Unified Studies - Portland Social Media, Web Design, and Web development

Social Media - ROI

From Dag Homboe's blog, a spreadsheet to help you in calculating your ROI in regards to your Social Media plan.

Dag says" For this research, we identified 13 parameters that play a role in determining the ROI of Social Media.  It is not necessary to include all parameters in a ROI calculation – pick the parameters that make sense."

Dag also goes to the trouble of explaining thoroughly his reasoning in the build-out of the spreadsheet, and also how to best use it.

Social Media ROI spreadsheet

The Thought Bubble - 25 Must Read Social Media Marketing Tips

Most articles/blog posts on social media marketing are short churns of phrase. The motivation being..."Gotta post something today, keep the page views up, become a thought leader, add some followers, engage my hoped-for audience"....and 90% of the time the post is merely a regurgitation of the acknowledged fundamentals of social media marketing. The dearth of actual original thought in SMM "thought leaders" is...I would say "alarming" but it doesn't warrant the use of a word that should be used in conjunction with something far more serious.

I'd like to start a meme today about how so much of the writing today on SMM is based on nothing. The same people saying the same things to each other in....well, it's either an echo chamber or a vacuum. It's the same, conceptually, as the NASDAQ bubble, the housing bubble, etc., a whole lot of activity, word churn, energy and money swirling around a mountain of expectation and perceived (or imagined, or hoped for) value.

We shall henceforth call this "The Thought Bubble".

Sure, SMM, and social media and the conversation is all good stuff. And I love, and agree with Gary Vee-WineTV, yes, it's a revolution. But an economy cannot be built on a lot of experts singing to a bunch of other experts the same old song in the hopes that a few companies will hear the siren song and pay to hear it as well. There's a lot of back-slapping and McLovin' going around.

Now that I've said that...here's a great article on Social Media Marketing from a bunch of the usual suspects! Seriously though, it's a long, pretty in-depth read. A lot of it, of course, can be boiled down to "Learn to Listen", and many of these thought leaders lapse into agency-speak that is tortuous, and comic. Hey, expert, read your thing out loud. Does it sound smart, or like a load of crap-speak? OK...it sounds smart...still, does it mean anything other than learn to listen? If not, just say learn to listen  and leave the 10 dollar words in your novel.

One of the good points made in the article is from Geoff Livingston - Senior Vice President at CRT/tanaka.  He speaks to the importance of companies having a larger communications strategy that social media is a part of...he says, in part:

I think they should nail down a higher strategy first.  It’s a common error, and one I face often where I have to unify and re-activate littered social media properties that have been abandoned due to little interest. Going back to that core strategy, that core value an organization has to offer is the heart of where social media strategy begins.  Not playing with Twitter because it is hot.

The best stuff in this article is from actual companies talking about their challenges/successes i/r/t SMM, like HP...but it's all worth a read.

25 Must Read Social Media Marketing Tips

Advertising as Failure - Jeff Jarvis

Jarvis writes (and videos) on Buzzmachine of the notion of advertising as failure.

He says in part: "the ideal relationship a company should have with its customer is that it produces a great product the customer loves and talks about and thus sells; there is no need for advertising there."

True enough, and this is naturally where the concept of social media and listening come into play, as everyone knows now. Customer evangelists spreading the word, company listens and responds to concerns and problems, a two way conversation.

I think this begs one small question...isn't advertising sometimes used to get a product in front of some consumers, not always because the product is a failure that needs to be propped up by advertising?

New companies should consider the "too small to fail" approach when launching. Launch as small as you can, so you can be as nimble as possible, so you can change your strategy on the fly if need be...or change your PRODUCT on the fly if need be. It's the companies with giant burn rates that have to advertise their way into the consumer's heart. Combining the too small to fail approach, with the conversational tools available, and a targeted media and advertising spend to "grease the wheels" of beginning the conversation might be a good hybrid approach.

Spymaster, twitter and user-driven innovation

The backlash took less than one day to set in on @Spymaster.

Spy vs. Spy

Although there are plenty of ways for the twitter user to filter out the spymaster tweets (as described in the comments from the above Techcrunch article)...lots of folks are talking about how Twitter needs to do something about it. I think I am siding with the "twitter doesn't need to do anything" crowd. I think it should rely on the client/developers to see what problems arise and deal with them, and let twitter remain the "platform"...one thing spymaster is doing is getting users and developers to look at the infrastructure and ecosystem  to try to puzzle out solutions...or point to ones that already exist.

Many of the most useful twitter "features" came from the users...@replies, hashtags, etc. This is a (sorta) pivotal moment for Twitter when they will need to decide whether this ("this" meaning spymaster being perceived as spam, and as a degradation of the twitter experience) is actually a problem or not. I think this falls into the user-driven innovation pile, and this will inevitably influence the evolution of Twitter...we can't say yet if that's a bad thing, and some would argue that evolution is neither good nor bad, it just is. I think spymaster is a very very clever use of twitter, and the first of an onslaught of social games I am sure.

But, the bottom line is, (I think) users (and I include developers in that term) will figure the best way out of this "problem". People say "zombies" ruined Facebook. I have had a relatively zombie and poke-free Facebook existence, and I expect my twitter experience won't be ruined by a few spies.

