If you’re like me, you’re probably finding it increasingly difficult to keep track of all your social media links. About.me is a fast, convenient web-based tool that allows you to aggregate your various online identities in a pleasing, easily-customized “personal splash” page.

Here’s a video about how it works:

It takes only a few minutes to set up and looks so much better as a link than a long litany of links in your email signature. It appears that the site may ultimately be paid for via ads and offers, but so far the site is free of any extraneous ads and I’ve received no special email offers.

About.me has been added to our Tools & Tips page.

Is it time for social media to tie the knot with your enterprise CRM? (Photo credit: Marcus Hansson, Creative Commons Attribution)

Putting social media data together with a company’s CRM systems is something talked about but seldom accomplished. A February 13 article by Maureen Morrison for AdAge Digital attests to the problem. Social Syntax recently piloted a short project that attempted to marry unstructured social media data with the company’s CRM systems. Here is a brief overview of the findings.

Problem: A loyalty services provider wished to investigate whether a customer’s loyalty program participants from their CRM data matched with their client’s significant Facebook page following. The opportunity was to discover whether social media fans of the page were in the program and if they were buying more or less product than the rest of the loyalty database.

Approach: The loyalty services company, with permission from their client, provided a significant sample of customer data from their CRM system, 12,000 POS records that included customer name, email address, city, state, and product purchase history. These names were to be compared with the thousands of fans who had friended the client company’s fan page. A software engineer from Redpoint Technologies (sister company to Social Syntax) built a Ruby query against the Facebook Graph API that collected the name, sex, and date of the person’s Wall posting on the fan page.

Challenges: Results were significantly hampered due to the lack of full access to the Facebook API. It is much more likely that with access to the unique Facebook page ID, a far larger sampling of individuals could have been compared. As it stood, the query used was still able to return the first name, last name, picture and all any other public information about the the user queried. Of the thousands of Facebook page fans, fewer than 500 were accessible because they had posted on the page.

An additional difficulty with Facebook or any social network is that users may be using an alias or nickname and may not correctly match data from any CRM unless that data is somehow solicited and self-disclosed by the consumer.

Results: Despite the very small sampling, a few matches resulted. Nine of the 500 users queried showed up in the CRM database from the loyalty program, indicating that these individuals who were engaging actively with the brand online via the Facebook page were indeed customers who participated also in the loyalty program. Verbatim quotes from these individuals who posted on Facebook can be said with confidence to be the authentic voice of the customer.

Study of the loyalty services data also showed that about half (6,000) of the POS loyalty program customers were aged 36 or older, whereas the Facebook demographic skewed far more strongly toward the 13-34 age groups, raising the question whether the loyalty program offers were more appealing to an older demographic and suggesting that further efforts might be made to engage the younger age demographic on Facebook with the loyalty program.

Implications: The integration of CRM data with unstructured social media interactions is fraught with uncertainties about data quality, but the effort is well worth the attempt. As a result of the pilot study, the loyalty services company was able to suggest to its client that they might better integrate marketing efforts with online campaigns in order to more fully engage with customers and prospective customers. Through social media, powerful “voice of the customer” data can emerge that may otherwise remain invisible to brands unless they go to the considerable expense of convening focus groups and surveys.

Is your company considering how to integrate social media data with your enterprise’s CRM? If you’re seeking guidance, contact us.

Guest blogger Bill O'Connor

Bill O’Connor from AbilityLinks is the first Social Syntax guest blogger of 2012. Bill is a highly respected social media specialist, recruiter and disability information specialist who manages the social media presence for AbilityLinks itself as well as the IT Knowledge Abilities Network (ITKAN) in Chicago. 

The Super Bowl is a day of victory and defeat, parties and tummy aches. It is also a day preceded by massive media coverage. Long before kickoff, America’s television networks take full advantage of 300+ hours of possible pre-game action to build anticipation for the biggest sports event of the year.

Advertising plays a major role in building that anticipation. The Super Bowl attracts millions of viewers worldwide, making television ad rates some of the most costly–typically in the millions of dollars for 30 seconds of air time. Advertisers naturally want the most “bang” for their dollar, and that includes using TV spots as a way to increase their social media presence. Whether introducing a new product or repackaging an old favorite to highlight a worthy cause, companies and networks are using advertising to get people talking before the game starts… and keep the conversations going for days or even weeks after the game ends. Meet Weego the rescue dog.

