Addressing the issue of measurement and metrics most appropriate and effective operations and communications strategies and marketing in / with social media mean, however, yet to venture Today in the territories and along trails in good measure in the process of exploration and mapping. In the transition from the classic to the web analytics web analytics 2.0 and, ultimately, to the 'social media analytics', communicators, marketers and brand managers face a rapidly changing contemporary landscape metric is related to the analytical approaches that guide the selection and use measures and indicators and in relation the actual practices and concrete operationalized to date, approaches to data collection and analysis in areas 'social-based'.
Meanwhile, then, analysts and marketing managers are still committed to rethink how best to measure a pageless experience (ie the use of the content on the network no longer centered on the metaphor of 'webpage'), or the view -through (ie what happens online through no action 'click') are called, also, to identify the most appropriate technologies and operations to make accountable even new dimensions of communication-sharers of social media. In this perspective, non si tratta però solo, banalmente, di individuare nuove metriche e nuovi indicatori chiave di performance (kpi). Più strategicamente, si tratta di verificare se le logiche audiometriche impiegate negli ambienti digitali di rete ‘pre-social’ siano adeguate a valutare la social agency dei clienti e degli altri stakeholder, ma anche della brand stessa entro i social media.
Si tratta anche e soprattutto, di capire se e come le strategie manageriali di ‘controllo’ (ancora dominanti nei processi di communication management contemporanei) debbano essere aggiornate per fronteggiare ambienti (al contempo ‘espressivi’ e ‘collaborativi’ as described by Kotler in Marketing 3.0) to high complexity and, to some extent, unpredictable.
Recent research (Mandelli, Accoto and Mari) shows, however, as the contemporary practices of 'social media measurement' proposals are affected by the field of operations and prospects still largely based on traditional framework and some aspect also marred by conceptual confusion (in a nutshell is often not clear what is the phenomenon that is measured and why).
practices and metrics for social media measurement
Despite efforts to date, the practices of measurement are still largely attributed to a strong prospect tecnocentrica and platform ('I measure everything that the system monitoring allows me to track ') and centered on a logic of measuring the effects (' What changes as a result of communication ') even if, for example, the buzz created (natural or fertilized it is). Seems to lack a clear picture of what the new phenomena that transform the brand into a social co-creation (and not necessarily hierarchically related to business initiatives), but also what is the unit of analysis is useful in any particular field of measurement and the link between these metrics and the objectives of marketing communications.
In these circumstances, the contribution of this book, which collects essays from different perspectives have the objective of classifying these metrics, to bring them back to specific marketing and communications goals, clearer picture from overall strategic vision within which these phenomena can affect us.
If the web, then, can be widely seen as a huge laboratory for the study of human behavior in digital environments, the social web calls expansion of the laboratory study of customer behavior also socialized in its size and, therefore, the second multiple dimensions of customer networks (conversational cocreazionali, flu). Among these experiences in contemporary practices of social media measurement, very often the size commonly understood as conversational is considered particularly relevant and, therefore, a target audience is activated with the relevant measuring operations. At a minimum it is considered today, ask yourself listening to the 'consumer voice' (voice of customer).
Fig. 1 Metriche secondo l’ approccio duale al management
Fonte: Mandelli (2010) Oltre il controllo del brand nei social media? in Mandelli and Accoto (2010) Marca e metriche nei social media
Il concetto di buzz monitoring (attraverso listening platforms) identifica la pratica di registrare, riportare e analizzare il vissuto e il condiviso dei mercati sociomediali espressi in forma di conversazioni tra utenti. In questa prospettiva, ad oggi, operativamente si fa monitoraggio e tracking di queste conversazioni tra utenti/consumatori al fine di segnalare, quantificare, identificare argomenti, atteggiamenti, sentimenti e idee in merito a brand, servizi e prodotti utilizzando metriche quali ad esempio: conversation reach, mentions volume, sentiment ratio. In maniera pervasiva, quanto varia, il field utilizza, in aggiunta, il concetto di engagement come termine per individuare un qualche grado di coinvolgimento dell’utente dentro questi nuovi ambienti sociali.
