Back when I worked in traditional public relations (and to be perfectly honest, I still do handle some media relations when a client needs it), I always felt tremendously apprehensive about the question of measurement. After an initial period of a month or three months, we would take a look at the file, account for all the billable hours spent and the amount of progress made with the media. Unfortunately, unlike advertising or marketing, the PR sector can never guarantee that the client will get that much-coveted piece in the Wall Street Journal or appearance on CNBC as the requisite expert in their field. Inevitably, despite best efforts, you would commonly have clients who felt like they got less than they paid for – and those who got much more than they paid for could only reward you by not sacking the agency.
That always made me nervous: the inability to immediately demonstrate the value of our work.
Social media consulting is fortunately metric driven, with everything from daily page views of a blog, contacts reached via Twitter and Facebook, Technorati ratings, and other inbound links and comments from the community. However these metrics aren’t always quite the same thing as ROI. That’s what turns me to blog posts such as this one over at Livingston Buzz: “25 Signs You’ve Got a Strong SM Consultant or Agency.” Although the authors of the post have made a clever stab at writing on a popular subject while linking around to every other social media blogger they think is important, I sure do hope that I measure up to this daunting list. Regardless, there is some really great advice in here, even if the presentation lacks an important differentiation between those pesky marketing people and the much more valuable PR crowd which can actually drive your content (do you wonder which side I am on?)
1) Believes in the generous web and practices cross-linking in their blog (example: Kami Huyse)
2) Highlights others’ work in their blog (example: Chris Brogan)
3) Integrates social media as part of larger marketing strategy(example: Razorfish)
4) Doesn’t pretend to be an expert in all things digital; instead simply focuses on what he/she/they do best (example: Common Craft)
5) Gives away best practices in an effort to educate, grow social media in general (example: Todd Defren/SHIFT Communications)
6) Understands that Radian6 and other monitoring tools are vastly superior tracking tools in comparison to Technorati (which really isn’t an indicator of much these days) (example: Fleishman’s Matt Dickman)
7) Will tell you that there is no magic bullet for determining social media ROI and that you need to go further to accurately monitor, measure and determine the effectiveness of social media. (example: K.D. Paine).
Understands that social media is an important part of the larger word of mouth marketing principles (example: Ogilvy’s John Bell)
9) Others cite this person/agency’s work (example: see the many here and here)
10) Realizes that search engine optimization represents an absolutely crucial part of social media (example: TopRank’s Lee Odden)
11) Understands that social media expands beyond search engine optimization tactics that lead to Diggs, Stumbles (StumbleUpon) and link baiting (example: Key Relevance’s Li Evans)
12) Integrates brick and mortar events with social media activity (example: Voce’s Josh Hallet)
13) Has and continues to work on notable social media projects (example: Andy Sernovitz)
14) Understands that conversations are the starting place and not the end game. And though ROI is critical, knows that without conversation you’re not going anywhere (example: Paul Chaney).
15) Understands that social networking and conversation is more than collecting followers and subscribers (example: Mack Collier)
16) Listens to you when you are discussing your challenges (example: Connie Reece)
17) Helps and guides clients so that they can understand the benefits of social media and implement it properly (themselves) (example: Amber Naslund)
18) Knows that social networking works best when they are conversing, sharing, and being human (i.e. doesn’t self-promote) (example: Jason Falls)
19) Educates clients on understanding that they no longer own or control their brand and educates them on how to create customer evangelists (example: Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba)
20) Won’t act as your social media ‘voice’ or ghostwrite for you (example: Laura Bergells)
21) Understands the difference between social media tools and communications strategy (example: Ogilvy’s Rohit Bhargarva)
22) They won’t recommend blogging as a first step into social media (example: David Armano) and when you are ready to begin they consult you on how to be successful (example: Drew McLellan)
23 Doesn’t allow clients to be affected by Shiny New Object syndrome (example: Beth Kanter)
24 Understands that social media is more than just creating and delivering content or regurgitating existing promotional copy Joseph Jaffe
25 Understands that social media isn’t the sole terrain of marketing or PR and helps clients educate internally to other departments
(example: Media Badger)
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So glad I am one of the “much more valuable PR crowd” rather than the “pesky marketing people”
But truly, it is a daunting list and an important one too. Social media and networking are just relationship tools. Relationships can be built, tools can only be used.
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