How Brands and Marketers Measure Engagement [eBook]

 

What's Engagement?

How Data-Driven Marketers are Crushing Content Marketing

An eBook by Infinigraph

"The influence of social media feeds is now undeniable and has become the primary engagement and discovery point, requiring greater attention to content quality, and to inducing the desire to share that content."

One fine evening, I received a LinkedIn message from the uber talented Dr. Natalie Petouhoff with the question: "How do brands measure engagement?" With such a hot topic, the marketer in me got into overdrive and shot off a reply.

Two months hence, Chase McMichael, CEO of Infinigraph, tweets me to announce the release of their new eBook and thank me for my contribution. Truth be told, I'm just as happy to grace the cover of the eBook. Honoured (and grateful) to be in it.

@Mr_Madness Big thank you for your awesome insight inside our eBook What's Engagement! We are now releasing here http://t.co/nmTIJX8Ltt
— Chase McMichael (@ChaseMcMichael) July 30, 2013

Download your PDF copy

Read Chase's detailed blog on Engagement and how brands and marketers effectively create, introduce and advertise content that is both engaging and sustainable to their target audience.

This idea behind the eBook became realized after Mark Fidelman published this article on Forbes: "10 Lessons from the Top 25 Most Engaged Brands on Twitter”


Acknowledgements with Gratitude: Thank You!

• Dr. Natalie Petouhoff
• Mark Fidelman
• Chase McMichael
• Brian Carter

Full Credit to the driven team at Infinigraph who created this data dashboard (stats, maps, graphs, infographics) that allows you to search, sift, source content intelligence - by brand and industry.

Other tools include Competitive Brand Intelligence which compiles comparative reports, and
HyperCuration - which pulls up live social data filtered by type of content and social network.

All in all, it's been...

A happy story with a happy ending. Or, as they say: This. Is. Just. The. Beginning :-)

@Mr_Madness thank you Amar value your interaction and sharing must go over what we can do together in New Zealand cc @drnatalie
— Chase McMichael (@ChaseMcMichael) July 30, 2013

To sign-off:

"Ultimately, we know that quantity of the content does not matter.  

It's the type and quality of the content."

Master Content Marketing - in 7 Steps: Create, Curate, Integrate, Socialize, Analyze, Optimize, Monetize. Manage content holistically to build brand awareness, engagement, advocacy, loyalty.

Social Business - It's not B2B or B2C... it's P2P

IBM definition of Social Business (#socbiz)

It takes a tiny spark to get your gears going. This short, simple post by Ted Rubin on Facebook and Twitter got mine going and inspired this blog on innovation via social business.

"Shift your approach from Social Marketing to Social Business. 

The value of Social goes well beyond marketing. #RonR"

In 2011, when IBM coined the Social Business concept, the emphasis was on social media adoption and getting social infrastructure (tools & technology) in place. It has evolved a lot since.

An IBM 2013 Report defines Social Business as: "An organisation whose culture + systems encourage networks of people to create business value." Clearly, the emphasis is now on culture and enterprise-wide (internal + external) collaboration. It's about:

1. Social Branding: See the organisation holistically - branding, content marketing, communicating as one integrated organism - to build brand influence, advocacy, loyalty. 
2. Employee Engagement: Happy Empowered Employees = Happy Satisfied Customers. Optimize resources via social tech to jointly leverage data, insights, talent, comms...
3. Smarter Commerce: Reaching today's connected customer and serving her where, when and how she likes. In a fragmented market ecosystem, access is advantage.
4. Social CRM: Think customer-centric to build and develop genuine, meaningful customer relationships. That's where Return on Relationship (RonR) comes in. Before ROI.
5. Greater CX: Enhancing product, service, brand, content to deliver superior, consistent, memorable customer experiences at every touch-point - digital, mobile, events, web, retail...

Some great reading material + useful resources on Social Business

• CMSwire: How Social Business Can Help Organisations Succeed:

Download The IBM 2013 Report which identifies 6 Social Business Success Patterns which organisations can apply to quickly realize business results:

• Finding Expertise
• Gaining External Customer Insights
• Increasing Knowledge-sharing
• Improving Recruitment and On-boarding
• Managing Mergers and Acquisitions
• Enabling and Improving Workplace Safety

• The Power of Delivering Exceptional Customer Experiences

Sponsored content on The Atlantic: Cool interactive infographic that explains the business value of SMAC - Social, Mobile, Analytics, Content - with insights, statistics and case studies.

• An info-rich white paper: Social Business: Advent of a New Age

• Forbes article by Cheryl Conner on Ted Rubin's #RonR
  
  Why 'Return on Relationship' Makes Marketing Dollars (And Social Media Sense)

• Ray Wang on HBR - How to Engage Your Customers and Employees

Must-read Harvard Business Review article: (This post's headline is from there!) Social Business is not Business-to-Business (B2B) or Business-to-Consumer (B2C), it's P2P - People to People.

