Now a Social App that can manage Your Entire Home From a Phone.

A new app aims to reassure absent homeowners by letting them manage and monitor household items, straight from their phone or tablet.

Prizm is a 5-inch touchscreen controller that uses Z-Wave, a wireless system designed to help users communicate with home appliances. Combined with the Prizm Manager mobile app, they can turn light switches on and off, lock and unlock doors, raise and lower shades, and adjust the thermostat. Users are also notified when a door or window is opened, or when someone leaves or enters the house.

The product's creators say they have developed a cloud platform that makes it possible for users to "stay connected to your home from anywhere in the world."

So far, Prizm has raised a little over $6,000 of its $200,000 goal on Kickstarter. Would you use it? Tell us in the comments, below.

Three ideas that can revolutionize your Social Media Marketing Campaign

Social marketing can be hugely powerful: it drives new and repeat business, builds loyalty and engagement, and even inspires the holy grail of word-of-mouth marketing: spontaneous brand advocacy.

But, like any powerful tool, social requires knowledge and skills to effectively harness its might.

Before you rush out to Post and Tweet with reckless abandon, it’s crucial to have the right foundation in place to inform what you’ll say (strategy), how you’ll say it (execution), and how you’ll measure the results (ROI). Here are three fundamentals to set you up for success in social marketing all through 2013:

Get Over IMC

IMC, or integrated marketing communications, has long been the de facto mantra of the modern marketing world. Its main premise is that you should keep brand messaging uniform across all mediums.

For many big brands and old-school agencies, IMC is simply how things are done. But IMC was created with a different world in mind.

When the term was coined back in the 1970s, there weren’t nearly as many mediums in play — and they were all one-way, “broadcast” mediums. TV, radio and print ads were usually the vehicles of choice, backed up with package design and store placement. It was easy to use the same taglines, imagery and branding in a uniform way across all of these marketing efforts.

Today? Not so much. With all of the dynamic new mediums created by the internet revolution, we can’t just shoehorn the same message into all channels, digital and analog alike. For one, most marketing channels today are a two-way street.

Brands can broadcast their messages, but consumers and fans also have the opportunity to respond, remix, retweet and generally change your message. Two-way marketing channels throw a wrench in good, old-fashioned IMC.

Instead of trying to keep the message 100% uniform across all channels, we recommend focusing on the unique “personality” of each brand and on providing consistently great interactions, everywhere from your website to your social media channels to customer service and everything in between.

Think of a brand more like a person, with different facets to its character. It’s still a single, cohesive entity, but it’s a heck of a lot more complex than a label on a shampoo bottle.

Bottom line: IMC had a good run, but the end is near. That doesn’t mean you should give up on integrating your brand’s messaging. It just means you need to think about it more holistically.

Start Using Full-Spectrum Attribution

As budgets continue to rise for social media marketing, executives have increasingly (and rightfully) demanded that marketers prove their efforts are “ringing registers” and delivering return on investment. But some marketers claim social metrics are too “squishy” to align with real business objectives. Others still haven’t summoned the discipline to establish a rigorous measurement framework.

But for those marketers who have fully embraced social media marketing and invested in a rigorous measurement framework, it’s easy to demonstrate the benefits. Success stories like Samsung and Nutella are now outnumbering naysayers like GM, because marketers are using data to prove that they can leverage social to solve complex business challenges and deliver significant returns using social. 

This is only possible through an analytical process called Full-Spectrum Attribution.  In order to attribute positive results (engagement, enhanced loyalty, new sales) to specific efforts (paid advertising, applications, publishing, customer care), marketers need a highly analytical, full-spectrum view of their social media activities. 

Tools can enable this approach (more on that in a moment), but first it requires a commitment to identifying metrics and benchmarks that are specific to social and that recognize the unique qualities that distinguish it from broadcast mediums.

Find the Right Tools For You

In order to begin treating your brand’s messaging more holistically and implementing Full-Spectrum Attribution, you’ll need to find the right tools.

