Common Sense

Why Share of Conversation Trumps Share of Voice

Imagine yourself leading a global brand.   An outside firm walks in full of smiles and power points and says:

 

 “I have this great measurement tool that ignores the majority of the world’s 1.7 billion people online.  It only tells you what the media is saying about your product vs. competitors in a limited pool.  We don’t let our measurement tool get distracted by what customers are saying and we sure don’t include word of mouth or ratings and reviews or forum questions, since who knows what’s happening when a message rips across multiple forms of media.  We do this, since a message is only delivered correctly if it is published.  This idea of people “sharing” your content is not relevant to building your brand.  Who really knows who these folks are, right?  So we give you a precise read out for a limited group that avoids this “customer static” about their beliefs.  The result is that we only measure what is said about your brand, not the conversations and topics customers are actually talking about, since that is “off-brand”.  Finally, we like to provide you with imprecise sentiment scores so you can make up a story of what is really happening, since we have to admit that all of these pie charts and data don’t really tell us a whole lot.”

 

Two seconds, maybe three before you throw them out of your office? 

 

Well, if you believe that……please read more on how the world has changed.  I know the above quote is sarcastic, but it’s reasonably close to reality for past measurement systems.

 

We live in a world where share of conversation is what matters. 

 

Share of voice is this limited look at a brand and its competitors.  It makes for nice charts showing increases or decreases each month vs peers, but it is not how customers think. 

 

Here is how the world has changed and why it matters.   Conversations are as important or, in some cases, more important to impacting search results. Conversations occur in high volume 24/7.  Search is now forming the #1 first impression for your brand.  Video search via YouTube is now part of that impression as the 2^nd largest search engine.  And, as 3 out of 4 peers routinely look to each other for advice on their next important move, it is their conversations that matter.  It is what your neighbor says that we care about the most……

 

What it means is that it is less important about what you said at a press conference.  It is increasingly important to know what is being said on a Saturday morning on a forum that is relevant to your brand that you may not be participating in today.  

 

Share of conversation is defined by the topics and conversations that your customers care about. They are often not brand-related at all, yet they are directly relevant to you.   I’ve measured hundreds of brands online and I can tell you that share of conversation is routinely 20-40x higher in volume than share of voice.  Here’s a few examples using Google search as a simple diagnostic tool, so you can do your own analysis after reading this post. 

 

If you search Orbitz, you find 8.14MM results, but travel has 770MM.  Salesforce.com has 3.03MM, but cloud computing has 31.3MM.  I’m writing today on a Latitude E4200 which has 3.14MM results, but laptops has 63.1MM.  Even Google has 2.1 billion results, while search has 5.6 billion.

 

The action is in the larger search.  Ask yourself if you know personally the people who are driving share of conversation on topics like travel or cloud computing or laptops or search.  If not, why not?    Ask yourself next if you have ever thought of asking these leaders of the conversation to participate with you in any way, shape or form.  If not, why not?  And finally, ask yourself if you know which topics of conversation are most relevant for your brand? 

 

There are many other ways to show how our customers are measuring us every day via their actions and conversations, ranging from their use of forums to how they recommend or dismiss or ignore our products.  This is the real conversation you want to measure and know where you stand.

 

It’s less about how you are doing vs. your competitors.  It’s much more about your relevance with the people who may decide to buy your product. 

 

So next time you hear about measurement, ask what your share of conversation is.  Ask for precision on exactly who has influence, why and what they believe is important.  Ask how you will know if you are becoming more relevant in the peer to peer world we live in.  Climb deeper into the world of your customers and let the models of the past gracefully move towards extinction. 

 

All the best, Bob

 

Sharing UK experiences on B2B social media

If you want some insight into who’s doing what in business-to-business engagement with social media in the UK, the Dell B2B Social Media Huddle on December 7 is an event that you’ll not want to miss.

During a full day at Dell’s UK headquarters in Bracknell, we’ll be hearing about and discussing insights and examples of B2B communication with social media from a wide range of business people who have direct experience of planning and executing communication strategies in which social media have played a measurable role.

