As social media and social media accountability move to the forefront of the marketing conversation there is an equal shift to the importance of having the right social media tools in your wheel house. In the last year, the discussions around social customer relationship management or social CRM have been inching towards center stage. I think most of us are in the same boat in that we hope social CRM is a customer relationship management system on steroids that includes the social conversation.

18 Use Cases of Social CRM

“According to Gartner, social CRM will be a $1 billion subsector of the CRM market by the end of this year. The various sites, blogs and communities that comprise this arena represent the fastest growing areas of the Internet. Further, it now reaches more people than email, according to Nielsen Online.” Source

Here’s my dilemma…what EXACTLY is Social CRM to you? I’ve been playing with some tools that claim to be social CRM and I’ve come to the conclusion that in the rush to get to market it’s possible that these tools focused on way more of the social than they did the CRM part of the equation. And for some companies that may be all they need. It’s also legitimately difficult to play with a true social CRM system because the backbone is your existing CRM system so most of what we are hearing about are tools that have built something that kinda…coulda…might be social CRM.

But my vision of social CRM is very different. I imagine being able to look up a customer record within our existing CRM system and being able to see their most recent posts in my online community, on Twitter or public Facebook pages and integrate that information with any kind of customer service complaints or service requests whether on or offline. I don’t necessarily require that everyone in the organization be able to “engage” with tweets or status updates within the CRM, but I want them to have the insights the information would provide. I imagine creating a prospect record and it automatically populating their online activities so I can see their digital footprint on our website. I would be able to see what information they found valuable and what path they came to our company from.

This information would be hugely insightful so that service people could provide better service and so sales people could provide a better sales experience. That would be awesome and help the company deliver on their promise to deliver great service. Eventually I will want people to be able to engage with the information where it was placed, but most of us are still in the stage of proving this social media stuff even has merit and value so I can personally wait for that.

But there is still a piece to the equation that is missing…ROI. With all the hoopla about how social CRM can improve the engagement experience some of the products I’ve seen completely missed the boat on the revenue part of the equation. I get it. Customer RELATIONSHIP Management system. And engagement is managing the relationship. Sure, but let’s be honest. To understand if that relationship management actually works it needs to be connected to the bottom line. It’s hard to find a traditional CRM today that doesn’t hold customer transaction information and the revenue associated with those sales. So how could it be possible to call a product a social CRM tool and not contain customer sales data? If you ask me, you can’t.

Social CRM is still in its infancy and with all the products that are rushing to the market to try and capitalize on the $1 billion in revenue that is up for grabs it is important that as marketers we call their bluff when we see it. Don’t accept a social CRM system that isn’t a CRM system, because that’s just a social monitoring and engagement tool.

Ask yourself, what CRM system am I using today? Does this social CRM tool do ALL of that and add in social insights? Can I measure how those social insights impact things like service levels, conversion rates, costs, or revenue? If not, your social CRM might not be CRM at all. The great news is that because these tools are so new we all have the opportunity to help guide the direction they go.

So this is your chance. What does social CRM mean to you? What features does it have? What MUST it do? What features are NICE to have? Which tools are BS and which tools are the real deal? Drop a comment and let’s chat about it. Let’s create a list of all the features that we feel make a social CRM system…CRM and a CRM system…social.

What's the Difference?

Have you been wondering what’s so great about HootSuite’s new freemium model? Are you wondering if it’s worth the investment? Are you upset about having to pay for something that used to be free?

Read the full post on Social Media Examiner

Thank you so much for those who were able to join us this morning for our discussion with the Baltimore Chapter of the American Marketing Association on social media measurement. There was great discussion and lots of really thought provoking questions. The presentation is up on slide share for those who want to share it with others or for those who perhaps missed the event.

Unlike unicorns and leprechauns, social media measurement DOES exist and CAN be tracked. Nichole Kelly will bust the common myths of social media measurement and share the keys to defining metrics that truly impact your business. The discussion will focus on actionable tips to define your metrics, simple ways to apply them to bottom line results, and concrete tactics to analyze their impact on your business objectives. This will be an extremely informative discussion, followed by a Q&A segment that will turn your social media measurement strategy from legend to reality.

Please check out the AMA events section for other upcoming events!

