Social Media ROI (God. Just writing that makes me sweat)

At an astoundingly douchey mixer held by the club promoters of the digital world (Digital LA), I was approached by a very pushy young man who was hocking applications. After figuring out my position in our Company and my affinity for Social Media, he posed the question "What is your ROI?".


I thought about it for a moment, and I responded. "We don't speak ROI, we speak relationships and community."

He laughed nervously, and i ran away.

ROI? Good grief, doesn't he know that social media is all about Teh Gudwillz and teh Relashunshipz? I have since obsessed. The positive impact of our SM campaigns is evident to me, but our bottom line would still seem unaffected. How do I convince the boss folk that this is a good investment?

Below is a starting point. Obviously for a small business like ours, it's not necessarily all applicable, but its a start on what I'm sure will be a lengthy discussion as SM begins to settle into its place as in the world of brand management, public relations, and marketing.

Olivier Blanchard Basics Of Social Media Roi

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Twitter Killers?

I know. I know. This is my second post in a row about Twitter that has a question as its title. I know the posts have been Social Media heavy lately, and I know I owe you all my analysis of Chicago's failed bid for the 2016 games, but bear with me my dears, as I spin a yarn of greed, ego, and the powers that our personal accounts and engagement are up against.

Gather round Tweeps, and Facebook friends. Tumblrs and MySpace pervs.

The whole thing began about a month and a half ago when one of the top 6 agencies in town sent over someone who referred to himself as a "Social Media Agent" to meet with the celebrity I work with from time to time. Astounded at the notion, since social media doesn't pay off directly, and talent agencies are very aggressive in monetizing everything, and 10% of nothing is bupkes, I was eager if not thrilled to see what this guy knew and what his insight might be into monetizing SM.

When he arrived, I was a touch shocked. Was it possible that a man well into his forties could have insight into SM ? I'm in my early thirties and I can barley keep up, could it be that this man had the tech savvy that I lacked and therefore some sort of insight into monetization that would make everyone very rich? I listened to his pitch with five people present in the room.

The pitch went as follows:

There is a huge amount of money to be made by celebrities who Tweet.

He has a Company that is willing to pay per commercial tweet according to the amount of followers a celebrity may have.

The company hosts a variety of brands that the celebrity can choose from, so the celeb could choose brands that are applicable.

The company requires every fifth tweet to be a commercial with up to 40 tweets a day for it to be profitable.

With the formula pitched, Ashton Kutcher could make over one million dollars monthly.



Naturally there were questions to be asked.

Firstly, the Celebrity in question has an honest but unimpressive 5k followers. Not nearly enough for it to be worth it.

"That can be easily addressed with a service we employ that can artificially boost your numbers. We could have you up to 50k in 2 weeks."

They don't pay per click, they pay per follower?

"Yes, but who knows how long they'll be doing that for. So we have to get on this right away so we can get the numbers up and the tweets going."

Is the tool you use to boost the numbers Ok by twitter?

"Well, not exactly. Which is another reason why we would need to get on this right away."

Who else is doing this?

"Well, if say Ashton Kutcher would do it.."

Is he?

"No, but if he were.."

Why wouldn't he want an extra 1 million a month?

"I don't know."

Ok, so Ashton doesn't do it, but you haven't told us who. So who else would be interested in doing something like this?

"Well, we want to keep clients protected."

At this point the celebrity interjected. "Do I have to tweet and choose the ads myself or can my guys do it?"


"Oh for sure your staff can do it, 40 daily tweets is a lot."

The celeb's assistant sank into his chair. But the feeling of all in the room is that this bit of sketchiness would not see the light of day. I was glowing at being able to thwart something that would be detrimental not only to the celeb's brand, but to the Twitter community as well. After all, posting for a profit defeats the idea of sharing. Its filling a quota and manipulating. It goes against what the Twitter community is all about, and leaves the door open for the profit hungry "Man" that drove MySpace into the ground. I had come head to head with the capitalist machine and managed to defend my online socialist utopia for another day. God bless the EFF and Creative Commons, keep your filthy corporate greed out of our web, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

This was 45 days ago.

