Below we outline the four steps required to nurture and maintain a group’s momentum on any social networking site, making the effort worth the time spent (see also 3 golden rules for best practice: LinkedIn and Xing).

Me, Inc.
Almost 12 years ago, management guru Tom Peters came up with the idea that each of us is CEO of Me Inc. Each individual has a personal brand to build up and promote and with a third of the US workforce being self-employed, and increasing job insecurity, people believe self-promotion is required to stand out from the rest.

Further discussion by Nils Montan on LinkedIn: Self-absorbed is not a personal brand

So what does it take to make sure that a group still adds value, besides everyone pushing their own brand?

Rule 1: LinkedIn and Xing groups require care
LinkedIn, Viadeo, and Xing groups have been around for a while, allowing people with similar interests to share news, start discussion questions and so on.

In “What’s your experience of LINKEDIN Groups?“, my friend Nils Montan puts it this way:

“Many of the Groups I belong to are kinda ‘dead’. The owner starts them and and then just lets a thousand flowers bloom without rhyme or reason. Usually people seem to get bored and stop posting and the featured discussions stay up for months. Not a good situation.“

Just as you would in your garden, a group moderator needs to fertilize the ground and tend the flowers to make sure they blossom.

Rule 2: Stay focused to avoid your group becoming a step-child
Many groups initially flourish, especially if they are started in a niche. However, if after the initial phase moderators no longer work in the garden, the group becomes an abandoned child.

What successful groups have is members that post thoughtful questions to generate real dialogue and thereby advance the collective knowledge of the community. In fact:

Thriving communities, understand the purpose(s) of the group’s existence, sharing its aim and objectives with other members while actively contributing to achieve its goals.

Further discussion by Daphne R. Raban & F. Maxwell Harper: Motivations for answering questions online. Working Paper, 23 pages (not dated, around 2007).

Rule 3: Networks can be global but local ties are stronger
One of the interesting things we discovered on Xing is that many groups use it to arrange events. For instance, our SM Monitoring group might meet for happy hour in Basel or elsewhere. Groups form geographically and organize events such as mini-conferences or luncheons to get to know each other better in person.

Xing recently published data (see graphic at right) that shows German managers’ contacts are primarily local.

This indicates that while networking is virtual, people want to build stronger social ties before trusting the other party to do business with them.

Find out more about this Xing-sponsored study conducted by Forsa.

==>  Why not connect with us at LinkedIn, Viadeo, Xing or Ziggs.

Bottom line
Social networks like LinkedIn or Xing have some groups that thrive and others that seem to die a slow death. But besides following the preceding three rules, there are four steps you can take to help your group thrive:

1. Provide structure and focus: The better the structure of the group (e.g., clearly defined and labeled categories to make posting in the appropriate forum easier), and the clearer the focus (e.g., we address social media metrics and little, if anything‚ else), the easier it is for members to participate and contribute valuable content.

2. Support and nurture: Send people a welcome message as soon as they join, respond to discussion items, comments, etc. Show members that you are glad they have joined by acknowledging and appreciating their presence and valuable contributions.

3. Share the gardening duties: Having several active co-moderators makes a real difference. A garden that is not given some love and dedication (e.g., 15 minutes a week) is just weeds. And yes, this takes time so sharing the burden helps significantly improve members’ experiences.

4. Continuity is king: Better to have four contributions over a four-day period than four postings in a single day. Regular content that is valuable to group members will keep them coming back.

Even as moderators and members are challenged to tend these gardens and help their flowers flourish, so are the providers of these platforms. Facebook, Xing and LinkedIn fail groups and their moderators in two ways:

a) Give credit where credit is due: Xing and LinkedIn thrive in part because their groups keep members coming back, but moderators get little appreciation from the providers (e.g., a free Premium Membership might be good).

b) Prune the garden: Platform providers should keep better track of group activity and nudge absent moderators to tend their garden regularly. Inactive groups should be dissolved.

Finally, group moderators know that quite a bit of effort is required and results are not always immediate. If things do not seem to be working, you may have to shake things up to find your way.

Please, leave a comment! We love to hear your thoughts: how do you feel about Facebook, LinkedIn, Viadeo or Xing groups? Do successful groups share the same ingredients across platforms? Do you think groups are worth the time and effort spent by moderators and members alike? What is your experience? Please share your insights.

Gain insight by registering for our Free webinar: Benchmarking with the right metrics, or attend the German version: Wie messen Sie den Erfolg: 5 wichtige Schritte für Weblogs

P.S. - Visit My.ComMetrics (register yourself – benchmark your blog(s) => improve performance). You can get updates for this blog on Twitter by following @ComMetrics or get a free subscription by RSS, or get new posts via email:

Article source: Why social networking groups fail

The number of contests on social media that raise money for charities have increased significantly in the last year. This is partly due to companies and non-profit groups learning how best to use Facebook, Twitter and other online tools for marketing and fundraising.

But this causes new challenges. For instance, December 2009 JPMorgan Chase & Company fumbled its online contest to award millions of dollars to 100 charities. In fact, some groups publicly stated that Chase changed the contest rules to ensure those who do not fit its image would not reach the top 100.

This post will focuses on the viability of crowdscoring for selecting a winner as applied by Pepsi and Chase in recent charity contests and other critical issues, including business ethics, reputation management (watch the videos).

What happened?
The Joyful Heart Foundation’s (JHF) submission originally included a link to a video on YouTube that incorporates a photo of the Pepsi Refresh website. But the Pepsi Refresh site went up only after the submission deadline had passed. Inquiring minds wanted to know how the charity get hold of the image. One explanation was that it was provided to the charity by Pepsi ahead of the site’s release, thereby giving JHF an unfair advantage.

The video below claims that, “With your help - and this grant from Pepsi – we’ll change the world.” Some would call this bold, others confident. We consider it pompous, but maybe it is a somewhat extreme version of a can-do spirit.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What made matters worse was that Pepsi staff decided that it would be easier for Refresh voters to view the video directly on their site. Hence, Pepsi staff changed the link on the foundation’s application after the deadline.

Then what?
On February 25, The New York Times published the article “Pepsi Charity Contest Trips Over Its Own Submission Rules“. Remember, instead of spending US$20 million on Super Bowl advertising this year, Pepsi is giving that amount to charities who get the most votes on social media.

“The tiny charity currently atop the rankings in one category of the contest accidentally got a little help from Pepsi itself.
Materials submitted by the Joyful Heart Foundation, a charity started by Mariska Hargitay, one of the stars of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” to help victims of sexual assault, were updated by the staff at Pepsi after the submission deadline, which is against the contest rules.” – Stephanie Strom, The New York Times

Did Pepsi do anything about this? Well, it admitted the error…

“The Pepsi Refresh Project focuses on promoting positive social change and collaborating with people who have the ideas and the passion to refresh the world.
Despite our best intentions, we did not follow the program’s guidelines properly, which is the subject of an article in today’s New York Times…
We will be taking the following steps: Pepsi will award Joyful Heart a discretionary grant of $250,000. The second- and third-highest vote-getters at the $250,000 level will receive $250,000 grants from the Pepsi Refresh Project. We also will return the submission to its original format.
We are committed to giving away $1.5 million in mid-March to what will now be 33 grant recipients and more than $20 million by the end of the year to help people bring their positive ideas to life. More than anything, this is the most important commitment of all.
As we move forward and learn from this, we are committed to taking steps to ensure the fairness and integrity of the program and that the Pepsi Refresh Project continues to inspire people to create positive ideas that will change the world.” – The Pepsi Refresh Team

What about business ethics?
At first glance, it seems Pepsi did the only sensible thing: apologize and move on.

But their response is open to another interpretation:

Yes, we apologize for our ‘mistake’, but we like them so we’ll give them money anyway.

In an email, Pepsi’s Bonin Bough told Beth Kanter, “We believe that the democratic process is better than us deciding on our own but only time will tell.” In a subsequent blog post, Kanter wrote, “I’m skeptical that ‘Vote for Me’ contests are the best strategy for selecting the best solutions or ideas.” We heartily agree.

But the above suggests that Pepsi never wanted to give their audience control to select the winner. Instead, it manipulated the contest and found another way to pay JHF when it got caught. So why have a contest; why not just select a charity and be done with it? That would have been better than the mistakes made, no?

More resources about Pepsi and social media

Social Media Monitoring – Xing – Pam Dyer: Social Media ROI and the Pepsi Refresh Project
Beth Kanter: Pepsi Charity Contest: Learning From Mistakes and Level Playing Fields
Social Media Monitoring – Xing – Urs E. Gattiker: Pepsi fails Super Bowl social media challenge
Marcia Stepanek: JPMorgan Chase & Company has fumbled its online contest

Bottom line
Maybe Beth Kanter is right when she says,

“And now we have a real-life example with the Pepsi Refresh Contest making a mistake by not following its own rules, but moving swiftly to acknowledge it, fix it, and move on. This is what Clay Shirky calls failing informatively.”

It was one thing for Pepsi to ditch the Super Bowl, but its subsequent decision to give the US$20 million savings to charity was brilliant. However, the management failure of the giveaway took the sheen off Pepsi’s triumph.

You may wonder why Pepsi made this mistake, since, as well as being unfair, we know how such behavior can backfire. JPMorgan Chase & Company managed to fumble the ball in December 2009 with its US$5 million Facebook giveaway contest, so the Pepsi staff should have seen the writing on the wall when they intervened on JHF’s behalf, right?

Some suggest that whether Pepsi’s Refresh Project is successful or not depends on its ability to follow through and make it work in combination with their total marketing mix. Trying to control the outcome and violating its own rules is likely the quickest way to failure.

Take-aways
We believe the financial crisis and increasing demand for transparency in corporate governance may have spread to social media and social media’s trends have spread further afield.

1. Wisdom of crowds can only be conventional: Just because a charity manages to get a huge crowd to vote for it online does not make its work Nobel prize material. The earth did not stand still just because Galileo lost favor, nor has evolution been disproven due to the faith of believers.

2. Increasing demand for more transparency: Contest rules must be clearly spelled out and one must follow them. These days, investors and customers want improved transparency for everything, and for once, social media is not starting but following a trend.

3. Do not expect to control the voting process: Trying  to control the outcome of a contest by disqualifying a charity you do not not like (e.g., JPMorgan Chase & Company rejected Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the Marijuana Policy Project) or violating your own rules by giving preference to another (see Pepsi) will backfire. In fact, it might wipe out more than whatever was gained by organizing the contest in the first place. In turn, the damage to your brand and reputation can be huge.

Please, leave a comment! We love to hear your thoughts: how do you feel about using crowds to select a charity contest winner? Does this ensure selecting the worthiest causes that get the biggest bang for your buck? How do you feel about the way Pepsi handled this problem? Is saying sorry good enough? How can such mistakes be avoided? Please share your insights.

Please register for our Free webinar: Benchmarking with the right metrics, or attend the German version: Wie messen Sie den Erfolg: 5 wichtige Schritte für Weblogs

P.S. - Visit My.ComMetrics (register yourself – benchmark your blog(s) => improve performance). You can get updates for this blog on Twitter by following @ComMetrics or get a free subscription by RSS, or get new posts via email:

Article source: Social media trends: Pepsi’s charity contest

PS. Coke does it a bit different but its commercial about the Olympic Hockey Champion is an example of how to use social media, national pride and sports events to increase brand buzz, great to watch

Click here to view the embedded video.

Toyota’s worldwide recalls are devastating the firm’s reputation with customers, as well as its bottom line. Some have suggested that any further botching of the message to consumers could throttle the brand.

Vehicle recalls are grim, and tend to be announced on a Friday to minimize attention. Until now, Toyota has enjoyed a shining reputation for quality and reliability. This image has been hit by mass-recalls involving defective accelerator pedals and out-of-position floor mats, which can jam accelerators and have been linked to several fatal accidents. US sales tumbled 16 percent last month.

We outline four factors of inadequate management that exacerbated Toyota’s problems and suggest three steps to minimize the risk of Toyota’s loss of reputation for quality.

1. When it comes to risk, people are not rational
To illustrate, we know of 26 reported accelerator pedal problems in Europe, where 2 million cars are affected. Let us assume that each is driven for about 10,000 miles a year. If the problems all occurred in one year, the real chance appears to be an absolute maximum of 1 problem every 769 million miles.

The above indicates that the chances of encountering the problem in your Camry or Corolla are pretty low. And according to Toyota, the repair takes 30 minutes.

The trouble with risk is that people pay attention to the new while discounting the familiar, no matter how ridiculously small the new risk is compared to the former.

2. Akio Toyoda’s “I apologize from my heart,” won’t cut it
Because people put emphasis on the new while discounting the familiar, when Prius brake problems were reported, customers got concerned. As we know, however, a problem that is handled well can increase customers’ loyalty. But it appears that Toyota dropped the ball.

When Toyota told the world of its recall in January, one of its first public statements was made by a Japanese executive who faced television cameras wearing a surgical mask. While masks are not uncommon during Japan’s cold season, journalists took it as a metaphor for Toyota’s bungling aspects of customer communication during the crisis.

Both in the US and Europe, the lag between Toyota’s recall announcement for accelerator issues and communication of the details to the public lasted days.

Akio Toyoda was almost absent from the public eye. Besides a brief statement given during the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Mr Toyoda has said nothing publicly about the recall. Mr Lentz (head of US sales) had a good media presence in the US. However, consumers want to see the CEO working overtime to address their anxieties and not a mere sales manager.

We know that the US marketplace requires an emotional bedside manner. Hence, Toyota’s stumbling scion has to shift character from aloof strategist to dynamic public relations man.

3. Politicians always deflect uncomfortable attention
History has taught us that the CEO being seen to to take action is critical to securing customers’ trust in the company. This is difficult for some European or Japanese executives to grasp, but Mr Toyoda’s reluctance to engage with the public during a crisis is a risky strategy that results in getting to the party late.

Currently, it is estimated that 44 class-action lawsuits have been filed under standard and federal law in the US. It is estimated that the claims could reach US$3.6 billion (€2.6 billion). This is based on an average loss of US$600 per vehicle.

Some claims relate to death, injury and property damage allegedly caused by defective parts, while others are based on a drop in Toyota vehicles’ trade-in values.

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), is facing criticism over its response to Toyota safety concerns, and the agency is investigating whether the vehicle recalls were conducted ‘in a timely manner’.

Edolphus Towns, the Democratic chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has issued Mr Toyoda a formal request for testimony. The latter had no choice but to reverse his decision to send Zyoshimi Inaba, head of Toyota’s North American business, to Washington in his place. Toyoda issued the following short statement:

“I have received Congressman Towns’ invitation to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on February 24 and I accept. I look forward to speaking directly with Congress and the American people.”

When politicians feel under pressure to do something, the first order of business is to deflect attention from themselves. The Toyota recall suggests the same mechanism is now in effect and Mr Toyoda was grilled during the hearings on February 24 (Wednesday).

P.S. – 200 American factory workers and small-business owners pleaded their case with politicians in Washington on Tuesday, February 23, asking Congress to go easy on ‘friend’ Toyota. But going ahead and closing the Freemont plant in California, its most important US market, was another PR flop that could damage Toyota’s image even further.

4. How social media can push events out of control
Obviously, how people assess risk, whether rationally or not, will affect their response to the recall. Further, an executive who hides and does not convincingly and eloquently field difficult questions seriously dents the brand’s pristine image. Finally, with the US mid-term elections only 10 months away, no member of Congress wants to be seen as not protecting the electorate’s interests.