The aim of this informal event is to bring together senior communications and marketing professionals to exchange and share experiences on B2B social media for mutual benefit.

The event is divided into three principal sections:

1. A general overview of the B2B social media landscape
2. Case study mash-up / unconference
3. Roundtable sessions on:
   - Integrating social media into your programmes in the right way
   - Social media and monetization techniques

The second section – case study mashup/unconference – has great promise to be the most interactive experience for everyone. There’s no set agenda: if you have a business story you’d like to tell, you can do that on the day.

We’ve got a terrific line-up of speakers to help everyone make the most of the day:

• Neville Hobson, Head of Social Media Europe, WeissComm Group, UK
• Richard Binhammer, Senior Manager Corporate Communications, Dell Inc., USA
• Steve Lamb, PR Manager, Microsoft Ltd., UK
• Benjamin Ellis, Director and Co-Founder, Redcatco, UK
• Kerry Bridge, Digital Media Communications, Dell Public Sector, Dell Ltd., UK
• Jamie Grenney, Senior Director of Content, Community and Social Media, Salesforce.com, USA
• Michelle Goodall, Online PR and Social Media Consultant/Trainer, Econsultancy.com
• Sarah Wright, Enterprise Programmes Marketing Manager EMEA, Juniper Networks, UK
• Henry Clifford-Jones, European Director, Advertising at LinkedIn, UK

You can get the details, including the agenda, in the event PDF at Slideshare. The brochure will be updated as more speakers join us.

The event is free of charge: if you’d like to participate, just sign up.

So mark your diary: the B2B Social Media Huddle on Monday December 7, 2009, at Dell’s UK headquarters in Bracknell – a whole day to exchange and share experiences on B2B social media for mutual benefit.

[Credit for image used in brochure and above: The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas. Creative Commons licensed.]

This post also appears on NevilleHobson.com; and on Direct2Dell, the corporate blog of Dell, Inc.

The WeissWatch Podcast #2: October 12, 2009

Welcome to the first episode of The WeissWatch Podcast: talking points for clients, colleagues and friends of the WeissComm Group. To automatically receive episodes as they are published, subscribe to the RSS feed. You can also subscribe at iTunes (coming soon).

In This Episode:

• Bob Pearson, Chief Technology and Media Officer, and Neville Hobson, Head of Social Media Europe, discuss social media guidelines in light of the FTC announcement last week, with a focus on three steps organizations can take: 1) create a social media policy, 2) have an effective training programme, and 3) listen to your customers.

Listen Right Now

Download the Podcast (MP3, 7.89Mb, 17:12)

Do you have a comment, question or suggestion about this episode of The WeissWatch Podcast? Feel free to let us know what’s on your mind - leave a comment in this post for inclusion in the next episode. If you wish, you can email your comment, question or suggestion as an MP3 file attachment (max 3 minutes / 5Mb file size) to weisswatch@googlemail.com.

Podsafe music from Moving On Swiftly by The Smallvilles.

Enjoy the show!

Guidelines for using avatars in business

Do you ever pause and think about the avatar you use online as the visual representation of you: your persona or alter ego? What it says to others about you and the organization you work for or represent?

Avatars are creeping into business environments and will have far reaching implications for enterprises, from policy to dress code, behavior and computing platform requirements, according to a report from industry analysts Gartner.

Gartner predicts that by year-end 2013, 70 percent of enterprises will have behavior guidelines and dress codes established for all employees who have avatars associated with their organization when they’re online.

Gartner suggests six tactical guidelines that organizations can follow to make the best use of avatars in the business environment:

1. Help users learn to control their avatars
2. Recognize that users will have a personal affinity with their avatar
3. Educate users on the risks and responsibilities of reputation management
4. Extend the code of conduct to include avatars in 3D virtual environments
5. Explore the business case for avatars
6. Encourage usage and enterprise pilots.

Read the detail of these in Gartner’s report.

