This is definitely the most dramatic panel so far. Big stage with light rigs, big room. Visualizer and rocking music to warm up.

The lights are low and moody. The panel looks primed. Let’s do it!

Nuts, they’re starting and no JBs.

So the dual purpose here are strategies and the metrics that match that strategy.

There’s no solid answer yet, there may not be one. This is an intermediate panel. Yes! Hopefully we’ll get some substance and take-aways for great, effective brand use.

Lots of people in the crowd are trying to convince their managers to get into social media. Panel leader says he has a lot of consulting experience.

What are the c-level guys not into social media. How can it be leveraged for business growth? Where are the metrics?

Guy from 360 digital influence at Ogilvy. He’s talking about experience working on a lot of big brand accounts. He’s talking about whether it matters, is it just blogs, and how does it help?

A woman from BMC software. And she’s talking about "finding X" She hosts and produces BMC’s programming channel of 26 bloggers.

Ryan’s from BSG alliance. BSG helps companies transform into next-generation enterprises? Sounds like jargon, but he says that the hierarchical structure of companies is obsolete, and companies need to be more open, more collaborative.

Customer experience is one of their big things. He suggests it for talent management and customer experience in social media.

Mike Smith is the exec director of USAA, a 30-year veteran, he’s spent the last 5 or six years convincing people and companies to get in social media.

What is it that makes the CMO afraid of social marketing and metrics?

It comes down to two things:

1) Loss of control. How do you deal with social media and control it the way you used to? You can.

2) Measurement — impressions vs. engagement. Impressions are like AdWords. It’s not that effective. When we talk about engagement, we’re talking about the comments, what people are motivated to do in reactions. Getting the right 10k people to pay attention is where you get real lift in sales.

Another pushback angle:

Every executive has a different view of social media. If you look at the risks, each one has different risks in mind of what the worst-0case scenario can be.

CMOs are worried about losing brand control. HR is worried about losing people. Once a company is putting people out in the greater world, they can be grabbed by someone else. PR is scared of the double-edged sword. Sales doesn’t care. CEOs are worried: If I don’t do anything, does it hurt me?

The answer is tough. Metrics that they don’t get to because they don’t see how it’s in the company’s and stockholder’s best interest.

Another point agrees with AARP Mike. A lot of times, page views don’t matter. You have to understand what drives each executive. What are the metrics that motivate? At the communications or PR, their maturity can be in understanding that conversations are giving you lift. But the metrics of motivation are what’s important.

Old paradigm, controlling a mass message. New paradigm is a loss of control with instant feedback. The harm in not doing anything is out there. Maybe not this year, but next year, or five years from now. The brands are going to be hurt by not effectively communicating with the audience.

Most companies just don’t know how to deliver a great customer experience. And that’s the big problem with adoption, because the experience and the product is fundamentally flawed.

Sometimes executives will use social media as a way to champion better customer experience.

WHY? What advice can you give newbies on how to start social media experience?

Get involved in an online community.

Focus on action vs. excitement and Metrics that matter.

Peer pressure.

It has to be from the top down and from the bottom up.

Managers need to be involved in social media. They have to jump into it. If they are excited but can’t get involved. What about metrics?

Execs like publicity and vanity plays on helping them be more popular personally.

It’s also about listening skills, really evaluating the comments that are coming back. But a lot of social media isn’t getting put in a daily report. Check out the individuals. What are they saying, and what can you take away from that.

A lot comes back to the difficulty of change.

Is it important to self-assess your readiness for social media?

One of the things Ogilvy has used is a 3-phase approach

Listen

Participate

Lead

At some companies, you can do an internal approach of social networking first to understand metrics of productivity. Horizontal benefits existed in multitasking and productivity gains.

Once they had this in place as a learning mechanism, it was clearer as to how they’d roll out the external product.

A major pharmacy company heard the message and understood the value, and were able to experiment. This culture of collaboration and openness is what serves as the foundation for successful social media. Two department heads ended up collaborating and saving 500k off the bat.

What department should be considered with a social media marketing strategy. Is it strictly politics?

Metrics is going to vary by departments. Marketing as a department is the tough nut for SM. For PR, there are good metrics, a lot of PR agencies can look at the activity that’s going on in brand conversations. There are metrics that show the value of the metrics for the company’s value on the whole.

In many cases, the community channel is easier to measure than a lot of other traditional branding channel. Not just the blog articles, but the comments that are made. There’s a ratio of good vs. bad comments.

You know that as a marketer, there’s a lot spent on focus groups and surveys, and there’s big savings on this via social media.

Does twitter have corporate value? We know it’s there, but how do we prove it? To borrow from Tim Ferris, we don’t need a new tool, or lack ability to measure. We lack the ability to convince bosses that these are metrics that matter. There are all hidden metrics that we all have access to; maybe it’s the creative focus on the right metrics to tell a convincing story.

