Complaining and unhappy customers from our perspective our gifts for you and your business. They allow you to look closely as those aspects of your business or brand that have come into question, review how you are managing your customer service responses, allow you to engage with your customers one on one and build a relationship and make the great things you currently do better! Ironically  feedback and criticism promotes fear for many businesses – especially in today’s world of social media- where word of mouth spreads like a wild virus, yet what they forget is that by hiding or not responding this unhappiness spreads anyway. Why not take the initiative to face that unhappy person or group and use the good will and caring you demonstrate – as another way to promote the many great reasons – why they should continue to do business with you and SHARE their good relationship and experiences with others. Now that sounds like good publicity…taking lemons and making some delicious lemonade!

On Mashable.com I came across an article that speaks directly about this very issue today. Susan Payton posted an article that provides some good examples, expanding upon my thoughts in this post – to leverage that unhappy or unsatisfied customer – not only to help solve their discontent, but to take advantage of the ways you can learn more about how to make your business better and promote the way you face head on – the negative things you do or have done.

The outcome is that your customers win and at the same time so does your business and your brand. You learn about the way you can make your business better and in turn can promote the great way you engage with your customers. Think Zappos – they focused on customer service and it became their best skill because they realized when they began it was something they lacked. We always promote the positive things – but isn’t it a positive thing to know – that if I have a problem with your products or business you will be there immediately – to make sure that it gets fixed immediately?

How are you embracing complaining customers in your business? We would love to hear how you have managed some of your customer service challenges.

Best Nicole

Companies love positive feedback. They share it on Twitter (), post it on their website and use it as marketing fodder. But what about when feedback is, well, less than pleasant? What can you do with a handful (or more) of irate customers? Do you ignore them? Bury them out back? Not in today’s social atmosphere.

Rather than try to sweep these unhappy customers under the rug, look at them as a challenge and an opportunity to improve your brand and leverage them for some publicity.

Why You Want Angry Customers

There are several ways to connect with unhappy customers in a meaningful way:

• Hold a panel or forum in person; give them a tour of your facility and hold a venting session
• Work virtually; host an online panel to get feedback from them
• Work one-on-one to understand their concerns and address them individually

In-Person Events

Dell recently held its first Customer Advisory Panel event at their headquarters in Round Rock, TX. They invited two groups of 15 bloggers and social media gurus. One group was full of people who had negative experiences with the company and who were vocal about their displeasure. The second group was made up of people that Dell considered brand evangelists; people who loved Dell and told others.

The attendees started the morning with their gripes; customer service issues came up again and again. The heads of customer service and marketing were present and actively engaged. As they listened, they took notes, then asked questions and they promised they would make changes.

That type of customer empowerment is important. Now, whether they’ll go through with the promised changes is another story, but it was clear that Dell understood it was time to start paying attention to the public’s perception of its brand, and make some changes to keep their customers.

Nestlé is another company that has been successful at holding an event to let people engage with its brand directly. After a resurgence in interest in the Nestle Boycott a few years ago, Nestlé decided to invite a group of bloggers to what it called its “Happy, Healthy Gathering” in 2009. Mommy bloggers, who’d been tweeting up a storm about the company’s stance on breastfeeding in third world countries, were invited to tour the facilities and give their input on the company.

Whether the event truly changed perceptions remains to be seen, but it did a great deal to show that Nestlé was putting in the effort to reach its audience.

Disclosure: I was one of the bloggers invited to participate Dell’s Customer Advisory Panel.

Virtual Panels

Virtual panels are decidedly less effective than in-person ones. But they can be good replacements for focus groups. Pssst is General Mills’ online testing ground for new products. The company sends participants coupons and free products to try, and in return they are asked to fill out surveys. The program is so successful that bloggers who write about saving money are gladly turning others onto joining Pssst.

Similarly, the Starbucks Passion Panel was designed to get customer feedback — for better or worse. The community of Starbucks drinkers gives their input via surveys and forums.

Passion Panel member Jennifer Boyd said, “Being on the Passion Panel means that I have access to direct input and discussion with other members. It enables me to give my opinion on Starbucks’ current and future products through surveys. The panel is a great way to engage with their loyal customers and solidifies a relationship with a consumer to a brand.”

Wal-Mart’s Elevenmoms platform is another example of how a mix of online community, shopper experience and in-person visits can work together to help the company gather new insights. John Andrews, former Senior Manager of Emerging Media for Wal-Mart and founder of the Elevenmoms, said the community succeeded in getting Wal-Mart’s attention in a few areas where it was lacking.