This event was sponsored by

Social Media ROI Funnel

Are you trying to figure out how social media is impacting your bottom line? Are you already measuring but not seeing the results you had hoped for? I wrote this post for Social Media Examiner and there is a link to see the whole thing below. But I also wanted to provide you with an example of a full Social Media ROI Dashboard as it wouldn’t fit in the original post. And wait for it…wait for it…I’ve also included a link to download the excel file. So please take a look…read the article…download the dashboard and most importantly, enjoy!

One of the reasons measuring the return on investment (ROI) of social media has sparked so many discussions is because it’s not easy. The main barrier to end-to-end measurement is the lack of a true social customer relationship management (CRM) solution.

While Salesforce and others are working hard to bring a full solution to market, many marketers are simply cobbling together data they receive from web tracking solutions and social monitoring solutions.

Unfortunately, this will only give you pieces of the story. Those with proprietary CRM systems will have the toughest hurdle, which is a challenge I have personally faced. In the short-term, the only hope is to integrate tracking cookies on your site and work with a development team to integrate with your CRM.

However, you can build an effective measurement strategy if you take a holistic view to social media lead generation. Here are four tips to make sure you are measuring the full impact of social media on your bottom line.

Read the full post on Social Media Examiner

Here is an example of a Social Media ROI Dashboard.

I’ve received a lot of positive feedback about how I create dashboards for excel, so I decided that I would see how much you REALLY like them by offering a free download for a limited time,  here. Make sure to look at the 1st and 2nd tab. Sorry, you’ll have to have Excel 2007 to use it. I despise Excel 2003 and it would be useless to you anyhow. (Keep in mind that the numbers in this file are made up to demonstrate how you can measure, this would typically be linked to several sheets in order to calculate real numbers.) If you like these kind of resources, please tell me by leaving a comment and/or sharing this post. It’s a lot of work, so I’d certainly like to hear when my efforts are appreciated!  Trust me, I’m measuring your response.

Social Media ROI Dashboard

I caught up with Amber Naslund, Director of Community for Radian6, at South By Southwest Interactive 2010 to ask about social media measurement. I came up with 7 questions to help take the mystery out of social media measurement.

 
After you watch the video leave a comment below and let me know which category Amber fits in and why…

1) Houdini – all smoke and mirrors

2) Miami Vice – definitely trendsetting

3) CSI – Crime Scene Investigator – so smart with social media measurement that NOTHING gets by.

This interview was conducted for FolkMedia.

Leave a comment below.

The big question all marketers are asking: “How DO I Measure Social Media?”

There have been many, many discussions around social media measurement especially over the last year. For some reason, nailing down the best way to measure has evaded us all. Most of the challenge is a result of having metrics that can be compared from one company to the next.

Without that, it is hard to say if what you are doing is good, bad, or ugly. This is exacerbated with a certain level of fear of measuring social because it can be difficult to correlate something like Twitter followers to new business.

This is certainly an understandable fear. Just remember that social media is just a tool in your marketing tool kit. If you measure social media using some of the same measurements you’ve always used, it will start to make sense and be easier to justify your efforts.

There are 5 categories in the social media funnel.

Exposure

This is just like the exposure you’ve been measuring for years. Essentially, you are choosing metrics which measure your reach. How many people are listening to you or talking about your brand? To actually measure this it is a combination of your normal web analytics, your Twitter followers, your Facebook fans, and running a search for your brand mentions. I use Radian 6 for this, but you could also do a Google search and look at growth in the number of returned results but this isn’t as accurate.

Influence

This is prefaced by saying that this category of measurement is a little harder if you don’t have Radian 6. By measuring the number of mentions for industry key words against the number of times your brand is mentioned with those key words you can get a measurement of your share of voice in the industry. You can also get a report on the top influencers from your industry. Finally, sentiment, while still imprecise, gives you a general measurement of whether people say you suck or you rock.

Engagement

This is fairly easily measured by tracking the number of clicks you get on the links you post, the number of times your messages are shared or retweeted, how many direct messages you get, and how many comments you receive.

Action/Convert

Is any of this contributing to the pipeline? Measure the pieces of content that tie to your sales process whether it be a white paper, webinar, lead generation form, pitch or proposal.

Sales

Oh, the elusive white horse. How much money are these efforts generating? If you’ve measured this far, you can measure what translate into dough.

