Brand's Social Life? Learn how to manage it!

Ad Age Trend Report Explores Strategies for Social-Media Platforms, Organizing Your Team and What to Measure

By:Jenna Schnuer

Consumers are investing serious amounts of their time in social-media platforms, with 16.6% of all online minutes now spent on social networks. With so much focus on social as a marketing tool, it's worth stopping and mapping out a smart social strategy.


A new Ad Age Insights report, "Managing Your Brand's Social Life," aims to help brand managers plan for which platforms should get the investment of limited staff and time, what to consider when creating internal social-media guidelines, whether to handle social media in-house or outsource it and what measures a brand should be looking for to get at return on investment.

You can measure the ROI of social media, but it may not get you far. "There is definitely a quantifiable ROI, but the truth of the matter is that it's very difficult to measure ROI within social media," said Edelman Digital Senior VP Michael Brito.

If a straightforward numbers game is what you're after, Olivier Blanchard, author of "Social Media ROI" notes that the ROI numbers game remains the same: "It's still purely a financial measure." But, he adds, "engagement is not a measure of ROI. There's no way to actually calculate the relationship between a dollar investment in a particular activity and the number of likes."

Managing Your Brand's Social Life

Strategies for Social Media Platforms, Organizing Your Team And What to Measure

He stresses that brands should be wary of anybody who tries to tell them that they can put an absolute value on a Facebook fan, Twitter follower or their latest Pinterest pinner. "For anyone to suggest that the value of a Coca-Cola fan on Facebook or Twitter is equal to the value of a BMW fan on Facebook or Twitter, it's ludicrous. So the media-equivalency equations unfortunately really lead people astray. They do help sell a lot of services, but they don't actually really give you a true measure of the value of an activity on social media," Mr. Brito said.

Adds Constant Contact's Social-Media Manager Erica Ayotte: "What's really hard is determining the value of followership." Instead, Ms. Ayotte believes brands have to ask very different questions of their social-media campaigns. "What gets me really excited is looking at it from a different intelligence perspective, from taking all that data and being able to ask the right questions, " she said. "For example, do people who are engaging with us on Facebook ... do they buy more, stay longer? That's the type of business intelligence ... I think the whole industry is moving [toward]." Other aspects to consider tracking are trust, purchase-decisions influence, seeking new products and getting recommendations.

ROI is really just one way to figure out how much your brand benefits from having a social life. With a little creativity -- and with an understanding that you need to push your measurement in new directions -- you can more clearly understand what social media delivers to your brand. Steven L. Johnson, assistant professor and director of social-media programs at Temple University's Fox School of Business, offered the example of the Campbell's Kitchen Facebook page, whose "mission is to get people to use more Campbell's Soup products." Mr. Johnson said Campbell figured out that every time somebody printed a recipe from Facebook, they prepared it approximately 2.5 times, and 1.7 times, they used a Campbell's Soup product. "You can't figure that out online," he said. "They just figured that out through some kind of additional market research. But then based on that, you're able to put a value on this action that you're trying to drive people toward."

While larger marketers end up building enterprise-class tracking tools, many companies rely on a cobbled together set of tools. Some of the top names in the measuring game include Radian6; Webtrends analytics to measure Facebook and mobile; and Twitalyze to measure, as you probably guessed, Twitter activity; Google Analytics, which is a very sophisticated product (especially for the price of ... free); and Simply Measured, which also looks at competitors' engagement to provide benchmarking.


"Measuring social is easy: likes, comments, views, shares, engagement, participation, etc. The numbers are all there and are easy to pull. Determining success is still the difficult part," said Daniel Stein, founder-CEO, Evolution Bureau. "The jury is still out on the value of fan interaction. Most people agree that having a loyal, engaged fan base is a good thing -- how good or how valuable compared to other forms of more institutionalized marketing is still debatable."

Source:
Advertising Age Online
http://www.adage.com

Is There Such a Thing as Hispanic Identity? Despite All the Variety, Yes

A Pew Study Shows That Certain Values Will Outlast Shifts That Come With Acculturation

By: David Morse

Published: April 13, 2012

Is there such a thing as a common Hispanic culture? The Pew Hispanic Center just released a study suggesting that, considering how Hispanics identify themselves, the answer may be no.


We know there is great diversity within the U.S. Hispanic population. Pew's biggest finding is the paucity of U.S. Hispanics who identify with the label "Hispanic" or "Latino." Only a quarter. Half of Hispanics identify more strongly with their family's country of origin. And another 21% said that they use the term "American" most often to describe themselves. When asked whether Hispanics have many different cultures or if they share a common culture, 69% indicated the former.

Are we then fooling ourselves when we attempt to market to a segment that we call Hispanic, but that doesn't perceive itself that way? I don't think so.

Much in the study suggests that a common Hispanic culture does exist. Some 95% of Hispanics believe it is important for future generations of U.S. Hispanics to speak Spanish, an interesting finding given that less than half of third-generation Hispanics indicated that they speak Spanish. But 87% say that it is important for Hispanic immigrants to learn English.