Click to enlarge

This strategy seems to be working. On Super Bowl Sunday 2012, social media comments increased by 600 percent (12.8 million) compared to last year (1.8 million). They came from around the globe, and covered everything from Eli Manning’s touchdowns to Madonna’s halftime performance. Social media enabled us to experience the game in our own way and control how it filtered to us as individuals. For example, we could watch Weego, then reach for our phones to see him again or tell a friend. We could even find out what our hometown quarterback thought about the last play. Messages were instantaneous and relevant, because they were delivered by word of mouth (or iPhone or Android) from other folks just like us.

The next day, while meeting with one of my colleagues in the diversity and inclusion business, I made sure to promote AbilityLinks’ social media presence as well as our message of hiring people with disabilities. My colleague’s response to our mission was enthusiastic and positive, but I was puzzled that he seemed to back away from using social media. When I asked why, his response blew my mind: he said it was a “passing fad.”  I checked the calendar to make sure that this was 2012, pulled myself together and made my case.

Using my colleague’s brand as an example, I asked him a few questions:

Click to enlarge

• Do you want to hear and deliver the same messages that are shared throughout the disability employment industry, or do you want to project your organization’s mission in your own way?
• Do you want to control the message, or do you want the message to control you?
• Do you want to keep sending businesses the same time-consuming email blasts that get tossed without being opened?
• Or would you rather reach an audience that stays on your LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter page to be read, analyzed and discussed again and again for little or no cost?

I wanted him to see that it’s not the tool you use to deliver the message that matters – it’s the relationship you build. In today’s economy, where service providers are experience funding cuts across the board, everyone from the CEO to the lowest-level manager needs to focus on innovation and value. Many turnkey social media solutions are available to help you do it all. Or you can build your own LinkedIn or Facebook page to market yourself or your organization. The only boundaries are the ones you set.

Later that afternoon, my colleague sent me a Facebook friend request from his organization. He had already found three more shared relationships and was engaged in conversations with them. Another convert, another “fad follower,” another touchdown—and more importantly, another organization getting the word out about what they do in their own unique way.

What’s your game plan, and how will you score a win for your organization?

Pew Internet & American Life Project released two interesting new pieces of research in the last week:

The first research piece, a survey of over 2,200 adults, was an investigation of how many adults found their experiences participting in social networking sites to be mostly positive. The research compares with an earlier report on teens and provides insight about the differences between these two age groups.

Click to Enlarge - Pew Internet & American Life Project

Why it’s important: For companies interested in knowing more about how behavior skews according to age, income and ethnicity, the report contains some extremely helpful data that may shape a social media strategy aimed at one or more of these groups.

The second research piece was a study of the effect of “power users” on Facebook. The study shows that due to the pervasive influence of these highly engaged users, everyone else using the network is more prone to receive, for instance, to more friend requests (63%) as opposed to making one (40%). Similarly, the study states that it’s more likely to be “liked” than to actively “like” others’ posts.

Why it’s important: While the importance of power users as hubs or connectors has been generally recognized, the research takes steps to actually quantify what their value is and why it is so worthwhile for companies to court the interest and advocacy of these highly engaged individuals.

One of the most interesting stats on the most recent Socialnomics video update asserts that “the Ford Explorer launch on Facebook generated more traffic than a Super Bowl ad.”

Screen capture from the latest Socialnomics video...

For several years now, Erik Qualman has been pressing out Social Media Revolution videos with eye-opening statistics to establish the credibility of social media. The latest installment on Socialnomics does not disappoint and continues to establish how these new channels are here to stay.

The stat about the Ford Explorer launch is old news, though the post-Super Bowl update of the video was timely. In fact, the information was drawn from an interview with Scott Kelly, digital marketing manager for Ford Motor Company in March 2011. Interviewed on eMarketer, Kelly provided somewhat more detail: Following the Explorer launch, we had all kinds of interesting results. We had the second-highest day ever on Ford.com. And results from third-party auto sites also showed us that traffic and searches for the car model after the Explorer Live event were higher than what they typically see following a Super Bowl ad.”