There are some things you can’t measure. If you go to Expedia, then go to American Airlines to book, there’s a reason, but who knows why? It could be argued that these stats are out there, we’re just not looking for this level of analysis. Mostly because it’s harder.

When you think about your SM networks, there’s a high degree of trust within the group. One of the big metrics, and outcomes that can be driven is referrals. And this may be lacking — looking for the web of referrals that happen in those communities and their impact on your brand. That’s more likely to influence purchase behavior than anything else.

One of the big problems in mature programs is that your traditional metrics fall flat, but the conversations taking place outside the measured channel is thriving and building value outside the metrics boundaries.

Measuring sentiment — these metrics are being developed at the collegiate level, but finding out how to automate, measure, and apply these outcomes to other scenarios is nascent but extremely important.

There’s a lot of technical conversation, but in reality, it may be a two-year sales lifecycle.

Comment analysis: Aim that tool at the watering holes where conversations are happening, and track mentions in conversations.

A great starting point for metrics is to just make it OK to begin with metrics like hits and traffic. That gets a comfort level with the c-suite.

The ROI of an exec talking and building an audience is huge. Doesn’t really cost any extra. The numbers however can be very powerful.

Giovanni Gallucci: theagencyblog.com

Case study: BMC/William Hurley (chief architect)

Why Microsoft loves open source. Meant to be controversial, and something the CTO wants to talk about. Went out to 126 large domains. Got the page rank of each referrers, and values the front pages of Digg or slashdot as compared to more traditional buys. The total value of one blog entry after 48 hours annualized was $824,000.

Q&A

Aggregating metrics in music marketing: the only metric people want to know is "What’s the soundscan" is anyone aggregating a conversational score across Social Media?

A: Ogilvy has seen a tool that is a kind of video aggregator for metrics across social media sites.

Q:
What about use of social media metrics on the operations side? Seems like the value is from an operations perspective.

A:
The important point is about the silos. There’s the PR channel, customer service, marketing — they’re all split out.

The biggest reason people don’t spread the word is because you don’t ask them to. Just give them a tool, an avenue to make it easy to evangelize. More marketing thinking across other groups within the organization.

Customer service and operation metrics is a good place to start? They’re making the point that fostering community and support will diminish customer servic costs.

But what about the fact that this is as much if not more of an effective channel for customer communications?

Q: How do you get old-school professionals like lawyers to accept the basic premise?

A:
First: challenge the assumption that it may not have value for them. There are some pharmacy clients where they legally have to respond to bad experiences. If someone throws out an errant comment, it costs a ton of money.

For one law firm, it’s like SEO — your competitors are showing up in search engines. But it’s not the site home page, it’s all the blog articles.

note:

Regulated industries, especially may have much more at risk by adopting a strategy in social media.

What’s the ROI of a press release? What’s the ROI of a conversation between an executive and an important customer?

Q:
In the past, there was this same opposition to the Web, but then we were able to measure it and it became mainstream. Are there any studies that talk about the lurkers and the numbers on people just out there reading?

a:
Don’t know if there’s a silver bullet case study. SF blogging pastor? 75% of the people who came to the church have looked at the blog first.

Grain of salt warning: SF is different from everywhere else in the country in terms of Interactive behaviors.

Q: guy who owns small agency is asking about crisis management and pain points? Hard to follow. People don’t want to jump into SM, but then a crisis happens and they’re pushing the button.

A:
One important thing is that the typical reaction is a press release. But that’s not a branded environment for communication.

Executives in these situations just want fast solutions to solve the problem. But once you solve the problem, those guys want you back to help them avoid the problem in the future.

Q: If you look at the audience that uses SM the most, you’re looking at 13-25 year olds. The economy of the whole thing is billions of dollars pouring into social media. What do you say to all the companies who are under pressure to spend, and the platforms themselves. How is that value going to be realized? How will they keep convincing advertisers.

A:
Facebook has really irrelevant ads, so they can’t see how Facebook will monetized big time.

How does our social networking scale? What’s the ROI? But it’s not like you contracted a huge web presence. Run one fewer TV spot — what do you do with that million dollars? How do you create a lasting value?

This content stays up there forever. Comprises multiple campaigns over time.

Q:
What experience do you have with embedding redirects from SM. To drive traffic from SM platforms back to your property?

A: for meta cafe or other direct-clicking happens, you can depend on those clicks. Mostly, the best thing is to drive to unique URLs so you can capture the platform specific data.

Related posts:

1. SXSW Postgame: Social Media Marketing Metrics Strategy and the Culture of Cruelty
2. SXSW Live: Startup Metrics for Pirates: AARRR
3. Social Media Strategy
4. SXSW Live: Going Social Now