Beyond that, Toyota’s recall crisis has prompted the automaker to seriously beef up its use of and presence on social media channels. For instance, an interview was given by Jim Lentz to Digg Dialogg.

Toyota has also used a social media response team of eight people located in Los Angeles to monitor sentiment and trends, including the all-important viral element.

On February 1, Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, claimed that he had experienced a ’software-related acceleration problem’ with his Prius, that causes the car to go wild under certain conditions when cruise control is engaged.

This and his comment that, “This is software. It’s not a bad accelerator pedal. It’s very scary, but luckily for me I can hit the brakes,” spread like wildfire via newswire, Twitter and others.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Toyota failed to respond quickly to the above. Neither a blog post nor tweets nor Facebook wall-messages communicated to Toyota customers or anyone else about this problem. In these situations, straight communication is required and Toyota failed on a grand scale.

Toyota’s management does not appear to understand the inner workings of social media that well. For example, when Toyota USA moved their successful car blog ‘back’ to the corporate site, the youthful hipness was suddenly replaced by corporate blandness.

Worse, Toyota has more than one destination on the web providing users with critical information about the recall in their language, for their market. Instead, each sales organization (e.g., US, Japan or Switzerland) does what they think is best.

As the image to the right illustrates, the result is a less than satisfactory user experience. In fact, Toyota’s webpages in Germany, Denmark and Switzerland all fail Usability 101 for making it easy to find recall information.

More resources about Toyota’s damage control efforts
Automotive News – THE TRAUMA AT TOYOTA – Toyota recall tool: Watch social media
CyTRAP Labs – @Antonio_Montoya => to @ComMetrics kudos on a short and simple social media policy IT WORKS
Video: Honda adds 400,000+ to its airbags recall
Financial Times – Is your Toyota being recalled? View FT graphic & check
ComMetrics – Managing the brand to improve your reputation: Jeff Bezos, Josef Ackermann and Richard Branson to the rescue
Toyota USA – Latest recall information
FutureLab, Joel Makower - Total Recall: Toyota and the Future of Green Marketing

Bottom line
Mr Toyoda’s silence on the recall issue may reflect his focus on deeper structural problems and wanting to stick to his agenda. But showing up to a press conference and only delivering prepared remarks is not what is needed.

In fact, the aloof chief needs to engage with the public. While he blogs about racing and car design he does not show a willingness or ability to move from aloof strategist to dynamic PR man.

The recall is a safety issue and trying to send a local manager to testify in Washington was the wrong move.

Moreover, Ms Smith – who called her husband because she thought she was going to die when her Lexus inexplicably accelerated to 160 kph, will not improve the company’s image. Her testimony before the House Committee on Tuesday, February 23 was heart-wrenching, very emotional and outright scary if one imagines experiencing the same.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Similarly, airing the 911 call of a family of four whose brakes were not working properly on news stations around the world (e.g., Spain and Switzerland today – yes, all four died) is harming the company’s global reputation. And no, Jim Lentz (head of Toyota’s US division) shedding a tear during testimony is not enough, given the company’s saga of mishaps and blunders, if not outright greed.

Risk assessment by consumers, the CEO failing to go to bat for the company and politicians (including Seiji Maehara, Japan’s Minister of Transport) putting Toyota under the microscope for failing to act quickly: this is currently wiping out Toyota’s reputation for quality and could throttle the brand if it continues much longer.

Take-aways
1. Silence is perceived as guilt: There are right and wrong ways of handling a recall. However, near-silence on the issue is generally perceived as an admission of guilt. Refusing an informal request to testify before accepting a formal request (as if he had a choice) is a bad move by any CEO and worse in the eyes of the US public if the CEO is foreign like Toyoda.

2. Global markets require global responses: Global markets serviced by global companies like Toyota require a unified strategy for handling recalls. Recalling cars in the US while still thinking about it elsewhere like Europe or Asia spells disaster on the public relations front.

3. Today’s Internet requires a global social media response:
Having a social media response team in Los Angeles is helpful, but fails to address challenges elsewhere (e.g., China, UK). Not only do we need to think globally, social media and the Internet require a globally orchestrated response. In fact, the LA response team should be one of several teams around the globe working together closely.

4. Shedding tears after boasting about saving money by avoiding a recall won’t cut it. There were tears at the hearings on Tuesday – even Jim Lentz of Toyota’s US division shed some – but this does not offset the fact that people got hurt and died. Plus, Toyota bragged about saving US$100 million (€73.5 million) after ‘negotiating’ a recall of 55,000 floor mats with US regulators in 2007, with ‘no defect found’.

And because Mr Toyada’s performance before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on February 24th (Wednesday) was not a stellar one… things will get worse before they have any hope of getting better.

==> 2010-02-24 Prepared testimony of Akio Toyoda, President of Toyota Motor Corporation to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (13 KB)

The above shows that while some factors exacerbated the Toyota PR disaster, the company’s failure to effectively use social media through a unified global strategy caused Toyota’s image to take a harder beating than necessary (e.g., younger car buyers in such key markets as California).

Please, leave a comment! We love to hear your thoughts: how do you feel about Toyota’s recall disaster? How do you feel about this subject?  Please share your insights.

P.S. - Visit My.ComMetrics (register yourself – benchmark your blog(s) => improve performance). You can get updates for this blog on Twitter by following @ComMetrics or get a free subscription by RSS, or get new posts via email:

Article source: ComMetrics – Toyota: How to commit brand and reputation suicide

Watch the video below for a demonstration of the accelerator problem…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Strategy and new media experts cannot seriously answer management’s question of whether ’social media works’ without first asking themselves some more fundamental questions about what the company should be doing with social media and what it should leave alone.

Pepsi, Coca-Cola and Dell have deep pockets when it comes to social media marketing. Hence, this makes it difficult for smaller companies to copy their strategies (Social media: What is so special).

At the recent iStrategy 2010 Conference in Berlin (9 – 10 February), Michael Donnelly talked about ‘Online Marketing Today, Tomorrow and in 2020′. Considering that 2010-02-04 marked Facebook’s sixth birthday, who can predict anything more than a year in advance these days? Predicting 10 years into the future seems like trying to read tea leaves.

At the same conference, Susan Lincoln, Europe’s self-proclaimed social media expert taught a 90-minute workshop about social media using 166 slides. No kidding. (Read how she uses Twitter in 4 steps to Twitter success.)

The question is whether global brands’ approaches to social media or so-called experts’ interpretations can be replicated by a SME (small and medium enterprise), the Davos-Kloster tourist region (site of the recent WEF Davos) or your favorite bakery. Below we will address what can be done.

Step 1: Invest 10 hours in understanding social media
Some people will tell you that social media is a way to build trust, others suggest it will foster better engagement with clients, while some claim it helps build brand. Some try to tell you that it affects their company’s bottom line (as in Return on Investment (ROI) – cost-benefit analysis).

It can do all of these things but to get a better idea you must educate yourself and discuss what you have learned with people whose judgment you trust. Ask these individuals what they and their company are getting out of all this. This should yield strategies to copy and some ropes to skip.

Rule 1: Buckle down and teach yourself about social media in order to concisely respond to what purpose social media will serve for your company.

Incidentally, as the slide show below indicates, the presentation by Michael Donnelly left me hanging regarding the next 10 years (forget 20). Considering how many millions of dollars the company spent on social media marketing the question remains: Is it money well spent?

Step 2: Decide what purpose using social media fulfills for you
So we can all agree, most companies will never have the resources of Coca-Cola, Pepsi or Dell at their disposal. Hence, our social media splash will be far smaller. Nevertheless, we can still do it better and smarter than they can.

It is essential to determine what exactly you wish to accomplish (objectives, goals, dreams, etc.):

a) What is the purpose of social media for your company?
b) What is social media’s value proposition?
c) What results must be achieved with social media and in what context?
d) Besides a strategy, what is required for effective benchmarking?

Remember that progressing through the learning curve might suggest a change in focus is warranted down the line.

Rule 2: Figure out your purpose for social media and what should be achieved. Be specific and write it down. Set your objectives, which will then allow performance-tracking.

A free webinar that could help: How benchmarking improves social media performance – March 11

Step 3: Learn to crawl before you walk, and then start running
Imagine someone who has never touched ‘real’ snow in their life that you take to the Whistler Olympic venue. On your way there, you discuss the virtues of snowboarding, tobogganing, skiing, bobsledding, etc. Their head might explode from information overload.

Social media is the same. Start slowly, such as by launching a corporate blog. Make sure new content is posted every other week (i.e. same time, same workday – consistency is critical).

Rule 3: Easy does it – using social media effectively takes time and resources. Invest a limited budget wisely and start blogging with content that suits your target audience.

A conference that could help: Social Media Influence 2010 conference – June 23, London UK (discusses strategic and hands-on issues)

Step 4: Follow best practice and measure smartly
To do well with social media, performance must be assessed to see if targets have been reached. Start by establishing a baseline right away to have an idea where you started from.

Using the company’s baseline measures, set objectives and start tracking performance. A social media appraisal will have to be done every quarter to illustrate how you can improve your performance.

Finally, focus web analytics or blog metrics by looking at a few metrics instead of the whole gamut. There are only so many hours in the day, so do not spend more than an hour on this. Instead, clinch the next sale or get another contribution for your charity.

Rule 4: Measure for accepted management best practice, such as performance-tracking, target-setting and channel appraisal regarding your social media activities by using FREE tools such as My.ComMetrics (register yourself – benchmark your blog(s) => improve performance), Google Analytics, and so forth.

A conference that could help: Monitoring social media bootcamp – March 31, London UK (VERY hands-on)

More resources about metrics and benchmarking – what is it worth to you?

ComMetrics - Social media: Metrics to know and metrics to skip FAQ #1
ComMetrics – Twitter FAQ #5 McCain vs. Obama
SM Monitoring Group – Xing – Pepsi fails SuperBowl social media challenge
ComMetrics – Twitter metrics: Does it make sense?
ComMetrics – Write it down BEFORE launching! Why use Facebook or Twitter?
Roberto Kusabbi – Learn from the biggest organisations – often not a smart move
iStrategy 2010 conference (see all speakers and sessions – pdf file) Will there be anything for SMEs this Fall in London? Seems unlikely.

Bottom line
Pepsi spent millions on Facebook to promote activities to improve its brand and reach. So did Coca-Cola. Unless you have such vast resources, do not try copying their strategy.

Instead, find your purpose, write it down, set objectives, and start benchmarking against:

- your past performance (are things improving and if so why), AND
- your competitors or best in class examples (e.g., company blog or Twitter account).

Social media is not about selling but fostering social engagement.

At this point nobody knows what is best when it comes to social media. What you have to figure out is what is most effective for your organization. This is something no one else can do fo you without you contributing important insights (so you might as well do it yourself).

Finally, don’t believe those who try to convince you that we are moving away from campaigns to constant engagement. Who wants to be engaged constantly with their butter brand? Please, get real.

I cannot stress enough that one has to benchmark social media activities. It is hard work, and is not qualitative or anecdotal, but quantitative. What action are you taking now and what will you do in the future? One does not just measure to improve performance; making sure you stay focused and on-message is critical.

Please, leave a comment! We love to hear your thoughts: how do you feel about social media and your business? What is your experience with this subject? Have any tips to make sure we use social media channels more effectively on a shoestring budget? Please share your insights.

P.S. - Visit My.ComMetrics (register yourself – benchmark your blog(s) => improve performance). You can get updates for this blog on Twitter by following @ComMetrics or get a free subscription by RSS, or get new posts via email:

Article source: ComMetrics – 4 ways to success: Pepsi and Coca-Cola

Our international staff  (Canada, Germany, Jordan, Switzerland, USA) demanded a social media policy that fits on a napkin: ComMetrics Social Media policy that fits on a napkin – short and straightforward – approved by our associates

As the video below shows, Coca-Cola is still struggling to create a unified social media policy that is simple enough to be remembered and followed by its associates around the globe, in spite of its vast resources and social media investments (see above slide presentation).

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you are blogging for business, and not about your cat, baby, fashion addiction, or celebrity-crush, you need to set some success metrics.

Without a statistical measure of your blogging progress, adding content to your blog on a regular basis can be an incredibly lonely proposition. Is anyone out there? Does anyone care?

However, even in the business blogging world, there are a wide variety of potential measures to gauge your momentum. It is imperative that you select the most relevant ones that match with your blog’s purpose and intent.

What’s the point?
The first step in that processis knowing why you are blogging. This sounds simple, but it is shocking how many bloggers are unclear on the core business rationale behind their blog initiative.

There are three options here:

Blogging for content: This is when you write with considerable emphasis on search optimization, attempting to drive traffic to the blog via strategic content creation and keyword inclusion.
Blogging for commerce: Related to the first, but commerce-oriented blogs are more interested in conversion events than in traffic generation. Funneling traffic from the blog to some other destination (typically a corporate website or lead form) is the prime objective.
Blogging for community: These blogs seek to guild a consistent readership that interact with the blogger(s) and advocate on behalf of the content through other social outposts.

Measuring the point
Depending on the rationale for your blog, you need to select the most appropriate success metrics.

These are your key metrics when blogging for content:
- Total visits,
- Percentage of new visits (a recent study to be released soon by Compendium Blogware shows that among 86 percent of corporate blogs, first-time visitors comprise over 60 percent of their total traffic), and
- Visits from search engines.

These success measures are best for blogging for commerce:
- Average length of stay,
- Number of pages viewed per visit (both of these metrics measure depth of engagement, a key consideration when you’re trying to educate a potential customer and get them to take action), and
- Referrers from other sites (if other sites are driving significant traffic to your blog, you need to know what they are, to replicate that success with other, similar sites).

Pay closest attention to these statistics if you are blogging for community:
- Repeat visits,
- RSS subscribers (repeat visits and subscribers both measure stickiness and consistency, blog elements that build community over time),
- Comments, and
- Referrers from social outposts like Twitter or Digg.

Note that the recommended success metrics are entirely different for each blog type, yet in much of my social media consulting work, corporate blog owners are invariably most interested in total visits and RSS subscribers.

This is especially misplaced with group written blogs, where the broad content focus and inconsistent tone makes RSS subscription less likely. Imagine subscribing to a magazine that was about tennis one month, and about cooking the next month. That is what a lot of multi-author corporate blogs feel like, so is it any wonder that there are few subscribers?

Blogging success is a slow march, not a mad dash. If you create consistently good content, and promote it vigorously, your blog should eventually succeed. But to ensure you are not disheartened in the meantime, select success metrics that are appropriate for your goals.

For more on advanced blogging, please see my post or slide presentation below:

View more presentations by Jay Baer.

Bottom line
Just because you have a blog does not mean your blogging objectives are the same as everyone else’s. There are three reasons to blog (other than personal blogging): content, commerce, or community.

Each type of blog has a different set of appropriate success metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), so it makes no sense to measure your success based on blogging for commerce, if you actually blog to build community.

There are three KPIs based on type of blog, to which you should pay the most attention. Do that, and you’ll be a happier and more successful blogger.

P.S. - Visit My.ComMetrics (register yourself – benchmark your blog(s) => improve performance). You can get updates for this blog on Twitter by following @ComMetrics or get a free subscription by RSS, or get new posts via email:

Article source: ComMetrics – Using the right blog metrics

Please register for our Free webinar: Benchmarking with the right metrics

Commenting on other blogs has been, and continues to be an integral part of blogging. However, the challenge is to get blog comments that add depth and insight to the original post. Better engagement is also fostered if the blogger manages to provide thoughtful replies to commentators. That’s all great in theory, but how to put it into practice?