The right tools for you will depend on the size of your company and the nature of your brand(s). Most importantly, you should make sure that the people who are producing social content are directly and constantly connected to the people who are amplifying that content, and that they’re using the same tools.

One way to do that is to create a social media “war room.” Oreo employed this tactic with great success during the Super Bowl, pushing out fun and timely content with speed that made plenty of consumers and brand marketers take notice. How did they do it so fast? In a word, integration.

Everyone who needed to be present to make a decision (and put the creative together) was in the same room at the same time — the right time. Agile social marketing is best enacted in real time, in one room, with one group of people who can easily communicate with each other and who use the same tools to achieve common goals.

Why is this war room so important? Both content producers (for example, the people writing your Facebook posts) and content promoters (the people pushing your ads) have valuable insight into what works. If they’re both measuring correctly, they will start to see patterns.

Perhaps a clever Facebook post is getting tons of likes and shares. Or maybe a certain retargeting strategy is suddenly paying off and needs more media spend immediately. In a war room, real or virtual, these patterns can be quickly identified and used to adjust your strategy and combine owned, earned and paid media effectively without missing a beat.

To make this even easier, we recommend using automated software tools that can aggregate and make sense of data faster than humans can. When a powerful software system is combined with a “war room” full of well-trained people who can put this data to use, what results is a highly scalable approach to maximizing the return on your social marketing efforts.

So there you have it. Three important ways to think about putting social to work for you in the new year.

How will you be approaching social marketing differently in 2013?

About the Author

Jamie Tedford is CEO and founder of Brand Networks, one of twelve companies that comprise Facebook's Strategic Preferred Marketing Developer program, and a leading provider of integrated social software solutions and marketing services for some of the world’s most “Liked” brands.

To be Successful, Social Media has to fail.

A model for success that can help marketers and executives get on the same page for social media investments.

As companies start to invest more heavily into social media, it will quickly bring out the magnifying glass. It’s a big deal. For many companies social media is finally getting its own line in the budget for 2013.  This comes with good and bad news. Executives have been struggling with understanding where social media delivers return since the first time one of their employees came in and begged to test it. Now that it has its own line item in the budget, it’s natural for skeptical executives to approve the budget and pull out their magnifying glass at the same time. Once companies start making real investments in social media, the pressure is on for marketers to quickly demonstrate real ROI. Not those fluffy reports on how many fans and followers were generated.

For all the executives out there, it’s important to take a step back from your magnifying glass for a second because you are about to destroy any chance for social media to be successful in your company. I truly believe it should be measured and it absolutely should be held accountable as any marketing channel would. But right now, social media is still in its infancy in many companies and there is still a lot of fear holding back big investments. If you measure social media only in pure ROI, you will shut down the program before it has the opportunity to show you where it has the most impact. Marketers are begging you to give social media a chance, but it’s equally important that marketers provide a framework for social media investments that make executives feel comfortable. Here’s a model for success that can help marketers and executives get on the same page for social media investments.

SOCIAL MEDIA REQUIRES A STRATEGY

The first step in ensuring that social media is on the path to success is to have a strategy. All this talk of “trying things out” and “testing to see what happens” is bullshit. Executives should absolutely call this out if it is happening in your organization. Sorry marketers, but if you say this, you know it’s because you have no idea what you are trying to accomplish and haven’t taken the time to build a plan. You may have a hundred reasons why you haven’t made the investment to do it, but it doesn't change the fact that social media without a strategy is like giving an employee a corporate credit card without a policy for how it is to be used. That is a surefire way to open the door to unforeseen risks. Understanding where social media has an opportunity to deliver success requires an investment in research and strategy development that is designed to achieve corporate objectives. If you aren't sure if this is happening in your organization, go ask the marketing team what they are trying to achieve with their Facebook page or any social media channel they have been talking about. If you get the “deer in the headlights” look then it’s time to pull back and take the time to develop a strategy. Executives should have confidence that their marketing team is using social media to drive a business objective. Businesses operate to accomplish one thing: drive more sales while reducing costs to drive a higher profit. Therefore, if your social media strategy can’t be measured in terms of sales volume, revenue or costs, it probably doesn't align with what the executive team gets paid to do, deliver higher returns. The disconnect between corporate objectives and social media needs to be resolved as soon as possible.