Retain

The step many forget. Don’t forget to follow these customers and look at their repeat business and retention rates.

Remember, social media is like the almighty assist. It can help add more opportunities to convert business, but at the end of the day it is just putting leads in the funnel. Your normal sales process is responsible for converting those leads.

This post was written as a guest post for FolkMedia.org

Restaurant Patrons Go Digital

Many small businesses are wondering how they can participate in social media to help grow their business. The one industry that can easily jump into the mix is the restaurant industry. Many small businesses are grappling with the challenge of not having enough staff to manage social media. Restaurants have a great advantage here, they can let their patrons do the work. With so many web-enabled phones on the market restaurants can take advantage of buzz that is created by their patrons in a few simple steps. Here are 3 simple tips for restaurants to capitalize on social media.

1) Reward your patrons for online reviews

Promote discounts to patrons who post reviews of your establishment while dining. From Zagat to Urban Spoon there are many review sites that consumers look at before deciding where to go for their next meal or happy hour. Offer a reasonable discount if  patron can show you their review before they close out their tab. This allows you to immediately know whether or not they are satisfied, and if they weren’t you still have a chance to make the customer happy before they leave your restaurant. An opportunity that is priceless if you want them to return again. Further, you will increase the number of reviews of your restaurant on these highly trafficked sites making it a great opportunity to generate more future business.

Tip: Be prepared with how you will handle negative feedback. Sometimes it is difficult to hear, but it is the only way you will know how people really feel so that you can fix it.

2) Offer Tweet Up specials

A Tweet Up is when a group of local Twitter users decides to get together and meet in person for a few drinks. Many times these social media junkies will tweet about their experience and upload photos of themselves and others at the event. Because they surely mention where the event is being held, this is great publicity for you. You probably already have a list of happy hour specials that you regularly cycle through take it a step further by offering a Tweet Up special. The key is to make sure that your Tweet Up special is exclusive to those who are actually attending the Tweet Up and not anyone there for happy hour.

Tip: Those who are actually attending will be more than willing to show you a tweet they have sent about the event as proof for a good deal, if so desired.

3) Create a FREE check-in shot

Have you heard of FourSquare or GoWalla? Well your patrons might have and there is a little competition happening to check in at businesses you frequent so that you can get points, badges, and rewards. After you check in patrons can add tips for others who check in after they do. The reason this is great for the restaurant is that when someone checks in they can share their location on Twitter and FaceBook letting all of their friends know where they are. Personally, I’m a FourSquare fan and within our group there is a friendly competition to become Mayor at our local hot spots something that can only be achieved by checking in more than anyone else.   What does that mean for the business owner? A competition for repeat business…Sweet.

Tip: Create a shot that you give to people who can show their check in for free. You could call it the GoSquare, the FourWalla, or some other creative name you come up with.

If you really want to join in on the fun create a Twitter account and FaceBook fan page for the restaurant. Post your specials and events for the day and upload photos of all the fun people are having. There is no better way to become the local hot spot than to give patrons lots of ways to tell their friends how awesome you are.

The Value of a Beer...hanging with @JBluhm et al

Using social media tools you can expand your network with people you know and those you don’t know. I’ve connected with friends, former classmates, family members and others via FaceBook. I’ve connected with former colleagues and peers via LinkedIn. I’ve met other marketers through LinkedIn groups. I’ve followed and been followed by fellow marketers who I probably wouldn’t have ever met naturally thanks to Twitter. I see people connecting with new people all around me online. I’m curious about whether it is increasing or decreasing traditional in-person networking.

Are people hiding behind their computers and not getting into the real world to really meet others? Is the value of traditional networking associations declining? I don’t think so. I think it is even more important than ever to continue traditional networking activities. But the business reality is that the recession has led to shrinking reimbursement policies at companies for membership in local networking associations and business travel for conferences. What are you doing? Are you attending conferences and networking events? Is it status quo at your company or are you paying the bill on your own? Or just dropping out? Are you still meeting others at local tweet ups and meet ups?

As individuals are working to create their online personal brand it is equality important to step out from behind the computer screen and continue to meet and learn in person. Personally, the in-person connection with those I’ve met online has been invaluable. It helps to transition a follower into a friend and friends into followers. It lets people see a whole other side to who you are.

