It has been said that you can’t improve what you can’t measure. An article from eMarketer emphasizes that statement. Debra Williamson, eMarketer principal analyst, states,

“Marketers often think of social media measurement as listening and monitoring. But that is only one part of a fragmented process, which has contributed to a lack of focus for both marketers and vendors. It has also created a culture of data overload, in which metrics that do not have much business value have more importance than those that contribute to the bottom line.”

Alterian has just released a report that says that 70 percent of all senior management reports have no social media reporting in them. And this is at a time when marketing and public relations departments are asking for more and more dollars to finance the growing social media presence.

The reason social media is absent from these reports is because everything should work backward from the reports. What do you want to see from social media and how should it be compared to the other marketing initiatives? Social media metrics need to line up with the corporate structure so that comparisons can be made.

Social media is not some strange animal that nobody knows how to measure. However, it is strange when there is no context to the reporting and when the reporting has no home in senior management monthly reports.

Click here for the entire eMarketer article. But just had to get my two cents in first.

By the way, happy holidays to everyone. Best to you, your family, your community and the wildlife that lives around you.

Recently, while talking with executives about social media, I got three different messages from them:

1. I get it and we are building our social media presence. 

2. I don’t get it and until somebody shows me the money, I’m not gonna get it. 

3.  I know that we need to get on top of the social media thing, but I’m not sure if it will do us any good. 

Ok. Here is what social media data can do.

1. With the proper analysis, it  provides insight and justification for your major decisions.

2. It gives you the truth. And remember, every post, whether good or bad, has a good deal of truth to it.

And your “truth” and their ”truth” may be completely different. Not the same picture at all.

3. It gives real-time feedback on the performance of your products.

4. It provides trending information, which will be a leading contributor to upcoming sales forecasts.

Here are some things that data cannot do:

1. It can not make decisions for you.

2. It should not be  manipulated. If it is, it will be at great risk to your company and your career.

3. It cannot be your friend. When data says the momentum is good, it doesn’t care. When momentum is bad, it doesn’t care.

4. It cannot be ignored. Data is direct from are your customers, your life-blood. Ignore them and you ignore the performance reviews of your products. It is the beginning of the end for your company in the 21st century.

I say these things because recently there has been too much emphasis on both the power of social media and the weakness of social media. Both are true.

Social Media Reporting becomes a competitive weapon when you:

1. measure correctly

2. analyze

3. deliver the data in a way that senior managers can understand and compare to performance in other sectors of the enterprise.

And when data is delivered this way, it is still your gut, but with more ammunition.

Recently I have been reading and thinking about the obsession that technocrats have with performance and the quality of software platforms. Google with its disdain for salesmanship and obsession with functionality. Many other technical companies driven by engineers who believe that the more efficient and intuitive you make the information systems, the more people will use them. And the disregard for salesmanship, human networking and marketing. The point seems to be, “build it and they will come.” Seems like an artificial approach.

And then you have the new Toyota ad, which characterizes a young man who is worried about his parents because they each only have a few Facebook friends. He has 900 friends. And the camera cuts back and forth from the parents having a ball with real friends having real fun, and this lonely kid walking around the house worried about his parents’s social media standing. The real friends and the artificial friends.

And now comes many companies engaging in social media who judge their successes on converting people into customers and messengers, so they can sell more goods and services. Grow. Grow. Grow. They want to be “Friends” with you, and you be “Friends” with them. Consumers know that companies only want them to buy their stuff and have no intention of being real friends. Seems like artificial communication.

In a new article in MarketingProfs, Embrace Irrationality,   the author, Jeremi Karnell, spells out the difference of human-centric marketing and the focus on customers in customer-centric marketing. The difference being that human-centric marketing approaches a customer as a whole human being, not just a consumer who buys stuff. This approach realizes that people like events and experiences. They want and need love, family and friends.

Consumer-centric marketing is captured by these three phrases, according to Karnell:

1. It views people as somewhat passive participants.

2. It measures success by how much merchandise a consumer moves.

3. Rising paradoxes have led consumers to seek more meaningful relations with brands.

This past decade has taken the wind out of the sails of the “spend now and worry about it later” mentality. 9-11. The Internet bubble. The real estate bubble. And the near collapse of the financial system have all contributed to people rethinking their priorities. Home, family, relationships, and experiences have taken center stage and it looks like those priorities will stay there for awhile.