When the iPhone was launched in Wal-Mart stores, the Elevenmoms were invited to go through the purchase process. Some had no problems, but others did. It took one blogger two hours to buy a phone. Each blogger published her experience, and Wal-Mart took the feedback to its operations staff, who took notes and improved the purchase process.

“The Elevenmoms used direct social media interaction to improve the shopping process,” said Andrews.

Other feedback caused Wal-Mart to reconsider its layaway strategy. Having canceled the layaway plan due to costs, Wal-Mart got some flack from the Elevenmoms, who felt it made it easier to make big purchases. As a result, Wal-Mart developed its Site to Store platform, which provided the benefit of layaway online, so that local stores didn’t incur extra costs.

Disclosure: John Andrews now works with Collective Bias, a company with which I have collaborated on projects.

One-on-One

Solving a customer’s problems and changing their perception individually is the least cost-effective method, but a little work goes a long way. And it starts with customer service personnel being properly trained to solve problems, and not to simply stick to “the script” at all costs. Look at Zappos or Disney for great examples of how service reps are empowered to solve problems.

Disney empowers each of its “cast members” (staff) to solve a guest’s problem. From the street sweeper to the reservation specialist, everyone has the ability to turn a negative situation into a good one. That might mean replacing a fallen ice cream cone, upgrading a guest’s hotel room, or simply answering politely the most commonly asked question on Disney property: what time is the three o’clock parade?

Disney is so good at customer service, they’ve opened the Disney Institute, a customer service training program helps other corporations use the same techniques that has made Disney such a success.

Likewise, Zappos is also famous for its customer service tactics. The reps don’t use scripts, and seem to genuinely care about solving problems. Many customers are pleasantly surprised when their shipping gets upgraded and they get their shoes even faster – at no additional charge.

By providing instant happiness to the customer, these brands can prevent a lot of the bad karma that comes down the road when an unhappy customer becomes an enraged customer who tells everyone he knows about how bad the company is (no one wants their own version of DellHell).

Conclusion

I think for those that are still hedging – you need to take a look at this attached post from Mashable.com.  Author Rick Burnes features five businesses who definitely do not fit the everyday consumer facing, mainstream profile and they are all leveraging social media. An Equine Dentist ( yes a dentist for horses) The Equine Practice Inc., steel building manufacturer – SteelMaster Buildings, paint company Idea Paint, a manufacturer of high-quality paper products Neenahpaper and online aviation maintenance Duncan Aviation. All of these businesses have leveraged different social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and video.

Social media is about engagement – as we always write about in our blog SHARE. Everyone - no matter the business, person, place, product or service wants to find like minded people they can connect. create and cultivate with.

Not using social media yet? After reading this you have no excuses! Keep us posted on how you do!

Best Nicole

Chances are, most of the businesses you interact with as a consumer are on social media. Your local restaurant is blogging, your grocery store is on Twitter () — even your favorite candy is on Facebook (). Companies in mainstream, consumer-facing industries are all over social media.

But how about other businesses? Manufacturers? B2B service providers? Equine dentists? Are they experimenting with social media?

You bet. Here are five examples, all at different stages of their experiments, and all indicating the breadth of business use of social media.

1. Equine Dentist Builds Relationships With Facebook

How do you turn a regional service business into an international destination for industry thought leadership?

Facebook.

At least that’s what worked for Geoff Tucker, an equine dentist based in Palm City, FL.

In a business driven by relationships, Geoff says that Facebook allows him to build new ones. “People do business with people who they’re friends with. Period,” he says. “And Facebook is a great way to get to know people. It allows people to see that I’m a person.”

As he builds these relationships using social media, Geoff is also expanding his company’s reach. He says it was his blog (), his Twitter feed, and his Facebook account that helped him win appearances on Horse Talk Radio and HorseGirl.tv.

So what’s this done for his business? Geoff says that over the last year, Facebook alone has generated about 100 leads and 10-to-15 customers.

2. Steel Building Manufacturer Taps New Verticals

As a manufacturer of prefabricated steel buildings, SteelMaster was initially hesitant to get involved in social media.

“It’s steel buildings,” explains Michelle Wickum, director of marketing for the Norfolk, VA company. “How is that going to tie to Facebook? It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but when we looked at the growth in Facebook and social media, we felt we had to get our arms around it.”

About a year ago, SteelMaster put its first toe into the social media water. The company discovered two important applications for their business. First, they found that Facebook is an excellent way to post pictures of customers’ steel buildings. Not only do the pictures engage existing customers — they also demonstrate to prospective customers the range of uses for SteelMaster buildings. “Photography for us is the hook,” Michelle explains.