Yesterday it all resurfaced with the acquisition of 2 interns who's duties include Tweeting. Calls were made and the whole mess is a "go". Now it is up to the Twitter community to react. Do we reject advertisement as a part of feeds altogether? Is an individual endorsement more valuable when not contractual? (See? It does connect to the previous post.) All this remains to be seen. I have faith that something so sneaky and ill conceived has little to no place in the twitterverse. However, i have noticed something that insists on a caveat for this sort of marketing on Twitter.



Which leads to this site.



Although i believe that weight loss products and Acai Berry drinks are beneath LAist, their tweets are transparent, and we do not expect a personality or a connection to a website like we would a brand. Their twitter feed is simply links to their blog and their blog makes money off of ads, ergo this is fair play. This cannot be said of corporations and celebrities who use twitter to further their personal brand. Their unspoken contract with the web and in social media participation is to provide the public with information about themselves with goodwill and without trying to make a cynical buck off of us. However, if we find ourselves following celebs, and clicking on their every link with the same blindness with which we accepted hookers and club promoters as our MySpace "friends" then the FAIL Whale is upon us and we can only watch the potential of yet another Social Networking site diminished and destroyed by corporate greed. It really is up to us.

A sucessful contractual Twitter feed?

"The ways of the Living Force are beyond our understanding... But fear not. You are in the hands of something much greater and much better than you can imagine."
―Qui-Gon Jinn


A Protocol Droid fluent in over 6 million forms of communication, and able to communicate with binary loadlifters has only NOW discovered the value of Twitter? So it would appear, as Twitter-friendly nerdery everywhere welcomed Anthony Daniels, who is better known throughout the galaxy as C3PO, to the world of Social Media. His newly minted Twitter account handle bears the name ADaniels3PO and he boasts a modest following of 1700 accrued in the short time of 5 days.


It would make perfect sense that someone who owes his career to the genre of Science Fiction would be tapping into the Nerd/Geek rich world of social media, where no matter how mainstream things are, they retain an air of geeky innocence. However, such has not been the case for Mr. Daniels who's recent discovery of Twitter happens to happily coincide with a new website and the beginning of his national tour with Star Wars in Concert. Is it possible that someone in the marketing department for Star Wars In Concert was prescient enough to see Mr. Daniels as an indirect marketing tool? Contractually obliging him to a twitter feed seems contrary to the "Feel-Good Community" of Twitter, but the opportunities for the concert can hardly be ignored. When a visual music and lights show starring your favorite movie rolls into town, who better to be a spokesperson than one of the stars? It takes the notion of celebrity, product, and word of mouth to a whole new level.

Do I think it was a draconian marketing person who put him up to it as a part of some awful, greedy contract? No. Should Marketing people encourage it and make available all resources to those who are promoting their goods? You bet! Anthony Daniels should have the full support of the enormous companies affiliated with Star Wars and the concert, and they should all be touting his Twitter feed. I bet they could pump those numbers well past the 2k mark they have now, and in turn give Mr. Daniels a powerful tool for his personal brand as well as allowing him to maximize his role as a spokesperson for their brand.

Let me put it this way:

I wouldn't know about Star Wars in concert if it weren't for Anthony Daniels. Anthony Daniels would never have told me about it unless it was through his Twitter feed. His Twitter feed inspired this blog post, which in turn, touts Star Wars in Concert. The force is strong in that.

Before we were "Just talking" to the Consumer, VW was "Just Talking" to the consumer

Such ballsy, non-conventional ads in an era where this was unheard of.

In case you were in doubt.

A little perspective on where we are heading.

Don Draper's Carousel: Lessons for Social Media Marketing

I had "One of those moments" yesterday, where something I've always felt true was verified by a moment or an authority. I met a young lady yesterday who had graduated from a University with the twin majors of Marketing and Social Anthropology, and she expressed delight in my excitement for her choices. To which I explained that i see the two as being permanently intertwined.

I have always maintained in the inherency of the human experience. A unifying feeling that we have all been through this before, and we all share basically the same journey with minor variations. In marketing, this can be applied in different ways. Our need to breed can be preyed on, the manipulation of imagery is well known, and wordplay, copy, font decisions, music and etymological wizardry can come in handy when attempting to create a reaction to a product on a superficial level. Social Media however, has the honor of having the customer come to you. The customer has found you and they will deliver the message on your behalf, but you must equip them with the ability and desire to spread your message. You must build on their loyalty and do so at a level which connects beyond the obvious and at a very deep level.