This blog post discusses five steps to writing a high-quality comment and three ways to elicit game-changing comments, outlining some of the obstacles to getting there and why low-level brickbats need not apply.

Recently I came across Why the retweet is a powerful engagement tool

“… This is where the retweet, and now the via feature in Facebook, really come to the fore. They are a very simple way for all people to say “I agree with this” or “I want you to see this too” without actually having to articulate their own opinion from scratch, or start their own discussion…”

I certainly hope social media’s value proposition is more than getting people to re-tweet our Facebook or Twitter material. I left a comment:

I am sorry but maybe I am missing something… just re-tweeting as you suggest: “… very simple way for all people to say “I agree with this” or “I want you to see this too.” ”
Does this add much value to the discussion or debate?
In many cases, people have not taken the time to read carefully the story about which they might send out a tweet (e.g., using Google to feed Twitterfeed that, in turn, triggers your Twitter account to send out a tweet).
So how can I recommend something before having studied the material? Is this a scenario where sheep is following other sheep or my answering machine is talking to yours so we can meet next week?
As a brand, I want to be sure that people support something – my brand – based on product experience, knowledge and insight not just by blindly and wildly re-tweeting other people’s opinion or tweets.
Respectfully
Urs

Comments like the above can add some value to the discussion, especially if the blogger writes an insightful response.

Unfortunately, our comment never made it up on Matt Rhodes’ blog – whatever the reason, this does not foster engagement (see Take-away section below for a comment about this).

Blog comments: Brickbats need not apply
So why are blog comments important? In 2007 Dave Winer explained why he thought they were in The subject of blog comments. Clay puts it another way in this blog post:

“…spirited disputation and emendation, alternate points of view, linky goodness, and a conversational sharpening of the argument on all sides, in a way that doesn’t happen blog to blog.” – Clay Shirky (Corante Blog)

5 steps to a high-quality comment
Unless we are willing to spend 10 minutes drafting a sensible comment, we might provide the blogger a better service by just tweeting the post’s title and url on Twitter. But here are five suggestions one should follow to craft a comment that adds value to the equation:

1. Relate your comment to the post: Quality comments refer to the blog post by quoting a portion and then refining or expanding on the thought (e.g., I agree with this point. However, in my line of work…).
2. Have a train of thought: Make sure the comment contains a main theme from beginning to end (Why ROI fails or may work).
3. Wrap-up the comment: A conclusion in a comment is more than, “This is my five cents.” Drawing a conclusion makes a fashion statement, so to speak (make a splash – thank you).
4. Tell the blogger why the post helps you work smarter: We all want to write stuff that makes a difference in other people’s lives. But please, explain why it is helpful or how you were able to apply it (e.g., don’t just tell me I am great, explain why).
5. If you disagree you should explain: Please explain where this disagreement comes from. It might very well be that the blogger forgot to consider an important angle of the problem, made an incorrect assumption or fell prey to misinformation, to mention a few examples (tell me where I have erred and how it can work – I love it).

Finally, please remember leaving a blog comment is like a digital trace and its quality will reflect upon your personal brand and reputation.

Comments mean more work for the blogger – really
When I write a comment on someone’s blog, this quickly takes more than 15 minutes, especially if a conversation develops. Commenting is far more time-intensive than writing a tweet or re-tweeting. Of course, both are needed: one to spread the news and the other to add more depth to the post.

Unfortunately, one will often come across comments that seem somewhat shallow or where the commenter had little time. Other times it seems to be ‘feel good’ feedback.

The comments to the right surely made Bernie feel good. Unfortunately, they do not add content or substance to the discussion of an important topic. On the positive side, writing this kind of feedback did not take the commentators more than one to two minutes.

But the blogger does not really raise the performance bar either. His comment (see last one in screenshot) provides a pat on the back for each of the three commentators above.

The ‘I am great – You are great’ approach is fine and makes sure nobody is offended, but it also does not move the discussion to a higher plateau.

All things being equal (ignoring how much traffic the blog has, language it is in and country, etc.), there are three things that affect your comment count:

1. Write a blog post that is interesting to many people, such as ‘Calculating ROI for social media activities’.
2. Keep your blog post short (under 300 words), and
3. Don’t try to be too in-depth.

Guaranteed, with a short post you will always get the type of visitor willing to spend another 60 seconds to add their two cents by leaving a comment.

The challenge is that complex subjects like calculus can hardly be explained in under 300 words. We can try and people might even believe they have grasped the concept, but if we were to put it to a test, 80 percent would likely fail. In turn, addressing a complex matter in 1,600 words as done here may turn some people off, since they might feel that it takes too much time to read and comprehend the issue discussed.

More resources about the importance of quality comments

Jody Hedlund - Do blog comments really matter?
Read Write Web (Sarah Perez) - Blog comments still matter – but not those about organs – really
Paul Graham - How to disagree – disagreement hierarchy
The Herald Blog (Lorelle VanFossen) - How is your comment quality quotient?

Bottom line
While tweeting about something does not take much time, writing a blog comment that adds value to the discussion does. Lastly, thoughtfully responding to comments is time-consuming for the blogger.

Building on your audience’s comments is a real challenge that few, like Jeremiah, manage. He tries to add value to each comment whenever possible and/or steer subsequent comments in the right direction.

However, it is probably better to approve each comment or reply before it goes up on the blog. If one fails to do this, then what happened to Jeremiah can happen to you, too. A spammer replied to several comments made on the blog (one shown to the right) and this, of course, does not foster your all-important reader engagement.

Take-aways
I have been blogging for a while and developed the following three insights that I would like to share with you:

1. Quality attracts quality: It is perfectly okay to ask somebody you know to comment, if you are quite certain they will add substance. Even better if the person brings a different viewpoint. Our data shows that getting a high quality first comment usually attracts other quality comments and, most importantly, those afraid of going first have this hurdle removed…
2. Being humble pays off: Try to acknowledge each commenter. Make sure that you add beef with your reply to their comment. Writing something like the comment below is okay but is this person taking her commentators seriously?
“Thanks @Laya, @Andrew, @Laura  Thanks for your comments on the same.  Looking forward to your views / comments in the near future too.”
A response like that lacks depth and makes you wonder if the blogger cares… please take your readers seriously.
3. Fostering engagement means letting nothing fall between the cracks: Make sure no comment is inadvertently lost in your spam box; check it daily. Also, both negative and positive comments must go up on your blog. Otherwise you throttle engagement, even while talking about it.
Finally, as Jeremiah’s example shows, monitoring the many comments he gets takes time, and therefore suggests all comments should be pre-approved before going up. Nobody wants spam to end up in a set of otherwise nice comments.

Please, leave a comment! We love to hear your thoughts: how do you feel about managing blog content and encouraging greater engagement for your blog? What is your experience with this subject? Have any tips to make sure we use the commenting feature more effectively? Please share your insights.

P.S. - Visit My.ComMetrics (register yourself – benchmark your blog(s) => improve performance). You can get updates for this blog on Twitter by following @ComMetrics or get a free subscription by RSS, or get new posts via email:

Article source: ComMetrics – Engaging comments: Where is the beef?

Some of you may remember the Wendy’s TV commercial in the US in which Clara Peller (August 4, 1902 – August 11, 1987 – lived in the Chicago area) posed an important question about the golden arches’ burger: Where is the beef?

Next time we write a comment or reply to one, let us all remember - adding substance is key.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Social media, social networking and blogging are not just new tools; they are part of the revolution in marketing that started some twenty years ago when the internet became mass market.

This article clarifies how social media tools and channels such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn can make a real difference if used correctly and what this means for you.

Power shift
The internet provides massive amounts of information, leading to a power shift from seller to buyer.

In the early days, providing search engines with the right keywords was essential to finding anything, but people soon tired of the ’sales dish’. Instead, they sought independent information and reviews, leading to the growth of article and review sites, some of which have transformed themselves into blogs.

This means we now have a growing body of people who use the internet to inform their purchasing decisions, so businesses must learn more about those customers’ purchasing challenges.

Buyers have never been so well-informed, because information is only a few clicks away. Great! But, this causes a huge dilemma for sellers, who aren’t used to being challenged.

We now have:

- knowledgeable buyers,
- buyers who don’t respond to ‘We are the Best’ messages, and
- buyers who ask questions about how a product or service compares to competitors

This means, sellers have some options, such as:

Ignore the revolution. There are plenty of people who do not fully use the internet and never will. They are likely to be older, and therefore decreasing in numbers and economic clout.

Dabble in social media. This is about migrating from offline to online. For example, sales brochures become blog posts, while tweets are about forthcoming sales or special offers. It’s more about continuing as before with these new tools, which is fine for the new internet user. Numbers of people who haven’t really used the internet to educate themselves are also shrinking, given the time personal computing has been around.

Learn to master. Recognize that buyers will educate themselves before buying, so to grow, be where prospective buyers are. Speak their language at a pace that suits them.

Take the lead. Accept that the buyer is king and uses the internet and social media to engage on their terms. This isn’t about having a string of tweets cascade into all the other social networking sites that accept Twitter. It’s about understanding how prospective buyers want to engage with you and using the appropriate channels to do that.

From my perspective, this is where sellers are in relation to buyers (see graph at right), though I welcome different perspectives. There is a huge opportunity gap for sellers to learn how to use social media and become leaders in their market. Since social media is about conversation and networking, the viral element can help any seller gain leadership.

Click here to view the embedded video.

1. Facebook Fan Page
Give your buyers and prospects a place to comment and ask questions during a teleseminar, conference or even respond to consultation documents. Yes, it’s a public space but not all the material needs to be divulged. After all, it’s about conversing with people who have said they are interested in you and your position.
Connect on Facebook with ComMetrics and MaxWeb.

2. Twitter
There are lots of ways to use this tool, such as giving information on topics you know interest your market. If your buyers are Human Resources managers, then information on employment law, payroll and employee engagement would be of interest regardless of what you are offering. Ask for comments on your blog posts and respond to mentions. If people have taken the trouble to send you a message, acknowledge them just as you would in the ‘real world’.
Choose from the 100 best Twitter tools.

3. LinkedIn
Join appropriate groups or learn what makes a good group and start your own. Good groups have discussions where people learn more about each other and relationships are fostered. The opportunities are endless. Wander in to LinkedIn’s Answers section and answer a few questions; this builds credibility with a large audience. Finally, have a complete profile, so people can see who you are and what you do.
New to LinkedIn – How to Use LinkedIn video.
Time management – 3 golden rules for best practice: Xing and LinkedIn.

And remember that any social media activity can be used in conjunction with your continuing offline marketing.

Pull beats push
Sellers have been pushing messages for the past 50 years, but this has lost some of its effect. There are big changes afoot, as evidenced by the diminishing circulation of printed newspapers, the fortunes of commercial TV stations and the move from print media to online.

People are no longer willing to be fed information and have message pushed at them.

The day of attracting people with good content is upon us. Those who seize the day now are likely to have a sustainable advantage in their marketplace, just like those who had a website in the early 1990s.

For push-adverse buyers, sellers have to adopt a passive method of enticement. One way is to make better use of Lead Magnets on your website and blog, though they have yet to gain their rightful place in the marketing mix. Make sure you use them to continue the conversation.

Bottom line
Buyers are more powerful now and this will continue for some time to come. If you want your marketing to be effective, take the time to understand what social media offers. Used in conjunction with traditional marketing, it will catapult your firm to market-leader in your field.

Please, leave a comment! We love to hear your thoughts: how do you feel about Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and your business? What is your experience with this subject? Have any tips to make sure we use social media more effectively? Please share your insights.

P.S. - Visit My.ComMetrics (register yourself – benchmark your blog(s) => improve performance). You can get updates for this blog on Twitter by following @ComMetrics or get a free subscription by RSS, or get new posts via email:

Article source: ComMetrics –  Social media: What is so special? ]]> http://commetrics.com/articles/tips-for-doing-it-smarter/feed/ 17 http://commetrics.com/articles/getting-real-value/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=getting-real-value http://commetrics.com/articles/getting-real-value/#comments Wed, 20 Jan 2010 04:00:02 +0000 Urs E. Gattiker http://commetrics.com/?p=6375

Update 2010-01-20: This morning (lunch time GMT) the Twitter whale is showing again. How reliable a technology is and how this affects our business is another issue we could have addressed here. But we did not.

In the meantime,  anyone curious about why their CEO fails with Twitter, or whether better (Twitter) micro-blogging might give your company a more personal voice and better client-engagement, this post is for you. This article will clarify where Twitter could fail you miserably and why social media experts may try to sell you snake-oil.

Context!?
Smaller companies like ours simply do not have the resources to be active everywhere. Nevertheless, so-called social media experts tell you that being active in at least 10 channels is a must. Get real!

The opportunity costs could simply be too high for you. For instance, instead of spending another two hours on Facebook, why not talk to one or two clients?

Lesson 1: Regardless of what ‘experts’ tell you, focus on a maximum of two channels (e.g., Naijapulse, Identi.ca, Twitter), drop the time-wasters and focus on doing a good job wherever your customers participate.

Doing a good job speaks louder than tweets
These days, an increasing number of self-styled experts want to teach you the indispensable tricks to Twitter success:

“In my opinion, Twitter is an indispensable tool, no matter what size of company you run (or work in).” – Susan Rice Lincoln

Lincoln (Europe’s self-proclaimed leading Social Media specialist) tells companies to:

- Find daily interesting information about what you do.
- Develop a list of jokes and tips to share on a daily basis.

So why doesn’t she take her own advice? It’s been 61 days since her last tweet on November 20 and dry spells of 30 days or more seemed to be a common occurrence in 2009. Usually, there is a spurt of tweets just before she holds a webinar or a workshop and not much after.

Lesson 2: Don’t just believe what others says will succeed, find out for yourself. One tweet each workday about something and at a time that your clients find valuable is a smart way to build a network of weak ties on Twitter.

Relationships are reserved for family and friends – others need not apply
Everybody insists that Twitter is great for relationships, but not really for most people in Europe.

“The only way for a company to earn attention and loyalty is to develop an authentic and relevant relationship.”
“Trust is the life-force of successful relationship marketing, and trust is developed and strengthened through relevant communications through relevant channels at relevant times.” ((White Paper: Relationship marketing 3.0, p. 2))

The above gave me pause.

As @richmeyer points out in one of his tweets (see right) – most of us don’t want a relationship with Nespresso, except maybe George Clooney. We are satisfied with good value, and fast and courteous service.

Most important, I need to be able to trust the claims made by a brand in its advertising, product catalog or on its webpage (e.g., money back guarantee).

Lesson 3: Answer this key question - why be on Twitter? To find information that helps your clients solve their problems quicker or helps you work smarter.

The follow/unfollow syndrome
I recently came across the Sergio Rossi shoe brand and got curious and was amused by the tweet that my monitoring tool picked up, stating that the brand was enjoying positive feedback (see image at right).

So, I visited the site that gave Sergio Rossi a positive review and left a comment:

Dear Administrator,
I am wondering how you addressed the disclosure issue when doing this product review as required by the FTC? See here: http://commetrics.com/articles/sheer-transparency/
Did you get samples from Rossi? Did you take these pictures or images yourself or receive them from Rossi to be used?
Can you clarify this please?
Thank you.
Cordially
Urs @ComMetrics

Here is what happened:
a) The comment never make it onto the website – not good, and
b) Rossi followed our Twitter account @ComMetrics for two days and then dropped us again, because we did not follow back.

Trash the idea that because you follow me, I need to follow back. Following back is earned. As customers we want to follow suppliers’ or brands’ tweets only if we find they add value.

Lesson 4: Using Twitter is not about blatantly selling, but about building a social network of weak ties. @SergioRossi sure failed that test.

