Lessons Learned #4

Through this course I have learned 3 overarching personal lessons.

1. The first lesson is personal and reflective. I have      learned that my personal abilities have limits when it comes to social      media. Although I use social media everyday, social media as a tool &      an entity was, and probably still is, beyond me. As demonstrated through      my other posts and Lessons Learned I’ve learned a lot about how to use      social media as well as how to manage it from a company’s point of      view.

There were plenty of ‘firsts’ in this course: my first blog, my first Pinterest, and many more things I hadn’t even heard of ( Klout, Google+, and Bebo).  By extension  I learned about my work habits and behaviours. For one thing, blogging takes A LOT more time than I expected. I think because the high levels of personalization as well as its newness, assignments on WordPress were taking me a lot more time than I anticipated. Beyond that I found it hard to adapt my academic tools to a blog set up and blog style.  I felt like a fish out of water when it came time to paste my assignments into blog posts, never sure of where to insert an image or where in separate into another post. I still have not mastered the ‘tag’! On the other hand, in this final assignment and assignment 3 I found myself increasingly more comfortable with the format and took more opportunities to be creative.

2.  The second major lesson I learned stemmed directly from      assignment 3, a case study that continued research from my preliminary  inquiries into the Canadian Cancer Society’s social media use. To check it out click here: www.smrtccecancersociety.wordpress.com.  Through this  assignment I learned quite a lot about group work online, which is quite different. I found that it communication between group members was more  scattered and less coherent (some occurred in email, GoogleDocs and some on Twitter). Conversely, my group chose to centralize all our work documents on GoogleDocs and I found that immensely helpful. The Docs      feature of seeing who has modified the document more recently and the  sharing feature both made working together seamless.  All having access to a continuously edited document made a task list and working through steps in the assignment very manageable.  Even      though we were able to complete the assignment almost exclusively online,  I do think it is important, or even necessary, that the group meet in person at least once or twice.

3. Lastly, the final major lesson I learned is tangible, concrete information about the Canadian Cancer Society. In exploring CCS online and speaking with employees I’ve learned quite a lot about the organization itself. It is interesting to view an influential Canadian charity in a academic as well as business point of view. To see more about what I mean here check out my posts about  CCS and the link posted above from the case study.

Lessons Learned #3

Return on marketing investment is the net return from a marketing investment divided by the costs of the marketing investment. Marketing ROI is difficult to measure. It is difficult to measure because aspects of the ratio are dollar values (both R and I) but benefits like advertising impact aren’t easily put into dollar amounts. Though many companies have adopted the strategy of “make marketing accountable”, many are not satisfied with their ability to use marketing ROI figures to implement a plan. Increasingly, marketers are using customer-centred tools to measure marketing impact, such as customer acquisition, customer retention, customer lifetime value, and customer equity. Marketing ROI is an important concept and is at the heart of every business. It is important because it is useful for determining if a marketing investment initiative provides a required return, or if capital would be better used somewhere else. As a tool, marketing ROI can help businesses quantify the impact of marketing on the business.

Conclusively, measuring outcomes and successes from marketing ROI and social media input can be a difficult task, but is an important consideration for companies making this financial expenditure.

The ideal measurement chain is demonstrated as:  INPUTS –> OUTPUTS –> OUTCOMES

The following link leads to a business article entitled 48 Ways to Measure Social Media Success.  Read More

Some other methods of online input measurement are:

• Hootsuite
• Google Analytics
• Crowd Booster
• SocialMention
• Klout

KONY 2012

Although I have my own criticisms about the organization behind the KONY video and opinions about the situation.. I do think KONY is an interesting situation worth considering in a Social Media class because of its massive, rapid spread across the world through online means and social media sites. I think it was effective in this sense largely due to the emotional responses it illicits in its viewers which tends to motivate those people to support the cause and most importantly, “share” or discuss it with others. Also, the simplicity of the “action” that it requested from its viewers/supporters is another key factor in why I think it went viral so quickly.  The following information from Pew exemplifies my main belief about why it spread so quickly.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project investigated how KONY 2012 became the most viral videoof all time.

