Monetizing Social Networks- will attribution be the answer?

Continuing on the topic of monetizing social networks, one of the problems in the industry is last touch attribution.

If you think about the purchase funnel, it starts from brand awareness to favorability to intent to action. Display advertising, the main form of advertising on social networks, is very powerful in creating brand awareness and moving the consumer to a favorable stage.

Click or Search advertising plays a big role in converting those leads into intent and action.

If we only follow the last touch attribution model, then all the work done by social networks to create brand awareness and purchase intent is lost. An interesting read on this topic is the keynote address delivered by Gian Fulgoni, chairman and co-founder of comScore, at the MediaPost OMMA Metrics & Measurement conference.

A potential answer for CMOs to measure their display advertising ROI on social networks and see what is being fed into the sales channel is marketing mix modeling (MMM). MMM uses multivariate regression techniques to analyze the sales and marketing time series data: it looks at how the different ad sources (display, search, video etc) contribute towards making a sale.

I don't think clicks are going away as a metric for ROI online. However, we will be shooting ourselves in the foot if we don't look at cross channel synergies and impacts.

Monetizing Social Networks- what will the privacy advocates say?

A lot has been written and said about monetizing social networks. Investors are worried that sites like Facebook that has over 250 million users worldwide and is a market leader, don't have a clear business model.

Well, investors and marketers have to remember one thing that is different about social networks. When I go to say Facebook, I am interested in the conversations my friends are having and not really "looking" for something. However, when I do a search on Google, I am specifically looking for find something and am happy to click on the sponsored contextual ads that appear alongside.

As a result, social networks are mostly being used by companies to build a brand and engage with their customers and they are a great medium for that (building a brand and creating awareness is what we have been using the traditional media for since the beginning of time).

However, if you want to do anything more on a social network, keyword based contextual advertising is not the answer.

Jitendra Gupta talks about the concept of a universal profile that I found very interesting. Essentially, the concept is to create my unified persona based on my interactions on the web. And a universal profile combined with behavioral targeting can give very powerful results to advertisers and investors.

Think about this- If based on my interactions on the web, Facebook knows that I am married Indian male settled in New York with a wife and a son (and another on the way), it can serve me a good DR banner ad for a minivan I need to purchase. Ideally, they should also be able to bundle it with a good car insurance offer. And, who knows, I might click on it as well!!

Well, the privacy advocates may be up in arms against the concept of a universal profile getting combined with behavioral targeting. But I don't think my friends on FB who openly post their contact information on my wall care too much.

Spokeo: Spooky as hell!

I recently came across Spokeo (www.spokeo.com). The website calls it a "unique people search engine specialized in finding online activities across various social networks and public databases. "

Unique it is for sure. But it is creepy. Spokeo crawls all your so called friends activities across the web (I found photos on Picasa and Photobucket that were never shared with me, Nanny wanted ads posted and activity across different social networks).

What makes it even more scary is that you can snoop on your friends without their knowledge or consent. AND the people you are spying on don't even need to be your friends. If you ever had an email exhange with them, Spokeo will use their email address to cross check over 40 sites including social networks, business databases, ecommerce stores, and other public databases. Think about that for a second.

Their new version also includes a business edition. Well it will certainly help the business of private investigators and stalkers.

Btw, if you ever visit their site (I know you are curious), don't enter your gmail or yahoo password.

The New Yahoo...the right direction, finally!!

Yahoo under Carol Bartz is definitely moving in the right direction. First the new and redesigned homepage and now the search deal with Microsoft.

I think the new Yahoo homepage (http://m.www.yahoo.com) is a lot better with the "My Favs" section that allows you to preview your favorites sites with a mouse-over and has a "Popular Searches" section. You can add any site you want I also like the uncluttered layout and "compact" view. One of the big improvements over iGoogle is that you add any site or email or social network or news feed (I added my blog) to the My Favs section thus making it totally personalized. Yes, there are some bugs in some of the widgets, but I think Yahoo will fix them eventually.

Considering that yahoo.com is the most trafficked site in the world, I think the new design is a big step forward. It will take more than a new layout or a search deal with Microsoft for Yahoo to pose as a real threat to Google. But hey, at least Yahoo is finally moving in the right direction.

Hire Smarter (or NOT) with Social Media

As marketing people, we love social media. And why not? Its comparatively inexpensive, has a broad reach and a variety of platforms available to establish thought leadership, demand generation and customer loyalty.

But one thing that companies need to understand before jumping onto the social media bandwagon is that social media is different from other online or traditional media. Social media is a sacred space. You get it right and you build long lasting customer loyalty. But if you get wrong, it is very hard to undo what you just did.

I recently came across this article on the Harvard blog about Hiring Smarter with Social Media (http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/07/hire_smarter_with_social_media.html). While some of the ideas are good, I was astounded to read the following:

You can strike a balance by asking prospects to friend you for a limited time (24 or 48 hours) on any social network where they're personally identifiable, so you can see how they present themselves online and make sure there aren't any examples of bad judgement or online comments that could come back to haunt you (for example, griping about one of your clients).

Oh my god! A company who listens to this advice is not only limiting the pool of potential applicants but also exposing them to lawsuits related to discrimination. The info I share with my "friends" via Facebook or other such sites includes personal information that you would NEVER ask in an interview such as marital status, religious beliefs/affiliations, political views, etc.