While you are growing your online network, don’t forget the basics. Take every opportunity to meet those around you face-to-face. If you met online, step offline and meet in person to learn what happens between tweets, status updates and blog posts. If you met in person, connect online and keep up to date on what is going on with each other between events.

Regardless of where you met, get out of your every day environment and share a beer, a cup of coffee or a couple of sodas…have a laugh…and share your stories. Get out from behind the computer screen, out of the office and join networking associations, attend tweet ups, meet ups and the like. Use the opportunity to deepen your relationships and develop new ones.

What are you doing? Has social media decreased your traditional networking efforts or expanded them? How are you prioritizing your time between online and offline events? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

The question of the day is how do you measure social media? It’s the question brimming on every marketers mind as we look at how social media will fit into our current marketing mix. Because let’s face it, if you aren’t looking at social media you might just be left in the dust. So for those of you who are trying to tackle this daunting task, I’ve put together a few tips and a social media value index model that you can use to guide you in the process.

In looking at the #smroi conversations on Twitter recently, one of the big discussions is the ongoing debate of whether or not social media will prove a positive ROI.  In addition, there are many who are using ROI to talk about value rather than an actual monetary return and it is causing confusion about the true value that social media can bring to an organization and how to explain it to stakeholders in a meaningful way.

To get started you need to develop a plan. I’m not a huge believer in the let’s try it and see what happens strategy. Not that you can’t try and see, but the trying it out should lead to a well-defined plan. There are four-steps to creating your plan.

1. Define Goals and Objectives
2. Align Strategies to Meet Goals and Objectives
3. Create Metrics to Measure Success
4. Develop Execution Plan

As I’ve said in my previous posts, I focus on three core goals. Will you use social media to retain existing customers, generate brand awareness and/or acquire new customers? For social media newcomers, I’d be very cautious about starting a social media plan geared towards acquiring new customers. This takes finesse that comes with experience and I’d wait until you’ve mastered the other two before broaching customer acquisition. Once you have determined what your goal for social media is, you can then start to align strategies with those goals, determine how you will measure if those strategies are successful, and put together a plan for execution. I’m not going to spend much time on those areas in this post, perhaps in a future post if readers are interested. Rather, I’m going to focus on how to create a model to measure success and then give you some ideas on different metrics you can use to build your model.

In order to be able to explain the value of social media to your stakeholders I prefer to use Key Performance Indicators as the term of choice.  Mainly because this is a standard term that people are familiar with and you don’t have to do a lot of explaining about what it means.

So here I’ve defined 10 Key Performance Indicators for social media and I ranked them in importance from 1 to 10. Then I assigned a weight to each ranking.

Click here for the full list. Social Media KPIs

Social Media KPIs

Social Media Monthly Worksheet

Then I took the 10 KPIs and put in metrics for how to measure them on a monthly basis. For each one I used a baseline measure of 0-1 either through doing a percent to goal or a ratio. I used a 1,000 point system to determine where I stand on each of the measure and apply the weight to determine how many points each measure received. The actual formula is (Score on 0-1 scale)*(Percent Weight*1000) to determine the number of points that indicator received for the month. To see the full worksheet click here. Social Media Value Index Worksheet

Finally, I took the sum of each KPI score as the total for the Social Media Value Index. This gives you a baseline measure for how the all of your social media activities are performing over time. The closer you get to 1,000 the better closer you are to reaching your goals.

Social Media Value Index Score

You can chose any key performance indicator that you believe adds value to the organization. You can also choose more than 10 if you like. I chose to use ROI as one of my KPIs, but on its own I don’t think it tells the whole story, which is why I developed this model. Choosing your KPIs may be the hardest part. So I’ve included some ideas of what you can measure below.

Twitter

• Number of Followers
• Number of People You Follow
• Relevance of Followers (I only follow people that are relevant and use a ratio of followers to those I follow to measure this)
• Number of Retweets
• Number of @replies to you/from you (you can do a ratio here also)
• Number of Clicks on Links Posted
• Twinfluence metrics
• Twitter Grade

Social Networks i.e. LinkedIn, Ning, FaceBook, MySpace

• Number of Connections Made
• Number of Discussions
• Number of Comments
• Number of Groups Participated In
• Level of Involvement in Groups

Video Sharing/Live Webcasts

• Number of Monthly Views/Attendees
• Monthly Average of Views/Attendees
• Number of Linkbacks to Videos

There are many more I could list here. Joe LaTona did a really nice job of providing a list to start from in his “What Are Your Social Media Goals” post.