The key, Pew found, was 18 to 29-year-olds sharing links on Twitter and Facebook. While initially 77% of Twitter discussions were positive, the tone shifted as criticisms of the non-profit behind the film, Invisible Children, began to circulate

One of Pew’s takeaways was the importance of social media for spreading news to young readers.

For more information check out these two links:

About PEW: http://mashable.com/2012/03/16/kony-2012-pew-study/
A debate on whether The ‘Kony 2012′ Campaign Creates Effective Social Change: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/19/kony-2012-great-debate_n_1362450.html

Lessons Learned #2

Our lessons learned component involves reflections on interesting aspects, discussions, topics and gained knowledge from the SMRT CCE course. My second area covers consumerism & social media.

                                                                                                                                                                        

In my opinion internet has vastly changed the way consumers and marketers interact. Internet and social media has allowed for interactive, two-way marketing and greater sharing of information between the marketer and customer. For the consumer, this can be a great thing because it creates more accountability. With viral internet posts and social media sites, consumers hold a lot of power to compel companies to satisfy their needs and wants consistently. I believe this to be so because of the raw power of negative publicity which sticks more than positive comments and travels rapidly in this day and age. Internet has been hugely influential in commercial success and the automotive industry is a great example.

For example, the average person does over 50% of car shopping/detail selection online before ever stepping into a dealership so it is up to the marketers to promote thorough, effective websites rather than just in-person positives of the company. Another good example is the automotive industry’s utilization of YouTube. Many of the online commercials are for vehicles and many companies have launched interactive marketing campaigns to get real customers testimonials in a popular outlet. My favourite example of this is the Toyota Sienna Swagger Wagon YouTube video which has over 10 million views! Swagger Wagon – Toyota Sienna

 Ultimately, I think these developments are positive for customer as it breaks down a wall and brings the consumer closer to the company. The customer has so many avenues to become educated on the service, product or company in mind If the consumer really appreciates the companies actions, services or products, they have the power to get closer and interact with them more. And also share their positive opinion publicly and widely through blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.  Conversely, it gives the consumer the opportunity to speak, and be heard, if they are dissatisfied. For the marketer perspective, I would say the developments are largely positive. I feel this way because marketers have even more information to glean from their target customers if they can interact with them and appease them through less formal settings.

On the negative front, as I mentioned, Internet has resulted in consumers’ negative commentary having a lot more outlets, and a lot more clout (even if it is untrue). An example of this would be any number of “rating” sites that allow customers to comment and rate their hotel stay, restaurant visit, etc. (www.restaurantica.com) This is a two-sided issue, on one hand, companies can manipulate the information to have employees/friends/families purposefully post positive comments to increase the rating. On the other hand, customers often fancy themselves critics and post scathing reviews that can be unfounded, which brings the ranking down – and realistically, it can really influence potential customers. I, myself, have had reservations about going to a restaurant that I knew nothing about but that had negative comments online. Obviously, some of the comments are completely accurate and helpful, and so this puts the onus back on the consumer to sift through the information when making a product or service decision.

What do you think? Do customer reviews of products or services really affect your decision making?

How many really prefer to pick up the phone or physically go in person when shopping for those big ticket items? (electronics, appliances, vehicles)

What did you think of the Sienna video? I think its really funny!

McMaster Class In Advertising

About the Event

The event took place at the Ron Joyce Centre in Burlington on Wednesday February 15th. There was a Twitter backchannel which used the hastag#MacPirate during the event. My Social Media & Research Techniques class as invited to attend the event, though unfortunately, I had a previous engagement. The evening began with the announcement of a generous gift being made to McMaster University. Then the class itself will be led by Terry O’Reilly (@terryoinfluence), Chris Tait (@christpirate), and Tom Eymundson, all from the advertising agency Pirate Toronto.

Set Up. @autoblot

If you reviewed the tweets after the fact…

• Do you feel you can get an idea of what the event was like from reviewing the tweets? Is there value in seeing what was posted?
• What’s the most important thing you learned by reviewing the tweets?
• What kind of roles did people take on during the event? Give a link to an example tweet for each type of role.
• From your perspective, when it comes to using Twitter at events like this one, what would you stop, start, and continue doing to improve the experience?

