Visible Technologies-Sponsored Aberdeen Report Highlights Need for Monitoring and Measurement
SEATTLE – The world’s best organizations comprehend and actively leverage social media to drive holistic marketing efforts and tap into the rising tide of consumers who are participating in social sites such as blogs, wikis and Twitter. According to a new Aberdeen Group survey, co-sponsored by Visible Technologies, leading companies are successfully integrating digital channels more effectively into their marketing campaigns by developing processes and using software platforms to monitor, measure and support consumer interaction in social media conversations.
The survey, “The ROI on Social Media Marketing,” found that the most successful organizations have tools and methodologies in place to help drive marketing ROI by listening to and learning from customers and prospects.
“Regardless of the current economic environment, companies need to directly connect with consumers through new digital channels to increase marketing ROI,” said report author Jeff Zabin, research fellow with Aberdeen’s customer management practice. “Platforms like Visible Technologies’ TruCast® help brands such as Microsoft, GM and Hormel listen to and measure the effectiveness of social interactions.”
Leading companies “use multiple approaches to identify the individuals who wield the greatest amount of influence in any given topic area and to track changes in their influence over time,” according to the report. “Best-in-Class companies engage these top influencers as brand evangelists, and then track the impact of their words and actions in terms of return on marketing investment.”
The report found that 68 percent of the companies gauged Best-in-Class have a process for monitoring social media. However, only a third of “average” companies and fewer than one in five of “laggard” organizations have a monitoring process in place, the report concluded.
The survey also highlighted the enormous potential of social media monitoring tools and platforms. Fewer than half of the Best-in-Class respondents indicated they use tools and platforms to strengthen their social media monitoring process, and only 40 percent had defined metrics for measuring social media monitoring effectiveness.
“Companies exploring online engagement can use the Aberdeen findings to help build best practices to listen and learn from their brand advocates and detractors to determine where the most influential conversations are happening,” said Blake Cahill, senior vice president of marketing, Visible Technologies. “We’re proud to partner with Aberdeen once again to shed light onto this rapidly emerging and increasingly influential field for brands.”
The Aberdeen study also highlighted experience from Marty Collins, senior product marketing manager for Microsoft’s Windows Live and Visible Technologies customer.
“We monitor in excess of 1,500 discussion threads a day on very specific topics where we think we can add value to the conversation,” Collins said in the report. “There are ways to identify which conversations are the most influential, which ones have the greatest reach and those are the ones in which we’re mostly likely to participate.”
Zabin, the report’s author, is participating in a WOMMA webinar on “Realizing the Social Media Dream: Achieving Marketing ROI by Harnessing the Power of Word of Mouth” on March 18 at 9:00 am PDT/11:00 am CDT. To register, please go to: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/705434142
Supporting Resources
* Aberdeen “The ROI on Social Marketing” Report Download
http://www.visibletechnologies.com/resources/aberdeen_report_20090305.php
* WOMMA Webinar featuring Aberdeen’s Jeff Zabin on social marketing ROI
* https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/705434142
* Visible Technologies
http://www.visibletechnologies.com
* TruCast®
http://www.visibletechnologies.com/solutions/trucast.php
* VisInsights Blog
http://www.visinsights.com
About Visible Technologies
Visible Technologies helps companies listen and learn what consumers are saying about them online, and it enables brands to participate in the right conversations with the right influencers at the right time. With this real-time business insight and response, companies build relationships with customers, bolster their brands and grow revenue. Its innovative TruCast® platform is the industry’s first complete solution for social media analysis and participation. Visible Technologies also helps brands and individuals manage and protect their online reputations with the powerful TruView™ search engine solution. For more information, go to http://www.visibletechnologies.com, or follow the blog at http://www.visinsights.com.