SOCIAL MEDIA REQUIRES CALCULATED RISKS

Every strategy should be developed to allow for risk-taking that uncovers where social media delivers the highest impact. The reality is that every strategy evolves once it’s being implemented because marketing is an evolutionary practice. We test, we evaluate, we refine. Innovative companies have learned that failure is a critical part in success and it’s important for your marketing team to understand that you encourage them to fail as much as you encourage them to succeed. This is critical because if you don’t, your marketers will put their “marketing spin” on the data you see. That’s not beneficial for anyone. We need full transparency and your marketing team needs to know that they won’t get the verbal beat down in a meeting if their data doesn't show a resounding success every time. Testing is a huge part of driving social media success, which means that each social media failure is in fact a success because it is one step closer to figuring out what will work. The challenge is that, in many risk-averse companies, a single failure can kill an entire program.

Let’s start by agreeing that in order to be successful, social media has to fail.

Did that give you heart palpitations? I know it freaks me out a little too. We can’t have marketers out there just throwing caution to the wind and risking our company’s brand and reputation in a very public forum. It’s important to put some framework around how testing will be accomplished in order to preserve the brand. So let’s control the impact of our failures by applying some rules for acceptable risks. Marketers need to be able to explain how they are taking “calculated risks” to executives with an understanding of the business and the potential fallout. Executives need to be able to determine whether the level of risk is acceptable or not before they can fully support a program that will fail before it succeeds. In essence, we want to build a testing environment that supports and even celebrates failure. Think about it as failure with hand rails.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS A LONG-TERM STRATEGY

There are plenty of marketing channels that are like a light switch. We turn them on and see an immediate impact on the business. Most of those marketing channels are in the advertising space and they are very important in the overall marketing mix. But social media isn't a light switch. To be successful social media requires an engaged audience and an audience takes time to build. There are a lot of things that can be done to help build an audience faster, like integrating some advertising elements for social media content; however at the end of the day you need to give social media a runway. You need to understand that social media is a long-term strategy and the most important thing for your marketing team to understand is that you’ll give it the runway it needs provided there is progress toward the end goal.

I’m going to tell you something that may freak out my marketing counterparts. Social media ROI will be negative for at least the first year. How long will social media ROI be negative? It depends on how closely the strategy is aligned to corporate objectives, how fast the team can test and iterate and how successful the team is at creating killer content and building up the desired audience. This is another one of those calculated risks that can be managed; however, if you think your company is going to dive into social media and you are going to have a flood of cash waiting at the other end within a few months you may be sadly disappointed. And I’ll be the first to say that there are companies that have been able to drive huge sales returns using social media in what appears to be an overnight success. The untold story in those case studies is the time those companies spent before that overnight success testing and iterating before they found something that hit. That isn't the sexy part of the story so it rarely gets told.

SOCIAL MEDIA ISN'T FACEBOOK AND TWITTER

Finally, it’s important to understand that social media is only one part of the marketing mix. Companies should not be staking their success on social media alone. Social media needs integration with other marketing channels to deliver the highest return. And despite popular belief among executives, social media isn't Facebook and Twitter. When done well, social media strategies are designed to align corporate objectives with content that is specifically designed to achieve them and the channels where they can reach the largest audience. Many times through the research stage, we find that the majority of conversations that are happening around a company’s industry are happening on blogs and forums. It isn't sexy. But if 60% of the conversations around your industry are happening on blogs and forums, starting with a Twitter and Facebook strategy is just plain stupid. Social media isn't about the “cool” social media channels. It’s about being where the conversations that can drive business value are happening. That may be Twitter, it may be Facebook, but more often than not it’s happening where you least expect it. And because companies aren't starting with a strategy, they are spinning their wheels on social channels that are “nice to haves” instead of those that are “must haves”.