More resources about Twitter, metrics and benchmarking – what is it worth to you?

ComMetrics - Social media: Metrics to know and metrics to skip FAQ #1
ComMetrics – Social media: Metrics to know and metrics to skip FAQ #2
ComMetrics – Three metrics: Influence, impact and outcome
ComMetrics – 6 steps to get started in measurement of social media activities
Daily Telegraph – Man arrested under Terrorism Act for Doncaster airport Twitter joke
ComMetrics - Best 100 Twitter tools.

Bottom line
You can say one thing and do the other when you use Twitter, but in the digital world, nothing is forgotten. As a business person, you need to figure out your company or product’s best social media channel for yourself. Before you start micro-blogging or a Facebook fan page, you seriously need to examine the purpose of the exercise before you adopt a new technology as part of your goal-driven business.

Take-aways
I have been micro-blogging since late 2007 – a bit earlier than some people, definitely later than the geeks. As CEO of a small company, I have developed the following four insights:

1. Twitter is not scalable, so following 150 people is my limit: If a person averages three tweets a day, I need to scan 450 tweets or ignore most of them. But if I do that, am I not misleading those I claim to follow?

You might say, “I use TweetDeck and I screen and search for the best tweets using hashtags.” Good for you, but can you afford the time it takes to search through 8,000 tweets each day? “Yes,” you say. “When I ride an hour into the City every morning and back every evening… plenty of time to check and tweet.”

Is spending two hours on Twitter everyday the best use of your time? (See also saving time on Twitter.) Maybe it would be smarter to talk to a fellow commuter, nap, read important papers or a great novel…

2. Serious conversations happen elsewhere: If somebody wants to chat with me they may send me a direct message, but experience has taught me to move it to email, the phone or a face-to-face meeting to get to the heart of the matter faster.

3. Forget the sales game: No, we don’t sell things or promote a TV show. We sell software as a web-based service, as well as advisory work and coaching.

Our clients are mostly businesses, industrial buyers and professional bloggers. Our best-case scenario is what happened one afternoon last week, when a Twitter follower called me from another country. The conversation went something like this:

“Urs, I follow you on Twitter.” …3 minutes later… “I have a client… and I thought about you.“

The rest is history and yes, my bottom line is making me smile. Twitter has gotten us business directly twice so far and people talk to me at conferences about my tweets, resulting in business relationships.

Stop worrying about the number of followers versus RTs and such. Instead, find one customer who finds your tweets valuable and build your list of followers from there… Kimberly Castleberry suggests you use vanity metrics for your Twitter account – please don’t!

4. Twitter can be useful if you have a purpose and stick to it: Having said all the above, I would not want to miss Twitter. The 75 smart people I follow provide me with know-how that I might otherwise not come across.  Most follow back. In turn, they benefit from my quality tweets that help them benchmark smarter to perform better.

As my esteemed colleague Paul W. Reidl put it:

“For those of us who are old enough to remember client development before Al Gore invented the internet, I think that potential clients today have much, much more information available to them about potential counsel. That’s why having a positive social media presence is so important.” - @TMguy

For me, that means Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Xing – for you it may be different. Just remember, unless your client or business partner believes you provide value and follows or connects, why bother?

Please, leave a comment! We love to hear your thoughts: how do you feel about Twitter and your business? What is your experience with this subject? Have any tips to make sure we use Twitter more effectively? Please share your insights.

P.S. - Visit My.ComMetrics (register yourself – benchmark your blog(s) => improve performance). You can get updates for this blog on Twitter by following @ComMetrics or get a free subscription by RSS, or get new posts via email:

Article source: ComMetrics –  4 ways to Twitter success

Update 2009-01-27: Apple accounted for 2% of the 1.1bn mobile phone units sold globally during 2009.
Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad – a touch-screen tablet computer… stating that it would fill the gap between smartphones and laptop computers. The iPad weighs 0.7kg, has 9.7 inches display and boasts 10 hours of battery life.
Apple’s total revenues from mobile gear – including its iPod and iPhone lines – now exceeds that of Nokia… Jobs said “We’re a mobile company. That’s what we do.”

The technology consumers love most has been pared down: bells and whistles are out and simplicity rules. For instance, people love Apple’s iPhone and iPod more for their sleek design, than their full range of features. Search giant Google has stuck to a mostly white page with a single search box since its start.

Apple and Google have become dominant forces in their respective market niches. What this means for consumers, manufacturers and regulators is discussed below.

Apple strategy: Tightly controlled devices with fully integrated hardware and software
Apple has focused on offering users a device with closely controlled software and hardware integration that is relatively expensive device. That integration helps improve user experience and Apple’s revenue stream.

Microsoft tried to get a computer on every desk during the 1970s and 1980s in order to charge for software. Apple lost to Microsoft by the 1980s because it continued to offer computers that ran mostly Apple software. Microsoft entrenched itself by getting others to use the Windows platform.

Apple has changed its strategy ever so slightly these days, so as not to repeat past mistakes. For instance, Apple is trying to get part of operators’ revenue from iPhone users by insisting on an iPhone revenue sharing deal with telecoms.

Contrary to the 1980s, Apple now allows outsiders to develop applications that will run on its iPhone. Of course, these have to be approved by Apple before being distributed. This results in:

a) a better user experience through more choice in iPhone applications, and
b) the application developer and Apple share in revenues generated by downloads.

Lesson 1: Apple protects its competitive advantage by keeping the core technology a closed system. Access is opened at the fringes to improve user experience, and the revenue streams are shared with Apple, better protecting against competitors.

Google strategy: Commodify hardware by achieving a platform monopoly
Google’s strategy differs markedly from Apple. For instance, the Nexus One phone uses the open Android operating system, which is bundled with other free Google software.

An important new market for Google’s Android is the smartbook, which is a marriage of smartphones and netbooks that has numerous advantages over a netbook. Examples include all-day battery life, constant internet connectivity through 3G (not WiFi), plus lower costs that encourage operators to offer free equipment to subscribers.

Microsoft seems unsure of the economics of developing and offering a cheaper version of Windows for smartbooks.

Meanwhile, manufacturers of smartbooks are turning to free open-source operating systems. Right now, Google’s Android has the most ’sex appeal’ with US retailers.

Here’s why Google says only some of its software is open source:

“While we are committed to opening the code for our developer tools, not all Google products are open source.
Our goal is to keep the Internet open, which promotes choice and competition and keeps users and developers from getting locked in. In many cases, most notably our search and ads products, opening up the code would not contribute to these goals and would actually hurt users. The search and advertising markets are already highly competitive with very low switching costs, so users and advertisers already have plenty of choice and are not locked in.
Not to mention the fact that opening up these systems would allow people to ‘game’ our algorithms to manipulate search and ads quality rankings, reducing our quality for everyone.”
Jonathan Rosenberg, Google – The meaning of open

Mr. Rosenberg claims that giving away Google’s proprietary search code would not advance openness and “would actually hurt users”. Do we believe this? NOT SO MUCH.

Accordingly, Google protects its competitive advantage by keeping its search and advertising technology a closed system. However, keeping non-core technology like Android open assures wider use (or market diffusion) by getting manufacturers to incorporate it in new hardware.

Lesson 2: Google’s search advertising technology – its money spinner – is as closely guarded as the recipe for Coca-Cola. Making Android a success by keeping it open will support Google’s continuing efforts to achieve market dominance (see image at right) and serving more ads to Internet surfing smartphone and smartbook users.

More resources about Google, Apple and open systems

ComMetrics - 2010 trends: Data and mobile communication
Larry Dignan – ZDNet - Google delivers open system treatise: Do you buy it?
ComMetrics – Cloud computing – your data right? NOT

Bottom line
Both Google and Apple try to keep their core technologies close to the chest to avoid losing market share, and play important roles in the marketplace:

- Google being number one in internet advertising - using ‘free’ software (e.g., Google Chrome), applications (e.g., Gmail, GoogleTalk), operating systems (e.g., Android), and so forth, making sure it remains the search leader regardless of how you surf (e.g., home, car or plane). In turn, it continues to be able to serve more ads to Internet users than anybody else in most countries. One exception is China. As the above graphic shows, Google’s share of online revenue in mainland China is about 35 percent (Sources: Google, Analysis: CNCC, FT).

- Apple continues as a major player in providing hardware (e.g., smartbook), digital content and applications we crave serving its user base through its proprietary platform.

Take-aways: 3 ways to protect your competitive advantage smartly

1. Simplicity – subtract the obvious and add the meaningful – Google and Apple may use different strategies to grow their revenue stream, but ultimately they offer Keep it Simple, Stupid (KISS) technology and applications that make people love their products.
2. Don’t incur regulators’ wrath – two years ago the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) could not take privacy issues into account when deciding whether or not to block Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick, since its merger authority extended only to competition issues.
It is obvious that the FTC will have to study the risk that less competition would damage ‘non-price’ factors such as privacy, before clearing the AdMob (mobile advertising group) acquisition by Google.
If the FTC fails, it may once again be left to the European Commission to check into such issues as inadequate notice or opportunity to opt out of data collection and targeting children 13 and over.
3. There is no free lunch – Apple has chosen the high price road by cleverly managing its ecosystem to ensure it gets more revenue. But even free applications offered by Google come at a price, such as behavioral advertising and users’ privacy.

Please, leave a comment! We love to hear your thoughts: how do you feel about Google and Apple becoming ever more dominant in their markets? What is your experience with this subject? Have any tips for our regulators to make sure we stay out of trouble? Is another company improving customer choice?
Please share your insights.

P.S. - Visit My.ComMetrics.com (register yourself – benchmark your blogs => improve performance)
You can get updates for this blog on Twitter by following @ComMetrics or get a free subscription by RSS, or get new posts via email:

Last week we posted Social media marketing: Can I trust you?, about trust in marketing. This week’s post focuses on business ethics, disclosure, social media marketing and the LeWeb conference (see Twitter hashtag #LeWeb). LeWeb touts itself as one of the more important conferences in Europe. It claims to bring together those who believe they know what the future holds in social media marketing, web analytics and whatever other buzzwords are current.

‘Official’ LeWeb bloggers
Bloggers can apply for a free pass to attend the conference – a €1,500 value. According to Stephanie Booth, ‘blogger programme curator’, the criteria used for selection are:

“- their geographical and linguistic location (ever thought of language as an online ‘place’?)

- their readership and influence – their motivation and the value they offer the conference by their presence – when they made their request (yes, there is an element of ‘first come, first served’ in the selection).

Selected bloggers will be asked to display a badge on their blog up to the conference date and blog about it at least once before mid-November. They will be listed in an official blogroll on the conference site and will be given a ‘blogger accreditation’ to attend the conference and cover it.”

At first glance, the above rules appear specific, but on closer inspection, they are actually rather vague.

- Does readership mean absolute number or type of readers? – Does having teen-aged readers matter more than retirees? – How is their ‘motivation’ criterion measured as applies to ‘value’?

Finally, how each criterion was weighted and used in making the final selection remains a mystery.

Disclosure: Like other unselected bloggers, I was offered attendance for €600, instead of €1,500.

LeWeb selection and FTC guidelines
In order to make blog sponsorship and endorsement more transparent, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) adopted a guide on December 1, 2009 just prior to LeWeb ‘09 Paris (December 8-9). What is of particular interest for bloggers are statements such as:

“If that blogger frequently receives products from manufacturers because he or she is known to have wide readership within a particular demographic group that is the manufacturers’ target market, the blogger’s statements are likely to be deemed to be ‘endorsements’, as are postings by participants in network marketing programs.” (page 10)

Because one criteria used for selecting LeWeb bloggers is readership and influence, this falls under endorsements, according to the FTC. Accordingly, best practice for attending bloggers is to disclose freebies whenever blogging about LeWeb:

“I was lucky enough to apply for and get the official blogger pass (thanks for organizing Stephanie!) and tried to keep up my duties by live-tweeting and summarizing as much as I could on my blog.”

Public relations expert and CEO Marcel Bernet neglected to reveal this, though he dutifully posted two stories as required for LeWeb ‘09 Official Bloggers, keeping his chances open for re-selection in 2010:

LeWeb Rückblick: Voller, schneller, kurzatmiger LeWeb: CNN schreibt Steno

For US LeWeb ‘09 Official Bloggers, compliance with FTC guidelines requires that this ‘endorsement’ be disclosed when blogging about the conference. For instance, Irene Koehler remembered to add a kind of disclosure to LeWeb bingo. Watch and play along!, but neglected to do so in another blog post. If the shoe fits Why should the whole disclosure issue matter? It is difficult to manage justly and ethically, since nobody expects or requires a TV or print journalist to disclose a free conference attendance. So why is it required from bloggers? Plus, a journalist is not required to publish two articles about a conference and post its logo on the newspaper’s website to get a free pass. Some bloggers discharged their ‘duty’ by writing posts of limited depth and quality. Of course, not everybody gives free conference attendance to the press. Choices must be made. Andrea Varscellari demanded free registration, but also wanted the organizers to pay his travel expenses plus a fee for podcast interviews of presenters and blogging about the event. Although this is unheard of for journalists, bloggers are generally self-employed, not paid by a publisher or network to cover such events. Christian Leu found a different solution to this issue. After being informed of his selection, he found a sponsor to defer his travel expenses (Reisesponsoren an die #LeWeb gesucht). More resources about LeWeb ‘endorsements’, disclosure, ethics and trust

LeWeb – videos – view as much as you like Ewan Spence - Thoughts on Le Web 2009 things that need changing ComMetrics - Bottomless goody bag: Fair product reviews

Bottom line Being ethical comes at a price; it requires following best practice, striving for quality and adhering to full disclosure, while complying with applicable legislation. Choosing a blogger is not necessarily about being ethical or producing quality content. From a business point of view, reader numbers, influence, and visibility are vain metrics. They make you feel great, but we focus on actionable metrics instead, such as how many customers read our blog, how many new leads the blog generates and what percentage of this ultimately yields profits.

Even a thousand readers might be enough, as long as they are the right ones. But in most cases, including the LeWeb Blogger program, vanity metrics rule and are used to determine what blogger warrants which freebie. This is the same conference that tries to convince start-ups to participate in its start-up venue for a whopping €1,500 (vanity metrics – unless the start-up gets what it came for – funding). This case illustrates that submitting to the conditions as stipulated by LeWeb may affect the blogger’s brand and personal reputation. Of course, the price of ethics is not to submit to the stipulated conditions, or at least disclose them. Your readers’ trust in you as a blogger requires no less.

Most people are trustworthy, but maybe my grandmother was right: the key to following your moral compass in business is to respect, but also suspect. Take-aways There are some crucial things to remember when considering business ethics, disclosure, transparency and ‘endorsement’ issues in social media (e.g., blogging, podcasting).

1. Disclosure and transparency for bloggers: Regardless of whether you should accept a freebie you might keep afterwards or not, treat your readership with respect and let them know that you got to attend LeWeb for free. No harm done and besides, compliance requires it of US bloggers.

2. Better governance and best practice require disclosure for advertisers and sponsors: If you find a blogger important enough to justify providing them a sample or freebie, treat them like any journalist (hint, don’t demand things you would never dare to from another journalist) and make sure they disclose this ‘endorsement’ somehow.

