David Parmet and B.J. Flagg

For the fast dwindling number of people not yet on Facebook and other social media sites, the amount of time those channels can chew up represents one deterrent for those not signing on.

For businesses digesting the impact of Facebook, they have access to a lot more data today on just how much time social media users are spending on their sites.

That could be profitable information not just for companies considering whether to devote additional resources to social media marketing campaigns – whether in the form of man-hours or money – but also for the burgeoning number of marketing agencies promising big returns from social media.

Facebook Inc. has been bolstering its Insights analytics platform the past few years.

For several years, Facebook has kept developers in the loop on ways to create application-programming interfaces to exploit data generated by traffic on member sites. Many small businesses, however, are not yet realizing those tools are fast proliferating and easy to access, according to David Parmet of Nurenu Brand Marketing L.L.C., which has offices in New Canaan and Topsfield, Mass.

“They used to have bland analytics,” Parmet said. “There’s a lot more now, including great ones for local companies in terms of where are your ‘likes’ coming from.”

In August, Facebook launched an Insights for Credits tool to help businesses view snapshots of the Facebook Credits transactions in their apps. The feature allows a visual overview of spending by users, refunds and other information. That frees people from having to look at hundreds of lines of transactions from a daily Facebook Credits report.

Other Facebook Insights tools include one that shows whether a page visitor clicks on a photo to enlarge it – a clear sign of interest – as well as other click-through behavior such as the people who have “liked” a business’ page and those who have commented or linked to it for others to see.

Even as Facebook launched Insights for Credits, Gartner Inc. published its annual “hype cycle” study, which assesses nearly 2,000 different emerging technologies for the ones that appear to be generating the most enthusiasm.

Social media analytics was near the top on the Stamford-based company’s chart, edged out only by a small number of new items, including Internet TV, smartphone payment systems and private cloud computing.

Google Inc., which already offers sophisticated analytics for its standard web applications, is also offering analytics for its new Google+ social media platform. Then there is the small army of independent analytics companies such as Buddy Media, HootSuite and Vitrue, among others.

It’s a lot for any one company to absorb and keep up with – whether a small business or a big corporation. For its part, Stamford-based World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. recently filled a full-time director of digital analytics position to pin down data coming in from social media sites and the wider Web.

“We always look at how we are trending in social media, primarily Facebook and Twitter,” said George Barrios, CFO of Stamford-based WWE in a December conference call. “Google Trends and Google Analytics also gives us a sense of how the brand is trending from a search perspective. We look at our own unique and page views on our own site as well as the streams that we do. We do about 75 million video streams on YouTube every month, so we track that.”

While numerical analytic data is useful, it only augments the most useful data coming in over the social media transom, according to B.J. Flagg, director of account services for Nurenu – direct feedback from visitors.

“It’s a space for companies and customers to interact,” she said. “There are some people up and down (Fairfield County) who are doing this stuff really well – who are knocking it out of the park.”

Sandhya Subbarao

As Westchester County officials inch closer to a decision on the future of Playland, dark horse Sustainable Playland Inc. has emerged as an unlikely finalist behind their proposal for a public-private partnership to completely overhaul the historic park.

Based in Rye, Sustainable Playland is a coalition of local residents and business leaders that last year submitted a comprehensive plan to transform Playland from a summer attraction into a year-round, multi-purpose complex.

Earlier this month, representatives behind the different proposals to retool Playland began meeting with county officials as three presumed finalists, Sustainable Playland, Central Amusement International L.L.C., and Standard Amusements L.L.C., vie for the contract to transform the park back into a profitable entity.

While the latter two proposals call for major capital improvements that will allow Playland to remain a family amusement park, Sandhya Subbarao, president of Sustainable Playland, says that only one plan promotes a model for year-round use and revenue streams.

“The concept is to have diverse revenue streams in an all-year-round facility that caters to a broad range of interest groups and demographics,” Subbarao said.

Included in the Sustainable Playland proposal are plans to shrink the size of the amusement park while preserving all of its historic rides and to convert the vacated space into a 10-acre great lawn, while also taking advantage of the property’s underdeveloped open spaces and access to Long Island Sound, Subbarao said.

Other items designed to draw visitors year-round include a collaboration with the Westchester Children’s Museum to turn the bath house into an educational center; the addition of several restaurants and cafes across the property, and a renovation of the Ice Casino that would leave one of the rinks untouched while converting the rest of the building into a large events venue.

The group is also proposing to turn part of the parking lot into an athletic venue, complete with two outdoor fields and a 72,000-square-foot indoor facility.