With all of this, I highly encourage executives to give social media the room it needs to fail so that it can truly deliver success. But don’t do it without a plan, without managing risk, and without understanding where the conversation is happening. Providing a runway that allows for failure is smart. Providing a runway that has a .50 caliber rifle pointed at isn't.

Did your organization give social media a budget for 2013? Do you have a social media strategy? Is your organization prepared for social media failures? Join the conversation! Leave a comment and let’s start a healthy debate on whether marketers and executives have aligned expectations for social media in 2013.

About Author

Nichole Kelly is the President of SME Digital, the digital marketing division of Social Media Explorer. She is also the author of How to Measure Social Media. 

Bad Content Marketing Habits to Kick Before 2013

Image Source: Forbes.com

Content marketing has been all the rage in 2012, and content marketing will continue to wield significant influence next year.  Why not commit yourself and your company to some content marketing New Year’s resolutions?  There are common bad habits practiced by content marketers.  Although they all have solutions, some may take more time and effort to correct than others.  According to Pamela Vaughan of HubSpot, companies that maintain blogs get 55% more website visitors and 97% more inbound links and have 434% more indexed web pages than companies that do not maintain blogs.  High-quality business blogging has real value, so start 2013 off with bang by kicking your bad habits and taking your content marketing to the next level.

6 Content Marketing Bad Habits

1.  Infrequent Blogging

The more often a company blogs, the more traffic and leads it will be able to produce.  Businesses that update their blogs at least 20 times per month generate over five times more traffic than businesses who blog less than four times per month.  Businesses that blog at least 20 times per month also generate 4 times more leads than those that do not blog.  

2.  Poor Planning and Coordination

You need a clear content marketing plan that everyone at your company follows. Your website, social media activity, press releases, newsletters and email marketing should all be coordinated and tailored to each of your various vertical markets and channels around a unified, targeted message.  In all your content marketing, you need to communicate the unique value your company can provide in solving problems and finding solutions for your prospective clients.   

3.  Not Using CTAs

Always include a call to action (CTA) in your blog posts.  Providing high-quality premium offers will increase engagement and help move prospects down the marketing funnel.  Informational offers, such as ebooks, whitepapers and webinars, function well, because people reading your blog are likely to be interested in more free information from you.

4.  A Lack of Variety

Your blog should focus on a wide variety of relevant industry topics.  Variety in content form is important as well.  While traditional blog posts are necessary and important for driving traffic to your website, there are other forms of content you can employ to add some variety and freshness to your content marketing.  It is easy to fall into a content creation rut—producing the same types of content over and over.  Here are some other forms of content that you can feature on your blog to ensure variety and freshness: infographics, webinars, SlideShare presentations, video tutorials and cartoons.  

5.  Poor Engagement

It is important to treat all your content marketing as a communication channel that provides you with the opportunity to reach your target audience.  You should always respond to comments and questions posted to your published content in a timely and friendly manner. 

6.  Not Having a Social Sharing Game Plan

You should have a concrete strategy for sharing and promoting your content.  Avail yourself of all opportunities.  Syndicate your content on sites like Business 2 Community and Social Media Today; share your content on all the major social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.  Leverage your content with social networking.  Who are the top influencers and thought leaders in your industry?  If you do not know, you should figure it out and start communicating with them.  Comment and ask questions across all available channels, including links to your content, when it is appropriate.  This will add to your online credibility and status.  Klout is a good site to explore and identify influencers. 

Resolving not to make the mistakes listed above can increase your reach and incite increased traffic, higher lead generation and more new business.  Get organized, and be strategic about content marketing in 2013.

