Last night, I attended an event hosted by the Boston chapter of the American Marketing Association. It was titled "The Impact of Social Media on Marketing."

The format was friendly and inviting, very much in the spirit of social media. We mixed with each other freely, connecting with old friends and meeting new ones. And we were asked a couple of questions, which we debated in small groups:

• Five years from now, will "Web 2.0" (aka social media) sites be used more for traffic or building relationships?
• Should companies get involved in social media now, or wait it out?

Now, aside from the sheer absurdity of thinking we'll be able to predict what the Web and marketing will look like in 5 years, it was telling that the organizers are thinking of social media in terms of traffic rather than relationship building. To anyone who is even remotely familiar with social media right now, it's clear that the social aspect (aka relationships, engagement, etc.) is at the core.

Our answers were tallied and it was interesting to see how each question resulted in a 3:1 split in favor of social media:

• 75% thought Web 2.0 sites would be relationship-centric
• 75% thought companies should get involved now

While I'm encouraged to see a majority support some of the basics behind social media, I'm concerned about that other 25%. There's really no excuse not to be involved in social media right now, even if it's about listening. But the alarming one was that they think that in 5 years traffic is going to be the metric that's central to social media. It's not even central now.

Earlier this week, I asked my Twitter followers if web site traffic even mattered for social media. Here are some of the responses:

• to 99% of the people that will be paying you these days it does. (Tom Biro)
  
• I've heard a lot of interesting thing about volume of posts and things like sentiment extraction and comment clustering (Rachel Happe)
  
• I think it's worth looking at. But the real # that should matter is how many people are truly engaged? (Chris Wilson)
  
• Comscore and Nielsen have metrics such as visits/minutes spent on the site per user.'engagement' is dependent on the context tho (Jamie Nathan)
  

And in an email exchange, Chris Brogan made the point that because so much of social media is distributed and disaggregated, we don't get the full impact of measurement - some people might be reading your feed on Facebook or never leave their RSS reader, or share your content via email.

It's definitely a challenge for social media - the notion that content should be open and distributed is in direct juxtaposition to most of our current notions about measurement. But where we are able to measure, I think my Twitter peeps have it right - it's much more about engagement and interaction than it is about traffic.

When are the other 25% of marketers going to realize that?

Labels: Marketing, measurement, social media

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At 2/01/2008 9:24 AM,  Chris Brogan said...

Did you really mean 75 and 75? : ) I haven't finished my coffee.

 

At 2/01/2008 9:31 AM,  Scott said...

Yes: 75% thought companies should be involved now; 25% thought they should wait.
75% thought social media was good for relationship-building, while 25% thought it was for traffic.

The next Starbucks' is on me.

 

At 2/01/2008 11:28 AM,  Selina said...

Count my vote with the twitter peeps, social media is about engagement. Recently, in a consult all of the questions were, not surprisingly, related to metrics and technology. I explained the key or first focus is a change in behavior, not necessarily technical knowledge and roi. What do you think?

 

At 2/01/2008 2:11 PM,  John Cass said...

I saw you at the ama event, but did not get to you in time before you left. I think the poll was slightly skewed. The ama event is a good one for generating discussion. I had a few people say that not every company should get into social media. I was thinking about caveats as well.

 

At 2/01/2008 2:57 PM,  Scott said...

Selina, I think a change in behavior, or at least a change in mindset is the first step.

But beyond that, I would counsel that before the proper metrics can be assessed, a company needs to know why it's getting involved in social media. Goals need to be established first.

If the goal is engagement, then traffic might not be the best way to measure that; if the goal is to increase sales, then maybe resources would be better spent on a lead generation program. See? It all depends on what you want to get out of a social media program.

John,
Sorry I missed you at the event. Do you mean the poll was skewed heavily in favor of social media or against it?

But you're absolutely right: social media isn't for every company. Or at least the same scale of social media involvement isn't right for every company.

 

At 2/01/2008 6:12 PM,  John Cass said...

for it. I think we might have had a biased sample. However, it was a good starting point for discussion.

 

At 2/03/2008 11:24 AM,  Kin Lane said...

We should all start a heavy flow of blog posts for the media to pick up, make it just about..."if you do nothing else with social media, just engage and listen".

What can that cost.....you don't have to take action....just listen and see what is going on.

All the naysayers can't argue that there is some value there.

 

At 2/04/2008 11:50 AM,  Scott said...

Kin, that's a great suggestion. Awareness and listening are two of the most crucial steps in executing a good program - but more importantly, they're key to helping companies learn about this new and ever-changing medium.

