Turning News Into Knowledge

Today there are far more “influencers” than ever before. An influencer is simply someone with an audience who can influence the buying behaviour of that audience. The ultimate example is Oprah—when she endorses a product or service, millions flock to it.

As magical as that would be for any business, it’s definitely not easy to be endorsed by Oprah. The good news, however, is influence isn’t just for celebrities anymore. There are hundreds and likely even thousands of influencers blogging and on social networks who can get the word out about your product or service and in a beneficial way. Think of it as an extension of media relations.

However, it’s not exactly like media relations—influencers usually aren’t journalists, and many don’t take nicely to an unsolicited pitch. So how can you reach influencers and get a positive return? Here’s a few pointers:

• Make sure it’s the right influence: Don’t be fooled by numbers—these days people can build up large numbers of Twitter followers, but still not carry a lot of influence. Influence involves a lot more than big numbers. Google the person, find out what others say about him or her and most importantly make sure his/her audience is relevant to what you do!

• Forget pitching, build real relationships: If the influencers you’re targeting are involved in your industry, you should have no problem finding common ground. Invite them for coffee, seek them out at trade shows, stop pitching and take the time to really get to know them first!

• Create a spark: When people talk about products they really love—it’s obvious and that passion is what attracts others to follow suit. So instead of asking an influencer to talk about your product, consider giving him/her access and guidance. Hopefully she/he will fall in love and want to talk about it. Also, look to your existing user base for influencers, if they’re already there and in love, approach them about making the love more public and offer to help.
  

• Be weary of paying for influence: Many do, and I’m not saying it can’t be a successful strategy, but know what you’re getting into first. Last year, the FTC passed a law stating that bloggers are required to disclose payment or other perks received from companies. The reason for this is because readers are less likely to trust an endorsement if money is involved (and probably rightly so). If you do choose to go the pay route, make sure you know the law and won’t get yourself (or your target influencers) in trouble. Also be sure to measure the impact and ROI of paying for influence and make sure it’s worth your investment.

• Measure your success: While it’s important to measure the buzz generated from an influencer’s endorsement, make sure you can trace it back to your bottom line as well. A great way to do this, is to offer a discount to the influencer’s readers and provide a unique discount code. Or simply ask the person to use a custom URL to measure traffic and how it converts.

As we get down to the short strokes and anticipation builds, the question is, who will light the Olympic Cauldron?

Chances are, this decision was made long ago and it’s one of the best kept secrets of these Olympic games.

Speculation has run rampant in both traditional and social media. A poll conducted Feb 1-2 by Angus Reid and commissioned by TSN and the Globe and Mail, found the most popular choice to light the cauldron was hockey great Wayne Gretzky at 25 per cent. Paraplegic athlete Rick Hansen was next at 17per cent, followed by Cindy Klassen and then Nancy Greene.

Betty Fox, mother of National hero Terry Fox, was 6th at 10 per cent.  Recently, however, there has been a big push through social media for Betty Fox to light the cauldron. A group created on Facebook urging organizers to pick Betty Fox has nearly 120,000 members and support on Twitter is growing.

So why was Betty Fox 10 per cent in the survey if there is such an outpouring of support on Facebook and Twitter?

Well, first it’s important to note that Betty Fox was 24 per cent in her home province of BC. Also, the survey was done at the beginning of the month and support for her has recently started to take root.

Therefore, the issue seems to be that Betty Fox and her son Terry, have just recently started to creep back into our National consciousness.

During the month of January, leading up to the poll, Betty Fox received less than 2 per cent of the new coverage Gretzky received. However, during this time the lighting of the cauldron was also the furthest thing from the media’s focus. Of all stories that dealt with Betty Fox and Gretzky, less than 2 per cent of the combined stories focused on the lighting of cauldron.

Justifiably, the media’s focus was pointed at issues such as disaster relief in Haiti and, coincidentally, Gretzky was involved with a telethon to help provide support to Haiti. In the month of January over 25 per cent of coverage that Gretzky received was in regards to the telethon.

Also, being in the throes of hockey season and the World Juniors you don’t require analysis to see where the lion share of his other coverage went.

However, with 5 days to go until the lighting of the cauldron, all of a sudden, people and the media started to take notice and the issue has become a hot subject. During the last 5 days, Betty Fox has received 12 times the amount of coverage.

Betty Fox's print coverage for the Month of February.