Author

Monica Romeri

Review of Social Media in 2012 and Predictions for 2013 [Info-Graphic]

Yet another eventful year gone by and a lot has developed in this time gone by. Thankfully the world is not showing any sign of ending (it's already 9/12/12 and three more days to go for the 'D' Day) and so I thought I can gather up my grey matter to try and envision what would be the predictions for the Cyber Marketing and Social Media in 2013.

Now before I go ahead with my predictions for 2013, I'd like you all to review my predictions made for 2012 (Evolution of Social Media in 2012) which to my surprise has hit the bulls-eye on accuracy:

• Content Marketing was THE WAY all through out.
• Businesses started to focus more on the level of influence on their fan following rather than just the number of fan followers.
• Marketing, Technology and Data have converged that resulted in a lot of new tools / ORM products being launched in the market to fight the menace of 'Big Data'
• Talking of legal battles in Social & Cyber space the story of companies buying the klout of bloggers and threatening them was not a surprise to me. Everybody knows about the Samsung fiasco with blogger community.
• Social Security was another prediction that took the lime light of lot. Lots of cases of people being booked or arrested were trending on Social News circles just for using their democratic right to expression and speech. The Indian Government virtually proposed to create a watchdog body to monitor social networks users and manage their online reputation.

All this said and done still does not make me the Nostradamus of the Cyber & Social Media space. All my predictions are based on in-depth analysis, experience and a little bit of the gut. This time I thought to make my prediction a little more simpler and interactive. Below is an info-graphic of the 13 most probable topography of Social Media Marketing in 2013:

Any predictions of your own? Share your comment below or on Twitter @thesocialppl and Linkedin.

The New SEO Rules in a Content Marketing World

Shane Snow
Co-Founder
Contently

Shane Snow is a Mashable contributor and co-founder of Contently, which builds tools for journalists and brand publishers.

Five years ago, it seemed nothing was as buzzy and mysterious as SEO. Today, “content marketing” has taken over as reigning buzzphrase in marketing circles, with many SEO practitioners shifting their sales pitches to match the trend.

The difference, essentially, is content marketing aims to create content humans want to read, whereas SEO aims to create content that pleases search engines. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, but not long ago creating cheap, machine-friendly garbage for SEO was as effective as putting time and money into quality content.

Not anymore.

Many bloggers and publishers today are seeing traffic from social exceed that from search engines; social sites like Pinterest, for example, are now top traffic sources for some retailers.

Yet, Google still gets 100 billion searches every month, according to Search Engine Watch. Publishers angling for social media traffic would be foolish to ignore search entirely.

How can content marketing organizations remain search-friendly while adhering to best practices in social media?

The New Rules of SEO for Content Marketing

Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz, outlines five best practices for content marketers hoping to maximize SEO value in an ethical way.

1. Create content that people will have an incentive to share.
2. Do keyword research, so you don’t waste effort writing about things people don’t care about.
3. Put all your content on the same domain/subdomain. (e.g. don't use blog.mysite.com, use mysite.com/blog)
4. Stand for something, and write about it. People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
5. Don't separate your brand from your content. For instance, casino sites that make fascinating infographics about animal rights aren't going to last long.

Successful content marketing publications rely heavily on social traffic for timely impressions. They build search rank for their archives almost as a byproduct of good social content. Well-ranked branded publications like RedBull.com adhere to Fishkin’s advice of producing “large amounts of content people find interesting,” combined with “solid UX” and SEO basics: clean URLs and smart markup.

Machiavellian SEO Doesn’t Work Anymore

Just as in traditional journalism, content marketers should never seek to betray or deceive readers, whether through SEO practices or their content. Anything that borders on sneaky or unethical eventually gets filtered out of search engine results, if history is any indication.

“Manipulative techniques like 301'ing old sites, hordes of anchor text rich links, exact match domains, etc. are gone,” Fishkin says. “SEO today is holistic. It demands that you build signals real brands have that, in years past, could be artificially overwhelmed by large quantities of links or other tactics.”

