Defining Engagement: The Value Of People

There seems to be some push back against the notion that social media "fans" can be valued at $3.60 each. But Vitrue, a social media management company, doesn't miss a beat. The $3.60 valuation tag placed on people is just the "tip of the iceberg," they say.

The message seems to resonate with plenty of companies, as Vitrue includes Ford, P&G, Best Buy, Unilever, Pringles, and plenty of others. Companies that ought to know better, in some cases. What's more, Vitrue doesn't seem to consider those fans owned by the brand. It boasts the combined total of its clients as their fans, about 45 million. People they "manage" every day.

Why don't most communicators accept the $3.60 valuation?

Adam Singer provides part of the answer on The Future Buzz. He provides eight points why that valuation is off beat, before pointing out the premise is flawed. Worse, they mislead companies in thinking that hordes of fans are final frontier.

Sean Williams provides another part of the answer on Communication Ammo. He offers four points, before noting that the formula fails because it sells the idea that social media is all about increasing advertising impressions.

Oliver Blanchard, who can be found at The BrandBuilder Blog, had a brief discussion on Twitter. Because he is outcome oriented, he points out the pitfall with two sentences under 140 characters.

Outcomes have value; people are priceless.

The real problem with valuations like the one Vitrue floats is that it mistakes an online environment as nothing more than media. People behave online much like they do offline in that their interactions mimic spatial actions. The only time online actions resemble media is when the engagement is media oriented (like watching a program on Hulu).

Placing a "value" on fans can be likened to claiming a product can earn media impressions simply by sitting on the shelf of a supermarket, based on a ratio of everyone who walks in the front door, even if they skip the aisle where your product is located. And doubling, tripling, or quadrupling those impressions is only a matter of adding another row of product.

Using this logic, Brillo could be placed on every shelf on every aisle and capture all past supermarket visit impressions times the total number of products. It's absurd, especially because many "fans" never return to the product page once they friend it, especially if they were driven there by a one-time incentive. Thus, every fan is not equal to any dollar amount.

And that leads us to the second biggest danger in the formula. An overly formulaic approach that relies on reach as the end measurement as opposed to a singular portion of the equation, devalues customers. After all, if we were to be so brazen in our attempts to monetize the value of people, then the Vitrue valuation gives equal value to window shoppers and customers (which also happens to be the biggest mistake among online crowd sourcing). Except, that temptation is also wrong.

Net, net, as tempting at it is to count up some 1 billion "fans" we've touched online for our clients, beating Vitrue almost 20 to 1, I'm still inclined to believe that the people we've touched are worth more than $3.60 per head. As a matter of fact, people are priceless. Outcomes have value. Engagement is an investment. And impressions are nothing but potential.

When you understand this and do the math, you get different results. You know, the kind that suggests ten people on the showroom floor of a car dealership might have more, um, "value," than 100 people who will never buy one.

Vitrue devalues its industry with a weak message.

All this made me really curious what Vitrue did. So, I took a look. It does offer some value, specifically in providing Facebook and a few other marketing-oriented applications. This, combined with some investor affiliations (like Steven J. Heyer) gave them a leg up despite being a late start-up company in social media. There is nothing wrong with that. It's not an ignorant firm.

What is happening here is the same thing that happened in public relations. Executives wanted someone to put a price tag on the return on investment, so they did. Public relations did it by counting column inches against ad rates or Rolodex card counting. Marketing did it by overemphasizing cost-per-impression. And Vitrue does it here in much the same fashion. All of those formulas did more to devalue their respective industries than any other.

But what's most striking about such counting systems is that people generally want to believe them. They want to believe them much in the same way that they were actually relevant to the clients listed beyond the sale of a single application.

But this shouldn't surprise you. Rule No. 8 in advertising is "people are irrational." That simple truth doesn't change with the favor of a title that can condensed to an acronym. CEOs and other decision makers are equally swayed by all sorts of messages, even when those message value them at $3.60 too.

Swirling Communication: A New Ning Taste Test

What's in the promise of a lollipop? Something sweet? Something sour? A little swirl of both?

Messages are often like that. And Jason Rosenthal, chief operating officer at Ning, Inc. (Ning), which is a platform that once allowed people to develop their own social networks for free, provides a near perfect illustration of a candy-coated message that only looks sweet on the surface of a plastic wrapper. Let's open it up.