Some things, like language and identity, change with acculturation. Two-thirds of Hispanic immigrants in the study say that they think in Spanish, while 80% of third-generation Hispanics answered that they think in English. Two-thirds of the native born responded that they think of themselves as typical Americans, while two-thirds of the foreign born said that they were "very different" from typical Americans.

Yet the study reveals that other things, such as attitudes and values, have more staying power. For instance, with acculturation, Hispanics are more likely to agree that most people can be trusted. Yet even third-generation Hispanics are much less likely to agree than the general population. Similarly, third-generation Hispanics were much more likely than the general population to agree that people can get ahead with hard work or that bigger government is a good thing.

For more acculturated Hispanics, it may be their values, rather than the traditional markers of ethnicity, such as language and cultural differences, that set them apart from the mainstream. First and foremost may be the importance of family. When asked to compare life in the United States to their country of origin, the United States fared better on all measures but one: "the strength of family ties."

As a higher and higher percentage of the U.S. Hispanic population is native born, the traditional approaches of targeting Hispanics -- language and culture -- will become more difficult. As the Pew study demonstrates, those born in the United States will identify themselves increasingly as American, especially as the term becomes less associated with "white." They will come to prefer English. But it will be a long time before family ceases to be a central part of their identity.

That Hispanics are family-oriented has become a well worn cliche, and the image of "abuelita" (grandma) has been overused by Hispanic marketers. Yet as we grapple with the question of how to target the children and grandchildren of Hispanic immigrants now and in the future, it seems clear that appealing to Hispanic values will play a prominent role, precisely because they are the most durable aspects of Hispanic identity.

Yes, Hispanics are diverse, but there is much to be found in the Pew study to support the argument that despite the myriad variations -- country of origin, acculturation and socioeconomics -- there is a common culture. Central to that culture is a belief in hard work, the valuation of the Spanish language and at the top of the list, love of family. The art of developing targeted messages for Hispanics will evolve as the demographics of the population change. But it will take a lot more than three generations for marketing communications evoking these traditional Hispanic cultural pillars to lose their power.

SOURCE

AdAge. Retrieved from: http://adage.com/article/the-big-tent/great-variety-hispanic-identity-exist/234082/

Innovators and Billionaires

The Five Personalities of Innovators: Which One Are You?

Brenna Sniderman, Forbes Staff

Whenever I try to conjure up what innovation looks like, the same slideshow of images clicks across my mind: that photo of Einstein with his tongue sticking out, Edison with his light bulb, Steve Jobs onstage in his black turtleneck, introducing the latest iThing. Unoriginal and overdone, to be sure. And not all that accurate.

Because it’s not just about that romantic “ah ha!” moment in front of a chalkboard or a cocktail napkin, it’s about the nitty-gritty work that comes after the idea: getting it accepted and implemented. Who are these faces? And, most importantly, as I’m sure you’re all asking yourselves: where do I fit in?

Forbes Insights’ recent study, “Nurturing Europe’s Spirit of Enterprise: How Entrepreneurial Executives Mobilize Organizations to Innovate,” isolates and identifies five major personalities crucial to fostering a healthy atmosphere of innovation within an organization. Some are more entrepreneurial, and some more process-oriented – but all play a critical role in the process. To wit: thinkers need doers to get things done, and idealists need number crunchers to tether them to reality.

Though it may seem stymieing at times, in any healthy working environment, a tension between the risk-takers and the risk-averse must exist; otherwise, an organization tilts too far to one extreme or the other and either careens all over the place or moves nowhere at all. An effective and productive culture of innovation is like a good minestrone soup: it needs to have the right mix and balance of all the ingredients, otherwise it’s completely unsuccessful, unbalanced — and downright mushy.

The Forbes Insights study surveyed more than 1,200 executives in Europe across a range of topics and themes. Using a series of questions about their attitudes, beliefs, priorities and behaviors, coupled with a look at the external forces that can either foster – or desiccate – an innovative environment, a picture emerged of five key personality types the play a role in the innovation cycle.

This last piece – the corporate environment – is a stealth factor that can make or break the potential even the most innovative individual. Look at it this way: a blue whale is the largest animal known ever to have existed, but if you tried to put it in a freshwater lake, it wouldn’t survive. Well, that and it would displace a lot of water. My point? Even the largest and mightiest of creatures can’t thrive in an environment that doesn’t nurture them.

The themes surveyed in the study are universal; despite the focus on European executives, these personalities are applicable across oceans and cultures. The full study, available here, provides further breakdown of where these personality types congregate by industry, company size and job function.

I’ll leave it to you to decide which one fits you best . You may even see a little of yourself in more than one group. But remember, none of these are bad. All play crucial roles in developing an idea, pushing it up the corporate channels, developing a strategy and overseeing execution and implementation. These are all pieces of a puzzle, arteries leading to the beating heart of corporate innovation. Wow – can I make that sound any more dramatic?