I’d add four more:

1. Encourage employees to consider how their avatars will appear to others in different cultural environments: what’s amusing or looks cool in the UK, for instance, may have very different reactions from people in, say, India or Brazil.
2. Help everyone understand and respect the intellectual property rights of others: if someone wants to use an image or artwork created by someone else, they must ensure that the creator has given permission or that it’s clear what type of usage by others is allowed (eg, though a Creative Commons copyright license).
3. Produce some simple how-to tutorials that help employees with the practicalities of avatar creation: the objective here is to help ensure that everyone is able to create their avatars to a high quality and that images look good however they're sized.
4. Involve employees in different areas of your business in defining avatar usage best practice: don’t just create a policy and simply cascade it out in the traditional way.

Although 2013 is less than four years away, organizations should have guidelines in place well before then as more interactions between people happen online and such interactions are key to a fundamental aspect of building relationships: trust. That’s the most important point, in my view, which is directly relevant to the bigger picture: reputation.

Just as with overall behaviors online where developing guidelines to help everyone understand what are the rules of engagement – especially significant in the wake of the FTC’s announcement last week – how employees visually represent themselves online to others needs similar consideration.

The WeissWatch Podcast #1: October 11, 2009

Welcome to the first episode of The WeissWatch Podcast: talking points for clients, our colleagues and friends of the WeissComm Group. To automatically receive episodes as they are published, subscribe to the RSS feed. You can also subscribe at iTunes (coming soon).

In This Episode:

• Jim Weiss, CEO, Bob Pearson, Chief Technology and Media Officer, and Neville Hobson, Head of Social Media Europe, discuss social media and its role in public relations, and offer tips and advice on what companies can do to get started that involves low effort but potential big returns.

Listen Right Now

Download the Podcast (MP3, 6.84Mb, 14:55)

Do you have a comment, question or suggestion about this episode of The WeissWatch Podcast? Feel free to let us know what’s on your mind - leave a comment in this post for inclusion in the next episode. If you wish, you can email your comment, question or suggestion as an MP3 file attachment (max 3 minutes / 5Mb file size) to weisswatch@googlemail.com.

Podsafe music from Moving On Swiftly by The Smallvilles.

Enjoy the show!

Common Sense Guidelines from the FTC

It’s important to take guidelines seriously and do the equivalent of “listening” via the reading of the document to understand what direction we are being provided. 

 Earlier this week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) introduced new guidelines related to social media, effective December 1, 2009.  This is an important and positive step in clarifying the responsibilities of a company when engaging in social media.  These guidelines are of interest to companies of all sizes worldwide, since they arguably reflect one of the first substantial forms of  guidance from a government related to social media. 

 Here is what we believe you need to know. 

 The FTC's Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising state that companies will be held accountable if social media outreach and word of mouth campaigns do not result in truthful disclosure. It’s hard to find someone who would say they engage in “untruthful disclosure”, but take the time to read on what this means.  Said a different way, the guidelines state that the post of any blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered to be a sponsored advertising message, and therefore may be subject to enforcement.

 The FTC specifically states that there are three things you need to do to limit your liability.

1.    Require disclosure and truthfulness in social media outreach.

2.    Monitor the conversation and correct misstatements.

3.    Create social media policies and training programs.

The key step for any company that will engage in social media is to ensure you have a state-of-the-art social media policy that includes clear rules on transparency and disclosure. In addition, it is important to have a training program in place to educate your employees on what is acceptable online.  And, it is of great benefit to have an analytics and monitoring program in place so you know where conversations are occurring and what is being said about your brand. 

If you don’t have time to read the guidelines, keep in mind the most important action you can take are the creation of your policy and related training.

If you would like to read a further summary of key insights from the guidelines, we recommend you read more from the Social Media Business Council.   

The topic of guidelines, their importance and what they mean is a longer conversation, so Neville Hobson and myself will talk more about this topic in a podcast later this week.  Stay tuned. 

 

Bob Pearson, Chief Technology & Media Officer, WeissComm Group & Chief Evangelist, Social Media Business Council