Handout - Social Media Conference (Dec. 4-5) Resource

Below as I promised conference attendees, is the electronic version of my handout at the panel session "How to Measure the Effectiveness of Social Media", December 5 in Toronto.

Resources

• OneDegree - Must subscribe if you are a Canadian marketer.
  (Disclosure: I'm a contributor to OneDegree)
• ClickZ - Features section houses a multitude of resources
• FutureNow (Grokdotcom.com) - Great discussions on conversion, engagement and measurement
• MarketingSherpa - Sign up for "best of weekly". Great case studies to learn from.
• MarketingProfs - Wide variety of marketing tips, topics, tricks, including social media.
  ….blogs, blogs and more blogs

Associations

• Web Analytics Association - Check out Events and get involved in Committees (Social Media, Education, Standards)
  
• Canadian Marketing Association - Check out events, roundtables, seminars and their blog.

I'm a member of both associations.

Gatherings

• Casecamp – Marketing UnConferences held in Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal and Second Life. In Toronto, recently, half or more involve a social media case study. Subscribe to be notified of future events.
• Podcamp - Social Media UnConferences held in Toronto, Ottawa and around the world
• Web 2.0 Measurement Working Group on Facebook
• WebAnalyticsWednesday – Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver … around the world.
• MeshConference – 2008 date not yet announced
• eMetricsCanada – April 1-3, 2008 in Toronto
  (Disclosure: I'm on the Board for this organization)

Any more? Please comment!

June Li
ClickInsight

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Levi's Jeans: Basking in the Aura of Cool

At CaseCamp6 recently, Brady Murphy of Vortex Mobile and Lisa Rowe of Armstrong Partnership presented the success of Levi's in achieving double-digit growth (don't know the exact number) in brand favourability.

The target group was the 17-24 year old "all about me" demographic.

Levi's certainly was not considered cool by this demographic. And you can't tell this generation what's cool.

So Levi's set out to change this perception by pursuing a strategy of "Sitting in the Aura of Cool". This past summer, at the Virgin Music Festival, Wakestock and Crankworx (cool, extreme music, wakeboarding and bike events), contests were set up to get "contestant model" attendees into Levi's jeans, take their photos in a professional photo shoot, and then set them loose with a vote code and shore code. This immersive experience capitalized on one's inner desire for 15 minutes of fame. Winners could become one of Levi's next generation of models.

With their codes printed on a card showcasing their photo of them in Levi's jeans, contestants roamed the event getting friends to vote for them. When a friend voted, they would get a real time response of the ballot count for the contestant they just voted for. Success and activity were measured.

• Independent post event awareness surveys pegged Levi's awareness at beyond a Gold level (top investment) sponsor. Levi's had typically engaged as Bronze level sponsor.
  
  
• Long after the event was over, people were still engaged. The voting applicaton was left on, and in one instance, 57% of the use of the application occurred after the 2 day event was over.
  
  
• Many companies try hard to seed Facebook groups. Without any nudge from Levi's, 25 Facebook/mySpace grooups were created by model contestants. There were 3500 friends/members and 2500 wall posts. Here's a snapshot of one of the "vote for me": Facebook pages that's still up.

To find a list of groups in Facebook, search in groups for 'levis 111222'.

What's great to see is that this Web 2.0 mobile marketing and immersive social media campaign had discipline and structure:

• The campaign had goals (raise awareness and brand favourability).
• Campaign designers analyzed their audience. Knowing that the target demographic was very individualistic and always searching for quick rewards, the campaign gave away surprise prizes to voters throughout the event, so they wouldn't have to wait until the end to "win" by finding out if their candidate was successful enough to be selected as one of Levi's new models.
• They had a plan to measure and track activity. A "traditional marketing" survey was used to measure awareness.
  

Related info:

• Case study on Vortex Mobile's site in pdf.
• Testing: Brady said that they have done studies that show the benefit of including a real time ballot application. Without real-time feedback, people seem to be 20-25% less involved.
• Tom Purves CaseCamp6 summary of all 4 case presenters.

June Li
Clickinsight

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Empowering Marketing Intelligence

How are analytics industry experts handling the explosion of data?
What's the best way to support and empower marketing intelligence?
By not focusing on the data!

Focus on the business, the process, the insight, the customer.

These were my key takeaways from the Canadian Marketing Association's "Managing the Data Explosion Roundtable: Empowering Marketing Intelligence", which I had the opportunity to moderate on November 27 here in Toronto. Over 60 people registered to attend the event, which was organized by the CMA's Marketing Technology and Database Intelligence Council.

As described in an earlier post, the panel was to delve into and discuss the challenges marketers are facing with the explosion of data analytics and constantly emerging technologies:

• How do we handle the increasing volume of information available from digital marketing?
• How do we marry measurement and marketing process with technology as we wrestle with the complexity of analyzing cross-channel marketing that includes the Internet?
• What new forms of analysis do we need to evaluate emerging arenas such as social media activity?

The CMA will be posting the presentations on their website, and I'll link to them here when they're up. However, in the meantime, here's a bit about each panelist's presentation:

Greg Doufas, Rogers Cable, is continuously testing the applicability of new analytical methods. As the analysis matures, it "grows up" and integrates into their business intelligence toolset. Each tool has its proper use and it's important to know where to draw the line. Knowing where to draw the line comes with experience. However, they don't focus on the data. They provide a continuous narrative about customers, working continuously to surface insights, not data.

Alioscha Leon, Microsoft Canada, is part of a global analytics network striving to implement re-usable modules of analytics know-how, processes and technologies. They don't have one end-to-end solution that satisfies all countries. Instead, they have designed a business logic layer that facilitates the sharing of best practices and a data consumption portal with analytics and visualization tools.

Daymond Ling, CIBC, stressed the importance of helping those who seeking answers from analytics to ask really good questions, questions that the data can help answer. Business questions are often vague. Help the business re-phrase the question so that you can peel the answer back layer by layer. Don't fuss over tools or let tools be the focus. Produce what's useful, not what's interesting.

Rob Armstrong, Teradata, emphasized that integrated operational and strategic data management processes are key. Business users have to own data cleanliness, not IT. IT manages the process of moving the data around (they're plumbers, managing the pipes, the infrastructure) but business has to be the one who cares about data quality and cleanliness. The problems you are resolving should drive prioritization of analytics work, as well as what you're going to do with it. Therefore...
     "If you're not going to make decisions,
          stop asking questions.
     "If you're not going to take action,
          stop making decisions.
     "If you're not measuring results,
          stop taking action."

Great session!

June Li
ClickInsight

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