Hi Everyone,

1. Flavor: Sounds sweet. Tastes sour.
2. Aftertaste: Most networks only post salutations when things are bad. Very, very bad.
3. Verdict: By everyone, Rosenthal means people who pay and 60 percent of employees who still have jobs.

As many of you know, we made a decision yesterday to focus 100% of the company on enhancing the features and services we offer to paying Ning Creators.

1. Flavor: Sounds sour. Tastes like unsweetened cocoa.
2. Aftertaste: Surprisingly bitter about the reaction to date.
3. Verdict: Ning has no empathy for anyone who doesn't pay. It's a brave new network.

The tens of thousands of you who already use our paid service represent over 75% of our traffic, and we’ve heard repeatedly from you ways that we can deliver a killer service to help make your Ning Network more effective.

1. Flavor: Sounds sour. Tastes like orange peel.
2. Aftertaste: Did he really call Ning a killer service after killing the service?
3. Verdict: Ning has/had 2.3 million networks. It intends to keep a small percentage of hundreds of thousands.

Some examples of things we are working on that you’ve asked for include new APIs, a new mobile experience and new advertising and revenue opportunities.

1. Flavor: Sounds sweet. Tastes laced with MSG.
2. Aftertaste: Chemically altered air, with a hint of chalky residue.
3. Verdict: There will be more space for new programming features once the deadbeats who made us popular are gone.

As part of this change, we’ll be phasing out our free service. On May 4, 2010, we will share with you all of the details of our new offering, including features and price points, through a series of blog posts, emails, and conference calls.

1. Flavor: Sounds fresh. Tastes stale.
2. Aftertaste: As dry as coarse sand.
3. Verdict: They've been plotting the demise of freemium services for almost two years; spam to follow.

We recognize that there are many active Ning Networks for teachers, small non-profits, and individuals and it’s our goal to have a set of product and pricing options that will make sense for all of them.

1. Flavor: Sounds sweet. Tastes metallic.
2. Aftertaste: None, beyond utter numbness.
3. Verdict: It's alway pointless to sound altruistic when you plan to squeeze blood from stones.

For Ning Creators using our free service who choose to move to another service, we will offer a migration path and time to make that change. We will still continue to allow free trials and test networks on the Ning Platform.

1. Flavor: Sounds hearty. Tastes like nine parts water.
2. Aftertaste: A hint of ice cold chicken stock.
3. Verdict: The moving truck will be here soon so we can make room for transient renters.

We look forward to talking to you further on May 4th.

1. Flavor: Sounds like peppermint. Tastes like uncrushed pepper.
2. Aftertaste: Acidic, causing indigestion.
3. Verdict: They haven't figured out what to say, but someone is hoping people cool off by then.

Jason Rosenthal

1. Flavor: Sounds savory. Tastes like an imitation.
2. Aftertaste: Sometimes the messenger is the message. And Rothenthal isn't a co-founder.
3. Verdict: Given his experience being on the acquired end of acquisitions, the writing has been on the wall for almost two years. Marc didn't write this one for a reason.

Ning is no more. At least not the Ning you knew.

There is much more to the story, enough to constitute a living case study as it seems pretty clear the company's communication is already past the expiration date. No one seems capable of talking their way past the plastic wrapper. It seems obvious someone wants the company primed up and ready to sell. But there is a good chance all these plans will backfire.

After all, Ning doesn't seem to consider how often paying Ning social networks recruit new network members from non-paying networks. And, in addressing the future migration solutions, they've already set themselves up to break another promise. They know any such move will hardly be seamless. In the meantime, here are five more voices.

• Re-Align-Ning: Is “Free” Eroding? by Doug Haslam
• Ning and Customer Betrayal by Valeria Maltoni
• Ning Reneges On Its Core Promise, Shatters Customer Trust by Shel Holtz
• Traffic Isn’t Revenue: Twitter and Ning Reach Different Crossroads by David Crotty
• The Free Internet Loses Another One: Ning by Alexa Salkever

Finding Truth Online: People Don't Want Online Friends For Every Product

If you work anywhere near social media, you've probably read plenty of studies and opinions that people respond to friends who represent brands over the brands themselves. And while the idea plays well for public relations firms soliciting companies with online public relations spokespeople, is it always true?

A new study from Q Interactive's Women's Channel, which researches women's online behavior, seems to suggest otherwise. They found that women respond better to intuitive online advertising over spokesperson insight. Specifically, women are all too happy to have a relationship with the "brand."