In my opinion, if a poll was taken today, Betty Fox would be the overwhelming choice, because of the influence that traditional media has and the polarizing effect social media has to change opinion.

Also, the reason why most people chose Gretzky back in February was the influence of the media, simply because at the time, because of other coverage, he was more in our National consciousness. However, as we get closer to the lighting of the cauldron, people will think more of who will light it.

The decision that I believe was already made long ago, will be what most people would have ultimately chosen once they had time to discuss and think about the issue, and I believe it will be Betty Fox.

Please take this post with a grain of salt. However, this has been a really weird week in both the world of sports and the Twittosphere.

This week, we had cases of politicians and public figures tweeting stuff they shouldn’t, which of course made it to the mainstream press, making the person who made the inappropriate tweet look foolish and requiring them to make an apology.

In the world of sports, the FIFA World Cup (Soccer/Football) is reeling from an extremely contentious goal scored by the French National team over Ireland, knocking the Irish out of the upcoming World Cup in South Africa.

So, what do these two things have in common? Well today, Thierry Henry, the French player who passed the ball with his hand (which should have negated the goal, sending Ireland to the World Cup) was reported by the Telegraph to have apologized on Twitter. You can see his apology on his Twitter page.

Now, I’m not saying it was inappropriate of Henry to say he’s sorry on Twitter. In fact, I believe this is a very good forum to do so, and many politicians and public figures may want to take note. That said, for the mainstream media reporting on Tweets of this nature, let’s be honest, it’s made for an interesting and very weird week.

Therefore, in the spirit of this very weird week, I suggest we develop a terminology for issuing apologies on Twitter.

I went to a Twitter glossary and found terminology for almost everything, except an apology. Since Twitter is now broadcasting apologies and, in many cases, is creating reasons for people (or tweeple) to apologize, we need a Twitter term for an apology.

Do you have a suggestion? Leave a comment below…

Resources:

• Nearly a third of the members of Parliament are on Twitter bandwagon (Canadian Press)
• MP tweets herself into hot water (Sun media)
• Halak agent faces Twitter backlash (CBC)
• Thierry Henry apologises for handball on Twitter (Telegraph)
• Thierry Henry’s Twitter page
• Twitter Glossary

from Katie D. Paine's blog

Still winding down from an exciting day at #Meshmarketing in Toronto yesterday (huge thanks to the organizers for a great event). I sat in on four fabulous presentations, but the highlight for me was Katie D. Paine‘s “Social Media Analytics – What, Why and How.”

All day, there were lots of questions about social media ROI and what to measure, both in the presentations, and in talking with other attendees. Katie’s presentation at the end of the day wrapped it up perfectly: The main point was “yes, you CAN measure social media ROI”

She explained the seven steps to social media ROI, you can find all this and more in her presentation, but in short they are:

1. Define the “R” – What are the expected results?
2. Define the “I” – What’s the investment? (She also points out that social media is not, in fact, free–”Do you work for free?” she asked)
3. Understand your audience and what motivates them
4. Define the metrics  (what you want to become)
5. Determine what you are benchmarking against
6. Pick a tool and undergo research
7. Analysis – because research without insight is just trivia

The best part about these steps is that they don’t *just* apply to social media, but any type of measurement.  The challenge with social media is it’s not yet widely adopted, but now you’re equipped to go out and lead the way, so what are you waiting for?

If you missed Mesh Marketing, but were in Ottawa, I hope you were able to catch Katie at Third Tuesday Ottawa. If not, I encourage you to check out the slide presentation or follow her blog.

Being the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) at MediaMiser, I’m constantly having to prioritize projects. Developing a successful application is about solving real problems and constantly being weary of cool ideas that add no value.

MediaMiser has been successful, in part because we’ve avoided features that add no value to our customers — features that are more cool than useful.

That said, six months ago we had to make a decision on whether or not to leverage Twitter content. The hard questions were asked:

• Was Twitter a flash in the pan, or is it here to stay?
• Does Twitter provide real value, or is it a forum for vacuous banter?

To figure that out, I had to experience Twitter first hand. I had to become Jane Goodall living with the apes — hence my user handle icon.

I registered myself on Twitter and decided to act like a good monkey and play nice with the locals.

What I found is that Twitter has real value and fills a void that other social media have problems addressing. Soon after, we started developing processes for collecting and analyzing twitter content in the MediaMiser platform.