Upon reviewing the tweets after the event, I can glean that the event was a success. Many tweeted about having a great time, learning a lot, and overall enjoying the event. Furthermore, from reading the tweets I was able to understand some of the interactions and details that occurred at the event. (donations, speeches, reception, etc).

From a business perspective, the most important information learned from reviewing the tweets was that it was success and that attendees a) are talking about it & b) had a great time. For my own purpose, the most important thing I learned from this process was the actual interactions of the event such as who, what, why and how the donations were made. For me, it’s nice to know that my classmates had a good time, but it is more valuable to know what the event actually entailed.

In the tweets that I noticed most, the attendees were taking on a participatory and engaged role. Many tweets mentioned specific ads or products which I assume were part of the event and perhaps were displayed? Nonetheless, they gave off an impression of the event’s exclusivity, like I missed out on some inside-joke.

In terms of using Twitter at events like this one I would recommend an increased social media and Twitter presence. The use of a specific hashtag or a Twitterfountain-style site on display, in my opinion, really increases attendees’ feeling of involvement and importance of the event. I don’t think enough events tap into this possibility, especially because many things are already being talked about in the Twitter-world so if the organizers set out a specific hashtag or plan I think they would serve to gain from the event.

have a great long weekend!

frommetoyou,

C

Additional Information

http://media.mcmaster.ca/emailers/masterclass/index.html

http://rjc.degroote.mcmaster.ca/

http://billybitmap.ca/smrt/2012/02/18/pirates-advertisements-and-a-hashtag/

Assignment 2 – Research Plan: Analysis

ANALYSIS

Program Objective: to increase monetary donations to the Canadian Cancer Society by 5% within the next 5 years.

Target Audience: those deemed to donate the least, that being males & females aged 18-25.  The following population pyramid based on 2010 population stats from Census Canada demonstrates just how many millions of people that this age range encompasses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Communication Objectives

• consider creating  a Bebo presence
• Increase presence on YouTube
• create presence on MySpace
• Maintain a strong presence on Facebook & Twitter
  • I chose these sites  because of a research report I looked at which correlates age groups and  social media usage from 2008. See below:
  • 
  • I also chose these sites because of a report from eBiz which ranked Facebook, Twitter & MySpace in the top 4 most popular social media networking sites.  http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-networking-websites

Issues & Opportunities

• Issue: the trends in social       media usage are often changing and this means two things to my research.       Firstly, it may mean that even though the Forrest Report is only 3 years       old, that may be too long in the social media realm . Secondly, this       means that I will need reassess and reshape my objectives often to keep       my finger on the pulse.
• Issue: Those aged 18-25 are       often in post-secondary education of some kind or new to the work force       and they tend to have a lot of debt and be frugal about certain areas of       life. If this is the case, then it may be necessary for the objectives to       illicit monetary donations as well as time donation, ie. Volunteerism etc
• Issue: People in this       younger demographic may not have had their own life experiences to shape       their opinion and may donate to and favour charitable donations that       their parents promote, or none.
• Opportunity: Because of the       higher concentration of younger people(especially 13-15)  using social media sites if we are       successful in our objectives which will target the younger demographic,       it will likely correlate to increased donations from them for a longer       period of time.
• Opportunity: If the       objectives prove successful CCS has the opportunity to bring in a new       generation of supporters for a lifetime.

Risks & Assumptions

• Assumption: I am making the       assumption that using social media sites that younger age groups use will       elicit their interest in the CCS and thus create a life long interest.
• Risk:  A potential risk would be if the       objectives are too successful and other organizations don’t get the       donates they need as well.
• Risk: Conversely, current       donors may see the program goal as time-consuming and a waste of       resources, and they may not continue to donate.
• Assumption:  I made the assumption that the CCS’s       national Twitter & Facebook accounts are not a priority in these       objectives.