I say we should go for it!

 

At 2/08/2008 3:12 PM,  Shaun McGuire said...

I agree with you 100% Mr. Monty. It's hard to believe that around 25% of the people at that meeting may have been holding on to what will probably end up being the wrong frame of mind. Your other commentors also seem to be right on the money about this. Web 2.0 is all about engagement and building relationships. Relationships, which can turn long term through actively engaging the audience. The first thing you need to turn a relationship into a long term one on web 2.0 is a start. Companies have got to start somewhere, even if that just means setting their level of involvement to listener at first. At least then, they won’t be left in the dark for future advances. Even if we, as marketers, can’t exactly get the wholesome metrics we might like, we can still deduce from distributed sources just how massive web 2.0 really is and has yet to become. Whether we like it or not, this is the way people are communicating now. Better to join in the conversation than be left to speculate on when the “right time” will be. Just my two sense. Thanks for the post.

Oh, and since I see you gained some of your inspiration for this post from an AMA meeting, I thought I might leave you with a little invitation to join in on another AMA production. Only this one is in association with Forrester Research and my company, IMPAQT. It’s a webinar (https://amaevents.webex.com/amaevents/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=965737001&SourceId=impaqt030408) that focuses on a new report put out by Forrester Research entitled “The US Interactive Marketing Forecast: 2007 to 2012.” It was written by Shar VanBoskirk. The report touches on a lot of interesting information about web 2.0 and the social media marketing mix. If you have time, it would definitely be worth your while. The actual report will also be available, free of charge, at the conclusion of the webinar. Feel free to let others know. See you there.

Here's the address again:
https://amaevents.webex.com/amaevents/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=965737001&SourceId=impaqt030408

Happy Marketing,

Shaun

 

At 2/08/2008 3:19 PM,  Shaun McGuire said...

Whoops, forgive me for commenting twice, but I don't want anyone to get lost. My link in the above post was cut off, so here it is in full:

https://amaevents.webex.com/amaevents/
onstage/g.php?t=a&d=965737001&SourceId
=impaqt030408

Thanks again,

Shaun

 

Does Marketing Get Social Media?

Last night, I attended an event hosted by the Boston chapter of the American Marketing Association. It was titled "The Impact of Social Media on Marketing."

The format was friendly and inviting, very much in the spirit of social media. We mixed with each other freely, connecting with old friends and meeting new ones. And we were asked a couple of questions, which we debated in small groups:

• Five years from now, will "Web 2.0" (aka social media) sites be used more for traffic or building relationships?
• Should companies get involved in social media now, or wait it out?

Now, aside from the sheer absurdity of thinking we'll be able to predict what the Web and marketing will look like in 5 years, it was telling that the organizers are thinking of social media in terms of traffic rather than relationship building. To anyone who is even remotely familiar with social media right now, it's clear that the social aspect (aka relationships, engagement, etc.) is at the core.

Our answers were tallied and it was interesting to see how each question resulted in a 3:1 split in favor of social media:

• 75% thought Web 2.0 sites would be relationship-centric
• 75% thought companies should get involved now

While I'm encouraged to see a majority support some of the basics behind social media, I'm concerned about that other 25%. There's really no excuse not to be involved in social media right now, even if it's about listening. But the alarming one was that they think that in 5 years traffic is going to be the metric that's central to social media. It's not even central now.

Earlier this week, I asked my Twitter followers if web site traffic even mattered for social media. Here are some of the responses:

• to 99% of the people that will be paying you these days it does. (Tom Biro)
  
• I've heard a lot of interesting thing about volume of posts and things like sentiment extraction and comment clustering (Rachel Happe)
  
• I think it's worth looking at. But the real # that should matter is how many people are truly engaged? (Chris Wilson)
  
• Comscore and Nielsen have metrics such as visits/minutes spent on the site per user.'engagement' is dependent on the context tho (Jamie Nathan)
  

And in an email exchange, Chris Brogan made the point that because so much of social media is distributed and disaggregated, we don't get the full impact of measurement - some people might be reading your feed on Facebook or never leave their RSS reader, or share your content via email.

It's definitely a challenge for social media - the notion that content should be open and distributed is in direct juxtaposition to most of our current notions about measurement. But where we are able to measure, I think my Twitter peeps have it right - it's much more about engagement and interaction than it is about traffic.

When are the other 25% of marketers going to realize that?

Labels: Marketing, measurement, social media

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