"We asked women about brands online in relationship terms, too," said Emily Girolamo, vice president of marketing and corporate communications at Q Interactive. "Significant for marketers, we found, with women, you have to give a little something - whether it is an offer or information. Women best connect with brands who know them and see the relationship as a two-way street."

Highlights from the Q Interactive study.

• 88 percent "wish brands they trust sent them more tailored offers."
• 65 percent want to feel like they receive online advertisements specific to them.
• 53 percent believe they have "relationships" with sites and brands.
• 37 percent consider online brands to be "good partners" and 19 percent trust of them.
• 58 percent want brands to provide a good offer with only 19 percent wanting to get to "know" someone.

So how can this be? While prevailing thought in social media seems to run counter to these findings, some of it make sense. While women who have a vested interest in social media prefer to connect to someone in order to develop content, the average consumer may be overwhelmed by the idea that they need a "friend" for every purchase.

This morning, for example, I probably came into contact with 50-100 products before sitting down in front of the screen to write this post. Do I need a "friend" associated with every one of them ... from toothpaste to carpet and tile? Probably not. The very idea seems overwhelming, especially along lines that include multiple brands.

Even in venues where it works better, it can get annoying. iPhone customers probably become as tired as Droid customers in hearing how the brand is somehow better from "friends," "fans," and people they trust online. Some may switch, sure. Some may switch back. But the majority of consumers are becoming settled.

Marketers in such venues will eventually have to make a choice. At what percentage does it make more sense to tailor your message toward your customers as opposed trying to convince people to convert? Do you really have a product that includes a personal online connection with a dedicated service agent? Or, more specifically, does anyone really need to read colorful antecdotes from the social media expert who drew Quilted Northern Ultra Plush as a client?

Don't laugh. You might be surprised how much toilet paper advice is really out there. And most of it seems related to secondary purposes such as making a Kazoo or even papering someone's Farmville Barn.

The point is that consumers don't necessarily need a friend in the toilet paper business (and that is not to say a toilet paper social media account wouldn't be fun) to feel good about the brand as much as coupons for the brand they buy. That makes sense. The alternative, of course, would be 30-50 trust agents, public relations pros, social media gurus all trying to make friends with you, just to influence the way you wipe.

Dividing Tactics And Strategies: Fresh Content

While most people consider social media mainstream, it's still very much in flux. The rules of the road are constantly changing as more technologies are made available and others die off. They change fast enough that companies relying on professionals who count six-hour courses as all the experience needed to become a quasi-expert will eventually falter.

What this means for communicators is that they not only need to pay attention to trends, but also how tactics change along the way. They also need to identify strategies that will stand the test of time. Ergo, anybody can pump up your Facebook fan page or create traffic spikes. But it takes something all together different to develop a long-term communication strategy that enjoys tactical lifts without becoming reliant on them.

This week's review of fresh content provides insights from five voices who know the difference. If you read these posts carefully, you'll find a deeper view of the division between tactics (sometimes unethical, in one case) and strategies.

Best Fresh Content In Review, Week of April 5

• Measuring Brand Value.
Patrick Collings, brand strategist and partner for a South African-based management and creative consultancy, delivers a presentation that provides an introduction to brand valuation. The presentation includes several global methodologies across a robust 113-slide deck. It includes the average contribution of brand value to a company in established and emerging markets. It also fits in nicely with communication measurement models that we've developed, which considers how brand value provides a leg up for communication programs.

• Google PageRank Update – Internal Pages and Top Content.
Sometimes analysis is full of surprises that turn common belief systems on their head. In her analysis, Kristi Hines demonstrates how popularity does not equal PageRank. For her purposes, Hines suggests PageRank is not all that important as she places an emphasis on content that provides readers value. In her experience, popularity often comes before PageRank.

• Journalistic Sodbusting.
Many people know that astroturfing is on the rise, especially in the unweeded comment sections of dailies. This post, penned by Ike Pigott, details how in evaluating 336 comments, he found comment names might have changed but not the tone, style, and talking points. It's a common enough practice that I advise clients to ignore the comment sections of dailies. It's often the playground for people with agendas, paid or not.

• McKinsey's Four Ways to Get More Value from Digital Marketing.
Valeria Maltoni offers up four points that pinpoint one approach to digital marketing by way of a content-based brand strategy. The points are solid enough: coordinate online activities; syndicate content that empowers customers; increase multimedia coverage; and make decisions on how to properly use the data that is available. It's smart stuff, with much of it pointing to badly needed integration.

