360DigitalInfluence

For my last interview about SES Chicago, I spoke with Pauline Ores of IBM’s Market Insights group. She will be busy next week, moderating two panels focused on social media and search marketing. I asked her a few questions about the “Social Media - Measuring the Business Value” track that she’s moderating on Wednesday.

Pauline Ores
Principal Analyst, Social Media Engagement
IBM Market Insights

Q: What is your background, and could you tell me a little about what you do at IBM?

A: As part of IBM’s Corporate Market Insights team, I lead a number of social engagement strategy initiatives and related explorations: metrics, research, organizational resources, and business models. Before coming to IBM, and while at IBM I’ve built a number of online and face-to-face communities. What I find very interesting this time round are the business models these tools now enable, what are often referred to as Web 2.0 business models.

Q:  You will be moderating the session “Social Media - Measuring the Business Value” on Wednesday, 12/10. What are some of the topics you plan on covering during your session?

A: Actually I’m moderating two sessions, this one and another on Social Media Optimization. We have great speakers on both panels. On the Business Value panel - Bill Hunt  will discuss how Search and web analytics can both help shape as well as track social media activity; Rob Key will outline social media research tools, which again can be used to plan as well as measure social media programs, and Brian Halligan will discuss measuring the results of successful ‘inbound marketing’ social media programs.

Q: What metric(s) do you think businesses should focus on when measuring return on investment of social media programs?

A: Social media is designed to serve participants, not feed the marketing funnel, so tactically the challenge is to link what you can measure, often social media activity metrics, such as how many have joined or posted, to business value. Social media and community are long-term programs, so not surprisingly, they offer long-term value beyond the transaction - cost avoidance in terms of support, improved customer satisfaction, etc. Both search and social media are ‘outside ->in’ - in that they focus on market initiated activity - so social and search, only used as a research tool, can help improve the value of traditional marketing programs.

Q: Who do you follow to keep up with trends in social media measurement? Could you share 2-3 sites, blogs, or individuals?

A: Actually I find I get the most out of face-to-face discussions and events like SES - travel isn’t fun and it’s almost a luxury in this economic climate, but given the complexity of the topic, and the fact the entire field is rapidly evolving, this seems to work best. The fact that the industry hasn’t even settled on common definitions for social media terms, doesn’t help - it makes written communication a bit more challenging. You’ll see back and forth posts where it’s obvious each contributor has a different definition in mind.

When it comes to individuals - I have to credit Kevin Ryan for agreeing to start the social media track at SES when I suggested it as a new advisory board member, at that time not everyone saw a connection between search and social media. Bill Hunt, is truly a visionary when it comes to social and search (full disclosure, his firm, GSI/Neo is our search agency). I also want to credit Rob Key for taking the initiative and hosting wonderful informal industry gatherings that bring marketing, consultants, bloggers and even his competitors together to discuss a variety of social media topics.

Q: One year from now, what will have changed with respect to how businesses measure the value of social media?

A: We’ll see greater integration, where social media metrics are incorporated into traditional marketing functions and measurements. I would hope we evolve - in that rather than try to cram social media into the box we call marketing, we allow these new types of interactions between businesses, clients, vendors, partners and prospects to redefine and transform marketing. We’ve gotten better at marketing, we have new media types, but the basic marketing model has remained the same for over a century.