Conclusion & GAP

• Who donates now?
  • The average age of charitable donors is 53.
• Who is the target audience?
  • Ages 15 to 25.
• Where do they do social media?
  • Bebo, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook
• What is the goal?
  • To increase CCS donations by 5% in the next 5  years, particularly from younger age groups (13-25).
• Bebo is something completely new to me, so I was just curious…

Additional Information & References

Census Canada http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/index-eng.cfm

Where your money goes -CCS http://www.cancer.ca/Canada-wide/About%20us/CW-What%20we%20do.aspx?sc_lang=en

Forrester Report:  http://www.slideshare.net/diusgovuk/how-are-young-people-using-social-media-presentation

Assignment 2 – Research Plan

RESEARCH

 

 

 

 

 

Problem

The Canadian Cancer Society -like most charitable organizations – is in a constant need for monetary donations to fund cancer patient services, cover administrative costs, develop outreach programs, and implement preventative campaigns, among other things. The problem is to find a way to increase donations. I am going to conduct research to identify which market segmentation we can target our communication goals to in order to solve this problem and increase funding.

Primary Research

For my primary research I conducted a survey, hoping to find a correlation between age range & donation habits.  The survey I created had 5 questions and utilized both quantitative and qualitative questions. Using both research techniques created an integrated survey with closed -ended questions (#1-4) as well as open-ended questions (#5). There are many important conclusions to draw from the survey results. The two most important are that the majority of respondents (72%) were between the ages 18-29, and the majority (50%) of respondents rarely donate to the Canadian Cancer Society. From these two factors  I am going to draw the conclusion that On a positive note, the majority of respondents (56%) most often donate to the Canadian Cancer Society over other organization choices. Please note:  A problem may arise from the fact that my sample size is very small, I only had about 30 respondents to my survey.

If you’d like to see the survey, click here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JL9RNMD

Secondary Research

Information from Google AdPlanner can provide some insight into the web user who visits the CCS website, www.cancer.ca

Below are the traffic statistics:

The 0.4% is interesting to me because the organization Leave A Legacy notes that, “Almost 23 million Canadians or 84% of the population aged 15 and over, made a financial donation to a charitable or non-profit organization during 2007.” If this percentages are assumed to be true then it is evident that the CCS website does not have a broad or proportionate reach in Canadian web traffic.

Reach is the total estimated number of users in Canada or Worldwide you can reach on this site, while page views are the total estimated number of times pages on a site have been accessed by users in either Canada or Worldwide.

The audience interests show us that most people who visit the site are likely also interested in “Charity & Philanthropy,” “Social Issues & Advocacy” (this is the highest category with an affinity of 4.0x, “Food & Drink,” “Ontario,” & “Cooking & Recipes.” Most of those interests are not surprising, though the mention of Ontario is relevant as Ontario is proportionately the largest donor to charitable organizations.

Another affinity area of interest was in sites also visited, and while most of those sites were CCS affiliated, the site with the fourth highest affinity (12.6x) was www.heartandstroke.on.ca  This indicates to me that my focus should not be on pulling donors away from other organizations, but rather tapping into a market that does not donate to its full potential.

The final affinity that is of interest indicates that those who access cancer.ca also use keyword searches for Hotmail, Facebook & YouTube. This indicates to me which areas of social media might be best to focus on.

According to Statistics Canada, the average charitable donor in Canada is 53 years old.  This is useful information as a I shape my organizational goal.

I chose to use these three sources of secondary research because of their relevance. Google AdPlanner is useful to gain insight into web traffic and statistics. Leave A Legacy is important because it is directly involved in the industry I am researching (charity).  Lastly, Statistics Canada is important as it is the authoritative source on empirical data about the Canadian population.

Ethical Considerations

 In my survey noted that the purpose of my inquiry was to glean insight into demographics and donation habits and that their responses were completely anonymous. I also clarified that my research and myself are not affiliated with the Canadian Cancer Society in any way.  Based on this disclaimer I can assume that the response I received were honest and accurate.