Search engine algorithms constantly improve to defeat what amounts to cheating — sending false signals of real popularity, like link trading schemes. Today’s algorithms even factor sharing into their search rankings, so users can blissfully skip over crappy content.

Syndication and Influencer Content Works

High-growth blogs tend to focus on content distribution — getting their stories and headlines on other blogs or news sites across the web. Done well, this can build honest links to a site, indicating to Google that brands with authority trust a site’s content enough to publish it on their own. Plus, other blogs tend to riff off of popular posts on authority sites, which can solidify search trust.

Additionally, inviting influential writers and publishers to guest post on your site not only encourages traffic, but also boosts social signals when those influencers share your domain with their social media followers.

At the end of the day, good SEO is baked into good content.

Says Fishkin, “Delivering an exceptional experience and building a true web brand are now essential to long-term SEO success.”

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Ekspansio

Why Your Employees Should be Social Media Savvy

Are your employees active social media users? About 15 years ago, when computerization boomed its way into corporate houses in India, executives were put through training so that they could discover the life altering ways of Microsoft Office, Lotus and Google. I think it’s time to put employees through training programs to tap the business effective and ethical use of social media at the workplace.

How often have you come across angry rants by employees against their bosses, or casual sharing of classified information on networking sites? These are precisely the sort of things you need to caution your employees against rather than punishing them by swearing off social media completely. I find that a tad regressive in an age when social media features so prominently in our day-to-day affairs. Recent findings have shown that Microsoft and Google have some of the most social employees. Doesn't seem to have come in the way of them being corporate giants now, has it?

• Set up a company network to encourage knowledge sharing. Your workplace after all is a community too. And social media has more to it than sharing photos and ‘what-I-just-ate’ updates. Exchange of relevant information on networking sites helps make your office smarter, increases communication and cohesiveness and, creates a healthy work atmosphere. Workers may find it a better way to send memos and notices through Facebook or Twitter. And appreciating an employee on a social networking site can be a great way to boost morale too.
• It is innate human nature to socialize with colleagues and peers in an organization. Friending or following an employee online doesn't get in the way of productivity. Rather, studies have found that workers who take short breaks on the internet are more productive than those who don’t. Let your employees be your brand ambassadors by posting regular news and updates online. Market surveys too are quicker through online polls; and sharing comments helps to know what your consumers are really looking for.

Social media can positively impact your workplace, if you know how to work it to your advantage. Train your employees to use it better and your business is sure to benefit from it too. 

Introducing TheSocialPeople's Facebook Time

Facebook rolled out Timeline for brand Pages and coming March it would be opened to all. TheSocialPeople welcomes this new change & is proud to update ours.

Since the time when Facebook launched its timeline version for personal profiles we’ve closely chronicled reactions to the switch. While there are many people out there who are disappointed with Facebook’s new avatar, the change to Timeline has been eye-opening and emotional for others.

We must admit our experience lines up with the latter.

Upon adopting the timeline version Timeline, we rediscovered the fact on how much loved TheSocialPeople has been amongst our fans and their 2^nd degree network. We also realized another fact that our Brand Page is just 3 months old but still has over 60 and growing well wishers on a daily basis; this is truly overwhelming and an emotional realization for us. We learnt that our fan page has done everything from being our biggest brand ambassadors to being an outside advocate to help be become better and better every day by touching lives and businesses. With adopting the new timeline we’re excited to form our digital scrapbook in real time — right along with you.

Without you, TheSocialPeople wouldn’t be what it is today.

In the coming weeks, we’ll update our cover photo to represent our thought leadership ideas about how social media would make a difference to our individual lives and businesses. We belive it’ll be an easy and appealing way for you to empathize our passion towards what we do – Social Media Strategy & Analytics.