But companies are not picking up on this. In social media companies want friends and followers. And why? So they will buy stuff and grow companies. And what do consumers want? A life.

So, why don’t outdoor companies start focusing on sponsoring events that improve lives by teaching new skills. Sponsor events that bring communities together. Or, participate in events that test the endurance of people who are new-found athletes.

Recently, I have been reading many blogs in Channel Signal about men and women who have lost weight, started training, and are now into running. Their excitement on completing their first 10k literally jumps off the page. Now, if a company can be a part of that experience in an authentic way, they have a customer…for life.

Don’t sell them stuff.

Sell them on themselves.

And that’s humanity.

And that is real.

Companies in the sporting goods business are now coming out with their growth plans, many of them 3 years or more. These plans are aggressive and this signals a change in the landscape. For at least ten years the sporting goods business has been consolidating. This means that stock holders and stake holders want healthy and sustained growth from the new larger company.  And it’s up to senior management to plot that growth.

Here’s the challenge.

Where will that growth come from? The traditional sales channels are specialty retail, large specialty retail (REI, EMS, Dicks, Cabela’s,etc.), and huge retail (Walmart).

Specialty retail is averaging growth of between 3-5% over a six year period ending at the beginning of 2010.  Large specialty and the big retailers are growing, on average, in the area of 8-10%. These numbers won’t change much. It takes a lot for any of these channels to plan for the explosive growth demanded by the brands. A lot of money will be needed for expansion, inventory and salespeople.

Brands realize that traditional retail can’t supply the lion’s share of the growth, unless many of the brands go to the very big boxes and most brands still believe that Walmart will dilute the authenticity of their product offerings.

The explosive growth will come from two relatively new channels, branded stores and online sales. Online sales have grown, on average, about 20% a year in the last 4 years.

New Balance, Nike, Columbia, The North Face, Merrell, Icebreaker, Marmot, and many others, have announced they will be opening retail stores across the country. Why? Because they can offer wider selections and fulfill inventory faster, which means a bigger upside.

Same thing with the Online Sales Channel, aka, the company web store. Brands are selling merchandise at full price, can replenish inventory instantly, and offer the entire collection. There is a lot of profit margin here.

So, online sales and branded retail stores will be  joining the landscape of Channel Management.

Here’s Channel Signal’s guess as to how Brand’s will position the Channels.

• specialty retail will be used to create momentum and maintain authenticity.
• large retail…less of the same but bigger numbers for the brands.
• Walmart, Kmart, etc…look for the brands to open this channel in limited amounts to move merchandise that is lower end. Numbers are good here.
• Branded stores…good margins, good selection and success will fuel more stores across the country.
• Online stores… great margins, great selection, and more money pumped into the web site to make it more of a shopping experience.

One thing we haven’t addressed and that is social media. My guess, the brands will find ways to build this channel as a sales channel or use it to drive traffic to the other sales channels.

Channel management will be critical moving into the future. And so will tracking what channels are generating the buzz and how that translates into profit.

Thanks to Leisure Trends for the growth stats.

Channel Signal is picking up more and more evidence of companies building traffic by using hashtag Twitter and then incenting people to join by offering the chance for new product.

This is “discount-linking” and it doesn’t work. Companies doing this are attracting sweepstakes sites (sweepstakes bots), discount sites, link farms…all retweeting and retweeting about what?About your discounted products.

Is that what a company wants to be known for? This is like throwing a cocktail  party and advertising it by posting free drink notices in all the local dives. You’ll get a crowd all right, but you’ll have no silverware at the end of the night.

So companies are lowering the barrier to entry, incenting, and building traffic. But it is the wrong traffic. These people don’t really care about a company’s products. They won’t be having adventures in these products and then writing about them. And they won’t be telling their friends about the quality of the products and suggesting a buy. They only want to broadcast the discounts.

The upshot. These people come for the discounts, and quickly disappear when there are none.

Now, maybe one person in 30 buys a discounted product, starts hiking, loses weight, and becomes an enthusiast. Fine, but that is one out of 30. Not good odds.

At Channel Signal we have extensive filtering hooks that grab these sites and knock them out of the search. Companies should increase their value-propositions by complimenting good product with good content.

Building traffic the fast and easy way, through discounting, is not a sustainable strategy.

And be known for something.

More about that next time.

The spill in the Gulf of Mexico started as a news report of an explosion and eleven men missing. Only one sentence was dedicated to the oil spillage…saying only that a tiny amount was leaking.