 

Additional Information & References

An infographic with American data: http://www.livescience.com/17341-charity-donations-individuals-infographic.html

Stats Can: http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/famil90-eng.htm

Google AdPlanner: https://www.google.com/adplanner/#siteSearch?uid=domain%253A%2520cancer.ca&geo=CA&lp=false

Leave A Legacy: http://www.leavealegacy.ca/program/who/

Lessons Learned #1

Our lessons learned component involves reflections on interesting aspects, discussions, topics and gained knowledge from the SMRT CCE course. My first area covers Communities & Audiences.

                                                                                                                                                                                            

This week we discussed, “who is your audience?” and “what does your community look like?”

We discussed the different variations of target audiences and demographics, things I hadn’t really considered in  the context of social media. Major segmentation variables for consumers fall within geographic, demographic psychographic or behavioural categories. Some specific questions to consider might be:

• How old are they?
• Are there more men or women?
• What level of education do they  have?
• Are they professional? Academic? Managerial? Personal?
• What occupations are common in the community?
• What are their cultural backgrounds?
• Where is the community geographically?
• What does the community  need, want, and value?
• What is most important to them?
• What don’t they care about?
•  What problem does the community have?

Exploring sites like www.socialmention.com and www.topsy.com was completing new to me. These sites help a marketing and social media determine who their target audience is and which demographics look at their sites. It helps them determine who is talking about their topic or issue of interest. From there, you can look in the communities for comments , questions, links, mentions, and coverage, as well as most popular pages and links.

I really love the image from Kissmetrics below about  demographics, it’s really nice to look and clear to understand.

• It is interesting to me that      women have a greater presence on all forms of social media studied      (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace) but it is especially interesting that MySpace      has a much larger gender usage gap.
• Within the look at income, I was interested by the      fact that I have never heard of Digg. (I looked into it and learned, Digg      is a social      media website, and its cornerstone function consisted of letting people      vote stories up or down, called digging and burying, respectively. Digg’s      popularity prompted the creation of copycat social networking sites with      story submission and voting systems.)
• In terms of the age division, they point out      that Facebook has the biggest division, but I think it is noteworthy that      they have the oldest (substantial sized) age group.
• http://blog.kissmetrics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/who-likes-what-lrg.png

Assignment 1 – Poll

Would love some feedback!

Thanks!

from  me to you,

C

Assignment 1 – Research Propsal (part 3)

Ultimately, I’ve decided to narrow my research down to focus on the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS). As noted from earlier research, the  CCS utilizes the primary social media outlets – Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. They use all three of those extensively and interactively – which is extremely important in building an online presence. Because of the sheer size of the organization, most of the information on these sites is from the top and leaves a personal touch to be desired. For a site like YouTube – which has almost exclusively commercials, it might be a good idea for the CCS to create more localized pages where supporters can upload their own videos. This personal, local-specific aspect is helpful for community building and would likely catalyst sharing and increased viewership.  (Right now they only have 803 subscribers.) This is one of my favourite campaigns: http://www.youtube.com/user/CDNCancerSociety?feature=watch#p/u/2/7KttFUxxXFk  Conversely, they have more localized accounts for both Twitter and Facebook. On the national Twitter page there are many RTs and photos contributed from followers. In terms of local accounts, there are a wide variety included unit pages (@CCS_Hamilton), and event & city specific (@RelayForLifeTO), among others.  I think this is a good idea for the community building aspect, however there is a problem. From one glance at the Hamilton Unit page it is clear that Twitter is not a priority (the last tweet is from March 2011, and there are only 12 Tweets total.)  This is an example of lack of knowledge, training and resources. At the unit branch in my home town there was a similar problem. None of the four, female staff knew the first thing about Twitter or how to use it. When it became apparent they should have an account, they added the task to an employee’s full  work-plate. That is where I came in; the account’s creation, personalization and upkeep fell on a summer student – as it did at many units – but what happens in September? CCS should consider equipping their staff with better understanding of the how-to and importance of social media. In terms of Facebook,  I think the CCS does a great job, they have a nation-wide page, provincial pages, as well as unit pages and event groups. They allow members of the community to contribute stories, opinions and pictures and use the site to promote their campaigns and invite ‘Friends’ to their ‘Events.’ My only suggestion would be the same as my Twitter suggestion, which is that the smaller branches need more help through workshops or webinars to be more comfortable with the site.
Beyond those three sites, the CCS does not have much of a “traditional” online presence. However their FightBack.ca is a great website that is really aesthetically pleasing and has many opportunities for interaction. Their site cancerconnection.ca is a community-centric site for cancer patients and their families and friends. It is a place for them to create a profile, share, connect and blog about their experiences. They have also created a Relay for Life, one of their biggest annual fundraisers, specific site. It allows teams and individual participants to log in, connect with others at the same event, and chart pledge progress.  I think these CCS specific sites are great and fulfill a lot of expectations left over from the traditional sites.