Also do let us know on what do you think of our new Timeline so far? We’re always open to suggestions, so please let us know what kinds of posts or cover photos you’d like to see from us in the comments below. We look forward to connecting with you via Facebook Timeline!

Fashion2.0: How Social Media to revolutionize Fashion Industry.

I happened to come across this article on the Forbes which particularly picked my interest for 2 main reasons:

1.     It had the magical words "social media"

2.     The Content had something that I and my colleague Vikram had been discussing lately – Taking Fashion Industry on the Social Media.

Whether you are interested in fashion or not, it is difficult to escape the constant onslaught of information on the latest fashions and trends that we receive through social media and the internet. This is a fact that none of us would deny. Considering the quantum of information one gets to see on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube the fashion Industry is definitely becoming accessible to the general public or should I say reaching a larger group of people.

 The beauty of this initiative of taking fashion industry on the Social Media is that one gets to see all sorts of opinions and dialog on a fashion trend or outfit rather than the traditional one way opinion of the designer. Just like in any other industry Social Media once again proves that would help bridge the buyer-seller relationship with its multi dimensional communication channel.  It also makes it evident that, in this era of the social media, fashion designers and retailers are no longer operating in an ivory tower or for solely the red carpet. Because of the close relationships they now have with customers on social networking sites, many have adopted an "ask and ye shall receive" policy.

As quoted in the Forbes article it’s undoubting that Social Media would the next big muse of the Fashion Industry and its here to stay for quite some time.

Just recently there has been a rush of retailers advertising & setting up programs to help gather customer feedback on the fashions and trends for the season ahead including Debenhams, ASOS, Calvin Klein and likes. This show much customer sentiments matter to the fashion designers and fashion brands. Now just imagine the same in case of private fashion boutique owners who have selected and limited customers. One bad design might just cost them a loyal customer... forever!

Yet another interesting website that I came across is www.jooraccess.com. Started by a Mona Bijoor who is a seasoned brand consultant for the fashion industry. Joor basically is a network that makes it easier for brands and boutique owners to connect and conduct business with their customers in an interactive and collaborative manner. It can be called as the Facebook of Fashion world in lay definition. This again shows how Social Media can play a vital role in the Fashion Industry.

Now considering all this above gyaan and cases on how Social Media can benefit the Fashion Industry, I don’t really know if this liberalization or the democratization of the fashion world by the social media good or bad as I’m not really a fashion expert. This is something that time shall tell us. But from a lay man’s perspective any creation created in an collaborative environment has always been a masterpiece. Hopefully such would also be the case in Social Media Fashion.

Monetization challenges with Social Media

(Image Source: SimplyZestly.com)

Social media continues to b a top priority for marketers across the globe. Not only marketers, other departments like Sales, HR, Solution centers and R & D Labs accept the impact that social media has given to their activities. But the key remains that thought there is buy in from senior management, monetizing social media campaigns can be a very tricky affair.

To look at this from the historical perspective, It has always been a challenge to calculate the ROI for marketing spends. Almost all marketing activities require downstream sales or operational support to ensure a sale is completed hence we are able to attach a monetary value to the marketing effort. This is relatively easier in the B2C and product companies. But the real challenge comes in the services business where the brand is experienced from the services offered and interactions with the company personnel.
Social Media monetization offers a similar challenge. How to monetize the effort?
Now measurement of impact has become easy.

There are social media tools that would tell you how many people received your message on Twitter or how many lives you have received for a particular post. Some will also measure the sentiment associated with a certain discussion to let the brand know if the conversation is in the positive context of negative. Klout for example can give data on your true reach and amplification. Also the number of followers on Twitter and connections on Facebook are again measurement tools.

But when it comes to monetization all this amounts to Nada.
One can measure sentiment but if the sentiment is not able to drive a enquiry or sale then it will difficult to monetize the same.

In the coming days most marketing dollars will be spent on finding the answers to this.
I would like to hear your opinion, on the same. How are you trying to monetize the impact of social media? What are the tools and techniques you are following?