Please, leave a comment! We love to hear your thoughts: how do you feel about getting freebies as a blogger and public disclosure. What is your experience with this subject. Tips to stay out of trouble? Here is a chance for anyone with first-hand knowledge (this means you!) to share your insights. P.S. – You can get updates on this blog in Twitter by following @ComMetrics. You can also get a free subscription by RSS, visit My.ComMetrics.com (register yourself for benchmarking your blogs) or get new posts via email:

Some believe today’s students are savvy social media users who are more trusting of organizations than older users and don’t care for ambiguity. If that’s true, Dan Zarrella’s The Social Media Marketing Book (233 pages) is the perfect gift for the uninitiated trying to make sense out of all the social media options.

Yes, we got a free preview copy, including the press material from publisher O’Reilly. Below we discuss issues of personal brand versus reputation and how they relate to personal branding and building trust, as well as Zarrella’s book.

1. It’s all about make-believe
The press material for Zarrella’s book came with several quotes.

Mr. Kawasaki’s quote insinuates that spending US$ 27 (includes shipping and sales tax) and about three hours reading the book will save me 167 hours of hard labor (if one were to work about 170 hours each month), what we consider a super Return on Investment (ROI).

As any business owner knows, the key question for using social media is what purpose it will serve, so the book should help a manager answer the following questions:

a) What is our social media mission, in what context (e.g., consumer goods vs. manufacturing, large vs. small company)?
b) Which customer(s) could be better served with social media (e.g., are 30 percent or more using it; how)?
c) What does the customer value that we could better provide with the help of social media?
d) What results do we expect from this exercise (i.e. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and SMART objectives)?
e) What is our plan and how can social media help us fulfill it faster?

Spending 170 hours will certainly help accurately answer these questions as far as your business is concerned. This book is a good start. Nevertheless, after spending three hours reading it, I am not convinced it will offset 170 hours of serious research.

Lesson 1: Sometimes things are less about what they are and more about making others believe. The reality check comes after purchase, when you realize that what you bought is not what others made you believe you would get.

2. Keep it simple, Stupid! (KISS), or ‘Where’s the beef?’
Highly respected social media guru Chris Brogan’s comment confused me as well (see right): was it based on Chris’ personal acquaintance with both Dan Zarella and Brad Pitt? Even assuming the quote is true, how relevant is it to the book’s content?

Brian Solis certainly has it right: there are endless options to choose from when it comes to using social media.

Nevertheless, we know that neither Twitter nor Facebook are scalable. Hence, the real clincher for an individual or a small business is to decide which channel to use for the biggest bang for your buck. As Solis puts it, counting down the options without providing much more additional insight does not mean anything quod erat demonstrandum (which is to be demonstrated).

Lesson 2: Social media evangelists or power-users increasingly act as shepherds on the web. In turn, it is hoped that their quotes or first product reviews will get the masses to adopt a product or service. But just because they influence mob-opinion does not make them a trusted brand.

More resources about social media marketing, personal brand and ethics:

Financial Times - Corporate philanthropy inspires trust
Shane Mac says, “Personal brand or personal B.S.?”
Financial Times - When banks abuse customers’ trust

Bottom line
The publicity material we received from O’Reilly starts with:

“Are you looking to take advantage of social media for your business or organization?… Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, this book will help you choose the best – and avoid the worst – of the social web’s unique marketing opportunities.”

This is my response regarding Dan Zarrella’s book and yes, I am aware that nothing I wrote here will be forgotten in the digital age:

Dan Zarella’s book provides the uninitiated with a helpful and quick introduction to the opportunities offered by social media, IF you see things from a US perspective.

As a business person, the book does not tell me how to choose the best social media channel for my products and services. Nor does the author address the five questions listed above that need to be answered before I adopt a new technology as part of my goal-driven business.

Press material received from O’Reilly (2-page download) – you be the judge.

Take-aways
There are some crucial things to remember about social media, quality and personal brands.

1. Reputation is more important than personal brand: Trial lawyers know how important appearances are. Brand is what we want people to believe (i.e. appearances), while reputation is how others see you and your actions over time. To maintain a quality reputation (e.g., Roger Federer) versus representing damaged goods (e.g., Tiger Woods), consumers and industrial buyers want to be sure that your quotes, product reviews and endorsements can be trusted (e.g., if you say it is super-duper, will it be after I have acquired it?).
2. Personal reputation must be protected to hold up over time: In the long run, what matters is what you do while representing your brand. Thanks to digital storage, less is forgotten everyday and past remarks and actions remain part of our future reputation. Whether the final reputational picture put together from digital storage instills trust or shows shallowness is every personal brand advocate’s challenge.

Please, leave a comment! We love to hear your thoughts: how do you feel about these issues regarding personal branding, social media and trust? Here is a chance for anyone with first-hand knowledge (this means you!) to please share your insights.

P.S. – You can get updates on this blog in Twitter by following @ComMetrics. You can also get a free subscription by RSS or:

A week ago we brought you three reasons why A/B testing fails in web design, including but not limited to:

1. The 30 percent rule.
2. Designers do not automatically know what clients crave.
3. The US is not the world – LOL (laughing out loud).

Below we share how this was applied to one of our own websites and outline the lessons we came away with from this exercise. To give you the biggest benefit, please download the 8-page document:

Download – ComMetrics screenshots – annotations about how the design changed through A/B testing

Step 1: Yes, creating a mock-up helps
As shown in the above document, we made a mock-up based on what we knew about usability design, our server-side statistics, guideline reviews and input by other experts, in the hopes that it would suit our clients.

It was then submitted to some reviewers and was tweaked after we looked through some sites we thought did a great job. Of course, the question was whether our clients would like it.

Lesson 1: Selling legal services in Brazil is not the same as in Canada, and building a website for books in Germany or designer coffee in Sweden are completely different ballgames. The reality check is what your customers need and prefer. If your mock-up design does not reflect this, you are off to a bad start.

Step 2: Choosing the designer(s) is the easy part
We wanted a team that successfully uses social media and networks for their own purposes, while going beyond the usual fare.

Most designers have a preference and tend to repeat themselves over and over with each new contract – so the real clincher is whether you can get them to think outside the box.

Lesson 2: You must be able to convince the designer(s) that meeting your clients’ usability needs is what matters, not their preferences for certain approaches.

Step 3: User feedback is key
We started with two choices and did an A/B test by showing users two designs and asking them their preference. We took their responses regarding choices 1 and 2, as well as some additional comments to create another design (see page 4 in the above document).

Lesson 3: Convincing designers that things may be quite the opposite of their own preferences is tricky. However, smart designers will always consider client preferences (meaning your customers’ usability needs) a valid reason to change things.

Step 4: Keep some testers from beginning to end
We also added new testers in every new review cycle while keeping some for the duration of our improvement process.

For instance, over 60 percent of the ‘old hands’ liked what they got with our design on page 4, while others, along with some first-time reviewers, asked for some changes. Both groups wanted us to use darker graphics and visuals, as presented in the design on page 3, and our design on page 6 reflects that. Some testers felt this small change would make it much easier to read and comprehend the message we intended to convey.

Lesson 4: Testers have different talents. Some can tell you quite succinctly what does not suit them on a design, while others have ideas to fix a particular challenge. Both need to be part of your group of testers. No doubt, customers serving as testers can be an invaluable source of insight.

Step 5: One little tweak can make a huge difference
To illustrate, we redeveloped our sign-up button (see top right). While some clients felt this improved things, a clear connection to the My.ComMetrics.com tools was now missing, so we added some text (see right) and made sure that My.ComMetrics.com uses the same font-color as the headline (see below ComMetrics).

We used a bar-graph as the logo because it conveys numbers and data to most business people (think spreadsheet, as two testers put it). The words in the byline also have meaning for our clientele, especially tools and benchmarking.

Lesson 5: Listen to your customers! If more than 30 percent believe a change might help, seriously consider it. Focusing on the critical changes while sticking to the KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) principle helps improve usability.

More resources about A/B testing, usability and more

ComMetrics - Häagen Dazs or Magnum ice cream – methodology, artifacts and bias
Andrew Chen - Product design debt versus technical debt – why your blog becomes a Las Vegas experience.
US government – The DIY guide to web usability testing

Bottom line
We all crave conversion, but it is often more than getting a client to purchase your corporate strategy or landing a new contract for whatever product or service you sell.

A site needs to give people the information required to get their problems solved while keeping them engaged. This helps encourage them to continue through the marketing funnel (e.g., go from our blog to signing up and using our product and eventually upgrading from freemium to premium).

Take-aways
There are some crucial things to remember about designing a website or a product (e.g., household goods).

1. The in-law acid test: One of our customers told us that everybody needs to use an older (e.g., age 70) web surfer to test a design. If navigation and usability is such that they can easily find what they came for and complete the process you want them to, your design has successfully cleared a big usability hurdle.
2. Be thankful that your designer and clients threw out your original design suggestion: Yes, crowdsourcing CAN work for this clearly defined problem. If your clients are motivated to help, you can end up with something that much better. If you end up with the original design smiling back at you, something went wrong. Guaranteed.
3. Worry if it looks like Las Vegas: Show me a site with great visual appeal and I am pretty sure it was created without doing A/B tests, interviewing clients and usability testing with design review. Our users wanted a simple, relatively bland design. Accordingly, our desire to add color and visuals got thrown out early on the way to the final design. Sure, we have an international crowd of business folks, and you can relax because your music lovers are different. Or maybe NOT.

Please, leave a comment! We love to hear your thoughts: how have you improved how your webpage feels and looks. Here is a chance for anyone with first-hand knowledge (this means you!) to please share your insights.

P.S. – You can get updates on this blog in Twitter by following @ComMetrics. You can also get a free subscription by RSS or:

Every week we tweet about a lot of fascinating stuff, highlighting great content that is of interest to social media folks and corporate bloggers. This weekly compilation provides you with our top tweets for the previous seven days.

Our top stories include why A/B tests fail (go figure) and a Twitter tool that allows you to tweet while giving a PowerPoint presentation, why crowdsourcing may not bring us another BlackBerry, but can help further improve a product, more about how social media (SM) can affect a company’s bottom-line, why you should join us on Facebook – AGAIN, and  how the Taliban use inexpensive software to view video feeds from US drones, an invitation to the Social Media Monitoring group on Xing (if you want to know what Europeans are up to regarding web or social media analytics, you’d better join). Plus, check out some free Twitter tools, and more to better manage your brand on social networks.

In case you missed the last three weeks’ best links:

ComMetrics weekly review: ROI to porn via Facebook for week 48.
ComMetrics weekly review: HotWired to Ford via ROI for week 49.
ComMetrics weekly review: iPhone to EFF via World Bank for week 50.

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up with your email right now to get it first:

If you are a #Xing (Europe’s LinkedIn) member: Recently, we launched the Social Media Monitoring group. Your personal invitation is here (insights, heated discussions, latest measurement trends – if you must know then you have to join.)

Also, if you are on Facebook, please join:

- Facebook – Europe – Social Media Metrics group – join only if you need to decide what is the BEST method, technique, for SM measurement in your job.
- Facebook: ComMetrics product – join now and become a fan.
- Facebook blog by ComMetrics – view it here.

FREE tools, code for Twitter, blogs and Facebook: Tips and tricks
Faster applications: Google introduces Speed Tracer for developers – extension for Google Chrome via @latenitecoder

OLD #webanalytics = data from tool installed on ‘own’ server BUT #SMM (social media marketing) #metrics moving toward measuring distribution and #impact of content.

Find out who tweeted your story – and learn how to interpret it all. Thanks @webmetricsguru #metrics #SMM

SAP Twitter tool – embed tweets into your next presentation – watch the video – it’s easy! #SMM #metrics #pr

White papers – trendwatch
RT @Whitepapers IBM research: How firms use #webanalytics and optimization to “break away” from the pack #metrics #SMM

RT @WhitePapers #Research: How diverse is a US #Facebook user group? Survey says… #webanalytics #metrics #minorities

RT @whitepapers If you can spare the time: Seth Godin edited an 82-page eBook with page-long contributions from each author – over-hyped but easy read when commuting to work – not earth-shattering. #webanalytics #SMM #metrics

1. #trendwatch: Twitter 2009 Word of the Year – tracking words/phrases – do we trust findings? #metrics
2. #trendwatch: New Oxford American Dictionary – 2009 word the year = #unfriend – #Facebook #metrics
3. #trendwatch: “unfriend” has an ancient past long before #Facebook… Thomas Fuller wrote about it in 1659! #SMM #metrics

Benchmark Social Media – best practice
MUST READ: What Google’s real-time search means for brands. Blog post by @pamdyer #metrics #SMM #pr

A/B testing works best for projects with an all-important KPI but fails with more complex situations. #analytics #metrics #SMM

RE @MyComMetrics: What can I say, @CatsEyeWriter your comment on the latest post to my blog made my day…

#webanalytics > more than 40 percent of EU users give up after looking at the first 10 search results => 70 percent give up checking after first 20 search results – better make sure your company is part of the first 10! via @Yago1 #metrics

MUST READ @MktgROIorDIE: How To Test Landing Pages: What the doctor ordered #metrics #SMM #abtests

#things2read – Why A/B testing fails

Must read => The reality of social media – also great comments #ROI #metrics #SMM #webanalytics

B2B – Luxury labels
Social media: Be brave enough for a 1:1 relationship with your clients, BUT check your #strategy #metrics #KPI

#collaborate: I agree, the line between primary and derivative innovation is not always clear.

Primary research is what leads to primary innovation and is based on work that evolves from the testing of theoretical relationships. Hence, the invention of plastic was a primary innovation, while its use in cars or households led to derivative innovations.

Primary innovations will eventually ‘trickle down’ to reach applied research, which is responsible for the creation of derivative innovations – everything from plastic mop handles to microcomputers and iPhone cover options.

I tried to visualize this in my 1990 book, Technology Management in Organizations with the cube on the right, but I am still struggling with the concept myself => read more comments about crowdsourcing and innovation.

RT @michaelnotte Really cool visualization of #browser #marketshare over time – check this out! #metrics

Social Media – information security, privacy
RT @InfoSec 1. Take $26… 2. Get software… 3. Hack US drones… 4. Intercept live video feeds. Pentagon confirms… oops! #security

Cases – failures – how NOT to do it – Social Media 101
MUST VIEW: Toyota got forced to pull this stupid TV ad – sexist innuendos backfire! #SMM via @GaryPHayes

#MeToo product: #Google URL shortener works with its applications + toolbar only – needed? #metrics #SMM

What did we miss this week? Please add your tweet about what we missed in a comment below. Thank you.
Interested? You should follow us on Twitter.

2009-12-24 – more about A/B testing and measurement: Using great visuals = Failing your customers

How do you know when you have a good website design. Is it what you believe is good design or is it based on your customers’ needs.  In case it is the latter, did you use A/B testing or ask your clients for feedback to make sure?

An A/B test shows two versions of a web page that get compared, with version A usually being the existing (control) page and version B being the alternative.

The page that wins based on responses by viewers will be the control page in a follow-up test against yet another alternative.

Here we share some tips and tricks for A/B testing and how you can more effectively leverage this approach for your own needs. Also, keep an eye out for next week’s post, about a case study for applying the concepts below.

1. A/B testing does not guarantee the best solution for design and copy

A/B tests can tell you how the bounce rate of those shown design A compares to design B (i.e. the bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who left your website after having looked at the landing page – 100% bounce rate means someone looked at the first page only and then left your site). The page with the lower bounce rate is then the control page in the follow-up A/B test.

A/B testing works best for projects with an all-important KPI (Key Performance Indicator) that can be measured by counting simple user actions. Examples include registering for a product or making a purchase on an e-commerce site. Unfortunately, things are rarely that simple.

Fallacy: Believing that A/B testing alone will assure that you end up with the best design. In fact, one may just end up with the less-bad one, instead.

