960, as pub. of Fortune, "If we can put a man into orbit, why can't we, with any accuracy, measure the effectiveness of communications. The answer is simple, if a little old fashioned. People. Human Beings with a wide range of choice, unpredictable, cantankerous, capricious and motivated by innumerable conflicting interests and conflicting desires."
Now, if that wasn't a prescient description of social media, I'm not sure what is!.. When my father died in 1990, the Internet was just beginning. Amazing how little some things change..

[Danielle]

Awesome. Simply awesome. Measuring metrics is getting the attention it deserves!

[Lani Voivod, "Content Lover" of Epiphanies, Inc.]

Beth,

What a post! Fantastic information. I'd say I feel like I was at the presentation with you, but honestly, I think I'm the lucky one -- you snatched out the best soundbites and most important details around the (previously thought to be) impossible task of measuring social media, and gave me a lot to hang my hat on. Thank you! This stuff isn't easy to grasp and put down in one place, and you did a superb job. Outstanding.

I especially love how we're starting to see more and more real-world examples of tangible, money-making connections and biz wins on Twitter. If I could only memorize them, I'd be able to pull them out of my pocket the next time someone asks, "Yeah, but can it make me money?" when I'm strongly urging them to stop what they're doing and join the Twitter party.

Thanks again, and good luck with your global missions! You are one amazing chick. :)

Best,
Lani Voivod
50% owner and contributor of the "A-Ha!" blog
"A-Ha Yourself!"
www.AhaYourself.com