Perhaps more importantly, SteelMaster found that social networks like Twitter and Facebook gives it exposure to and create demand in specific verticals where it previously had little traction. Chicken farmers and woodworkers don’t typically think to use steel buildings, but when friends and colleagues share pictures of their SteelMaster buildings on Twitter and Facebook, the farmers and woodworkers become interested.

3. Full Social Media Integration for Marketing Paint

Idea Paint is a Boston-area startup that sells paint that turns surfaces into dry-erase boards. The company uses social media throughout its sales and marketing process.

The company blog, where employees publish videos, images and stories of product installations, is the hub of Idea Paint’s social media activity. The company uses Twitter and Facebook to share content published on the blog — then to listen to, respond to, and interact with the community that content engages.

Marcus Wilson, Idea Paint’s head of marketing, says this system gives the company a level of customer intimacy and global reach and that was unheard of 10 years ago.

What’s this mean in terms of business results? Social media is now one of Idea Paint’s largest sources of leads and traffic — and it is growing steadily. Meanwhile, the company’s Twitter and Facebook reach grew 70% in Q1 2010, and is expected to grow an order of magnitude in Q2.

Idea Paint produced this video on their social media strategy, exclusively for Mashable () readers:

4. Integrating Twitter Into the Paper Selling Process

One year ago, the marketing team at Neenah Paper, a manufacturer of high-quality paper products, confronted a growing problem: It was becoming harder and harder to reach new potential customers. Their traditional channels — phone conversations and in-person meetings — were not working as well. Prospects were tuning them out.

Jamie Saunders, Neenah’s marketing communications manager, noted that most of the company’s potential customers — designers, graphic artists and printers — were spending their time in front of their computers, and that social media could be a way to better engage them.

So Neenah took a step into the social media world. While the experiment started with Neenah’s marketing team, its sales team was one of the biggest beneficiaries. They discovered they could do prospecting and nurturing via Twitter. Today the company has 10 sales representatives across the country using their personal Twitter accounts on behalf of Neenah to close new business.

Jamie says these sales reps are finding that social media is simply a more effective way of engaging with their prospects. “It’s an invitation to have a conversation. You’re getting permission to have a conversation — a conversation that used to happen in person.”

5. Leading the Online Aviation Maintenance Discussion

In November 2008, a handful of auto executives flew their private planes to Washington, DC to testify before Congress in support of federal aid for their industry. This perception of corporate excess created an outcry, and the private aviation industry’s image was damaged.

At that time, aircraft maintenance and support company Duncan Aviation had just started using social media. The company discovered that the new medium could be a way to positively shape the conversation — to add its perspective and improve the industry’s damaged reputation.

Beth Humble, now Duncan’s social media lead, explains that while social media is an important part of Duncan’s strategy, the company doesn’t aspire to create a Comcast- or Coke-like presence on the social web. Instead, the goal is simply to influence the right people.

“There are a lot of industry people that we network with that are on Twitter: Journalists, other aviation bloggers, and industry and media outlets,” Beth explains. “If you connect with the right few people, you can really get in there and connect with thousands of people.”

Mashable.com has a superb post written by Jessica Faye Carter that clearly walks you through 5 key areas that point to the bountiful areas of opportunity  for companies that are looking to reach, engage and connect with women.

What does this mean for your business? OPPORTUNITY!

Best Nicole

Women have firmly established their presence on the social web, and account for the majority of users on many popular social media sites. But what does this mean for the future of women in social media?

One word: Opportunity.

Companies looking to reach women — whether as consumers, entrepreneurs, employees, or advocates — have an unprecedented opportunity through social media to engage them. For women, social media presents abundant opportunities to lead, effect change, innovate, and build relationships across sectors, locally, nationally, and globally.

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Clicks & Mortar

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Many companies are searching for the perfect blend of online and offline strategies, and their forays into social media are impacting their interactions with women in important ways.

“Businesses are going where their customers are, in an effort to reach them in their environment,” said Rashmi Sinha, CEO and co-founder of SlideShare. “[They] are also starting to share content and join in the conversation in the same way that individuals do.”

Conversations between companies and female consumers are moving beyond “what do you want?” types of questions. Companies are starting to use social media to secure real-time feedback from women on products, services, and marketing campaigns—sometimes before they go to market.

