Social Media ROI or Social Media Measurement?

Found this at Social Steve



Social Steve's Analysis

The technical definition of ROI is (x-y)/y where x = sales and y = investment.

Social media is a marketing tool (as well as other functional organizations’ tool such as customer support). Marketing is NOT sales – Marketing increases the probability of sales by creating awareness and generating qualified leads. While this is still an endless debate in companies, marketing should not be measured on sales. There are other applicable measurements that should be made to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing. A sales organization wins sales, but they require the support of marketing (and many other organization partners).

6 Mistakes Companies Make in Selecting an Agency

This was published by Weiss and Mowery a digital consultancy run by a good friend and long time colleague Peter Weiss. The entire white paper can be found here. It is a very good read

1) The client Cowboy
2) Avoid Eye Contact
3) I'll Have What He's Eating
4) Agencies are Non-Profit Institutions
5) Be Careful What You Wish For
6) "RFP" is Shorthand for "Ready for Primetime"

Mistake #4: Agencies Are Non-Profit Institutions

Mistake #4: Agencies Are Non-Profit Institutions

Presuming you provide your agency candidates with an assignment tied to specific deliverables during the search process – or simply request speculative creative ideas, consider paying the agency a fee for their efforts. Frankly any fee amount is unlikely to equal the time the agency invests in winning a client’s account. Many agencies spend hundreds of hours pursuing a new client. Moreover, a large number will often incur out of pocket costs for independent research, creative production, outside consultants, etc. -- all to assist them in giving the prospective client the best perspective on their business. Money talks honesty. Offering a fee for agency insights demonstrates that the client company takes the agency selection process very seriously.

One Fortune 500 Company felt so strongly about finding the best interactive agency fit for their needs that, after narrowing its list of candidates to two firms, it provided both agencies the opportunity for each of them to demonstrate their capabilities in a 90 day paid trial. Each agency was given the same information, equal client access (including frequent CEO interaction), an online assignment and a budget that afforded them a profit. At the end of the trial period, the company contrasted the relative strategic contributions, creative execution, working styles and passion for the client’s business. The winning agency felt it was the fairest, best search process they had ever experienced. The loser understood that it had only itself to blame.

Best Practice:
You get what you pay for; rewarding prospective agencies for their ideas can pay real client dividends. Agencies instinctively work harder when they know the client has some real skin in the game. Similarly, corporate teams are more demanding and attentive knowing that they have money on the table. And, in the final analysis, companies get better thinking, better work --and they even get to keep the recommended agency ideas as their own at the end of process, since they paid for them.

Mistake #3 - I'll Have What He's Easting

3) I'll Have What He's Eating

Don’t ask an agency to solve a brand problem in 2 weeks that has been years in the making. Companies should consider providing an interactive agency assignment that is highly discrete and bounded. Perhaps it’s a short-term online product promotion. Spec creative may be requested to amplify the agency’s thinking but care should be taken to evaluate an agency’s full capabilities -- versus simply making final decisions based on executional appeal. Create an interim step in the assignment that allows for give and take between the client and the agency. This provides an opportunity to learn how well the two parties can communicate and learn from each other. Remember that the time spent between major campaigns is the majority of time companies will spend together with their agency partner; it’s the time to build trust, business knowledge and an understanding of how to innovate on behalf of the brand.


Best Practice:

Agency track records are important but the real test is how they run their next race. People exit. Interactive tools and trends change constantly. Google trumps Yahoo. Keywords give way to social media. Tweets supplant email. And change begins all over again. Put your interactive agency candidates to the test on one aspect of your business to see if they can get to your finish line in the present -- and paint a lane to future marketing opportunities.

Mistake #2 - Avoid Eye Contact

Mistake #2 Avoid eye Contact

Agency brands are important. They provide an indication of consistent agency performance for multiple clients over time. And, based on their performance, agency brands can provide a short cut to selecting an initial list of agencies that may be right for the company’s brand. However, the most important criterion in selecting the right agency is not the agency brand -- but the people within the agency who will be working on your account. Too often companies rush directly to a Request for Proposal (RFP) without a sense of whom they’re dealing with. Is the agency passionate about your business? Are they easy to talk with? Do they listen well? Can they think on their feet? Are their ideas stimulating? Do they share your business beliefs and standards? And so on . . . remember, these are the folks to whom you’re going to entrust your brand. Pause and get them to personally introduce themselves at the beginning of the search. Make sure they have one or perhaps even two chances to present their work during the search process. If ultimately selected, they will be extensions of your marketing family. Make sure you’re as comfortable sitting across from them at the dining table as you are meeting with them across the conference room table.