2. Permission-based exit surveys suffer from bias
A/B tests often do not give a complete picture. More information can be gained by asking a few questions of groups that look at your design options.

For instance, one can use a permission-based exit survey. Pose three to five questions, such as:

- What did you like about this design (please explain?
- What did you not like about this design (please explain)?
- What made your navigating of the site more difficult (please explain)?

Fallacy: Believing that people who really know the answers will take the time to respond.

Unfortunately, this non-response bias may lower data validity and, therefore, causes one to make decisions that may be wrong in the long term.

3. Qualitative assessment = talk to clients about design
It seems obvious that, to address the weaknesses mentioned in points 1 and 2, one should speak with clients about the design.

For instance, does your headline tell the average non-geek what the site is really about or are you using too much jargon? An A/B test might suggest that design A is preferred, when in fact it is simply B’s confusing headline that causes people to reject it. If you fix the headline, design B might suddenly be preferred by most users.

If about 30 percent of the test group suggest a change that will improve usability for them, take this FREE advice seriously. It could be that another 20 percent of the sample mention this small change as having improved usability during the next round of tests, without being prompted.

Of course, this is an exercise in checks and balances. To illustrate, I tweeted about possible titles for this blog post (see image at right). Unfortunately, what I felt was a great headline for stirring interest and getting more traffic failed the acid test. I got several messages suggesting that the title may not be appreciated by vegetarians…

Fallacy: Believing that talking to customers or other knowledgeable resources takes less time and money than A/B testing. Interviewing people and evaluating notes/data carefully takes time. Sometimes reaching people by phone can be difficult, further extending the time period needed to move from draft to final design. Be patient!

More resources about A/B testing

Jason – Easy statistics for AdWords A/B testing, and hamsters. Note: the suggested Pearson’s chi-square works best for 2 x 2 tests. If you test three or more designs use log-linear analysis instead; an A/B test is not appropriate.
Rebekah Paul – How to test landing pages
Bobby Hewett – A/B and multivariate testing in plain English. Each test type depends on the needs of the business and the goals of the page…
US Federal Government – Usability gov – please don’t make me think
Deni Kasrel – The most overlooked step to website success
Cindy King - How to connect globally with social media. It is a start, but still amazingly narrow and bloggers make assumptions to explain differences.

Bottom line
A/B testing is important and works best for clearly defined problems and tasks. However, the Web 2.0 environment requires that such tests, which use simple metrics, be supplemented by qualitative data. The latter provides the all-important insight needed to adequately respond to clients’ usability issues.

Take-aways
There are some crucial things to remember when applying A/B testing in conjunction with qualitative assessment.

1. 30 percent rule. If that many interviewed clients or experts want something, do it. Every 30 percent you satisfy with a key element that is integrated into your design will increase relevant traffic – guaranteed.
2. Designers do not automatically know what clients crave. They have an agenda, if not a preference, but one needs to make sure that YOUR clients are happy with what the designer believes looks best.
3. The US is not the world – LOL (laughing out loud). We tend to forget that we need to provide good usability to people from vastly different backgrounds and cultures. Hence, make sure that your usability and/or A/B testing includes customers representing your key markets based on country, age group, education level, occupation and gender.

Please, leave a comment! We love to hear your thoughts: how do you use A/B testing, and when does it fail for you? Here is a chance for anyone with first-hand knowledge (this means you!) to share your insights.

Special thanks to Deni Kasrel, who got me to write this post.

P.S. – You can get updates on this blog through Twitter, by following @ComMetrics. You can also get a free subscription by RSS:

Every week we tweet about a lot of fascinating stuff, highlighting great content that is of interest to social media folks and corporate bloggers. This weekly compilation provides you with our top tweets for the previous seven days.

Our top stories include Facebook’s privacy policy changes and why EFF thinks it is not good enough for you, why successful crowdsourcing is unlikely, and why you should distrust all tools that claim they measure social media ROI. Plus, check out some free Twitter, Bit.ly and World Bank tools, and more to better manage your brand on social networks.

In case you missed the last three weeks’ best links:

ComMetrics weekly review: eBookers to Twitter via Google for week 47.
ComMetrics weekly review: ROI to porn via Facebook for week 48.
ComMetrics weekly review: HotWired to Ford via ROI for week 49

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up with your email right now to get it first:

If you are a #Xing (Europe’s LinkedIn) member: Recently, we launched the Social Media Monitoring group.Your personal invitation is here (insights, heated discussions, latest measurement trends – if you must know then you have to join).

Also, if you are on Facebook, please join:

- Facebook – Europe – Social Media Metrics group – join only if you need to decide what is the BEST method, technique, for SM (social media) measurement in your job.
- Facebook – ComMetrics – product – join now and become a fan.
- Facebook blog by ComMetrics – view it here.

FREE tools, code for Twitter, blogs and Facebook: Tips and tricks
#Tools VERY USEFUL – data visualization – World Bank #metrics

RT @DeeptiAtrish 20 Free Social Media Icon Sets For Bloggers | Freebies | instantShift

#Privacy add + sign after any Bit.ly URL – see person’s stats & more. Example: http://bit.ly/7SbQ4x+ #tools #metrics #SMM

Benchmark social media – best practice
#things2read – Budgeting for Social Media (SM): Cost-benefit analysis vs. ROI

@FalkEvent Liebe Anita Gratuliere zum Bergfalke.com Blog. Bin gespannt auf die weiteren Beitraege die da kommen werden #outdoor #wintersport #klettern

We’d like to ask all our followers to become our fans on Facebook. Apparently all the cool kids are doing it.

B2B – Luxury labels and manufacturing
VERY USEFUL 90 percent of US women use social networks: strong driver of purchase behavior #SMM #metrics #PR

1. Successful #crowdsourcing requires a specific call to action and, 2 understanding motivation of participants

2. Successful #crowdsourcing => investigating MPs expense claims in UK #crisis #metrics

#things2read – Crowd-wisdom fails businesses #innovation #SMM #brand #innovation

White papers – trendwatch
Asking (see graphic at right), did these choices lead to better customer engagement? What does the data tell you? That these guys feel it worked, but is this wishful thinking or based on hard facts? #metrics #SMM #pr

Better customer engagement – See more graphics from White Paper by DOWNLOADING from #Facebook and/or #Xing #metrics #SMM #pr

Social Media – information security, privacy
RT @InfoSec Facebook’s New Privacy Changes: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly | Electronic Frontier Foundation: #threats2watch

Cases – failures – how NOT to do it – Social Media 101
#iPhone not a #trademark in Switzerland – Apple has a 1:10 chance of winning an appeal before Switzerland’s highest court – we’ll know December 20 - download court’s decision in German as pdf #propertyrights

What did we miss this week? Please add your tweet about what we missed in a comment below. Thank you.
Interested? You should follow us on Twitter.

In his book The Wisdom of Crowds (2004), James Surowiecki popularized the notion that, under the right conditions, canvassing the aggregate opinions of many people could be more efficient than relying on the expertise of a few.

Jeff Howe applied this approach to decision-making using the buzzword ‘crowdsourcing’ in a Wired article in October 2006 (see video below).

Crowdsourcing assumes that customers know best what they want and need. Hence, more heads are better than one. We discuss why crowdsourcing may fail in a few important situations that concern social media.

Crowds innovate – NOT
For us at ComMetrics, innovation is a step-by-step process (idea to prototype) where each stage of development is combined with regular measurements of factors critical to achieving success. For example, time used and money spent leading to success in the market, as reflected by new subscribers and their feedback.

The ideas came from various places but then we went to the lab and built. Social networks came in when we had the prototype and wanted feedback.

Our approach is reflected by Dyer, Gregersen and Christensen’s The Innovator’s DNA (December 2009). Five ‘discovery skills’ separate true innovators from the rest of us (Harvard Business Review). The authors concluded that innovators apply these behaviors more skillfully than the rest of us.

Associating: The ability to connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems or ideas from different fields.
Questioning: Innovators constantly ask questions that challenge the common wisdom – why, why not and what if?
Observing: Discovery-driven executives scrutinize common phenomena, particularly the behavior of potential customers.
Experimenting: Innovative entrepreneurs actively try out new ideas by creating prototypes and launching pilots.
Networking: Innovators go out of their way to meet people with different ideas and perspectives.

It seems a bit naive to think that going to Dodger Stadium or the LA Coliseum in the hope that most people attending the game might be exhibiting the above behaviors, and therefore help us innovate faster…

Crowd-wisdom helps consumers – NOT necessarily
While crowds may not innovate, they still provide wisdom when it comes to product reviews. Superusers’ product reviews on Amazon or eBay influence many. One could ask how reliable these ratings and reviews are. A recent comment on a blog post addresses this in more detail:

Dear Bridget and Lin,
This is a really interesting post. Some would suggest that explaining why the current fashion was going to end in our financial disaster would have been dangerous, especially if it then turned out that the crowd was right.
=> Wall Street Blues: 4 lessons learned

A real concern is the wisdom of crowds who are herded by power-users writing the first review for a product. Any attempt to turn mob opinion into a test for truth is pernicious.

The notion that a book might be a must-read because it is highly ranked by many on Amazon does not make it Nobel prize material. The earth did not stand still just because Galileo fell out of favor, nor has evolution been shown to be false due to the faith of believers.

Hence, product reviews driven by superusers and crowds who follow just means that the wisdom of crowds can only be conventional. Volume against quality.
=> SocioTwitting: Developing metrics for Twitter – volume vs. influence

Thanks for sharing this,
Urs – @ComMetrics

Thumbs Up or Down works but fails to explain why
Crowds do not drive and bring innovation to successful fruition in the form of a marketable product. Nor are they the best source for assessing quality – the one that shouts the loudest is heard the most.

Nevertheless, crowds can tell you if they like or dislike something.  For instance, Bonobos found that they can come up with a name and choose the one they like the most. Bonobos emailed customers and asked them to name a new pair of trousers – the winner was the Dark and Stormys brand.

“We’ve got all these bright guys sitting at their desks, procrastinating during working hours by looking at our website, so we figured, why not harness that creative power?” says Mr Dunn. FT: The internet trouser seller who made great strides

But using crowds for things like A/B tests (i.e. comparing several groups’ reactions – including a control group – to different versions of a webpage to improve it) or getting the thumbs up or down sign risks two things:

a) crowds voting with their fingers still leave you with the question why, and
b) small changes (e.g., darker font for titles to make for easier reading when viewing a screen in a room with bright lighting) can result in product A being preferred over B again.

To minimize the chance of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it is best to talk to some clients to find out the why, as we had to learn the hard way when re-designing this blog.

More resources about crowdsourcing and innovation

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada – Idea to Innovation (I2I) Program
Jeffrey Phillips – Creativity versus innovation – no, innovation is not getting things to market; some are stillborn and discarded.
Samir Balwani – 5 Things I would tell a social media professor – hands-on course is needed. Maybe so…
Edward Boches – A crowdsourcing ad agency: can it work?
Philippe De Ridder – Crowdsourcing innovation in innovation crowdsourcing (meta-enough, yet?)
Schacon – Ushahidi: Crowdsourcing crisis info
My Starbucks idea – MSI Milestone – 50 Ideas Launched and Still Counting!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bottom line
Crowdsourcing depends on two things:

1. a very specific call to action, AND
2. the clear understanding of participants’ motivations.

These two conditions for successful crowdsourcing are illustrated with the UK Guardian’s call for readers’ help digging through MPs’ expense-documentation to identify individual claims and what merits further investigation. It specifies what members are asked to do and the motivation: to catch one’s local MP if they cheated taxpayers.

Take-aways
There are some crucial things to remember about innovation when crowdsourcing enters the pictures.

1. Real innovators do not swim with the school: Fashion changes may be a mystery, but forming an independent opinion and pursuing the idea is what characterizes successful innovators – not crowds.
2. Crowdsourcing may border on exploitation: Lowering a company’s overhead by using a web-based workforce with minimal rewards for non-winning participants (e.g., Jeremiah Owyang crowdsourcing his blog’s banner design means winner takes it all while Jeremiah pays for the one design he likes – exploitation).

Please, leave a comment! We love to hear your thoughts: how do you think crowdsourcing can work with Web 2.0 applications or social media monitoring? Here is a chance for anyone with first-hand knowledge (this means you!) to share your insights.

Every week we tweet about a lot of fascinating stuff, highlighting great content that is of interest to social media folks and corporate bloggers. This weekly compilation provides you with our top tweets for the previous 7 days.

Our top stories include the biggest tweetup ever – by Ford (go figure) and using banner ads since 1994 – HotWired, why cost-benefit analysis beats ROI hands-down when showing SM’s bottom-line effects, why you should join us on Facebook – AGAIN, and distrust all studies claiming Twitter will do wonders for your business, an invitation to the Social Media Monitoring group on Xing (if you want to know what Europeans are up to regarding web or social media analytics, you’d better join). Plus, check out some free Twitter tools, and more to better manage your brand on social networks.

In case you missed the last three weeks’ best links:

ComMetrics weekly review: Google to Barcamp Liechtenstein via Amazon for week 46.
ComMetrics weekly review: eBookers to Twitter via Google for week 47.
ComMetrics weekly review: ROI to porn via Facebook for week 48.

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up with your email right now to get it first:

If you are a #Xing (Europe’s LinkedIn) member: Recently, we launched the Social Media Monitoring group. Your personal invitation is here (If you’re not a member yet, please join NOW.)

Also, if you are on Facebook, please join:

- Facebook – Europe – Social Media Metrics group – contribute your insights.
- Facebook – ComMetrics – product – join now and become a fan.
- Facebook blog by ComMetrics – view it here.

B2B – Luxury labels and manufacturing
RT @UdiDelgoshen: #things2read - 4 rules for social media success: Luxury brands

FREE tools, code for Twitter, blogs and Facebook: Tips and tricks
Twitter #analytics – why both quantitative AND qualitative #metrics could still fail you

Benchmark social media – best practice
#things2read – Budgeting for Social Media (SM): Cost-benefit analysis vs. ROI

Smart #strategy with #KPI and #metrics: Learn to #measure, measure to learn #pr

RT @deborahdrake Best and worst SEO practices for designing high-traffic websites #metrics #tools2follow

White papers – trendwatch
#things2read – Of libraries, doctorates and Web 2.0 – how the British Library outsourced a study and the outsourcer failed research 101.

The first banner ads on the Web (1994) => history in the making – in the US, of course:

1. HotWired – the first commercial digital magazine on the web and the offshoot of Wired magazine.
2. AT&T, Volvo, MCI and Club Med

#trendwatch FT reports: US newspaper article notes that, on average, each is paper is published 4.4 times, either full or partial content, by unauthorized websites.

#trendwatch see graphic Google accounts for 53 percent of ad #revenue being run alongside unlicensed stories.

Social Media – information security, privacy
#threats2watch2009-12-08 – Final Patch for 2009 on Tuesday. Microsoft will release six security updates #things2patch

Cases – failures – how NOT to do it – Social Media 101
35 percent of firms claim improved customer engagement with Twitter in 2009 – how did they #measure? By surveying people about their activities on Twitter and asking them if it was a success: a sure way to bias the results.

#first2move Ford organizes the biggest tweetup ever => blog post by @PamDyer
BUT WHY would any smart consumer fall for this – except to party and have Ford pick up the tab? Free booze always gets some people’s attention.

What did we miss this week? Please add your tweet about what we missed in a comment below. Thank you.
Interested? You should follow us on Twitter.