Unilever used social media to launch their new Pond’s Age Miracle moisturizer in China, recruiting bloggers to try the product and share their findings. The strategy was risky because of the heavy usage of social media there, but it came with a huge upside: If the bloggers liked the product, word of mouth could lead to major success. If not, the poor publicity from blogs would make the launch difficult to salvage. The risk paid off and the moisturizer was a hit, leading to the adoption of social media strategies by other Unilever offices in Asia.

Kmart’s Smart Shoppers Unite is a different style of interaction with consumers. It’s a promising community with a mix of deals, shopping advice, and lifestyle discussions. Features include tips from The Frugalista, a popular bargain-shopping blogger, a coupon section, and games. What’s interesting about this network is that it’s interest-based — anyone interested in budget-conscious shopping can join. As the number of female social media users increases, and notions of women’s interests expand, we are likely to see more of these interest-based types of sites.

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Built-In Participation

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Companies seeking to gather women’s opinions, feedback, and insights should consider using what Tim O’Reilly calls “architectures of participation” on their sites. Such architectures build the collection of information into the site’s structure, so that users participate through their activities on the site. Instead of (or in addition to) asking users which features they enjoy most, companies can measure the usage or traffic patterns for particular features and get a sense of what users enjoy, and plan for future offerings.

These participative structures are important because they help gather data about women’s activities and interests on the social web. With the significant amount of stereotyping that occurs around women’s interests — particularly assumptions that limit women’s interests to fashion, celebrities, and motherhood — collected data on women’s Internet behavior can give companies a better idea of how to develop communities that can garner maximum participation from women.

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Mission: Relationships

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Margarita Quihuis, a researcher at Stanford University’s Persuasive Technology Lab, sees social media as a relationship enhancement tool.

“Human beings have always gotten together, collaborated through their church groups and PTAs, told stories over coffee or over the backyard fence,” said Quihuis. “Social media merely allows us to do what we’ve always done faster, better and with scale… From a persuasive standpoint, social media can be used to surface engagement opportunities and increase participation through building new social norms.”

In other words, social media can increase the visibility of opportunities to engage, and influences actions so that the visibility of the engagement acts as a catalyst for increased involvement. We’ve seen evidence of this type of engagement with the recent catastrophe in Haiti. Quihuis noted, “When individuals see all their friends texting money to Haiti, they’re persuaded to do so as well.”

In addition to overcoming hindrances to action, social tools help people to connect across cultural, social, and other barriers to interaction. For women in business, this is especially good news, as they often confront difficulties in securing capital, gaining access to key decision-makers, and finding opportunities to demonstrate their expertise. The “flattening” effect of social technologies allows women to develop relationships with people previously out of reach, and they can demonstrate their expertise using blogs, webinars, and other social tools.

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The Mobile Web

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A significant opportunity exists for companies to connect with women using mobile technologies. Women comprise 47% of current mobile web users, and between 2008 and 2009, the number of women using the mobile web increased by 43%, compared with a 26% increase in the number of men.

Joyce Kim, CEO of Soompi.com, a Korean pop and Asian music and entertainment community, understands the need for a comprehensive mobile strategy. “Accessing content via mobile devices is getting both more popular and easier across the Internet,” said Kim. “Also, a good percentage of our traffic originates in Asia where mobile usage is more widespread.”

In addition to mobilizing their sites, companies are moving towards making women’s lives easier, according to Corvida Raven, a technology blogger and social media consultant.

“We’ll start seeing more apps catering to the lifestyles of women on a personal level, such as shopping apps that provide discounts on popular items that women usually buy for their homes and kids,” Raven predicted. She added that some apps are upping the convenience factor: “Location-based apps are partnering with stores to provide discounts and deals through augmented reality.”

Companies targeting mobile women should also consider developing or sponsoring apps which cater to a broad array of women’s interests, including careers, politics, personal finance, and organization, in addition to the more traditional categories of shopping, fashion, and parenting.

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Thought Leadership

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Opportunities are abundant for women to demonstrate thought leadership in the world of social media.

“I believe that now is a golden time for women in technology,” said Gina Trapani, an award-winning author, blogger and programmer. “It’s a time when an awareness of the need for diversity in our field is at its highest. Conference organizers, editors, journalists, and CTO’s are desperate to get knowledgeable women onto their speaker rosters, mastheads, source lists, and staff. There are bigger and better opportunities than ever before.”

Women hoping to seize these opportunities need to be proactive, by submitting workshop proposals that demonstrate knowledge and substantive value. In social media, everyone has an opinion. Conference organizers want to know what research you have done and what expertise you have — why people should listen to you. If you can demonstrate expertise, next steps include networking with conference organizers, speaking regularly at tech events, and publishing.