• 5 Ways to Leverage Real Time Search in Your Online Marketing Mix.
Most people know that SEO is evolving, but Michelle Bowles nails five considerations that can help companies stay ahead of the curve. She details how content, fans, news, content promotion, and optimization all play a role in developing a better SEO strategy. Among the most important tips, from our point of view, is the increasingly important role of real time search. As more micro content from social sites appear in search results, tinkering with keywords on Web sites is not enough.

Guessing Games: The Psychology Of Choice

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." — Proverb

This isn't meant to be a political post, but politics does intersect with communication. And sometimes, I find myself wondering if the stewards of our country appreciate what they communicate when they play shell games with public policy.

One of the most recent shell games is whether or not President Obama raised or cut taxes. There are varied opinions about it, but the truth is that he did both. He cut taxes with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. (However, proponents neglect to mention that many "tax cuts" are "targeted relief," which really means "tax incentives" for people who meet specific requirements or do certain things.) He also raised some taxes and increased the threshold for deducting medical expenses, among other things.

Naturally, none of the conversation accounts for the impact that federal policy has at the local and state level, where the discussions of tax increases are epic. It doesn't accept the reality that the federal government consistently talks about raising taxes in the future. And it hardly accounts for the common public sentiment that suggests that the government is overspending and wasting tax dollars. It doesn't consider American ideology.

When there is talk about taxes nowadays, most people seem to frame it around the idea that we have two choices: embracing more taxes or abandoning neighbors in need. Baloney. That is no choice at all. They may as well be asked if they want to cut off their right arm or left.

The truth is that America is neither a country where it is every man and woman for him or herself nor is it a country where every man and woman must make involuntary sacrifices for their neighbor, leaving them both wanting (except in times of war). It is a country that embraces the sentiment contained in the proverb mentioned above.

Sure, for those that know (plenty people don't), the proverb is hardly American or European. It's Chinese, and most often attributed to Lau Tzu or Confucius. Both of these men also lived under repressive governments, believing that leadership requires humility, a restrained approach in governance, and they shared some ideology with our founding fathers.

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer." — Benjamin Franklin, 1766

As someone who grew up poor, I tend to accept Franklin's wisdom. As politicians wrestle with politics that sometimes bear little resemblance to the ideas presented by our founding fathers, they would do better to stop talking about European ideology and more about American ideology. We did, after all, throw away our envy of European statesmanship hundreds of years ago (meaning no offense to my friends abroad) in order to preserve freedom and liberty over governance and public provisions.

Simply put, American ideology comes in two parts: empowering people and empowering giving. No choices are necessary.

Empowered People.

As Franklin alludes, this is a country that works best with the promise that honest work will eventually result in a steadily increasing quality of life, from which each generation benefits from an improved starting point.

Ergo, my grandfather did not have a college education, but he instilled in me the value of education and a work ethic to invest in one for myself. Sure, sometimes the ideal isn't as easy as all that. My grandfather was also a son of the Great Depression, which erased much of his opportunity. So what he could not share in financial aid, he shared in a principled approach.

Unfortunately, the communication undermining our current economic recovery seems to be related to the constant buzz of continually increasing taxes against specific brackets, thereby creating a greater burden on the principle of upward mobility from honest work and education. In sum, the very remedy that will supposedly propel people up is also the very burden that will create deeper dips in retained income at each step. And that hinders mobility and widens the gap between rich and poor.

All the while, some politicians have forgotten that that American people don't work harder with an expressed interest in helping the government spend more. They only do so in order to help their families and endow their future generations with the ability to have an improved starting point. Their honest work is its own reward.

Empowered Giving.

Having worked extensively with the nonprofit sector, I don't believe Americans are by their very nature "greedy" people. From those who have helped me with specific causes, they seem to understand that helping their neighbors, strengthening their communities, and taking pride in American exceptionalism wherever it can be found goes hand and hand with any success they might enjoy.

The vast majority do so voluntarily, with each citizen determining the extent to which they can help. Generally, they prioritize with a tendency toward teaching people to fish over giving people fish. They do so with the hope that those they help will also find that honest work is its own reward. They do so because they are prudent with their charity.

One wouldn't always think so listening to some stewards in this country at times. On the contrary, the communication consistently seems to be that anyone who receives any reward from honest work is obligated to share it not with neighbors but whomever the steward sees fit. Even if they don't need it.

And sometimes, the steward says, maybe the standard is too high, meaning to take any extra fish and then some. Unfortunately, when Americans are faced with such uncertainty or downward mobility, they tend to brace for crisis.