It has now grown and threatened the coastline of several states. It is telling a story much larger and much more damning to the shrimpers and the oil people.

Here’s an example…reported by the New York Times.

“About 35 endangered sea turtles have washed up dead on beaches along the Gulf of Mexico since Sunday, sowing fears that they were done in by the growing oil spill.

But so far scientists have found no connection between their deaths and the spill. Autopsies indicated that the turtles had ingested no oil.

It is now suspected that shrimpers out at sea before the April 20 rig explosion and spill caught the turtles in their nets, which can suffocate them.

The A.P. reports that federal fisheries investigators are looking into whether shrimpers were responsible.”

So, the oil spill exposes other abuses.

And is social media having a hay day with the suspected killing of endangered species in pursuit of the dollar? Yep. Search for “sea turtles” on Twitter and it is all about turtles and the oil spill.

Why is the sea turtle episode exploding on Twitter? Because it is the sidebar that puts a new spin on the story. There are pictures. And people are becoming emotionally attached.

And this whole business is dirty.

Our dependence on oil is dirty… due to carbon loading.

According to the University of California, every car is responsible for 1.28 tons of carbon per year.  A nation with five percent of the earth’s population consumes about 23 percent of the world’s oil output. And we are currently exceeding the regenerative ability of the earth to sustain us. Today we occupy 145% of the earth’s regenerative ability.

The extraction is dirty, and dangerous.

According to the Associated Press, the U.S. Minerals and Management Service is developing regulations aimed at preventing human error, which it identified as a factor in many of the more than 1,400 offshore oil drilling accidents between 2001 and 2007.

Sea turtles are now proving that commercial shrimpers are dirty.

And this story has so many sidebars, many which are still unknown,  that it will be tweeted about, facebooked about, and blogged about …for years.

There will be more pictures of wildlife, total victims.  And millions more new media comments.

There will be villains. And more new media comments.

There will be innocent human victims. And more new media comments.

And my point?

There is no new media strategy that can solve this, next time. This is a national tragedy.

Pundits are already coming out and writing that BP didn’t handle this the right way. Well what is the right way? Set up a war room and have the best minds churn out news?  Stay on top of the issues? Be the first to break the stories…before the media?  Be transparent? Be honest? Be responsive to new media questions?

Won’t help.

Again, this is a tragedy and one that is unfolding before our eyes. And new media is a part of delivering the story and the millions of opinions surrounding it.

BP better concentrate on fixing the problem and cleaning up the mess. And pay for all of it. After nearly two decades of screwing around with the legal system, Exxon got exactly what it wanted: a Supreme Court that reduced punitive damages from $2.5 billion to $500 million. According to reports, that is just a week’s profit for Exxon.

This time we should put the big hurt on BP. 10 billion. 20 weeks of profit. Make them howl. And the judicial branch should level the fine and walk away. That will get the attention of the other oil companies.

The Obama Administration would be wise to forget about the deals they made with the Republicans to get the health care bill passed…and kill the off-shore oil drilling initiative. DOA. Period.

Shrimpers…stop killing endangered species. You might have been innocent victims, but you sure aren’t now.

This is a big story of our time. And because of new media, we are all involved. Writing. Discussing. Taking action. Being disgusted.

And there is no strategy that will lessen the impact for BP.  It is caught in a huge unfolding story.  And the federal government is caught in the same story. So are the shrimpers. And so am I. And so are you. BP is just a spoke in the massive feeding machine connected to our lifestyles.

We in new media can pontificate all we want about this national disaster, but until we view the future with sharp, clear-eyed vision and determination…expect bigger environmental disasters.

And expect our free fall into the future to continue with the ground approaching at an ever increasing rate.

We have met the enemy, and it is us.

I would say of the 400-600 posts a day that we receive for each of our clients about 80% is noise.
And when we send it through our second “human” filter we filter out about 80% of that and deliver only about 20% of that to our clients.

Recently, there is a new type of noise, and it is just confusing the issue. This noise is all about the new software coming online to help companies sort through new media, help them develop content, and then help deliver content. Soon, there will be software that will write the content for you and all the brand needs to do is put its name here.

This improved software will help a company make new media easier, faster, more efficient and cost-effective.

Don’t believe it.

It’s just like the great Smith-Barney ads used to proclaim at the end of its thirty-second spots.
“We make money the old-fashioned way. We earn it.”