None of this, of course, provides any guarantee of landing a high-visibility speaking slot. But submitting your proposal to a conference that actively seeks women’s participation is a start. Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort Page, and Jory Des Jardins, co-founders of BlogHer, cite SXSW as just such a conference.

“For years, Hugh [Forrest, Event Director for SXSW] has recruited the help of women as personal and professional advisors -— us included!” they said. “Elisa sits on his advisory board, and SXSW has grown as a result.”  O’Reilly Media, host to some of the most influential technology conferences in the world, recently released a statement on conference diversity, and crowdsourced a diverse group for feedback and ideas as part of its development process.

Crowdsourcing is also useful for improving the representation of women speakers and attendees. Stone, Page, and Jardins encourage conference organizers to be proactive and to “recruit women to support every part of your event — from recruiting speakers to planning marketing, web sites and wifi.”

But not all conferences are women-friendly. At some, sexualized images of women are still included in presentations. Others feature scantily clad women as props or for entertainment. Stone, Page, and Jardins observed that “the organizers of many conferences, especially tech conferences, don’t seem to appreciate that women don’t want to sit through presentations — PowerPoint, video and otherwise — that depict women as porn stars and/or sex objects.”

“It’s hard to believe we even have to spell that out,” they added, “but, trust us, we do.”

While some organizations have yet to get the memo on creating inclusive conferences, and despite the challenges facing women thought leaders and experts, the future still looks bright for women in social media. The number of women programmers, entrepreneurs, bloggers, consultants, community managers, and social media users continues to grow. It’s only a matter of time before these numbers translate into greater visibility and influence in the social space.

Trapani, too, is optimistic: “Ladies, now is not the time to be timid. Step up, take chances, push yourself beyond your comfort zone, use your powers and influence for good, and let your expertise shine.”

I came across an article on the Crisis Management section of Forbes.com, that speaks about just this very topic. Written by Laurie Burkett, her article discusses how companies like GM and American Airlines win over critics online. As stated at the end of the article, it is easy for bloggers, tweeters and facebook users to see businesses as faceless entities. It is important for you and your business to show that there are real people in there who are listening and ready to connect and engage with their customers.

Tell us how are you reacting to the current or potential brand bashing bad-vocates in your business.

Best Nicole

During General Motors’ financial meltdown this year, politicians, corporate executives and journalists piled on to gripe about the auto-maker’s business. Most of the chatter was expected, admits Christopher Preuss, GM’s vice president of communications. What surprised company execs was the number of bloggers and social media hounds who chimed in to grouse about the car-maker and its vehicles.

One was David Meerman Scott, a blogger on WebInkNow.com, and the former vice president of marketing for media company Knight-Ridder. Scott’s scathing commentary about “faceless,” “nameless” GM’s marketing strategies fetched 20-plus comments from other GM bashers on his blog.

GM is one of many companies trying to manage a slew of online critics like Scott, particularly since the economic downturn has made so many bloggers–and their followers–distrustful and critical of big companies. The musings and grumbles of these “badvocates,” as they are called, can now be transmitted around the globe. These powerful critics represent 20% of the world’s adult population online and they reach an estimated 14 people with their opinions, according to New York public relations firm Weber Shandwick.

Muzzling them is impossible. So how do GM and other companies handle these critics? At GM, a social media team of six employees trolls the Web, tweeting, updating Facebook and occasionally commenting on personal blogs. In the case of Scott, who has 29,000 followers on Twitter, GM invited him to Detroit and encouraged him to log the details of his trip and post video clips of interviews Chief Executive Officer Fritz Henderson and other executives. Other companies are also setting up meetings with bloggers to try and establish better relationships with them. Some even hope to drown out critics by getting brand fans to write positive blogs.

GM’s Preuss says executives can’t invite every blogger to the company, but they plans to reach out occasionally to make sure that influential writers are equipped with correct information about the car maker. In July the Detroit company also launched AskFritz.org, a site where consumers can leave their gripes or ask questions and actually get comments from Henderson. The site, Preuss says, has helped GM respond to critics who might otherwise be splattering comments elsewhere on the Web.

Airlines have experienced a lot of brand bashing on the Web in recent years, particularly on trip-planning sites and, more recently, on Twitter. When consumers miss connecting flights or experience delays, they reach down for their mobile phones and Tweet or blog about it.