9 Cs - Nine Critical Components of Successful Engagement

• New Book by Altimeter's Brian Solis and Charlene Li

7 Elements of Social Business Strategy

Seven Success Factors of Social Business Strategy

Read Vala Afshar's ebook review on Huffington Post

• An excellent post by Vala Afshar : 7 Elements of a Successful Social Business

• Follow Sandy Carter's blog: Social Business Sandy

As IBM's VP of Social Business evangelism, author of Get Bold!,
Sandy blogs about the latest developments in social business:

• A live social experiment: an IBMer content aggregator - IBM Voices
• 4 elements of a social business platform + social networking capabilities
• Convergence of Social Business + Big Data + Analytics = Socialytics!
Socialytics: Convergence of Social, Big Data, Analytics from Sandy Carter

• Top 10 Steps to Social Business Adoption:

view enlarged image

• A timely tweet via Talent Culture

Organizations that refuse to engage in social business will become extinct like dinosaurs. #leadership #tchat #socbiz TYRT>@TalentCulture
— Michael Clark (@ReCenterMoment) July 12, 2013

• A neat infographic

• Get Social. Do Business. IBM Social Business

A dedicated web portal full of trials, demos, solutions, reports and downloads. Watch the TV ad/ video.



Inspired Workforce - Productivity - Better Relationships - Collaboration - Innovation - Value - Competitive Advantage

• I believe...

"Social is the way forward. Collaboration is the way to go. Social Business is the future."

What do you think... Is social business the way to innovation, growth and success?

100 Quotable Quotes from Top Business Executives

It's my pleasure to share an excellent Huffington Post article. One of the best I've read in 2013, this is a keeper: "100 Tweetable Business Culture Quotes From Brilliant Executives"

A classic collection of quotes curated by the very clever Vala Afshar, it conveys much inspiration and wisdom in the words of top thought leaders and best business minds of our times.

100 tweetable business executive words of wisdom http://t.co/oDNRBFikLZ #quotes #socialmedia #leadership
— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) July 12, 2013

Vala Afshar, author of "The Pursuit of Social Business Excellence", is a leading social media practitioner. Follow him on Twitter for a steady stream of top quality content.

3 i's of Awesome Content = Intelligent. Insightful. Inspiring.

For energising and engaging content, please follow my Twitter buddy, Emma Lloyd.

Hooray for Monday!! TGIM !! pic.twitter.com/aYeKTJEq4S
— Energise & Engage (@EngagingEmma) July 15, 2013

Everything is an opportunity to..... pic.twitter.com/2wtg6g3Ygz
— Energise & Engage (@EngagingEmma) July 14, 2013

Welcome to Inspiration Central - Inspire and Be Inspired.

My humble attempt at creating a hub of great content on... Google+ | Pinterest | FaceBook

"@Mr_Madness #Gratitude --> The Shortest Route To Happiness #InspirationCentral Inspire and Be Inspired pic.twitter.com/14RCCN9cP2
— Inspiration Central (@InspirationCntr) July 14, 2013

Jack Dorsey, Twitter / Square @ Stanford Business School

"The future has already arrived. It's just not evenly distributed yet."

- William Gibson,

sci-fi author who coined the term... cyberspace

As the creator of Twitter, founder and CEO of Square (mobile payment system), Jack Dorsey doesn't really need an introduction. So his twitter bio simply reads: A sailor, a tailor.

"When I believe in something, I fight like hell for it."—Steve McQueen pic.twitter.com/ICAgEdRk

— Jack Dorsey (@jack) August 30, 2012

Thankfully, his Wikipedia page divulges a little more. Techie, developer, double drop-out, geek royalty, start-up success, Silicon Valley veteran and Forbes billionaire, here's Jack sharing his story - his inspiring journey from curious teenager to globally successful entrepreneur - at Stanford Graduate School of Business, to an audience of future techpreneurs and digital innovators.





Inspiration in 40 minutes: I found this talk inspiring and I'm sure it'll get your mojo rising.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the above...

When Social Media and Music Collide - Video Interviews #smcakl

The videos are in. Here's an intro to the monthly event: #smcakl - the place to be.





Following my summary on Social Media Club Auckland : Tweet to the Beat: How Social Media has disrupted the music business, here are video interviews with three panellists at the June event.


Scott Maclachlan, Manager of Internet Sensation & chart topping artist Lorde

Paul Mclaney, AKA Gramsci - Artist & Music Collaborator

Dean Campbell, Music Commentator and Creator of Top 40 Music Tracks

• Videography (shooting, voicing, editing, youtubing) courtesy of:
• Louis van Wyk of Pravda Communications
• Rob Harradine of Perpetua Productions