In its proposal, Sustainable Playland projects a total initial capital investment of $33.5 million, which includes improvements to the park, ice casino, bath house and other parts of the property.

Of that, Sustainable Playland itself would invest $8.2 million, which would be funded through the sale of tax-exempt bonds. The remaining $25.3 million would be financed by individual operators of the park’s various components, an arrangement Subbarao said had been discussed with a number of potential contractors.

The group is projecting annual revenue of approximately $4.5 million from rent payments, sponsorships and other sources and $2.7 million in total operating expenses.

The annual lease payment to the county would be slightly less than $1.2 million, according to the proposal, with the remainder of the company’s net income going toward bond repayment and a capital reserve fund.

Financial information was obtained from Sustainable Playland. In copies provided by the county, financial information for each of the three finalist proposals, including the Boonton, N.J.-based Central Amusement International and the Manhattan-based Standard Amusements, was withheld by request of the companies.

Subbarao said Sustainable Playland’s proposed governance structure is also unique among the three finalists.

The group is calling for a public-private partnership, under which the county would maintain ownership of the park while a nonprofit board of trustees – which would include representatives of the county – would oversee all management decisions and negotiate terms with all tenants and contractors.

A management company would then be selected by the board to oversee the park’s operation.

“We think we’ve balanced everyone’s needs, including the county’s, because they will have a seat at the table,” Subbarao said.

In Sustainable Playland’s proposal, Biederman Redevelopment Ventures Corp., whose property management portfolio includes Bryant Park in New York City and MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., is listed as the preferred management choice.

The project team also includes principal architect Doug McKean, long-time Rye resident and founder of Design Constructs, a sustainable design consulting firm based in Rye.

McKean, best known for his work on Grand Central Terminal in New York City, in 1979 wrote his master’s thesis on the reinvention of Playland. He called the park a “one-trick pony” in its present form.

“The park has been long viewed as just an amusement park even though it was originally planned as a park with amusements in it,” McKean said. “What the Sustainable Playland proposal has is more focused on recreation, so it’s not just an amusement park in the summer and an ice casino in the winter.”

County officials expect to release more information on the proposal vetting process by April, said Ned McCormack, director of communications for County Executive Rob Astorino.

“The next decision could be that we like one (proposal), that we like a combination of some, or that we don’t like any and we start over again,” McCormack said. “The expectation isn’t that at the next stage (in April) we’re going to necessarily have the final answer…Where we are now is at the narrowing stage.”

UPCOMING ROUNDTABLES

• Feb. 28      Powerful Women

• March 29  Sex and the Company

• April 26    Why are people still going to NYC hospitals?

• May 31      How to deal with social media and the digital age

• June 26     Are CFOs the real CEOs?

The landmark $25 billion settlement reached Feb. 9 by the country’s five biggest mortgage servicers and 49 states will likely have a smaller effect on New York homeowners than on those in states more affected by the housing crisis, experts said last week.

The settlement includes $17 billion in principal reduction and loan modifications for borrowers who are facing foreclosure, $3 billion to help borrowers who are current on their payments but who owe more than their homes are worth, and cash payments of $2,000 for each of the roughly 750,000 homeowners who lost their homes to foreclosure between 2008 and 2011.

Additionally, the 49 states that were included in the settlement receive $4.25 billion in guaranteed cash payments while the federal government receives $750 million.

The banks that participated in the settlement include Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo and Co., JPMorgan Chase and Co., Citigroup Inc. and Ally Financial Inc.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that the refinance and modification programs and foreclosure payments will impact approximately 46,000 New York borrowers.

The state will receive $136 million in guaranteed cash payments, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Feb. 9.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman

New York homeowners eligible for loan modifications and refinancing under the settlement terms will receive an estimated $495 million and $140 million, respectively, while homeowners who were wrongfully foreclosed on will receive an estimated $13 million.

Shelby D. Green, professor of real estate transactions and finance at Pace University Law School, said the bulk of the settlement’s benefits will go to states like California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona where the housing market is weakest.

The other major change brought about by the settlement will be higher accountability standards for mortgage servicers who were accused of reaching foreclosure decisions without due diligence, resulting in the foreclosures of homes whose owners were not in default.

“The settlement agreement was prompted by misconduct by the mortgage servicers who signed off on foreclosures automatically without verifying that the homeowners were in default,” Green said, adding that the settlement would “establish that procedures for accounting and bookkeeping are accurate.”

However, several economists have said that because of the sheer depth of the housing crisis, the settlement will have a less pronounced effect on the overall housing market.

“This agreement will help the housing market move ahead in 2012 in a small way. But it is hardly a game changer,” said Patrick Newport, U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight, an international financial analysis firm with offices in New York City.