American Airlines ( AMR – news - people) of Fort Worth is reaching out to people on social networking sites, says Roger Frizzell, vice president of corporate communications, brand and advertising. In August, when New York’s LaGuardia Airport closed a terminal due to a bomb threat, American Airlines posted notices on its Web site and sent a Tweet to its followers on Twitter. It leaves general information on lost baggage and canceled flights on its Facebook site. Getting the word out before consumers run into problems at the airport is one way to avoid criticism, says Frizzell.

That’s key, agrees Jack Leslie, chairman of Weber Shandwick. Companies should check out what’s being said about their brands and figure out if they should react or comment. Worst case scenario, says Leslie, is to have a viral video like the one United Airlines experienced this past July, when country singer Dave Carroll wrote a song about the airline’s failure to replace the guitar the airline supposedly smashed in transport.

GM watcher Scott says he still feels comfortable speaking out against companies, but he’s more likely to talk to them first to get information and comments. He recommends that all big corporations should respond to bloggers who bash their brands. “It’s easy for a blogger to see a company as a faceless entity,” says Scott. “We need to know there are real people out there.”

Best Nicole

Some marketers and agencies are inadvertently alienating the female bloggers they want to befriend.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — In their mad rush to generate brand exposure across the blogosphere, many marketers and their agencies are actually aggravating and alienating the mommy bloggers they hope to partner with. That’s according to Elisa Camahort Page, chief operating officer and co-founder of BlogHer. In this nine-minute video interview before she opens her organization’s fifth national convention in Chicago this week, Ms. Camahort Page went through the most common faux pas committed by marketers and agencies. BlogHer is an online community and content hub that runs an ad-supported network of more than 2,500 female bloggers. It has become the de facto standard bearer for women bloggers nationwide.

Best Nicole

“There’s so much talk about social media that it is easy for people to become cynical, perhaps losing track of the fact that it can have a positive impact on your business.”

So how can you determine whether a social media strategy is proving beneficial to your business? How do you know that it is working out for you? And is now really the best time to find out?

Rather than focusing on individual social media campaigns, I’d like to look at social media measurement from the perspective of a business that a) buys into social media, b) commits to it over a period of time, and as such c) has an integrated social media strategy. You people know who you are!

Let it breathe

The key with social media measurement, I think, is to stand back and take a widescreen approach to measurement. 

Rather than focusing on the smaller, campaign-specific metrics, such as traffic from Twitter or the number of fans on Facebook, wouldn’t it be better to look at how it helps to shift the most important business KPIs, such as sales, profits, as well as customer retention and satisfaction rates?

To do this effectively, you’ll need to give your social media strategy time. Like a good wine, it needs to breathe. In doing so you will be able to look at your overall business performance, as well as the performance of your social media campaigns over the duration. 

Take the Skittles campaign. I called it ‘brave’, ‘amazing’, ‘sensational’ and ‘ballsy’. I still think it is all of those things, and I’ll think that next year even if it fails miserably. It was a big move. But nobody yet knows for sure whether giving over a brand’s entire website to consumer-powered media channels is a smart move. Only time will tell.

Social media vs TV advertising

Here I want to make a small point on accuracy, and attribution. I firmly believe that if you can spend tens of millions on TV ads and make any kind of sense out of that investment, in terms of TV ads helping to boost sales while increasing the key brand metrics, then you can make sense of your (much smaller) investment into social media. 

TV campaigns can run for a long time, and the effects on the business are a) not known immediately and b) possibly overstated. Hindsight is a beautiful thing, and advertising executives (and creative agencies) like to take credit for improving sales, when really these sales might have little or nothing to do with TV ads. Attribution is one thing, but knowing that something works is entirely different. Social media appears to be a mixture of the two.

Maybe we can create a model for scoring the performance of social media, or for splitting up attribution by channel, but the truth is that there needs to be some room for manoeuvre when making sense of things. There are few absolutes in measuring advertising campaigns, if you work outside of paid search. You can far more accurately measure social media than you can a TV ad, but like TV advertising, or PR for that matter, there has to be some scope to play around with attribution.

Like TV advertising, social media will play a role in moving brand metrics, and perhaps more so (it is easier to make a noise and to be socially active; there’s an anytime, anywhere factor at work here. And hey, shit sticks around longer when you throw it online). There is a huge viral factor with social media sites (behold ye retweeters). You can really see word of mouth in action on social media sites, and as such there is less guesswork involved when measuring the results – less extrapolation is needed. If 500,000 consumers start saying good things about your brand, with few dissenters, then surely it is fair to say that brand favourability will have improved?

If brand indicators matter, or if you subscribe to the AIDA model, or if you care enough to undertake research to find out your own brand metrics (PDF), then by all means factor in your social media efforts when attributing the success of your overall marketing campaigns.