What communication problem does Twitter solve?

Many refer to Twitter as a micro-blog. Twitter has a text limit of 140 characters–imposed so that Twitter could be made compatible with SMS messaging on cell phones.

That said, cell phone compatibility is not the only value of Twitter. Twitter has developed into a communications platform that addresses many different issues more efficiently than other media.

Blogging alternative

Blogs are a great way to share and broadcast information. However, maintaining a blog can be a challenge for the average person and many times people have only a little bit to say. The 140 character limitation of Twitter provides a less formal and time-consuming medium for the self-conscientious writer to update the public.

Many business professionals are turning to Twitter because it’s less time consuming than a blog. Blogs have to be well-thought out (especially for executives) and, in many cases, executives don’t have the time. Transparency, however, is important in maintaining the trust of staff and clients.

An easy to use two-way RSS feed

RSS feeds are an excellent way of providing and consuming news information. Many people use RSS feeds to keep up with techniques specific to their professional field or areas of interest. RSS feeds, however,  don’t allow for instant and two-way communications.  Twitter does.

Sharing news

Whether it’s from your website, blog,  or a news site, Twitter provides an excellent forum for re-broadcasting or sharing news information.

Forum for Corporate and Consumer related issues

Twitter offers consumers a forum for elliciting product information or providing both positive and negative feedback on products or services.  Conversely, Twitter also provides companies and organizations a mechanism to respond quickly to issues and get feedback to improve their company or organization. At the same time, companies and organizations can demonstrate and project transparency to the public, which evokes trust.

Networking and facilitating business

Twitter provides a platform for people to foster relationships and businesses to promote their brand through simply having a Twitter presence. Also, as mentioned before, Twitter also allows companies and organizations to broadcast news.

Many journalists and opinion leaders are also using Twitter to cross-promote themselves. In many cases, journalists will leak information on Twitter to create a buzz or communicate live events. During the 2009 NHL entry draft, I followed Darren Dregger and received news and draft information before it was officially published on the TSN web site.

Furthermore, using the courts, a law firm attempted to prevent a British daily newspaper from reporting a question in the British Parliament. However, outrage ensued on Twitter and other social media. The publication ban was later rescinded, partly because of the outrage on Twitter and partly because of the realization that even if there was a ban, there was no way of censoring Twitter.

Final thoughts

By leveraging the Twitter information within MediaMiser, we were able to perform competitive analysis and issues management, and identify pending issues for our clients, etc…  However, most interestingly, we were also able to correlate news information and measure the viral effect of a news story. We successfully demonstrated  the viral relationship between traditional and social media by analyzing the United Breaks Guitars issue.

Will Twitter continue to be an important communications tool? Only time will tell. It’s possible it could be displaced by a newer medium that more effectively addresses the same issues as Twitter.

That said, even media that Twitter has supplanted have not disappeared, and the same will probably be said of Twitter when other new media emerge.

e-Marketer today published a study saying that social media measurement lags adoption. The difference was quite large: while 86% of respondents had adopted social technologies, only 16% were measuring ROI.

Shocking, yes. But does this tell the whole story? While ROI is a great metric for tying efforts to a dollar value… It’s not the be-all end-all of social media measurement. In fact, if it is the only metric you’re looking at, ROI is actually poor measure of social media efforts.

If you are using it to its full potential, the real value of social media is in the relationships you build with customers and potential customers. The stronger these relationships are, the more likely they are going to turn into money–either directly or through referrals. This is what is often referred to as community building, and why many companies are hiring community managers. The downside to community building, from a measurement point of view, is it’s not an immediate gain… It’s not easily measureable and it’s definitely not easily turned into an ROI figure.

How can you measure community building? Engagement–Look at who is talking about you and how often. Sentiment–Are people talking about you positively or negatively? If you do it well and track these relationships over time, you’ll likely see them turn into dollars.

It should also be mentioned that community building is not just about posting to Twitter/Facebook, blogging and creating Youtube videos. It’s also essential you have a solid product or service and excellent customer service to succeed. This is another measurement obstacle, because you can have the best community manager in the world, but still fail if your offering is not up to par. This problem can’t necessarily be captured in ROI or any other metric unless it’s overwhelmingly obvious (it’s often not).

I can’t comment on whether or not the respondents in the study are measuring more than ROI, but I would hope so. What do you think? Should I be more worried about the lack of ROI measurement?