Speaker: Katie Delahaye Paine, CEO, KDPaine & Partners

Go home and read the Cluetrain Manifesto and Naked Conversations

The reason for measurement is not about rewarding or punishing - it’s all about weather a program should be continued as is, revised or dropped altogether.

1960 speech: “If you can put a man in orbit, why can’t we determine the effectiveness of our communications?” - Ralph Delahaye Paine

ROI =Desired Return minus Investment

  • BestBuy measures 85% lower turnover as a result of its Blue Shirt community
  • State Farm measures it’s internal blog by the improvements in morale
  • ASPCA can track online donations and increased membership back to its social media efforts.
  • On Twitter, a start up company got 100 great marketing ideas for free, women raised over $6,000 a day and a wooden toy maker in NH got a nationwide contract
  • $0-budget YouTube videos about Barack Obama were seen by 120 times the audience of Hilary Clinton’s “largest town hall meeting in US history” that cost millions
  • IBM receives more leads, sales and exposure from a $500 podcast than it does from an ad

Basic Rules of the World

  • There is no market for your message
  • All the benchmarks have changes
  • Size doesn’t matter so stop screaming, start listening
  • It’s not how many eyeballs, it’s the right eyeballs
  • HITS = How Idiots Track Success
  • ROI doesn’t mean what you think it does because you can’t divide by zero
  • You become what you measure, so match the measurement tool to your objective

What do you need to measure? 

  • Outputs: Did you get the coverage you wanted? Did you produce the promised materials on time and on budget?
  • Outtakes: Did your target audience see the message?  Did they believe the messages?
  • Outcomes:  Did audience behavior change? Did the right people show up? Did your relationship change? Did sales increase?

Seven steps of social media ROI

  1. Define the “R” define teh expected results?
  2. Define the “I” -  what’s the investment?
  3. Understand your audiences and what motivates them
  4. Define the metrics (what you want to become)
  5. Determine what you are benchmarketing against
  6. Pick a tool and undertake research
  7. Analyze results and glean insight, take action, measure again

Fundamentally, it all comes down to what you’re trying to accomplish - what’s your perfect conversation? perfect story? That’s “optimal content”

Case Study: Georgia Tech

Looked at four peer institutions to establish benchmarks, look at user habits to inform user-generated media strategies, understand the influence of traditional and new media, provide support for funding, and establish guidelines

  • 33% of university admissions offices use blogs, compared to 19% of inc 500
  • 88% of admissions departments say new media is important
  • 63% monitor social media
  • 86% of admissions say their social media strategy is effective (even though only 2% measure it)

What they found: 

  • Social media is not scary - there is little risk of generating negative discussion
  • Georgia Tech’s status as an institute of technology is its core strength
  • Tailor materials related to high profile competitions
  • Prepare media infrastructure for increased emphasis on online video

Its individual people that are driving social media, not the institution. 

Social media was much more positive to Georgia Tech than main stream media!

On Facebook, people don’t care about larger discussion - they care about their smaller groups.

Institutions should not participate in discussions on Facebook - you’re an unwelcome outsider.

Overall recommendations; Keep it real, go where the interest is, leverage your strengths