One of my recent posts entitled Measuring ROI: Why it fails provoked the following comment from esteemed expert Olivier Blanchard:

Urs, I’m a little blown away by this post. If you had written it six months ago, I would understand the confusion. But we’re way past this. Incidentally, DELL has demonstrated that their social media activities did in fact generate millions in revenue. I don’t mean to be harsh, but just because YOU don’t understand how to do it doesn’t mean it can’t be done. I have been delivering ROI on projects and programs for 15 years, and Social Media is no different than any other type of medium or business activity. The fact that you don’t seem to understand the relationship between business activities (social or otherwise), deltas in revenue and profitability makes me wonder why you were invited to present on this topic to begin with. http://smroi.net Cheers.

Below we outline why we agree to disagree with Mr. Blanchard and how to leverage this insight to secure more funds for social media from your company’s budget committee.

What’s the deal?
First, check a dictionary or an accounting/financing text for definitions and uses of ROI:

Return on Investment (ROI) is a measure of a company’s profitability, equal to a fiscal year’s income divided by equity and long-term debt; and,
ROI measures how effectively an organization uses its resources to generate a financial profit.

Strategically speaking, if I want to get my social media (SM) budget approved next time around, I definitely need to present the facts in terms used, understood and accepted by those who make the decisions.

Social media: Scientific, consulting or business community?
According to Kuhn (1970), the term paradigm refers to the values, beliefs, and techniques shared by members of a scientific community.

Research indicates that in general, members of fields with higher levels of paradigm development such as physics, finance and psychology show attitudes and activities reflecting a great deal of consensus over theories, research goals, methodologies, and curricula.

The domain of SM suggests that paradigm development within the discipline is in its infancy. There is little consensus but much confusion and disagreement on methodologies.

For instance, work trying to assess cost-benefit issues regarding SM is struggling to find some common ground.

Disagree on ROI, but agree on the benefits of social media
Gattiker (1990, p. 258) suggests that paradigm development is an important ingredient for advancement in any discipline. Hence, in social media, agreement is required regarding:

1. How we measure benefits and costs; AND,
2. Which methodologies and standards should be applied to get the numbers.

Does using Twitter improve profits or sales? MAYBE
Tweeting a discount coupon to followers of one of Dell’s Twitter accounts might help get them to buy a bit quicker.

Unfortunately, tweets involving sweepstakes and discount codes can:

a) lower your margins,
b) encourage spamming by other Twitter users (see Continental, eBookers, etc.) and damage your brand’s reputation; and,
c) increase pressure to further lower prices (e.g., after decades, US car manufacturers have found it impossible to phase them out).

Does this represent higher sales? Maybe, BUT these people might have purchased a Dell product anyway.

Dell has not provided public or proprietary information to convince its finance committee and investors that tweeting increases profits.

So focus on moderators, such as how SM supports customer retention, support, and more, but stay away from ROI unless you don’t mind snickering while making your case to the budget committee.

More resources on paradigms, revolutions and measuring cost-benefits for SM:

Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd enlarged edition). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Gattiker, U. E. (1990). Technology management in organizations. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
ComMetrics – Unique visitors come in many guises
David Berkowitz – 100 possible ways to #measure ROI
ComMetrics - Social media is not scalable
Treepodia – Measuring Social #Media #ROI
Marketing ROI or DIE! – Tools to measure and impact social media ROI
Sara Meaney - Social Media Measurement ROI – presentation by Katie Payne at PRSA 2009 International Conference

Bottom line
We don’t ask for the ROI for our office furniture, BlackBerry, iPhone or air conditioning. Why? Because it makes no sense; the same goes for social media.

Beating one another over the head, belittling other experts or claiming that only we know what ROI really is does not seem very helpful either.

What is required is that we put social media activities into a cost-benefit framework with clear strategic objectives. By providing the necessary Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and baseline measures, we can convince the budget committee to fund such activities.

Others have shown the way. For instance, human resource departments put their activities into a cost-benefit framework. It helps illustrate how spending resources on such things as training or recruiting helps the company’s bottom line. Stakeholders are willing to support such initiatives because HR experts succinctly explain what costs and benefits will accrue if such an initiative is funded.

By New Year’s Eve we will once again have resolved to better measure our SM efforts in 2010. You could start now with these pointers.

Take-aways

1. Use language your finance people understand: Remember, your focus is to get resources for SM to achieve its strategic objectives as measured by KPIs – communicate with decision-makers.
2. Develop a cost-benefit framework for 2010 SM activities: Be they clicks, views, sales, re-tweets (RTs), customer retention or other – establish your strategic objectives, including the KPIs required to demonstrate performance for 2010. This task must be done before Christmas 2009, so you can watch the 2010 trends go in the right direction.
3. Demonstrate impact of SM for the c-suite: The challenge here is to Keep it Simple, Stupid (KISS) with SMART metrics (Specific, Manageable, Actionable, Relevant, Trending) and KPIs relevant to your stakeholders.
4. Using Dell’s claim of making $3 million on Twitter could backfire with your boss: Why, because it runs the risk of encouraging the use of broadcasting via social media as being THE model for engagement in conversation. However, Dell has other Twitter accounts that focus on interaction and engaging not just broadcasting a discount coupon for one of its products.

Please, leave a comment! We love to hear your thoughts: how do you think costs and benefits from SM activities should be measured? Here is a chance for anyone with first-hand knowledge (this means you!) to share your insights.

Every week we tweet about a lot of fascinating stuff, highlighting great content that is of interest to social media folks and corpo-rate bloggers. This weekly compilation provides you with our top tweets for the previous 7 days.

Our top stories include how porn and Facebook can damage your long-term career prospects, why design matters for your web, blog and LinkedIn pages, an illustration of why ROI fails with social media – AGAIN, how A/B testing makes a big difference to success, a special invitation to join your social media monitoring group on Xing (if you want to know what Europeans are up to regarding web or social media analytics, you’d better join). Plus, check out some free Twitter tools, PHP code and more to better manage your brand on social networks.

In case you missed the last six weeks’ best links:

ComMetrics weekly review: White House to Google Groups for week 44.
ComMetrics weekly review: Xing to Picasso via MoMA for week 45.
ComMetrics weekly review: Google to Barcamp Liechtenstein via Amazon for week 46.
ComMetrics weekly review: eBookers to Twitter via Google for week 47.

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up with your email right now to get it first:

If you are a #Xing (Europe’s LinkedIn) member: Recently, we launched the Social Media Monitoring group – be one of the first 100 inaugural members! Your personal invitation is here #measure #publicrelations (If you’re not a member yet, you can join for free.)

B2B – Luxury labels and manufacturing
RT @dkasrel Most overlooked step to website success #design #seo #web => @ComMetrics agrees – we got client feedback for our blogpage update, currently under construction – COMING SOON to a web browser near you.

RT @lyksumlikrish VERY USEFUL => 3 dimensions of social media engagement – improve now #socialmedia #marketing

FREE tools, code for Twitter, blogs and Facebook: Tips and tricks
@ComMetrics ranked 8380 based on RTs => is this #metric useful as a #KPI ? What about #cultural differences, other moderating variables – not sure if this tool is useful, but it sure is fun to play with.

VERY USEFUL => Simple A/B testing – using #php code #coding #abtests #marketing

Benchmark social media – best practice
Our tool + the corporate blog became a Las Vegas visual experience. We designed the product, added more widgets…

Measuring Social #Media #ROI – Can it be done? (P.S. – Treepodia fails to post comments to this post during weekends: fails social media test 101.)

Maybe what this means is that we simply cannot engage and relate engagement to ROI? #measure #SM #trendwatch

White and research papers – presentation slides – trendwatch
#things2read – Of libraries, doctorates and Web 2.0 – how the British Library outsources a study and the outsourcer fails research 101

Social Media – information security, privacy
Porn plus Facebook can lead to embarrassment, perhaps worse #threats2watch

Cases – failures – how you don’t want to do it – Social Media 101
Why ROI fails for social media vs. 100 possible ways to #measure ROI

What did we miss this week? Please add your tweet about what we missed in a comment below. Thank you.
Interested? You should follow us on Twitter.

We recently came across a three-year study that tracked the research behavior of ‘Generation Y’ doctoral students (those born between 1982 and 1994). The focus was on how these students are using library resources, including traditional library, librarian assistance, electronic libraries and Web 2.0 tools.

The media headlines were focus on the fact that just under half of those polled use RSS feeds. Journalists also noted that only about 10 percent use social bookmarking, with Generation Y students exhibiting the same behavior as other age groups.

What does this mean – if you don’t use RSS or Del.icio.us, you must be a bad student? This post debunks a few myths.

In her article Next-gen PhDs fail to find Web 2.0’s ‘on-switch’, the Times’ Zoë Corbyn highlighted several sections of Researchers of Tomorrow, a study jointly funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the British Library.

“Interim results, released to Times Higher Education, show that only a small proportion of those surveyed are using technology such as virtual-research environments, social bookmarking, data and text mining, wikis, blogs and RSS-feed alerts in their work. This contrasts with the fact that many respondents professed to finding technological tools valuable.”

Based on the above and after having read both the survey used to collect data, and the preliminary research report, I felt compelled to respond to Corbyn’s article:

This is a very interesting post and I also looked at the preliminary research report to get a better grasp of the findings. For me, the big question is whether Web 2.0 use has anything to do with outcomes that we want to monitor.
An example would be whether RSS use helps reduce the time needed to finish one’s studies. In fact, some US data about Facebook usage by undergraduates shows a positive correlation with lower grades and less time spent studying.
Is this desirable?
Like the US Pew Research Center, we have found in our work that the majority of our readers do not want RSS feeds; however, they have good reason(s) to prefer getting the information via email.
Most of our readers prefer to get blog posts via email - RSS is one of many choices we have to get information on the net, but is it the best? Worse, does it necessarily follow that Ph.D. students are less Web 2.0 savvy if they do not use RSS feeds?
It could actually represent a choice made by some Ph.D.s to focus on getting their work done as fast as possible instead of tweeting or spending time on Facebook.
Conclusion
Some Ph.D. students may have decided not to turn the Web 2.0 switch on when it comes to RSS feeds, using Voice over IP (VoIP), or surfing the web from their smartphone. However, not using Web 2.0 technology extensively does not make a student an inferior researcher. Nor does it mean that it will take more time for that student to complete their studies.
Neither the summary above nor the preliminary report allows us to answer the above question. Accordingly, we still don’t know why the Ph.D.s chose not to switch Web 2.0 tools on more often.
What do you think?
Regards,
Urs @ComMetrics

Needless to say, I never got a reply to my comment from Zoë Corbyn. Could this be another example of why newspapers fail the social media test?

Is data-bias an issue?
I recently pointed out that data-bias is becoming a major issue for those interested in web analytics. I could also have pointed out that questionnaire design is something we absolutely must be careful about.

Double-barreled questions are two questions (generally inadvertently) asked as one. For instance, in the previously mentioned study, question five asks what kind of information technology user I am and provides me with several response choices, of which the respondent must choose the one that most applies.

Considering the broadness of the question, researchers cannot be certain how the respondent understood and answered the question: being a Blackberry addict, occasionally using their mobile phone or almost never accessing the Internet from a computer.

More resources on data bias and the report:

British Library and JICS: 2009-10-Summary-Report-Final: 3-yr study tracking the research behaviour of ‘Generation Y’ doctoral students – Web 2.0 issues
ComMetrics: Häagen Dazs or Magnum ice cream – methodology, artefacts and bias

Bottom line
The study tries to track information‐seeking behavior and changing attitudes toward research. Among the findings reported were that 75 percent of Generation Y students (those born between 1982 and 1994) found the information they sought in an e-journal article.

I am not sure the study makes me feel confident enough to accept the findings regarding the use of the information and research resources, both online and off, by Ph.D. students in the UK.

If we want to improve web analytics, research policy and our students’ doctoral education, the methodologies used to collect data should assure a certain level of reliability and validity. To advance our work we must follow best practice and address the issues outlined in this post, as well as the take-aways below.

Take-aways (in random order)

1. Validity of research findings is important: This means the questions must measure what they are supposed to and unless we can be certain of that, reaching conclusions from the data is impossible.
2. Understanding bias is key: If one does not understand the bias in one’s research data, once again, conclusions are impossible.
3. Ph.D. and Web 2.0 – switch on or off by choice: Maybe the study indicates that Ph.D. students are smart and, instead of spending hours in virtual nirvana, they have a richer social life in the real world. Most importantly, they may complete their studies that much faster, while delivering high-quality dissertations. Sounds great to me.

Please, share your experiences with us! How have you dealt with these issues in your research, web analytics and/or benchmarking work?

Every week we tweet about a lot of fascinating stuff, highlighting great content that is of interest to social media folks and corporate bloggers. This weekly compilation provides you with our top tweets for the previous seven days.

Our top stories include how eBookers fell into the spam trap using Twitter, why Google should be pushing open source with Chrome OS, an illustration of why ROI fails with social media, how Twitter groups tell something about your reputation, why LinkedIn is losing against Viadeo and how Xing beats both by making more money. Plus, check out some free Twitter tools to better manage your brand on social networks.

In case you missed the last six weeks’ best links:

ComMetrics weekly review: BarCamp to Morgan Stanley via eBay for week 43.
ComMetrics weekly review: White House to Google Groups for week 44.
ComMetrics weekly review: Xing to Picasso via MoMA for week 45.
ComMetrics weekly review: Google to Barcamp Liechtenstein via Amazon for week 46

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up with your email right now to get it first:

If you are a #Xing member (Europe’s LinkedIn – if not, you can join for free): Recently, we launched the Social Media Monitoring group – be one of the first 100 inaugural members! Your personal invitation is here #measure #publicrelations

B2B – Luxury Labels, Manufacturing and B2B
#usability => VERY USEFUL: 6 reasons users hate your new product feature

#things2read – Measuring ROI: Why it fails

FREE Tools for Twitter, blogs and Facebook: Tips and tricks
#tips2follow ComMetrics Footprint: Technorati nixes blog rankings

1 => #Reputation + brand = #Twitter lists you are on – take a copy of the lists your Twitter feed is on and copy it into the ‘input’ box here #tools2watch
2 => #Reputation + brand = copy converter output you get from link above, and click on create your own to get your graphic (see image at right) #tools2watch
3 => #Reputation + brand = word cloud shows words used to describe YOU on #Twitter #tools2watch

Benchmark social media – best practice
VERY USEFUL: Google Trends for Websites – do you trust it? neat analysis by @MichaelNotte #metrics2watch

#bcli09 Soziale Medien für gemeinnützige Einrichtungen: Wie nutzt man diese besser – Slides ONLINE inklusive Checklisten und Links zur Umsetzung (how non-profits can use Facebook, blogs and Twitter - slides and contributions made during session by Barcamp participants – very insightful).

RT @dkasrel @michelelinn Social Media: It’s about engagement, not pageviews @diannahuff #metrics2watch

READ – Viadeo, LinkedIn & Xing are fighting it out – who do you think is the winner: #Economist says…

White and research papers – presentation slides – trendwatch
#trendwatch #tips2follow: People don’t buy products and services, they buy solutions to problems.

Interesting A/B test: 54 percent improvement on email newsletter sign-up page.

Social Media – information security, privacy
MUST READ – All Your OS Are Belong to Google – Why Aren’t We Worried? WE ARE! #threats2watch #things2patch

Cases – failures – how you don’t want to do it – Social Media 101
#SM101 #trendwatch 1 #Continental started the #sweepstake #spam mania #pr #publicrelations #badgovernance

#trendwatch 2 #ebookers CH failed the SM101 test by following #Continental down the Twitter spam trail. All those who re-tweeted spammed their followers, or was it just their greed that got the better of them? => #reputation mgmt 101 : users spam followers to get a chance to win a voucher worth Sfr. 500 #pr

What did we miss this week? Please add your tweet about what we missed in a comment below. Thank you.
Interested? You should follow us on Twitter.