Mad Men, is a fantastic show that I adore simply for the Cro-Magnon brazenness of 1960's advertising and how different it is from what we try to achieve through the intimate world of Social Media. When print and television were the only game in town, it was absolutely necessary to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, but when the customer is coming to you as is the case with social media, what sort of message are you sending out in order to be the most effective representative of your brand?

The clip below has received a large amount of attention for the way in which the lead character, Don Draper, during a pitch to KODAK, appeals to emotions that are not sexy or exciting but deeply moving and speak to us on a much more intimate level. So much so, in fact, that one of his colleagues who is having marital issues leaves the room in a rush.



A masterfully written expression of what all social media professionals must inevitably learn. As my mentor Stephen Fry put it so eloquently during his address to the Apple iTunes festival "Deep inside we are very soft people who yearn to love and yearn to be loved, and everything else is incidental, irrelevant, cynical, and not interesting to us fundamentally."

The feelings of belonging, and community that are recreated by our online families within our social media outlets are very real and must speak to that level of connectedness. It is a powerful tool, and when yielded wisely and with sincerity it can have wonderful results. Understanding that connectedness and what make societies and individuals tick at a rudimentary level,like an Anthropologist would, will make you more likely to achieve that goal.

Put Pocketing (The product finds you?)

The most difficult thing in Social Media Marketing is the true life application of your message and product. As we all know, a huge list and following needn't necessarily translate into bums in seats or cash in hand. Walking down the street with an iPhone glued to your hand is hardly a way to live (Ahem). Even then, there must be a merging point between guerrilla marketing and online marketing. A place where your online sense of community can be verified and validated by a very applicable moment in your life. Most marketing folk cede this responsibility to the product which they believe to be the ultimate personal interaction between consumer and brand. While technically true, non traditional brand interaction has been around for a while and a staple in urban settings. In a world like social media, where so much isn't tangible the options for extending your message outside of the realm of intangibles becomes more difficult.

MySpace continues to be the largest Social network that continually throws and promotes events independent of users. In other words MySpace has Myspace events while Twitter, Facebook etc. have only user generated events. Though I firmly believe that FB and Twitter would benefit from expanding into events and producing or at least sponsoring, they are in no danger of being overtaken by MySpace's events division which had enormous cuts inflicted on it despite being the only original and working apparatus in that horribly collapsing structure.

What about your company though? What sort of things can you do to bring that close knit online community together? Tweetups, Tweetcrawls, Facebook Invites are all in the arsenal of Social Media events but to really capture the imagination of potential consumers it takes some innovation at a basic and personal level. The UK based Phone and Broadband Company Talk Talk has taken the notion of goodwill towards consumers and bringing the message home, to a new level. A seamless application of guerilla marketing that does not involve hundreds of dancers and a train station. They have paid former pickpockets to "PUT POCKET" money wrapped with their logo and message into the consumer's pockets and bags. Risky and bold to be sure. But imagine if the evil and draconian AT&T put money into your bag with a nice note and best wishes. Not only would you tell your friends, but you'd certainly feel better about having your pocketbook raped at the end of the month.



The future of advertising will be in the bringing of goodwill and loyalty created by brands in the way that online communities and social networks create the same. By affecting people's lives, emotions,and brand interactions in a positive and relevant manner, rather than by forcing an unwarranted message on the unsuspecting. If you happen to film it, upload it, and distribute it online, then the rewards of that goodwill can be maximized.

The Future of Marketing

I have to say, that I'm in a bit of a tizzy over social networking and the new frontiers of Marketing. I have struggled to describe the importance of integrating your brand into people's behavior by being bold, kind, and adapting to their wants and interests, rather than forcing your product onto groups that would not willingly seek it out.

David Armano shared this incredible slide show, that illustrates some basic truths about the future of marketing, social networking, and the myth of "Viral" marketing.

I urge anyone who is interested in social networking and the "MEcononmy" to take a look.
Fascinating stuff.

The Future of Advertising. WTF?

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