Social Media Accountability
By Marcus Tewksbury
At one point or another I’ve heard someone define crazy as repeating the same exercise but expecting different results. Mentally I have this picture of an old Simson’s commercial where Bart or Homer keeps reaching for a Butterfinger after being repeatedly shocked. Basically, this is exactly how I see most marketers approaching the social space.
The metaphor here is to how the advertising world has learned to run itself by household level data supplied by the Neilsen’s of the world. Was this data every really useful? Did it ever shed insights on what really moved the needle? Or, did we just become so desperate to justify what we were doing we grew to accept them as a course of action. These statistics became an enabler to do our whim – kind of like my Weight Watchers diet.
Why then, when approaching social would we think things would be any different? Immediately, we’ve all jumped on the buzz bandwagon looking for justification. Problem is people have not “settled” yet and are still pushing for a social answer that is more accountable and more related to actual business performance.
As service providers then, the question is how do we step to the plate? How do we provide a measure that truly speaks to business value created? Start by finding the “client of the future.” Producing meaningful metrics is entirely contingent on dumping the current episodic, campaign driven mentality of marketing and re-orientating the go to market with a customer centric strategy. Look for folks who get the “4-B’s” or the like, they are few and far between. Conversely, you can continue to play the Pancho to your clients as they tilt their windmills with cries of “reach”, “popularity”, and “friends”.