Practitioners and analysts to use a model that customer engagement (CE) as a framework for advanced audiometric assess and quantify the level of user interaction with the brand and its contents (eg video completion rate, applications installed / disinstalled, content downloads).
Also, if you consider that you use to say that the recommendations are the campaigns in social media, as will be evident in the analysis and assessment of the impacts of social media marketing strategies, the measurement of brand advocacy is considered to play a central role quantified by metrics such as number of reviews, mash-ups created, fan group creations.
Marketer e brand vengono, da ultimo, riconoscendo l’importanza della dimensione dell’influenza (in forma varia: epidemica, suggestiva, condivisiva, comunitaria, promozionale) e della rilevanza della natura e struttura dei social graph all’interno dei quali queste dinamiche d’influenza agiscono, misurate con indici quali: authority, strenght of tie, follower/followee ratio, # number of retweets per thousand followers, velocity, acceleration effect, trust, impact.
L’inquadramento metrico fin qui delineato ha come orizzonte analitico la valutazione di approcci centrati sul consumatore e le sue reti (customer-centric e network-centric). Ma un’ulteriore dimensione misurativa valutata nel field è quella interessata a individuare metriche aventi l’organizzazione e il brand come unità di analisi. In questa prospettiva si raccolgono dati sulla presenza corporate e dei brand in rete e sulle performance negli ambienti sociomediali per indicizzare il cosiddetto social engagement della marca.
Verso un framework sociometrico multidimensionale
A partire da un’analisi delle pratiche più significative nel settore e dalla comprensione dei modelli di relazione emergenti nei nuovi ambienti sociali, risulta un quadro delle nuove necessità di misura dal quale emerge la proposta per un framework sociometrico più avanzato, che rifiuta sia la semplice logica di misurazione centrata sulla piattaforma (e magari senza neppure avere chiari gli obiettivi di business per cui si misura) sia quella della misurazione esclusiva degli effetti della comunicazione di marketing.
In questa prospettiva, è necessario, invece, progettare e implementare prospettive metrico-gestionali che sappiano valutare e integrare dimensioni molteplici: prospettive di breve e di processo, contesti a relativa stability, and scenarios of uncertainty, customer-centric measures and firm-centric unit of analysis at the individual, organizational and networked, focus on brand, network, industry and society had clear information needs and performance-related objectives and strategies Social media branding and marketing, but also to protect the corporate reputation.
The traditional planning and control type of effect-based brand metrics (with their simplistic nature) can be applied when the uncertainty and complexity of the market is low or in a specific sub-set and programmable Market complex (in the presence of sub-routines-linear). The metrics are in fact the operationalization of a phenomenon being measured. Not valid for itself and in any context. Not only is it important to start from what we measure and why, but also to understand what methodology allows us to make the measure. In the approach we propose the methodologies are many important because the types of control and related metrics are different.
When we need to collect information on users' conversations are useful in network platforms and metrics for listening to the buzz. When we need to understand how consumers are living and co-creating the brand, and what role have the products in their life and vision the world, need to employ a more complex and qualitative methodology, in particular the netnography based on the techniques of participant observation and ethnographic analysis applied to social media. Although these practices may include elements of quantitative measure of behavior, but connected and practices emerging from qualitative insight that put the focus of the brand culture and social practices. Just as it is necessary to apply the correct methods when the problem we ask is on the perceptions and attitudes of consumers.
In practice, measuring the field we tend to forget that the 'conversations' are not the same as the 'Perceptions' (ie the Beliefs of the brand), nor the latter are one with the 'attitudes' (affective orientations) consumers and even less can be considered a direct measure of corporate reputation.
The situation is, therefore, and complex. Simplify the relationship between consumers and brand or rely solely on the standards of monitoring are dominated by a technology perspective and quantitative, does not help to cope with uncertainty and complexity of social media.
The recent widespread interest in the monitoring and measurement of guided conversations by software may even increase this complexity.
