ImpactWatch Blog

• The most discouraging news of the week for PR – Katie Paine  and PR Measurement Principle Three: What Counts? – Intelitecht

• 7 Reasons Social Media Is Bad for Marketing – Hubspot

• Crafting a Social Media Plan – Even If It Is Off Target – Marketing Vox

• SMART Social Media ROI: Show me the Money! – Search Engine Watch

• Successful social media analytics requires commitment, experimentation – SearchCRM.com

This week was the first meeting of the #smmeasure chat on Twitter to discuss social media monitoring and measurement. I think it takes time to build a community for these discussions (hey, that sounds like marketing advice) so with about 80 participants, #smmeasure is off to a good start.

Although it can be difficult to join week after week, I think that Twitter chats are really quite brilliant. They enable topical discussions with no travel, no tickets, no credentials. Unlike an industry conference where the few speak to the many, Twitter chats gives novices, students and consumers the ability to jump right and voice their opinions to the experts. It can often be an unparalleled opportunity to learn from people you would rarely get a chance to speak with otherwise.

I’ve enjoyed the weekly #socialmedia chat (Tuesdays, 12pm EST) for some time. The topic can be almost anything related to professional social media use and the guest moderators are usually pretty awesome. The new #smmeasure chat will be Thursdays at 12pm EST (doesn’t anyone eat lunch anymore?). There is also a bi-weekly #measurepr chat for the intersection of PR and social media which takes place every other Tuesday. Yes, also at 12pm EST.

Are there any other twitter chats that discuss social media monitoring and measurement? I still have a few lunch hours free. (SMMM, delicious!)

Hannah

-Photo: Marc Smith

• Social Media Shell Game: What Do Those Followers, Fan Numbers Really Mean? – Marketing Vox

• How savvy firms monitor customers’ online chatter – Computerworld

• Social media monitoring: time to say ‘sod it’? – Econsultancy

• Just Say No to AVEs – Katie Paine

• Vendors push social media analytics, but some question the technology’s readiness – SearchCRM

• 6 Crucial Social Media Tips for Traditional Media – Mashable

-

SEE LAST WEEKS TOP POSTS

Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream has announced that they will be transitioning from email marketing to contacting customers almost exclusively via social media outlets. It’s an interesting decision in that major companies usually have the resources to hit consumers from all angles…so they do. I’m sure that sending updates via Facebook is cheaper than maintaining a multi-million contact email list, but I also wonder how many people will be lost in the transition.

B&J’s has 1.3 million Facebook fans. That’s a lot but likely still smaller than the email list that I’m sure has been a cultivated over a decade. And while it’s true that you can always delete a marketing email without reading it, it’s also very easy to miss FB and twitter updates if you keep your habit even remotely under control.

Apparently, customers indicated that they weren’t fans of the monthly email newsletter and preferred to be contacted via social media. I first wonder how they came to this conclusion. Were these spontaneous complaints? Did they do a poll on Facebook? Is this a case of the vocal minority on SM changing the rules for all? I hope the decision wasn’t that simple. I know my 17-year old cousin voted that she would rather be contacted via social media, but she’s not reading your updates, guys – she’s too busy texting.

This still begs the question of why the company didn’t make efforts to improve the newsletter, decrease its frequency or simply shift focus to SM if they felt customer contact was more successful through that channel. They would reach email-only customers while strengthening relationships with those who are active on SM. The real intrigue is why they didn’t take these intermediate steps and transition from the listserv gradually (or never).

So, I don’t know if hordes of people were unsubscribing from the listserv or what, but it will be interesting to see if other companies follow suit…and how this affects Free Cone Day.

Photo: Technicolor76

A few goodies for the week:

• Social Media Monitoring Tools – How to Pick The Right One – Convince & Convert

• Social Media Monitoring software is a commodity – CustomerThink

• 12 Critical Keywords Every Company Should Monitor in Social Media – Trackur

-

SEE LAST WEEK’S TOP POSTS

Going back to the eavesdropping vs customer service argument from a few weeks ago, eMarketer has released some very interesting new stats on how consumers in a variety of countries actually feel about social media monitoring and outreach.

So while not all consumers are convinced that companies intend to fix their issues, a minority are actually concerned about the underlying issue of being monitored and contacted through social media. As I’ve mentioned previously, I think this is in large part a public education issue. Consumers need to better understand the levels of privacy provided by each social media outlet so they properly control the information they release in that format.

I don’t mean to let companies off the hook. There are many that are more focused on shotgun marketing than the customer service opportunity this provides. I believe this is also an educational issue and that companies will quickly learn with experience what type of customer contact is appropriate.

For now, public opinion is on our side.

• Top Five Social Media Marketing Mistakes – BusinessWeek

• How to Audit Your Social Media Efforts: 20+ Questions to Ask Yourself – Sociatic

• Social Media Monitoring Tools Exposed – The Viral Muse

• If you only do one thing in Social Media, it ought to be SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING. – PR Squared

• Matrix: Brand Monitoring, Social Analytics, Social Insights – Jeremiah Owyang

• Manage Your Online Reputation—Before Someone Else Does - Wall Street Journal

• My Feelings About Sentiment Analysis – Intelligent Enterprise

• European PR measurement summit – really? – Liberate Media

• Measuring Social Media’s Impact on the Bottom Line – Winning Business

• Crack isn’t just a waste of time. It’s bad for you too – BrandNet  I thought this headline was funny and went to check it out. Turns out it was actually relevant.

-

SEE LAST WEEK’S TOP POSTS OF THE WEEK

Yesterday, I woke up to discover an emergency situation. Yes, it’s true that we had a 6.2 earthquake here in Mexico, but I slept through that. Unlike my emergency, the earthquake caused no damage in Mexico City.

I woke up to find that I had no internet. No internet!

After recovering from the initial shock, I quickly contacted tech support (my husband) to assess the situation. With a home network that consists of 2 routers, a TimeCapsule, a NAS and 4 computers, there is pretty much always something wonky going on here but it doesn’t usually affect my ability to shop online. If you think I’m overreacting, consider that Finland has declared broadband a human right.

In all seriousness, I work from a home office that is 2,000 miles from ImpactWatch’s main office in Washington, DC. I can’t just pop over to use the wireless. So after hours of playing doctor with our boxes and cables, husband gave up and went into his own office. I headed over to Starbucks.

When I returned in the afternoon, we were still offline. The longer I was without internet, the more I figured there was something amiss with a router or some component in the house. In the two years I’ve lived in Mexico, I haven’t lost internet for more than a pair of hours.

Then I had an idea. If the ISP was to blame, surely others were having the same problem. I turned to Twitter to see if anyone else in Mexico City was having issues with Cablevision, our ISP.

For those of you who don’t speak Spanish, these people (and hundreds more on Twitter) are not happy. Many have been without service for more than 2 days. Seeing these complaints was actually a relief for me because I knew that my house wasn’t the problem. I could have saved hours of fiddling around if I had gone to Twitter first for troubleshooting.

The response from Cablevision has been disappointing. They disabled their single support phone line from the beginning and make no mention of the issue on their website. Living in Mexico, I know first-hand that companies get away with a lot here – the complaint-resolution process is slow and ineffective. With social media and smartphones becoming more widespread every day, I don’t think they will get away with it much longer.

Bien hecho, Cablevision. Well done.