Take a snapshot

Before you start the clock it is a good idea to benchmark where you’re at…

1. Make a note of the obvious numbers (number of Facebook fans, Twitter followers, Digg links, Delicious bookmarks, and referrals from social media sites, plus existing website traffic).
2. Make a note of the less obvious benchmarks (such as SEO rankings and referrals, customer satisfaction scores and other business data). 
3. Make a note of ROI benchmarks. How much are you paying to acquire customers via other marketing channels? How vast is that advertising budget, and how is it being split up? And what proportion is being directed into channels that you cannot accurately measure?  

After that make sure you’re doing the right things. There are lots of social media experts handing out lots of advice for free. There are all manner of social media agencies out there that will help you, if you don’t have the appetite to do this in-house. And there are sites devoted to measuring social media. Get some, get some.

Measuring the effects of social media in 10 steps

1. Traffic
This is one of the more obvious ways of measuring social media. Remember that quality often beats quantity, though not always (as many CPM-focused publishers will surely testify). 

2. Interaction
Participation is a valuable indicator for many publishers (and brands). It says something about the kind of traffic you are attracting. Remember that an engaged customer is a highly valuable one. Interaction can be anything from leaving comments, to participating in support forums, to leaving customer reviews and ratings. It can happen on your website and on other websites. Keep your eyes and ears open!

3. Sales
We at Econsultancy are tracking sales from organic Google referrals and also paid search. It didn’t seem like much of a leap to track other channels, such as Twitter. Try it. Dell did, and discovered that it made $1m from Twitter in 18 months. Blendtec’s ‘Will It Blend?’ campaign on YouTube helped to drive “a five-fold increase in sales”. 

4. Leads
Some companies simply cannot process sales online, because their products or services do not allow for it. For example, the automotive industry, which tends to measure the effects of its online ad campaigns by the amount of brochures requests, or test drives booked in (as opposed to car sales, which is, in marketing terms, an altogether more macro effort). B2B operators are in a similar position. If you are a consultant and spend time interacting on LinkedIn Answers then there’s a way of tracking that activity to enquiries about your services. The same applies across the spectrum of social media sites. Choose your weapon, thought leaders.

5. Search marketing
The SEO factor cannot be understated. Social media can be far more powerful in this regard than you might initially imagine. For example, a well-placed story / video / image on a site like Digg will generate a lot of traffic and a nice link from Digg itself, but the real win here is that it will generate a lot more interest beyond Digg. Bloggers and major publishers are following Digg’s Upcoming channel to unearth new and interesting stories (Sky News now has a Twitter correspondent). One link and 20,000 referrals from Digg might lead on to 40,000 referrals and 100 links from other sites. The long tail, in action. 100 links means that your page might well wind up being placed highly on Google, resulting in lots of ongoing traffic. Remember too that you can use sites like Twitter and YouTube to claim valuable search rankings on your brand search terms (‘social search optimisation’).

6. Brand metrics
Word of mouth and the viral factor (inherent in sites like Twitter, Facebook and Digg) can help shift the key brand metrics, both negatively and positively. These include brand favourability, brand awareness, brand recall, propensity to buy, etc. Expensive TV ads are measured in this way, so if these metrics are good enough for TV then they’re surely good enough for the internet? Positive brand associations via social media campaigns can help drive clicks on paid search ads, and responses to other forms of advertising. We know that TV ads boost activity on search engines, resulting in paid search success stories, so I’d bet that social media can do the same.

7. PR
The nature of public relations has changed, forever. The last five years have been largely about the traditional PR folks not really being able to figure out the blogosphere. But if PRs cannot control the bloggers, then how on earth will they handle consumers? The distinct worlds of PR, customer service, and marketing are fusing. Twitter means everybody has a blog these days, and somewhere to shout about things to their friends (and beyond). Social media sites are the biggest echo chambers in the world! In any event, if you can measure PR (beyond adding up column inches and applying a random multiple to the equivalent size on the rate card!), then you can measure social media.

8. Customer engagement
Given the prevalence of choice, and the ease with which consumers can switch from one brand to another, customer engagement is one of the most important of all metrics in today’s business environment. Engagement can take place offline and online, both on your website and on other sites, particularly social media sites. Customer engagement is key to improving satisfaction and loyalty rates, and revenue. By listening to customers, and letting them know that you are listening, you can improve your business, your products, and your levels of service. The alternative is to ignore customers, which sends out a terrible message. Our research found that an engaged customer will recommend your brand, convert more readily and purchase more often. 