The brand management in social media is not as simple as buying an albeit sophisticated monitoring software. In fact, the brand management in social media tends to oscillate between the logic of effects (eg. With buzz marketing) and the idea that the brand in social media can not be managed. We tend to think that the control of the brand can still be considered a useful concept, if we explore, however, its size, communication-based, over and beyond traditional command and control.
We propose to adopt social media the approach to the management of their 'rationality dual', emerging from studies of how to do management in complex and uncertain. The brand social media network in the markets are complex organizations that can not simply be managed through hierarchical communication, the effects of which can be planned and measured, but this does not prevent the development of instruments to assess the activities, including decision support and investment.
Fig. 2 different classes of metrics, different methodologies
Source: Mandelli (2010) beyond the control of the brand in social media? in Accoto and Mandelli (2010) Make and metrics in social media
Management in (not of) these areas of extreme complexity and social development can and through selected practices aimed at optimizing resources (economic rationality) and through leadership and excellence in the communication (communicative rationality). The management in social media requires the ability to cope with complexity through distributed intelligence (formal + informal control control, + relevant information that flows from the periphery to the decision makers, + more decisions in the suburbs), but also through the ability to influence the size of rational / economic conversations and narratives, through professional institutions and the media management of the economies of the mediation.
The new control of the brand (even if we can call it that) emerge from the social media of the best communication skills and conversation with customers and stakeholders as well as the ability to reorganize systems and communication practices in a more distributed. A brand should be seen as a process of meaning creation (not an entity), generated by various interactions and dynamics of brand stakeholders, linked from the narratives of the brand to which all these agents participate.
All brand narratives produce the effect (influence) of the brand-related dei differenti agenti (gli investimenti, gli acquisti, etc.). Alcune di queste narrazioni sono più integrative (connettendo distanze fisiche e culturali) e più autorevoli (e quindi influenti) di altre. Il controllo del brand nelle collettività sociali complesse (come possono essere i social media) può essere concettualizzato come, al contempo, ‘facilitante’ la costruzione della ‘mente collettiva’ brand-related (interrelazione degli stakeholder) e, allo stesso tempo ‘parlante per conto di’ tutti gli stakeholder del brand.
Il primo obiettivo può essere raggiunto seguendo le regole di management di quella that K. Weick calls 'organization impermanent', that is, building distributed intelligence and decision making with greater attention to interactional experience and imagination rather than plans and routines. The second objective requires activation of the role of the brand narrative and conversing, justified by authoritative and conversational narrative, achieved through activities in all forms of identification provided (see the role of credibility and mechanisms of the influence of construction in the construction processes of the opinion).
Following these discussions, the brand management in social media can be described as a set of different activities, influenced by the roles of professional communication and economies of communication. They are: 1) practice of monitoring / alerting, and 2) distributed intelligence and facilitation of decisions on the outskirts of the system, and 3) active participation in relevant conversations, 4) stimulating the participation of the stakeholders of the conversations, 5) for connecting narrative active conversations spaced , producing a sense of past and future of the brand, influence on brand-related activities, 6) construction of credibility and authority in the conversations and narratives of the brand.
metrics that respond to the logic PLANNING rationalizing and find their place in this framework, as we already pointed out, in precise and specific areas, limited in time and space, regarded as sub-systems, simplified a much more complex, ranging understood and 'measured' (when possible) with different logics and instruments.
follows from this extra effort for grading therefore the need to construct new metrics, which correspond to a logic-based communication management. We are talking in particular of metrics that are able to capture the central leadership and communication skills and distributed the company and anyone involved in brand management. We are talking about the extent of communication resources available and created in social media such as: communication skills and cultures, nature and processes of interaction, access to relevant knowledge by conversing and decision makers, decision-making distributed, number and nature of feedbacks, the results of co-creation, linking the brand value, the storytelling ability of the brand, brand culture, credibility, authority and reputation.
Andreina Mandelli Cosimo Accoto
by Webook "Air Revolution" - The Notebooks of comunicazionw (ADC Group)