As part of the settlement, Schneiderman said that states will retain the right to bring criminal and civil legal action against the five banks over mortgage-related misconduct that has not yet been investigated.

Mortgages that are serviced by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were not covered under the terms of the settlement.

The projects will complement a host of efforts that have already gotten under way despite limited funding, county and municipal officials said last week.

After decades of studies by the Army Corps of Engineers and expensive proposals, the county and a number of municipalities have placed a larger emphasis on small-scale projects.

Included among the capital projects announced by Astorino are several channel re-alignment and bank stabilization projects along the Bronx River, the rehabilitation of the Oak Street pump station in Yonkers, wetland restoration in Greenburgh, drainage improvements in Larchmont, a culvert replacement in New Rochelle and a sewer line replacement in Mamaroneck.

“We don’t have an endless supply of money … but we do have money for projects like this,” Astorino said.

While a federal stimulus aimed at flood mitigation would certainly benefit the county, Town of Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner said that at present, the best approach is to pursue smaller-scale projects that are more affordable.

“They’ve been talking about an Army Corps of Engineers project (in Elmsford) that would be tens of millions of dollars and that’s been studied for 50 or 60 years and nothing’s happened,” Feiner said. “So I feel like some of the smaller action steps that are being taken is probably the best we can do at this point.”

Westchester County Legislator MaryJane Shimsky chairs the Saw Mill River Stormwater Advisory Board and has led efforts to clean up debris from the river.

Shimsky said the river clean-up efforts and bank stabilization projects are a good start, but that more is needed to limit the effects of flooding in the region. Future efforts, she said, should include an increased emphasis on public works projects such as sluice gates and increased vigilance when it comes to new development projects.

“With all of the real estate development we’ve had in the county over the last generation, the ground has become less absorbent,” she said. “So we’re going to have to look at various techniques to help increase the ground cover we have and make sure future development occurs in a way that will be more effective from a storm water management standpoint.”

A wide-ranging economic development initiative launched last year by The Business Council of Westchester, the coalition this month held a series of focus groups with professionals under the age of 35 “to assess what we need to do to keep young professionals in Westchester,” said Business Council President and CEO Marsha Gordon.

“The priorities for that group are different” than those of the baby boom generation, said Tim Jones, coalition chairman and managing director of Robert Martin Co. in Elmsford. “They seem to place a very high priority on open space and community areas where they can have more direct interaction with people.”

Stopping Westchester’s youth flight was one of the short-term goals identified by the coalition in its inaugural report last July on strategies to retain existing businesses and attract new ones to the county.

Another short-term goal, creating a central internship clearinghouse to link businesses with students at colleges and universities in the county, is expected to be implemented in May with the launch of an internship clearinghouse website, Gordon said. The clearinghouse will be operated by the Westchester-Putnam Workforce Investment Board.

“This is something that’s important to the business community, to the educational community, and to show young people in Westchester the opportunities that are here in Westchester,” Gordon said. “The universities are very much on board with that.”

Jones said the coalition also will work to educate community organizations on the benefits of redeveloping the county’s oversupply of commercial office properties for mixed uses. Developer Robert Weinberg, a founding partner of Robert Martin Co., one of the county’s first office-park developers, will lead that effort with initial presentations to school boards, Jones said.

The coalition also will focus on workforce housing in the county as “a business issue” that affects companies’ ability to retain and recruit employees, Gordon said.

The coalition also plans to participate in the second-year work of the state’s Mid-Hudson Regional Economic Development Council. Gordon, appointed by Gov. Cuomo to the regional council in 2011, said the coalition’s aim in reaching out to the regional group is “making sure that we have great projects to put forth for funding” by state agencies in 2012.

One proposed project, a business incubator for biotechnology companies on the Valhalla campus of New York Medical College, in December was awarded a $4 million state grant in the first round of regionally coordinated funding.

Jones said the coalition will continue to back the growth of a biotech industry cluster in Westchester and the Hudson Valley region and identify and support other industry clusters, including the recently formed Hudson Valley Food and Beverage Alliance.

Looking to capitalize on business with China, Leason Ellis L.L.P., an intellectual property law firm in White Plains, has opened an account on one of China’s most popular websites.

Described as a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook, Sina Weibo has more than 250 million registered users, according to a partner at Leason Ellis. The firm, one of the first intellectual property practices in the U.S. to join Sina Weibo, also just launched a Chinese version of its own website at leasonellis.com.

“The Chinese market is growing exponentially and it is vital that U.S. law firms such as ours go to where the action is,” said Susie Cheng, head of the China practice group at Leason Ellis.