Best Practice:

In a world of social networking, voicemail, tweeting, email and tomorrow’s next iteration of remote communication, the business of ideas is still a business built by and for other people. The personality of the agency team must project the personality of the brand. In the interactive world that personality is amplified by one-to-one communications, individually relevant context and ongoing customer dialogue. Key to a good agency search result is ensuring interaction between the client and agency throughout the process that contributes to an atmosphere of a team-based, working relationship, not a sterile process that bears little resemblance to the real world.

Mistake #1 - The client Cowboy

How to select a digital Agency

Mistake #1 - The Client Cowboy

The cattle call can be heard from one end of the company’s hallway to the other: “Yeeeee—ha! Round ‘em up and fence ‘em in!” Are there really 50 agencies eligible for a client’s business – or 25 or even 10? Yet it’s not uncommon for companies to solicit agency participation indiscriminately. The “all comers’ ” invitation is often assumed by clients to be the fairest approach to getting the most motivated -- or “hot but hidden” -- agencies to solicit their account. Sorting through the 80 responses received in this approach


generally yields the same agencies of which the client was already aware. After all, foreknowledge is the easiest filter to use. As a consequence, agencies are given false hope by the all comers’ invitation and, just as important, company time is wasted sifting

through candidates that were never genuinely in the running from the start -- or overlooking highly qualified agencies which didn’t respond to the cattle call for any reason in the first place.


Just as egregious is including agencies in the search process that are current client incumbents as mere courtesy candidates. If a non-performing client agency has been fairly advised of their shortcomings over a reasonable timeframe during which they had an opportunity to demonstrate improvement, nothing is going to change the company’s mind about their capabilities -- no matter how well the agency performed at the end of the search process. Be honest and terminate them before you initiate your search for their replacement. Similarly, don’t include agencies that may periodically handle projects for you to simply give them a good feeling about being included in the process. If you don’t believe they have the resources to be your agency of record from the outset, explain the reasons to them before the search is initiated. Again, honesty counts. No agency likes to be patronized.


Best Practice:

Cull the herd. If you don’t believe you have the knowledge or resources to do this inside your company, turn to outside resources – other marketers you may respect, industry associations and specialized search consultants are some the of resources you may wish to consider in creating a short, highly pre-qualified list of agency prospects.

Producer vs. Project Manager

In my opinion, the role and title is determined by the function that the person is performing within the organization. Are they more creative oriented or technology focused?

Historically in advertising (and in television), a producer is the person that is responsible for getting all the work done across the board. At an advertising agency the production group is usually within the auspices of the creative department and the producer is tasked with ensuring that that work is completed and/or delivered when and where it needs to be. A producer could work for the studio or production. In the web world, producers would work more closely with the creative director, IA, flash developers and Front end folks. They are the bridge between the client and the creative department. The producer should be able to oversee the entire creative process and know what outputs are required and when they need to be delivered. They should also know how to lead & motivate the most artistic team members into delivering the best work

Traditionally a Project Manager derives from the engineering discipline (construction, architecture, electrical, software, etc.) and tends to be more technical in nature. Since there is a much more of scientific approach with technical endeavors, project managers need to be more focused on the details and the schedule. Knowing and understanding the Software Development Life Cycle, (SDLC) and all the deliverables that are associated with technology is vital to the success of a project manager. This role is often the liason between the client and the technical team. Project Managers tend to have a better understanding of the entire project, including understanding the business drivers, ensuring that the functionality meets those business drivers and making sure that the solution ultimately delivers against the business drivers. The project manager is also responsible for tracking the overall progress of the project, providing status reports and also assessing risk and creating mitigation plans. Finally the project manager should have some technical background as well, to be able to have a technical discussion, review an architecture and push the techies to determine if they are providing you with the absolute best solution.

This is not to say to say that producers and project managers are mutually exclusive, since there can often be a large union of skills and backgrounds depending upon your specific project. However, in general if you have a more creative project, I would look for a producer to lead the initiative, if it is a more technical solution, then a project manager is more appropriate.