Most of think of social media through our marketing lens eyes. As we should. That’s likely its greatest use. But the reality is that social media encompasses so much. Or more importantly, it will soon touch on most internal business operations.

That’s why I wrote that latest post. We seem, in our attempts to define it, to be actually inadvertently limiting it. Much of our call-to-change, if implemented, could result in ineffective disjointed efforts that lead to disappointment and even failure.

I just read a great report from Aberdeen Research, Customer 2.0: The Business Implications of Social Media. Aberdeen determined from its research that there were three levels of adoption, Best in Class (20%) are those organizations whose practices are significantly superior to the industry standard, resulting in more successful implementation. Industry Average (50%) are exactly that. Average adaptation, average performance. Laggards (30%) suffer from poor performance because of lower than average adaptation of social media. Both Industry Average and Laggards are divided between companies that are looking to improve their standing and those that are apparently satisfied with their status quo or lack the vision to improve.

From the report I’m garnering several trends that are impacting levels of success… Read more…

2008 is going to be a bloody great time to be a “digital marketing” — be it new marketing, new public relations, or online metrics and measurement. I can’t see anything more legitimizing than having Accenture join the fray.  Welcome, Accenture! Memetrics is a bloody great name, IMHO, because I am a real meme-lover. Via the Jupiter Research Blog.

Read more…

The most challenging thing Mark and I deal with on a day-to-day is measurements: metrics, numbers, penetration, impact, and influence. Whenever I look at the sort of numbers that advertising and marketing offer I am generally amazed. Every day we’re learning more and more on how to convey our constant success to the client without setting off our bullshit alarm. Katie Paine offers some great information in this regard in her post PR might be better at measurement than marketing. Via KDPaine’s PR Measurement Blog:

For years, PR has been considered much less measurable than marketing, but now it seems that the tides have turned. I have PR clients that can absolutely tell you the impact that THEIR efforts have on consumer behavior. Facebook  can track specific PR initiatives to increased user signups — their most recent sponsorship of the pre-NH primary debate resulted in 1,000,000 sign ups. Similarly, the ASPCA knows exactly which type of news generates the most new members and on-line donations. Never mind the work that Procter & Gamble has done to tie its PR efforts to increased sales.