But why was the online launch more effective? Kelly attributes the following factors to its success:

• Ford combined and integrated online and offline media to promote the launch (Facebook was combined with live, streamed events across the country)
• Ford felt that they had no online competition with other automakers for share of voice
• The Super Bowl ad was a higher cost to produce and had to compete with other automakers for share of voice

Has your organization been trying to determine its social media ROI? Let us know if we can be of help.

Kate Spade uses Pinterest as a mood board for marketing

Does your social media approach reflect your brand effectively? Pinterest may be able to help.

Jim Edwards of Business Insider recently posted How Kate Spade Uses Pinterest For Marketing. The bag and apparel designer is not using Pinterest to hawk her products but to provide a public “mood board,” posting pictures that they feel fit well with the brand.

For companies contemplating a social media strategy, Pinterest can serve a similar useful purpose, helping your team, customers, investors, and anyone else interested in participating to collaborate on the images, text and rich media the exemplify your brand. As a preliminary to launching a social media presence, I am a proponent of incorporating a company’s branding with the social media effort. However, many companies simply haven’t been very practiced at articulating the values of the brand. Pinterest offers an easy, open, free tool to help facilitate those discussions.

Join me on Friday, May 4th, at the QUEST 2012 conference

Is your enterprise future ready? For many business professionals, social media only extends as far as professional networking on LinkedIn and keeping track of friends and family on Facebook. But social media is a rich category consisting of a broad array of tools that have only started to be leveraged by enterprise users–and they are much more powerful by far than any science fiction future with ray guns, jetpacks and trips to the moon!

Join me at the QUEST 2012 conference on Friday, May 4th, in Chicago to hear an overview of how the many current and emerging categories of social media tools are being deployed by small and large enterprises alike to foster  greater productivity and collaboration and how these new and powerful tools will continue to impact the immediate future.

You’ll have to register for the conference to attend, but I guarantee that every attendee for my session will receive their own raygun. What you choose to do with it is your responsibility!

By the way, a sister company of Social Syntax, TAP Group, is a proud sponsor of the event.

There are no shortcuts when it comes to social media contests... only diverging paths

Contests run via social media are no shortcut to “viral” success and overnight Return On Investment.

Over on the Innovation Excellence blog, Braden Kelley relates a negative experience with a Facebook contest that backfired due to poor planning and inconsistent application of its own rules. Of particular interest is the lack of integration Kelley mentions: “I never saw the contest mentioned anywhere – including in my utility bill [it was for a non-profit energy organization] – a friend of mine who enters contests as a hobby suggested that I enter – so I did.”

It’s not uncommon to see companies where the social media manager has been walled off from the marketing group, resulting in skewed expectations around how social media efforts ought to perform and in some cases an antipathetic relationship. An organization that follows a framework approach to social media and leverages a cross-functional team drawn from different parts of the organization stands a much better chance of avoiding these pitfalls.

What's the pH of your social media?

Social media return on investment is notoriously difficult to quantify as I have referenced here and here. Part of the difficulty in achieving that quantification is that it’s something that affects the entire business ecosystem rather than directly influencing any one part of it.

As a child, I kept tropical fish. Well, to absolutely honest, my dad took care of them and I helped from time to time! But I did feel that they were my pets. Anybody who keeps tropical fish knows that you have to manage the acidity of the water or your fish die.

It occurred to me during a conversation with a colleague last week: that’s exactly how social media operates. Social media is an element of the business ecosystem that can either make transactions more or less likely to flourish, but it’s nearly impossible to say with certainty that this activity has led directly to that sale.

A skeptical CEO is always going to have a problem with that if he or she does not acknowledge the type of investment being made or enters into a social media implementation with unrealistic expectations.

I suppose I could have compared it to global warming, too, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish….

Predictions for trends in social media and new media abound in 2012. Here’s one of the longer reports I have come across. It’s from Awareness, a social media marketing software company. There’s a lot in this update to digest. Enjoy and happy new year!