Non-profits, social media, and cause marketing.

Wow...here is a pretty comprehensive breakdown of a social media campaign, run by Scott Henderson of MediaSauce for Share Our Strength. The best part is the post-op he does, identifying where mistakes might have been made...no campaign is perfect.

Cause Marketing or Cause Me to Puke Marketing

Any non-profit looking to jump into the cause marketing pool, should read and learn. From Beth Kanter's excellent blog.

Enterprise Micro Sharing Tools Comparison

Enterprise Micro Sharing Tools Comparison 11032008

Publish at Scribd or explore others: School Work Research twitter status

Government 2.0 video from change.gov

A slick video from change.gov, extolling the virtues of social media in governing...not just campaigning.
New Media: Government 2.0 from America.Gov on Vimeo.

City Government Data - Revenue Stream

This may already be underway in many municipalities. Certainly on a small scale it is happening all over.

But I have been wondering if there is a City who views their data as the ultimate revenue resource...and has a comprehensive plan to expose the data (responsibly of course) and work with private sector partners to develop useful apps with the data. I know that cities are doing things like allowing use of bus route info etc., to create useful apps....but is there any city who views that data resource as a huge revenue generator, and one where the heavy lifting of development is passed to private, rather than burning up city resources, which are scant, and (usually!) (sometimes!) not always the most plugged-in or forward-thinking. Hm?

Creating a Citizen Driven Idea Sourcing Platform - from Government 2.0 Camp

There is no doubt going to be a lot of new content and ideas flowing from the recently completed Government 2.0 Camp. Here is one of the first things I've stumbled onto - a video of Peter Corbett’s session - Creating a Citizen Driven Idea Sourcing Platform and Needs Matching System. This very idea was one I and some colleagues were discussing the other night in trying to brainstorm ideas on small business in Portland. Systems where citizens/businesses can connect with others, identifying needs, providing help, asking for help...it's such a natural extension of the way the world of the web, and social media, is evolving.

Creating a Citizen Driven Idea Sourcing Platform & Needs Matching System from Gov 2.0 on Vimeo.

Oregon Investment Fund - Credit Suisse and Tilting Windmills

Last week there was an event at Nedspace where "A group of Oregon investors and entrepreneurs, upset at the pace of public investment in startup companies, plans a rally today to launch a grass-roots effort to shake $100 million loose from the Oregon Investment Fund."

according to an article on  Oregonlive.com entitled:

Oregon-based firms press for more state investment support

http://tinyurl.com/cfyaeq

I sent some questions to the reporter, Mike Rogoway because  I just don't understand some of the statements in the article (not because of the reporting, but more likely I don't understand the investing process of the fund that the article is about):

The statement below seems to directly contradict what the article says is being done with that money:

The state treasurer's office says those funds are already committed, and it can't use retirement funds for economic development efforts anyway.

What she means, maybe, is that the State itself can't, but in reality that is exactly what Credit Suisse is being asked, by the state, to do, right? Making that statement somewhat disingenuous?

Are all the funds committed? Further down it says:

$5.5 million directly into three Oregon companies..

What's the difference between investing in companies and in economic development efforts?
Its sounds like, also, that only 5.5 million, out of 150 million total, has been actually committed....or, as above, the whole 150 million has been committed, to Credit Suisse, to invest in Oregon companies.

Is that possible? Sounds crazy that there might be 145 million dollars sitting around these days.

Who could I talk to to learn more about that fund? Does Credit Suisse have a local spokesperson I could talk to?

The article states that the money was to be invested with VC firms...which, I believe, generally only invest pretty large sums of money into "home run" companies, that can become market-beaters., and provide outsize returns (eventually)...in other words, the big ticket gamble..which I would propose at this point in Oregon's economy is a terrible idea, or at a minimum a very short sighted one.

Not to mention the fact that the money (seems like) is still, pretty much, just sitting there 5 years later. Is an appropriate response...."What the hell???"

After 5 years, Credit Suisse found a total of 3 worthy Oregon companies they felt comfortable with giving 5 million dollars? Out of 150 million?

If the state legislature authorized that system, can they re-think/re-tweak it to make it actually useful? In what way is it currently useful? Earning interest? (Not that passive income is all bad). The article also says rapid investment won't generate the "long-term return the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund requires". But...I don't know....5 years is pretty cautious. Seems to me "not" investing will guarantee "no" return. Is that OK with the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund?

Maybe Credit Suisse should not be the arbiter here. Maybe there should be a mandate to DO SOMETHING WITH THE MONEY. And if Credit Suisse can't suisse it out, maybe someone else can.

What is missing from this equation? Could a timely and coordinated effort to dislodge/invest that money accomplish a lot of things...including helping Oregon's reputation as an innovative partner for entrepreneurs? Because right now, of course, Oregon has no such reputation despite the energy of the entreprenurial community here in Portland.

Readers, please fell free to correct my erroneous assumptions above. I may just be tilting at a windmill, but there are gale winds blowing, and the windmill has been sitting unused up on that hill for 5 years...are we tired of looking at it yet, wondering why it's there?