Business expo sign-up

Businesses and nonprofits can purchase booths to promote their products and services at the annual Salute to Seniors Business Expo on May 2 at the Westchester County Center in White Plains.

Sponsored by the Westchester Public/Private Partnership for Aging Services and three county departments, the annual event usually attracts more than 2,000 senior citizens. The expo in 2011 drew 82 participating businesses and nonprofit agencies.

All booth payments are due by April 6. To be eligible for reduced corporate and nonprofit rates, deposits must be received by March 23.

For copies of the contract and more details about the business expo, call 914-747-0519 or visit the county website at westchestergov.com/seniors.

The announcement came as part of the company’s fourth quarter and full-year 2011 earnings report. Headquartered in Purchase, PepsiCo did not specify how many workers, if any, would be laid off in Westchester County.

The company also said it would spend $500 million to $600 million more on advertising and marketing this year, with a focus on North America. PepsiCo Chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi called 2012 a “transition year, in which we will be taking the appropriate steps to build a stronger, more successful company going forward.”

PepsiCo said it would cut capital expenditures by 10 percent in 2012. It said it would raise its dividend 4 percent this year beginning in June and buy back at least $3 billion in stock.

For 2012, Pepsico said it expects a 5 percent drop in earnings per share from the $4.40 it reported for 2011. It cited an expected increase in commodity prices and higher pension costs. The company also said it expects charges of $425 million this year for severance costs associated with job cuts.

As for its earnings, Pepsico said sales of snacks were up 8 percent for the quarter and the year. Beverage sales were up 3 percent for the quarter and 5 percent for the year.

Earnings rose 4 percent for the quarter to $1.4 billion and 2 percent for the year to $6.4 billion. What the company called its core earnings per share rose 9 percent to $1.15 in the quarter and 7 percent to $4.40 per share for the year.

Thoughts of the day: Get organized by laying out the chain of command and who does what. Document processes and standards. Get people trained. Practice by removing key players.

The first question to ask is: Is there an organization chart for operations and is it detailed enough? Put down on paper who reports to whom. If responsibilities overlap, show every reporting line and why people go to one person rather than another.

Map out the functions that happen in operations, from the time a customer places an order until the order is out the door and the customer is satisfied. Put each activity in a box with arrows showing the progress from one box to the next. Indicate who typically deals with the tasks described in each box.

Define individual jobs. Which person does what? How do people hand off tasks that are described on the operations map? Who is responsible for quality assurance? Customer communications? Who do people go to if there’s a problem?

Define the standards. What is an acceptable error rate? How long should it take to complete specific processes and tasks within processes? What’s the minimum and maximum order range for materials that are kept in inventory?

Perfection is usually not worth the cost. Some degree of error is usually acceptable, as long as there’s also a recovery process laid out that gets implemented whenever errors happen. If things need correction, show the return route they would take through the Operations Map.

Consider doing time-and-motion studies, including pictures. Document what people do to produce the goods or services that the company delivers. How long should each step in the process take to complete? How long is too long?

Write out the answers: Who purchases materials? Who are the preferred vendors? What price list, or price history, gets referenced when placing an order? What materials have negotiated deals?

Define how inventory gets counted and who’s responsible, where inventory is kept, who has access to it and how it’s organized. Take pictures of inventory storage and put them into a book. Make it easier for the next person to visualize what inventory should look like.

Document key contacts outside the company. Some vendors and customers are contacted regularly. Make sure there’s a list of who to go to, for what purpose, including phone, email and snail mail addresses. Remember to include auxiliary vendors, such as banks, trucking firms and IT support.

Once you have everything mapped out and documented, it’s time for training. Make sure every person, up through the top dog, has a back up. Have the back up shadow the person they’re replacing. Then have the primary person take a day off and leave their job in the hands of their replacement.

Regular meetings of all players involved in operations can speed communication and reduce gaps if someone is suddenly called away. Meet weekly to discuss overall operations. Meet daily to plan how the day will go, to recap the previous day and to address problems and other open items. These meetings are where you can share information, brainstorm and catch small problems before they become big ones.

Consider a weekly quality meeting and another to discuss customer relations. The meetings don’t have to be lengthy, but holding them regularly is important. Include more people from operations, rather than less, and consider inviting people from other areas of the company as well.

Build an operations manual, documenting everything that happens. Make it a bible. Train people to use and update the manual as they learn tasks and take over responsibilities.

Looking for a good book? Try “The Disaster Recovery Handbook: A Step-by-Step Plan to Ensure Business Continuity and Protect Vital Operations, Facilities, and Assets,” by Michael Wallace and Lawrence Webber.