And you must. Brands must earn the respect of the Influencers in new media. Must earn a loyal following. Must earn a strong community. Sure it starts with the product; however, it doesn’t end there. That is only the beginning.

It’s the communication and feedback loops that you must now build. And yes, software packages can help; however, the basics can not be ignored. Here are some of the basics.

1. Pick just one channel and do it well. Not just by getting yourself up on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, and Flickr…and saying, “well, that’s that. Let’s talk about our product and see if we sell more.”

2. Sorry about this, but it needs to be said…because this is the phrase, “shit in, shit out.” Searching and receiving raw new media data, and not filtering and accurately assigning sentiment means a brand is getting crap. And now crap is being analyzed. And the analysis is crap. And management decisions are being made based on crap.

Channel Signal delivers “finished” data and this is data that is relevant and worth consideration by our clients. We then analyze that data, and measure it. Now management (and its pr/marketing partners) have clean data, a clean report, and good information to consider.

3. Engage. I come from a family of talkers. My Mom always used to say, “well Paul, if you aren’t listening and talking, then how will you know what others are thinking?” Brands must first listen, and then talk. Engage with good content, and then enter the conversation that it sponsors. And if doesn’t sponsor any talk, then change what you are writing about. Get them talking.

Publish and talk. Don’t be shy. New media is not the place for wall-flowers.

And, ignore the noise. An old African saying, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

Take this in bites. Choose a channel. Concentrate on it. Make it successful. And then use that knowledge to build.

And believe that this will be hard work. Building content that attracts a strong community starts with knowing your voice, your audience, and what they want. And that’s where “finished” data comes in. It is the feedback loop that allows you to accurately gauge, and correct.

It’s your compass in a whacky world.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And although many good videos were made, you’ve got to take the good with the bad.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And this was a recent response to the video you just viewed.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When brands launch a video promotion they should keep in mind a couple of things in new media.

1. You have no control of the content or the distribution. And distribution is the killer. Almost everything that gets produced for a promotion will be put up on YouTube. And if a “parody” spot on your brand takes off, the promotion ballon was just injected with lead.

2. The long tail of new media. This stuff does not die easily. It stays on YouTube a long long time. And all it takes is for somebody to discover a negative spot, send it around, and you have a new problem born by an ancient promotion.

Brands should stop believing that all people march to the same positive tune of a new promotion and its slug line.

Oh, and the slug line used in this campaign?

Take It All On.

A few days ago I got a call from a lawyer who has ties with Sea World. Not direct ties but close enough to be concerned.

So the conversation goes like this…
Lawyer: “Are you aware of what happened yesterday at Sea World?”
Me: “Yup. Read about it.”
Lawyer: “I want to suggest that they call you because this is an incident that could blow into a crisis. They need Channel Signal to monitor this.”   Me: “Thanks. We would love to help. Based on a little searching around it looks like its heading into crisis now.”

Well, we didn’t get the call, and the message was, thanks we have it covered.
Good for them. Hope it goes well.

It’s not.
All major news outlets carried it. Predictable. Major animal rights sites were on the offensive. Predictable. And Sea World and animal entertainment advocates were on the defensive. Predictable.

And here are the unanswered questions which brought heat to the debate:

1. Why was this whale in question (Tilikam) involved in the shows after killing other people?
2. Is the use of predators for entertainment just a game of chance?
3. Why did the shows resume so quickly.
4. And are these predators merely prisoners for fun and profit?

Pick your side and pull out your firearm.

CNN sponsored a raging screaming match between an orca trainer and an avid environmentalist. Other news talk shows followed. Actors and actresses got involved. PETA has set up a Free Willy Facebook Site and already has over 6,000 followers.

Twitter, Facebook, and the blogsphere lit up about the poor handling of the situation.

And standing in the middle of this traditional and social media storm is Sea World.

A couple of things to remember here.

When an incident blows into a crisis, immediately start monitoring…on both sides of the issue.
1. Learn what is critical to answer and answer those questions…rapidly.
2. Address and even attack false statements rapidly.
3. And have people available 24/7 for all questions from all quarters.
4. And don’t stop listening, and responding until the crisis is past…well past.
5. And no attitude.

Now, I realize that, according to reports, the Sea World team is tight and losing a trainer to another family member (Tilikam) has to be devastating.