Now that you have your plan it’s time to execute, measure, and refine!

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on how you are measuring, suggestions you have for refining this model and what you would add to the list of possible KPIs.

If you would like a copy of the excel worksheets used to develop the model please email me at nichole@nicholekelly.com and I’ll send you a copy.

Well, yes!  But there is some real validity to the concept.  It may be defined in many ways but this is how I look at it.

Marketing Integration means that you must take activities that are currently being executed individually and work to do them in tandem ultimately with the goal of making them support one another.

Now that’s just my spin on it and I’m sure others have their own.  But why is this really important?  Well, take a minute and think about the activities that you do today within your own sales and marketing department.  Here’s my list from marketing: Brand Strategy, Brand Awareness, PR, Advertising, Lead Generation Campaigns, Lead Nurturing Campaigns, SEO, SEM, Social Media, Product Marketing, Customer Retention Programs/Campaigns, Events, and Product Demonstrations.  From the sales side of the house there’s: outbound telesales, inbound telesales, field sales visits, and relationship-building contacts. I’m sure I missed a few, but you get the point.

Pretty much every company likely does these activities regardless of the role of the person doing them or which side of the house they fall.  What I find really interesting is how many companies do NOT align these activities so they achieve a common goal. Further, how many times I’ve seen individuals steaming ahead down a path and how the other side of the house has absolutely no idea the project is even going on!  I’ll admit I’ve been guilty of this in the past.  Sometimes, you get so busy that stopping to put together yet another death by power point presentation seems daunting.  I’ll get into my thoughts on how I feel about power point presentations in another post, I suppose!

I truly believe the perception at many companies is that the entire marketing mix does in fact work together because it is the sum of all the inputs that delivers the expected output, right? Sure, but do you want to deliver the sales results you had yesterday for the next 5 years?  Or do you want to exceed projections and deliver unprecedented profitability?

Well, I sure as heck do.  And here’s how I think it can be done.  Now, I’ll admit I’ve never been allowed to actually do all of these things in tandem because someone who doesn’t get it always cuts something out.  But it’s my theory and if you want to prove it for me, AWESOME! Let me know, I’ll watch you and cheer every step of the way.  So you wanna be a rockstar?  Well I don’t know what business you’re in, so I’m just gonna call whatever you do…well, IT.

Theme It

In order for your audience to get it, and for you to be able to keep it straight internally you need to have relevant themes of what you are trying to accomplish so everyone can align themselves to support it.  Now don’t go all crazy here and drink from the cup of stupid. You need to pick no more than 4 or 5 common themes or it will get confusing.  Ideally, you could keep it to 2 or 3.  And it doesn’t really even matter what your themes are, think of them almost like secret mission code names.  Now, that could be fun couldn’t it!  So my favorite three themes are Customer Acquisition, Customer Retention, and Brand Awareness. Why?  Because they are simple and I don’t know a single company who isn’t trying to accomplish all three at any given moment in time.  If you get really good at those things, then you can get all fancy schmancy and expand.  But quite frankly, I have yet to work for a company that had mastered all three.  So, if I was going to be clever and come up with some codes names for that..hmmm…let’s see…bear with me…YES!…Here you go…I would call it…Operation Kidnap the Baby, Operation Friends in Low Places, and OperationPerez Hilton.  Now the deal is, EVERYTHING you do has to fall under one of those operations.  Now it is possible you’ll have some that straddle the fence and support multiple operations. And for some people that just sends them for a loop, they can’t throw it into a bucket and therefore it is wrong.  Well I say, I wish everything I did supported multiple objectives.  Why?  Because that is freaking integration and you can truly peg like 1,000 birds with one stone if you play your cards right.  I say peg because I’m an animal supporter, but I’m not all nutso fanatic about it and couldn’t find a cooler way to say it.  No really, it is all about the cool.  So here we go.