Andi Gray is president of Strategy Leaders Inc., strategyleaders.com, a business-consulting firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurial firms grow. She can be reached by phone at (877) 238-3535. Do you have a question for Andi?  Please send it to her, via email at AskAndi@StrategyLeaders.com  or by mail to Andi Gray, Strategy Leaders Inc., 5 Crossways, Chappaqua, NY 10514. Visit AskAndi.com for an entire library of Ask Andi articles.

The foundation that prides itself as the global leader in the fight against breast cancer on Jan. 31 announced it would cut all funding to Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc., which amounted to roughly $700,000, due to an ongoing Congressional investigation.

Three days later, faced with a continuous barrage of criticism across multiple social media channels, Komen founder and CEO Nancy G. Brinker announced the foundation had reversed its decision and would restore funding for all existing grants.

On Feb. 7, a week after the initial announcement, longtime Komen executive Karen Handel resigned from her post as senior vice president for policy.

All the while, Planned Parenthood emerged smelling like roses and raised more than $3 million in just three days after launching a Breast Health Emergency Fund on Jan. 31.

A number of social media specialists based in Westchester said last week that had the Komen foundation anticipated the social media response, it may have been able to deflect much of the criticism while staying out of the national spotlight.

“I think it was a pretty controversial decision and they probably should have anticipated there would be a reaction but you can’t always predict every situation and how people are going to respond to things,” said Bridget Gibbons, CEO of Gibbons Digital Consultants, a social media marketing firm with offices in Bronxville and New York City.

Demand for social media support has ballooned over the past year, Gibbons said.

“When I started my business three and a half years ago I was talking to small- and medium-sized businesses about Twitter and Facebook and blogs and their eyes just glazed over because they could not see the business value of it,” she said. “I think now small- and medium-sized businesses have caught up and they can see that it’s ubiquitous.”

Gibbons Digital is one of many local companies that specialize in monitoring social media channels for companies that don’t have the staff or the time to do so on their own.

“There’s been a huge increase in the last 12 months with adoption by small-to-medium sized businesses in Westchester County,” she said.

Gibbons said companies either should be constantly monitoring social media venues or should employ public relations specialists to do the monitoring on their behalf.

Additionally, she said, companies must have a plan in place to handle any negative feedback that arises in response to particularly controversial issues.

“You really need to be monitoring at all times,” Gibbons said. “Within a few minutes they (Komen) should have said, ‘We hear what you’re saying, we’re having internal discussions about this, and we’ll get back with a more comprehensive policy statement as soon as we can.’”

Instead, the Komen foundation did not issue a statement for 24 hours after the initial announcement, which social media experts said allowed supporters of Planned Parenthood to seize control of the conversation.

“You have to be timely. You can’t wait 24 hours. You can’t wait two minutes,” said Bruce Newman, CEO of The Productivity Institute L.L.C., a consulting and marketing firm based in Carmel.

Companies need to be aware of the speed with which consumers are able to respond to issues over social media channels and the potential damage that can be inflicted by delays or vague responses, Newman said.

“The first thing that means is, you must be able to understand that damage can occur from social media and have ways to rectify that immediately,” Newman said. “The message that you give has to be a very straightforward, plain message. It has to be a very simple message that people can readily understand,” and not some legal jargon, he added.

Social media can conversely represent a powerful tool for small and large businesses, said Bob Knight, executive vice president for advertising and digital media at Harrison Edwards Public Relations and Marketing in Bedford Hills.

“Social media gives organizations the capacity to reach a wide audience very quickly and to engage with them but conversely it also gives the audience the capacity to reach and engage either with them or against them, so it works both ways,” Knight said.

While the Komen foundation sat idly, Planned Parenthood went on the offensive, launching its breast health fund the same day Komen announced it was withholding funds.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, called the outpouring of support “astonishing.”

“This compassionate outcry in support of those most in need rose above political, ideological, and cultural divides, and will surely be recognized as one of our nation’s better moments during a contentious political time,” Richards said in a Feb. 3 statement.

Not only was Planned Parenthood the recipient of widespread positive sympathies, but it was able to raise $3 million in three days, dwarfing the $700,000 in funding cuts that sparked the uproar in the first place.

Newman said the entire ordeal represents an important case study in crisis communications and an important reminder to companies that the social media movement is still growing.

“What we’re dealing with here is people just beginning to find their voices, with businesses and politicians just starting to realize how loud those voices can be,” Newman said.

While the Komen foundation was caught unaware, “Planned Parenthood on the other hand turns around and says, ‘We know all about social media’ and they helped orchestrate the campaign that just totally overwhelmed (Komen).”