The communications objective in this case is community building, campaign management, service advertisement.  I am suggesting changes to the Canadian Cancer Society’s current social media techniques to maximize effectiveness.  I am merely making observations and suggestions and do not know anyone who could implement these change throughout the Canada-wide organization. However through my many years of volunteering I have built up good relationships with two unit branches and could make direct suggestions to affect their local work. 5 second pitch statement: I hope to provide my social media techniques to the CCS with the intention to improve their online community building presence.

CCS Goal:  The Canadian Cancer Society is a national community-based organization of volunteers whose mission is the eradication of cancer and the enhancement of the quality of life of people living with cancer. They hope to create a world where no Canadian fears cancer.

SWOT Analysis – How does social media interact with the CCS’s goal?

Strengths	Weakness
CCS is   a influential Canadian organization that has been around since the 1930s, and   is well respected   CCS   already has a large support base.   CCS has   a large foundation of over 170,000 volunteers as well as a small staff. This   organization structure proves useful as many volunteers stick with the   organization on a long-term basis and they have a broad age range, especially   with high-school programs like My40Hours.	The CCS   employs less than 2000 staff, and with 10 regions/provinces, unit branches,   and national offices this results in an issue of continuity and commitment.   As a   charitable organization, the CCS is subject to great scrutiny, especially   financially and this may limit them to take risks.   With   such a small staff, and the flux of volunteer, resources may not be used   efficiently in terms of training etc.
Opportunities	Threats
Social   media provides an opportunity for the CCS to appeal to younger generations   and hopefully affect their cancer-related life choices   Social   media also provides the CCS an avenue to gain mass, public support which can   help bolster the advocacy efforts   Community   based social media provides cancer fighters, survivors, CCS employees and   volunteers an outlet to demonstrate their support in public and creative ways	There   is A LOT of competition in the charitable sector, all with a seemingly good   cause, this necessitates the need to constantly innovate ideas.   There   is the issue as I mentioned, of older and less social media savvy   employees/volunteers in charge of social media outlets.   A   completely external threat is the poor economic climate which greatly affects   individuals likelihood to donate.

 

I think this research is particularly compelling for many reasons. Charities, like all organizations, have to compete for a share of the market and the Internet plays an important role in providing consumers with choice and information to make the best choice. An article by Rachel Beer helps reinforce the importance of why charities need social media and thus why this research is important.  She writes, “having a website is just not enough anymore. Forward-looking brands understand that they need to be more flexible, that they need to engage people in a genuine dialogue, rather than broadcast marketing messages at them. To do this, they need to have a presence in the online, social communities that their customers (or, for charities, existing or potential supporters and stakeholders) enjoy using.” As such, and as correlates with my suggestions, charities like the CCS need to innovate and be willing to try different methods of communication. Beer expands, “…after years of being able to rely on tried and tested media – including mail, press and television – to achieve fundraising, marketing, communications and campaigning objectives, charities are seeing a downward trend in the level of success they used to see from these channels. This is probably set to continue as more and more people go online, spend more time there and find the communities and resources there more and more indispensible to their day-to-day lives.”

I’m really excited about this research, I am so passionate about CCS as an organization and the eradication of cancer on the whole.

from me to you,

C

Additional Information:
CCS Mission Statement: http://www.cancer.ca/Canada-wide/About%20us/CW-Mission.aspx?sc_lang=en
My40Hours: http://www.my40hours.ca/
Beer Article: http://www.charitycomms.org.uk/articles/insider_secrets/why_charities_need_to_use_social_media