The Five Personality Types of Innovation: a breakdown

Movers and Shakers. With a strong personal drive, these are leaders. Targets and rewards motivate them strongly, but a major incentive for this group is the idea of creating a legacy and wielding influence over others. These are the ones who like being in the front, driving projects forward (and maybe promoting themselves in the process), but at the end of the day, they provide the push to get things done. On the flip side, they can be a bit arrogant, and impatient with teamwork. Movers and Shakers tend to cluster in risk and corporate strategy, in the private equity and media industries, at mid-size companies; though they comprise 22% of total executives, at companies with revenues of $25 million to $1 billion, Movers and Shakers can encompass up to one-third of the executive suite.

Experimenters. Persistent and open to all new things, experimenters are perhaps the perfect combination for bringing a new idea through the various phases of development and execution. “Where there is a will, there is a way,” is perhaps the best way to describe them. They’re perfectionists and tend to be workaholics, most likely because it takes an incredible amount of dedication, time and hard work to push through an idea or initiative that hasn’t yet caught on. They take deep pride in their achievements, but they also enjoy sharing their expertise with others; they’re that intense colleague who feels passionately about what they do and makes everyone else feel guilty for daydreaming during the meeting about what they plan on making for dinner that night. Because they’re so persistent, even in the face of sometimes considerable pushback, they’re crucial to the innovation cycle. They tend to be risk-takers, and comprise about 16% of executives – and are most likely to be found in mid-size firms of $100 million to $1 billion (20%). Surprisingly, they’re least likely to be CEOs or COOs – just 14% and 15%, respectively, are Experimenters.

Star Pupils. Do you remember those kids in grade school who sat up in the front, whose hands were the first in the air anytime the teacher asked a question? Maybe they even shouted out “Ooh! Ooh!” too just to get the teacher to notice them first? This is the segment of the executive population those kids grew into. They’re good at…well, they’re good at everything, really: developing their personal brand, seeking out and cultivating the right mentors, identifying colleagues’ best talents and putting them to their best use. Somehow, they seem to be able to rise through the ranks and make things happen, even when corporate culture seems stacked against them. Unsurprisingly, CEOs tend to be Star Pupils. What’s most interesting about this group, though, is the fact that, at 24% of corporate executives, they don’t seem to cluster in any one particular job function, industry or company size; rather, they can grow and thrive anywhere: IT, finance, start-ups, established MNCs. They’re the stem cells of the business world.

Controllers. Uncomfortable with risk, Controllers thrive on structure and shy away from more nebulous projects. Above all, they prefer to be in control of their domain and like to have everything in its place. As colleagues, they’re not exactly the team players and networkers; Controllers are more insular and like to focus on concrete, clear-cut objectives where they know exactly where they stand and can better control everything around them. They comprise 15% of executives — the smallest group overall — and tend to cluster on both extremes of the spectrum: either in the largest enterprises (with 1,000 or more employees) or the smallest (with fewer than 10). This makes sense when you think about it: controllers thrive on overseeing bureaucracy (at larger firms) or having complete control over all aspects of their sphere – at the smallest firms, they may be the business owner who has built an entire company around their personality. Controllers pop up most frequently in sales and marketing and finance, and populate the more practical, less visionary, end of the corporate hierarchy: these are the department heads and managers who receive their marching orders and get to mobilizing their troops to marching.

Hangers-On. Forget the less-than-flattering name; these executives exist to bring everyone back down to earth and tether them to reality. On a dinner plate, Hangers-On would be the spinach: few people’s favorite, but extremely important in rounding out the completeness of the meal. Like Controllers, they don’t embrace unstructured environments, and they tend to take things one step further, hewing to conventional wisdom and tried-and-true processes over the new and untested. When asked to pick a side, Hangers-On will most likely pick the middle. This is not necessarily a bad set of characteristics to have; someone has to be the one to remind everyone of limitations and institutional processes. While they comprise 23% of all executives – the same no matter the company size – they cluster most strongly in the CFO/Treasurer/Comptroller role, where 38% are Hangers-On. This makes sense; someone has to remind everyone of budget and resource constraints.

No one group can be considered the purest “entrepreneurial group,” but Movers and Shakers and Experimenters may be the closest. They have the strongest tendency to be internally driven, in control and bridle the most at others telling them what to do. Younger, more innovative firms generally need Movers and Shakers at the top, channeling the energy of Experimenters into a vision that can be implemented. As organizations grow larger and more established, however, they need Star Pupils who can translate that vision into a strategy and lead it forward, Controllers who can marshal the troops to execute it and Hangers-On who can rein it in. A firm reaching maturity has greater need for strong processes, as well as those who value control.

As we’ve seen time and again, unbridled innovation is a wonderful thing. But it’s what comes next that’s arguably more important. To get an innovative idea off the ground, it’s crucial to have a cast of characters who can keep that tension between risk-taking and reality at a healthy balance midway between the sky and the ground — where innovation can thrive.

Source

Forbes. Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/brennasniderman/2012/03/21/the-five-personalities-of-innovators-which-one-are-you/2/