9. Retention
A positive side effect of increased customer engagement – assuming certain other factors in play work in your favour – is an increase in customer retention. This is going to be a crucial factor in the success of your business in the years to come. Make no bones about it: we are moving into an age of optimisation and retention. Watch your retention rates as you start participating in social media. Over time, all things remaining equal, they should rise. Zappos, which is a case study in how-to-do-Twitter (and active on MySpace, Facebook and Youtube), is closing in on $1bn of sales this year, and “75% of its orders are from repeat customers”. Go figure, as they say.

10. Profits
If you can reduce customer churn, and engage customers more often, the result will surely be that you’ll generate more business from your existing customer base (who in turn will recommend your business to their network of friends, family, and social media contacts). This reduces your reliance on vast customer acquisition budgets to maintain or grow profits. It makes for a far more profitable and more efficient organisation. I really hope that more businesses will find a better balance between acquisition and retention, sooner rather than later, from a resourcing standpoint. Too many acquisition strategies appear to be ill-conceived, are not joined up (both in terms of marketing and also operations), and as such are ripe for optimisation. Plug the leaky bucket and you won’t need to turn the tap so hard to top it up. And remember that old adage about it being cheaper to keep existing customers than to seek out new ones.

What is viral marketing?

Viral marketing is an idea that spreads–and an idea that while it is spreading actually helps market your business or cause.

Two kinds of viral marketing: The original classic sort in which the marketing is the product and which a self-amplifying cycle occurs. Hotmail, for example, or YouTube. The more people use them, the more people see them. The more people see them, the more people use them. The product or service must be something that improves once more people use it.

A second kind has evolved over the last few years, and that’s a marketing campaign that spreads but isn’t the product itself. Shepard Fairey’s poster of Barack Obama was everywhere, because people chose to spread it. It was viral (it spread) and it was marketing (because it made an argument–a visual one–for a candidate.)

Something being viral is not, in an of itself, viral marketing. Who cares that 32,000,000 people saw your stupid video? It didn’t market you or your business in a tangible, useful way.

Marketers are obsessed with free media, and, as is often the case, we blow it in our rush to get our share. We create content that is hampered or selfish or boring. Or we create something completely viral that doesn’t do any marketing at all.

I wrote the first mainstream book about viral marketing. It’s free (still) eight years (and millions of downloads) later. [If you don't already have the book, the PDF is entitled 2000ideavirus.pdf]

I haven’t updated it or made it pretty, but I think the core ideas stand up pretty well. (I even talk about the Zipf’s Law and the long tail, but didn’t realize it at the time).

Here’s how the book itself is an example of viral marketing:
1. I posted the PDF for free. Three thousand people downloaded it on day one.
2. The file is small enough to email to your friends. I encouraged people to do just that.
3. Some people mailed it to fifty or a hundred people. It spread.
4. That’s just viral. The marketing part? I released a $40 souvenir hardcover edition. People knew the idea but didn’t like the format or my design skills. So they paid a lot for a book they had already read. It went to #5 on Amazon (#4 in Japan). We sold the rights in dozens of languages. And the paperback rights. And it helped me get speaking gigs.
BUT!
5. That’s not why I did it. If I had done it as a clever way to sell books, it would have failed. It would have failed because I would have somehow tried to track it, or added friction, or tried to profit in some way from the idea. I was way too dumb at the time to have done it right if my goal was to do it ‘right’.

The critical element of viral marketing is this: it’s built in. It was built into Hotmail and built into YouTube. The more people used the camera on their cell phones, the more the idea spread, the more people wanted a camera.

If you want to do viral marketing, you can try to come up with a viral ad, but you’ll probably fail. You’re better off building the viral right into the product, creating a product that spreads because you designed it that way.

Viral marketing only works well when you plan for it, when you build it in, when you organize your offering to be spreadable, interesting and to work better for everyone involved when it spreads. If I don’t benefit from spreading it, why should I spread it? I won’t. If you don’t benefit from your users spreading the idea, it might spread, but it won’t help you much. So both elements have to be present.

The reason for this post is that viral marketing is getting a bad name, largely from clueless marketing agencies and clueless marketers. Here’s what they do: they get a lame product, or a semi-lame product, and they don’t have enough time or money to run a nationwide ad campaign. So, instead, they slap some goofy viral thing on top of it and wait for it to spread. And if it doesn’t spread, they create a faux controversy or engage a PR firm or some bloggers and then it still doesn’t work.

Being viral isn’t the hard part. The hard part is making that viral element actually produce something of value, not just entertainment for the client or your boss.

Best Nicole