But, that is why you bring in a communications team that knows what they are doing. To protect the Sea World team. Provide guidance. Get to the facts. And appoint an authentic Sea World spokesperson.

And some of these people on the communication team should have news training because first and foremost this is a news story. The facts…that’s what reporters want. And if they smell that facts are being withheld, then they will dig harder and look for angles.

And reporters will then report those “angles” and that information will be picked up by the blogs. And mis-information becomes fact.

Sea World finds its very business model now being questioned. Will parents risk a show knowing that something terrible could happen? Will people  find it detestable that these carnivores are kept in tanks for life, when in the wild they travel over 100 miles a day in open ocean?  And is this just about money, since the show opened 3 days after the tradegy?

Free Willy has taken on a whole new meaning for Sea World.

And some of this could have been avoided with a communication strategy laid out in advance. And a new key to that strategy is 24/7 monitoring of the crisis so that opinions are quickly uncovered, and then covered with facts.

Before Social Media, you could count on a crisis having a limited shelf-life. After all, the media had new things to cover and its attention was taken elsewhere.

With Social Media, every crisis has a long tail. So, Sea World and its handlers will be dealing with blogs, tweets, YouTube, and Flickr for the forseeable future. And with every new fact about the story will be thousands of opinions.

“We’ve got it covered.”

Clearly, Sea World underestimated “it”.

And what it would take to “cover” it.

In 2010 the whole world will be talking. Discussing everything on many different platforms. And now that new media has shifted to real- time the speed of those discussions accelerate…greatly.

In the middle of December Google announced that real time results will be displayed from Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. This means that you, literally, can follow an event or issue on a minute-by-minute basis.

Let’s go back and look at the Motrin situation. In about 24 hours after that television commercial broke, mommy bloggers were aggregating in mass. And over that weekend while the Motrin execs were on the golf course, the mommy bloggers were scaling the walls of the corporate castle. On Monday morning, the execs were being greeted with a crisis. The great unwashed were inside the castle walls.

Again, that happened in 24 hours. That will be nothin’ compared to what will happen in real time. Take 24 hours and bring it down to 2. Here’s an fictitious example:

Let’s say that an outdoor company makes baby clothing and a Mom sees that a rash has developed on the back of her child. After a couple of minutes of investigation she determines that it is the baby shirt that is causing the problem. Onto Twitter she goes.

Tweed: My baby has a rash on her back. Has anybody seen this? Think it could be the BRAND shirt.

( 1 minute later.) Response Tweet: OMG! I had that same think happen two days ago. And my baby wore that brand.

( 90 seconds after the first Tweet) Another Response Tweet: Me too. My child has a rash and we have the same shirt!

In the real-time world…right here is where the BRAND needs to both catch the conversation, and react to it. The BRAND can not wait until somebody sees it on Google Alert because Google Alert may wait an hour before posting. And then it gets circulated within the company, and perhaps a day passes before action is considered, or taken.

Ian Capstick writing in Media Style Blog writes . “Don’t get me wrong. I use Alerts. They are useful. Helpful even.  But it’s important to note the system is unrefined, often missing data and is only one part of a comprehensive listening program you should be undertaking. If Google Alerts are your primary online listening tool; you are missing information.”

Back to the rash incident. So, a whole day goes by while a BRAND gathers information, that info is distributed, decision-makers engage and action is finally taken. The Rash Incident may have grown into an Issue…or even a Crisis. And if a Crisis…a recall may be the result.

Why? Because in two hours…a hundred Moms might be tuned into and engaging in the conversation. And within 3 hours a thousand Moms might be in the conversation. 24 hours…well. I just don’t know how big it could get.

Andy Beal writing in his blog, Seeking Alpha, believes…

“Twitter serves as a real-time information network powered by people around the world discovering what’s happening and sharing the news…In the new year, Twitter will begin supporting a billion search queries a day. It will be delivering several billion tweets per hour to users around the world.”

Several billion tweets per hour.

And Google and Bing? Well, Google is handling around 300,000 to 500,000 million searches a day.

Google and Bing can not keep up with the volume of Twitter. Beal further reports, “and that is why Google ‘alerts’ for breaking news items show up 10 – 45 minutes earlier on Twitter or monitoring packages/systems.”

So, there is new velocity in social media.

With real-time search…brands have even less time.

The search must be thorough. The response quick. And a strategy in place to handle Incidents so they do not become Issues.

All in, almost, real-time.