Promote It

How do you promote yourself today.  Yeah, that.  Do that.  Tie it into your direct mail campaigns, your web campaigns, your social media activities, your PR activities.  Everything.  See what fits together and push the issue to make them work together.  Gasp…did you say align PR with sales campaigns???  Yup, sure did.  And here’s how.  Stop using campaigns that are about your product to open the door, unless your like mega-huge and everyone wants your product.  I’ll admit, Sherwin-Williams could get away with this effectively and so can Apple and every other mega-brand out there.  But you know what, chances are…YOU can’t.  So do something that the customer finds value in and promote that. Capture their information, and then Kidnap the Baby!  Use something people care about whether it’s a free training class, e-book, chotzky or something else, and then give it to them.  Yes, give it to them FREE.  Why because we all walk around still believing that you can really get things for free.  Now, us marketers, all know that NOTHING is ever really FREE!  Because you are going to give us your information to get it, and then we are going to use it to Kidnap the Baby and afterward we’re going to tell everyone you are one of our Friends in Low Places.

Socialize It

One of my brilliant co-workers who taught me everything I know about social media, whether she knew it or not, coined that term and I totally just stole it!  You know who you are, @JessieX! So, if you are using social media then you know it’s a two-way street as I’ve mentioned before.  And as long as you haven’t upchucked your marketing messaging all over your followers then you still have followers, right!  And since they are still following you then you have done something to provide value to them.  And no, tweeting freaking article links all day doesn’t count. So tell your network what you are doing and start a conversation around it.  Do they like it, hate it, jump up and down on it, or what?  You need the feedback to do better next time, so you might as well get it from your loyal followers.

PR IT

Yeah, I know press releases are pretty much worthless pieces of space but you have to do them.  All companies have to do them.  So if you have to waste your worthless piece of space on some corporate crafted puppet-speak then make it work for you.  Don’t just send out the press release and check it off your list.  Create an optimized version of the release for your website. What does optimized mean?  Well first it means you started with a list of keywords that are relevant to your announcement and you have interwoven them in, and second it means you include links and make it easy for others to link to the page using those cool little web 2.0 linky icons.

Community IT

Do you have a community?  Yeah, I think most companies have invested a couple of dollars in some kind of community board at least.  And some have really set the standard for what community is all about.  My two cents on that starts like this.  A real community offers ways for people to connect, draw value, and find other like-minded individuals to be “friends” with and then use that opportunity to suck the information I need out of them like a Hoover. Because unless you are Mary Theresa, you’re probably a little narcissistic like the rest of us and mostly care about your own needs.  I found a great one in my research.  www.intronetworks.com The level of information they collect in their profile is truly astounding, and they do it in the coolest way I’ve ever seen.  Did I mention, it is all about the cool.  And back to the Hoover, you can use that information to profile groups of your customers into nice little common categories so you can address their needs in one fell swoop.  Now, hold on a minute.  I’m trying to see how many useless catch phrases I can throw into one post.  So count ‘em with me and throw a comment with your guess.  At some point I’ll go back and count them myself.

Rave It

Do you have people who don’t respond?  Sure all of us do.  Well make sure you tell them what they missed and then if you can turn around and give them whatever they missed it’s even better. For example, if you’re holding a webcast record it and send a link to the people who missed it, then turn around and put the video on YouTube so people who don’t come to your site have a chance of seeing it.

Support It

I read a really great two-part e-book called funnelnomics that really drove this home to me. http://is.gd/vXOC You’ve just got to stop doing things one time, or even twice and expecting some phenomenal results.  The key is to keep doing it and measuring it when you have some true data to work with.  Some of the best ideas don’t pay off the first time they are tried.

Don’t Forget About It

Make sure you put every single person into a lead funnel.  If you’re talking about your Friends in Low Places then there is a retention funnel that should exist for them.  You’re still working on Kidnapping the Baby?  Okay well you probably have some funnels for that to.  I personally, like the slow, medium and fast track. Oh, but what about Perez Hilton? We haven’t talked much about him?  Well, all of his friends go into a track to.  You should have a communication plan for all of your press outlets, your advertisers, your tradeshow associations and anyone else.  We get caught into the trap of viewing these as activities or projects that we execute.  But you have to remember that on the other end there are people.  And anytime there is a person you have an opportunity to build a relationship. And when you truly have “friends” in both high and low places who you work to equally support, the rest is history!