Changing Choices.

The general practice of tossing up two bad choices has got to stop. While Americans have become almost complacent in picking from whatever choices are on the table (e.g,. a bad health care bill or no health care bill), there comes a time when someone could stand up and say that the smarter choice is not to participate at all.

Right now, the only solution politicians need to pursue is empowering people to reach a position so they can help their neighbors become empowered too. Anything else is little more than a shell game. At least, that might be the advice we can glean from previous generations who had fewer assets but somehow created more value for all of us. Good night and good luck.

Painting Truths: Let's Colour Project

The photos are striking. The before and after shots are cool. And the idea is worthwhile.

The "Let's Colour" project by Dulux trades in grey and gloom with blues, reds, and other hues. It's beautiful, perhaps with one exception. In attempting to cross authenticity with action, Let's Colour came up with a peculiar shade of green that Karthik S, head of head of digital strategy for Edelman India, thought might be astroturf, or if you read the comments, maybe not.

Maybe it's a matter of perspective. Let's find out.

Remixing The Communication Points

Karthik's point seems clear enough to me. Euro RSCG is handling the Let's Colour project blog but "presents" like the Akzo Nobel paint team's content with as many as twelve bloggers. It's not. Most of it is written by Rebecca Campbell, who is contracted by the Euro RSCG. The balance of the contributing bloggers are a mix of agency employees who can, but don't seem to, add their experiences.

"The fact that we have an official blogger is very simple: we need someone to keep the blog interesting, fresh and to be 100% dedicated," explained Fernanda Romano, creative director for the agency. "Rebecca is our employee, she is the official blogger. This doesn’t mean the rest of the team cannot blog."

But they don't, which was another of Karthik's points. Instead, if there is any blog ownership, it really belongs to Campbell, who is by all accounts, a blogger for hire. There is nothing wrong with that.

Her Spike experience is exactly why the agency hired her. And despite being based in London, the Australian native presents project content as if she is on site in real time. By agency account of the comments, she sometimes is, but not always, maybe. From a reader's perspective, it's hard to tell where creativity begins and reality ends.

So what's the big deal? As a matter of historical perspective, it's not all that different from the Edelman Public Relations Worldwide flog for Wal-Mart in 2006. While I disagreed with the assessment of our non-scientific poll participants in 2007, they identified it as the number one breach of communication ethics compared to several other breaches back then.

In sum, the flog was presented as two average Americans who parked their RV at Wal-Marts across the country and wrote about their experiences. The bloggers were paid, much like Campbell. And since the disclosure was less than obvious it was eventually deemed a disaster.

So what's the difference between the Let's Colour project and the Wal-Mart RV debacle? Um, nothing. Except, well, people love to pick on Wal-Mart much more than what appears to be a nobler cause like Let's Colour. So it gets a pass. As I've said before, Wal-Mart doesn't have a public relations problem as much as a media relations problem. Dulux does not.

However, let's be even more honest for a moment.

Since 2006, many social media experts have carved out positions within companies or have been contracted as company representatives under the auspices that they are somehow above bias. Maybe they are. Maybe they are not. From the pubic perspective, acceptance always boils down to the brand relationships between the people, products, and companies. We know so and so, the public says, so they get a pass. We aren't sure about so and so, the public says, so they get burned at the stake.

It hardly seems fair, but social media is anything but fair. It's currently the only place in the world where nice guys and gals finish first, even if they're pretending.

But all that aside, for agencies hoping to solidify the lines between right and wrong, I'll share a few techniques to ensure you can draw a clear enough line to remain on the right side of it. And, as often is the case with our firm, the approach is always situational because every client is different. Right on. They come in every color of the rainbow, but never artificial green.

As for this case, it seems clear that the agency had other plans from the outset. They meant to have a multi-author blog and something, perhaps budget constraints, prevented them from fielding twelve people. So, those other voices fell away. As to the convoluted nature of who works for whom, there weren't clear disclosures no matter how the explanation is framed up.

Perhaps, on the front end, the idea of volunteers or Dulux employees or even agency peeps penning posts was what won the pitch. But in terms of practice, it wasn't very practical. So, like agencies do, they shifted to some middle ground because it just didn't seem as sexy as having a full on single agency employee penning posts for a client.

Whatever. It could have been. People don't really care where the content comes from as long as its good, cool, and real ... it just has to be even better when public relations people become spokespeople.