Recently, I was invited to give a talk to a small group of managers about KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) used to measure social media (SM) campaigns.

Some of the points we discussed that evening are outlined below.

Harsh reality 1: Goals attempt to be strategic BUT…
John F. Kennedy once said: “In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”

For corporate strategy, this means once employees understand it they need to put their heart into reaching the targets. Our first attempt to master this challenge resulted in failing in our first strategic objective.

Attempt 1: Reaching out to customers with the help of SM.

We learned a few months down the road that we had not spent enough time developing a strategic goal suited to us. We tried again as shown below.

Attempt 1a: SM should help improve client and potential customer engagement.

Harsh reality 2: Developing comprehensive objectives takes time
The revised objective above made more sense, but the next reality check came with having to formulate up to three KPIs that would align with our SM strategy.

For this we needed to define objectives that address these issues:

- what objectives need to be accomplished (spell it out)?
- what quantity is expected?
- what time-frame will be looked at?
- what quality level represents acceptable performance (define quality, please)?
- what kind of budget are we talking about (human resources and money)?

Considering our revised strategic objective, we specified the following:

Objective for SM: We want to improve the number and quality of blog comments we get in the next four months. We budget about fours hours to write and prepare each blog post (i.e. we post twice a week).

Sounds simple, but you have to identify what you mean by quality regarding comments. For instance, is it based on the number of words in each comment, links to posts or white papers elsewhere on the web, or something altogether different? (See also: KPI experts’ 5 secrets.)

Harsh reality 3: Did you remember your baseline?
As the above outlines, two to three KPIs or objectives must be identified and spelled out properly. But in order to monitor your KPIs, you need a baseline to start with, which is a picture of your blog and its ‘vital’ statistics at a certain point in time.

Without the Baseline you have nothing to measure against and little, if any, control of your blog project and the progress you want to make.

With the baseline you can start to compare your performance improvements over time and show how you are getting better at your job…

Reality check: Because we thought fixing other things was more important than watching trends, we did not calculate the baseline at the beginning of the project. WRONG! Trend watching loses relevance if you cannot trace things all the way back. Calculate the baseline as early and quickly as possible, and watch the trend like a hawk from the beginning.

Harsh reality 4: Using the wrong benchmark measure is expensive
According to the dictionary,

Return on Investment (ROI) is a measure of a company’s profitability, equal to a fiscal year’s income divided by equity and long-term debt; and,
ROI measures how effectively the organization is using its resources to generate a financial profit.

Some experts suggest that we link SM expenditures to how they affect sales, or improve average sale value and reduce service center costs. This is then supposed to help us measure ROI. Unfortunately, it fails.

For instance, how can one show that social media has increased sales? Dell tried to do so with its Twitter tweets about special offers. But neither they nor anybody else can show beyond a reasonable doubt that such efforts actually increased sales, rather than simply cannibalizing other channels.

Reality check: Last week I had lunch with a client who engaged me in a lively discussion about one of my blog posts he had read.

This could be one of the qualitative indicators for social media campaigns - how to measure soft ROI (check the examples from her job) that may not be part of ROI but part of the KPIs for assessing benefits attained with social media, such as gaining expert status and trust with clients.

More resources on how to measure ROI for social media:

Jeff Bullas: 8 steps to demonstrate positive return on investment for social media marketing
Don Bartholomew: Social Media ROI Part 1: Framework
Erik Qualman: Video - Social media ROI: Socialnomics – this is GREAT, it explains why ROI fails to work…

Bottom line
By New Year’s Eve we will once again have resolved to better measure our SM efforts in 2010. I suggest you start now with these pointers.

Take-aways (in random order)

1. Use statistics to compare to traditional media: Remember, clicks seem to garner the most appreciation from the c-suite for what Social Media can give in terms of cost-benefit analysis.
2. Set 2-3 comprehensive goals for 2010: Clicks, views, sales re-tweets (RTs), lead generation and so forth – establish a baseline for December and watch the trends go in the right direction.
3. Cost-benefit analysis is required: Use quantitative as well as qualitative/soft measures. Develop KPIs that make sense and your stakeholders find relevant.

One thing we know is that measuring social media ‘buzz’ is probably about as difficult as measuring PR ‘media impressions’.

And keep Maddie Grant’s insight in mind when addressing cost-benefit issues of ROI, namely:

“I think while we’re all continuing to think a lot about this issue, it’s becoming less and less about simply proving our case to the powers that be and more and more about finding a simple, replicable system for what’s worth measuring and why.”

Please, leave a comment! We love to hear your thoughts: how do you think costs and benefits from SM activities like using Twitter or blogging should be measured? Here is a chance for anyone with first-hand knowledge (this means you!) to share your insights. How does your company do this?

Every week we tweet about a lot of fascinating stuff, highlighting great content that is of interest to social media folks and corporate bloggers. The best way to keep track is by simply following us on Twitter. If you already follow too many people to keep track of, however, this weekly compilation provides you with our top tweets for the previous seven days.

Our top stories include how Barcamp Liechtenstein outdid most by creating a place to crash for attendees’ kids, how Google is upsetting the privacy-loving Swiss and getting taken to court, how Amazon encourages affiliates to spam their Twitter followers, why and how charities can use the Internet to raise funds, and how luxury brands are trying to use social media better. Plus, check out some free Twitter tools to better manage your brand on social networks.

In case you missed the last six weeks’ best links:

Very useful links: BarCamp to Morgan Stanley via eBay for week 43.
Very useful links: White House to Google Groups for week 44.
Very useful links: Xing to Picasso via MoMA for week 45.

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up with your email right now to get it first:

If you are a #Xing member (if not, you can join for free): Recently, we launched the Social Media Monitoring group – be one of the first 100 inaugural members! Your personal invitation is here #measure #publicrelations

B2B – Luxury Labels, Manufacturing
#Versace, #Gucci, #Ferragamo: 2010 Social Media Challenges

FREE Tools for Twitter and Facebook: Tips and tricks
Who were your first followers? #tools2watch

WebTrends 9: Get the trends, customer intel and more #measure

Trends to watch – museums, not-for-profits, WOW
Very useful: The pros and cons of charging for membership #strategy #freemium #MyComMetrics

How charities use Web 2.0 technology to raise money #crowdsourcing for a good cause #trendwatch

Discounts drive users to engage with brands: Primary reason for friending a brand = exclusive deals – this is clearly a US phenomenon but does not apply in Germany or France.

Amazon Turns to Twitter to Boost Affiliate Marketing. Is it Spam? #things2read #trends2watch

Executives & social media – the door is open: The truth about usage and why one should invest NOW and use it – #csuite2watch

White and research papers – presentation slides – trendwatch
Nokia White Paper: Evaluating your online success with Web Analytics – a MUST read #metrics2watch

#bcli09 Soziale Medien für gemeinnützige Einrichtungen: Wie nutzt man diese besser – Slides ONLINE inklusive Checklisten und Links zur Umsetzung

#bcli09 Was war so richtig innovativ am barcamp Liechtenstein? Die Kinderbetreueung – einfach super

Social Media – information security, privacy
Swiss #Privacy Commissioner tells #Google #Streetview: enough is enough, see you in court – 8 cities were included, Commissioner received 105 complaints => wants to clarify if people have the right to force Google to anonymise them if they are pictured in some street views. The court also needs to address privacy regarding people’s backyards – can Street View show these images or does the law not allow this because it violates people’s right to privacy => view press release and court submission.

Since late August the Privacy Commissioner has been trying to get Google to fix these things. Unfortunately, besides talking, Google did not give an inch or claimed it was unable to address matters due to technical inabilities as revealed in consultation session minutes. Now the courts will have to sort it out, but the company’s claim to do no evil has clearly been violated by Google’s bullying behavior. If the court rejects the case it is very likely that parliament will approve the necessary changes to law to get Google to heel.

What did we miss this week? Please add your tweet about what we missed in a comment below. Thank you.

Versace, the Italian fashion house beloved by Hollywood celebrities, unveiled a sweeping restructuring in late October that included shedding 26 percent of its workforce.

Recently, a fashion celebrity asked us what changes to their social media strategy would most help during the financial crisis and in 2010. We consulted our crystal ball and present you with our 2010 brand and blogging predictions for 2010. This is what we told our luxury-brand fashion designer over dinner.

Awareness and consideration of data bias: Test failed
Using data from services like Alexa, Omniture, WebTrends, Coremetrics or Unica requires addressing some basic statistical issues. For instance, it is important to identify any possible biases and keep them in the back of your mind when interpreting data and findings from any one of these services.

Some have gone on record suggesting:

“…the goal of third‐generation digital analytics is to bring rigor and mathematical precision to a practice that has otherwise been somewhat sloppy and imprecise.”
=> The coming revolution in web analytics

While we agree with this statement, the fact is that statistics have been correctly used by many web analytics experts for ages. But we must understand what the bias in our data could mean. To illustrate, unless you have the Alexa toolbar installed in your web browser, your visit to a webpage tracked by Alexa is not registered by the service. Because companies do not allow the installation of the toolbar, those users are excluded from its data.

So, is Alexa data useless? Not if you are focusing on those who are most likely to have installed this toolbar: home users in the US.

TREND: Putting a greater focus on data bias in social media.

Biased data is not necessarily a problem if you know what the bias is and how it might effect your data. For example, users of the Firefox browser are quite likely to have a no-script plugin installed that makes tracking by cookie a bit more difficult.

The above could result in data bias, since more security savvy Firefox users may not be part of your sample. You would certainly want to know what this means for sales of your brand’s perfumes or the latest fashions.

Listening to your customers and building trust: Hit or miss
We will see clients put more emphasis on understanding the basic assumptions and biases in data about social media usage. Besides this trend, systems and processes have to be created that can empower consumers and facilitate their participation and attachment to your luxury brand or company.

But this requires that engagement is a smooth and painless experience for the client. SNAFUs (Situation normal, all f*cked up), such as requiring one to choose a US state or Canadian province in order to access a white paper even if you live in Japan does not qualify (see image at right).

Listening to the voice of the customer would also require that you not send very polite emails seven days after the white paper was downloaded by the customer. Such a hard sell hurts the company’s reputation, unless the client opted to get such emails.

TREND: Defining your audience and learning to join conversations are key.

Your real and true reputation is built by being an engaging and transparent provider of information that people can trust.

But building trust requires that the company refrain from using hype. For instance, reporting that 64 percent of consumers made a first purchase of a certain brand because of the digital experience is interesting. But our fashion designer immediately asked about the demographics of those users, including their level of Internet experience.

Listening to clients and giving them a voice requires respecting them which, in turn, enables their trust of the brand or fashion label. But this takes careful work and not respecting privacy or making the online experience cumbersome does not help.

More resources about 2010 social media trends, including customer voice, engagement and data bias:

Brandkeys: 10:10 Brand and consumer marketing trends for 2010
Mark Suster: 5 tips to becoming a more customer-centric organization
Venturedig: Monetizing social networks: The four dominant business models and how you should implement them in 2010
David La Piana: Non-profits – 5 key-trends

Bottom line
By New Year’s Eve we will once again have resolved that in 2010 we will exercise more and lose weight. But our fashion designer was not willing to wait and has started implementing a few of the things below before the year is out.

Take-aways

1. Managing data bias – starting in December, the company will compare this year’s monthly data with last year and management will request information about possible factors that could influence results (e.g., press coverage, blog post, success in viral marketing – being lucky, and so forth).
2. Listening to the customer – to improve engagement, the company will put more emphasis on responding to comments made on blog posts and if helpful, approach clients directly to address their concerns. Results will again be reported to the public via the blog.
3. Building trust – the company intends to better enforce its opt-out policy, whereby white papers, pictures of dresses and so forth can be downloaded by clients, while divulging a minimum of personal information to the company.

Some top-end brands have been trying to make better use of social media to help sales during this economic downturn. By implementing the above three take-aways our fashion executive hopes to improve the bottom line.

P.S. – And for those who always want data, generally we end up with more data than we need, but probably not the right data to get the answers we are looking for.

Your turn. Are you ready for 2010 and how will you address data bias in your web analytics and Key Performance Indicator(s) (KPIs) to benchmark your blog? What will you do to improve customer engagement? We look forward to your comments, insights AND opinions on this issue.

Every week we tweet about a lot of fascinating stuff, highlighting great content that is of interest to social media folks and corporate bloggers. The best way to keep track is by simply following us on Twitter. If you already follow too many people to keep track of, however, this weekly compilation provides you with our top tweets for the previous seven days.

Our top stories include how Barcelona’s Picasso Museum and the Museum of Modern Art are blazing the social media trail, a great Webinar you’ll definitely want to fit into your schedule, why Google’s Dashboard is not alleviating the European Commission’s concerns about user privacy, and why cloud computing means trouble for Amazon, Microsoft and YOU. Plus, check out some free Twitter tools, to better manage your brand on social networks.

In case you missed the last six weeks’ best links:

Very useful links: Audi to Ecofootprint via PlayStation for week 39.
Very useful links: Toyota to Razorfish via PRSA for week 40.
Very useful links: FTC to marketing via Twitter for week 41.
Very useful links: Pepsi to iPhone via Google for week 42.
Very useful links: BarCamp to Morgan Stanley via eBay for week 43.
Very useful links: White House to Google Groups for week 44.

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up with your email right now to get it first:

If you are a #Xing member (if not, you can join for free): this weekend, we launched the Social Media Monitoring group – be one of the first 100 inaugural members! Your personal invitation is here #measure #publicrelations

B2B – Luxury Labels, Manufacturing
#things2read => Monetizing social networks: Four dominant business models and how you should implement them in 2010.

Straight to the Point – Webinar: Using Social Media to the C-Suite and Close Deals… #csuite2watch

Webcast => Determining the Value of Social Media for B2B Comp. Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 10:00. Please register now!

FREE Tools for Twitter and Facebook: Tips and tricks
How to add re-tweet buttons in your pdf documents. Help readers share your great work! #tips2follow

#tips2follow => Twitter Lists 101: Etiquette & Strategies – or how to do it so it helps you as much as possible.

Get Your API Right – ropes to skip, API 101 #things2read#tips2follow

Trends to watch – museums, not-for-profits, WOW
#casestudy => Museu #Picasso Barcelona – great use of Facebook = engagement, thanks! @innova2

@MoMAlearning => the Museum of Modern Arts launched its blog with a great show: benchmark its progress at MyComMetrics and watch its impact – free tool.

Push aside barriers to Social Media Marketing #csuite2watch

White and research papers – trendwatch
#trends2watch => 2009 Business Social Media Benchmarking Study or what drives web traffic #metrics2watch

Social media trends for 2010 – some are obvious, but still a good read #trends2watch #things2read

#things2read #trends2watch The fog over the Grimpen Mire: cloud computing and the law: Are you compliant?

Make the c-suite believe – measurable social media and marketing is key #csuite2watch

Social Media – information security, privacy
Firefox and Chrome updates spike stability bugs #threats2watch

#Google dashboard: shows what kind of data each service keeps about you – better but… #privacy quo vadis

#things2read – 2010 trends: Data and mobile communication – Apple and Wal-Mart versus Amazon and Nokia – why you should worry about cloud computing and your social media strategy.

How To Spam #Facebook Like A Pro: An Insider’s Confession #threats2watch

What did we miss this week? Please add your tweet that we missed in a comment below. Thank you.