The document discusses the importance of social media for businesses, emphasizing the need for monitoring, measurement, and effective engagement strategies to improve marketing and customer service. It outlines various social media monitoring tools and practices, stressing that listening to and understanding customer feedback is crucial for business success. The document concludes with recommendations for integrating social media into traditional business processes to enhance customer interactions and overall service quality.

1. Are you a Social Media Square? Why Bother? SM 4 Mediate Monitor Manage Measure

2. Your Customers are talking…about YOU Are YOU listening? ©2010 Buzzient, Inc Got SM 4 ?

3. Is it really a choice? Even if you have "decided" not to actively participate in social media, it’s really not a choice. Monitoring helps with branding and marketing but… Monitoring is only one piece of the puzzle - how do you know if what you’re doing is effective?

4. What can social media really do for us? So, what ARE the benefits that social media provides for businesses? Marketing Benefits – Social media allows a business to track and increase word of mouth. Research Benefits – Social media is one of the most powerful research tools available to business owners. Support Benefits – Social media is also a great tool to use for customer service. Many businesses struggle with defining the actual benefits that social media can provide for them. It is the primary reason companies “opt” out of participating in social media…

5. Customers are becoming conditioned to using Social Media to report problems and issues… ©2010 Buzzient, Inc

6. But don’t forget your champions and potential new customers are out there too… ©2010 Buzzient, Inc @H&RBlockAnswers responded and resolved the issue. I am happy!

7. So how do you sort through it all?? ©2010 Buzzient, Inc Who? What? Where? Why? Can I track it? Can I report on it? Can I route it? Can I measure it? Can I prove it’s effective?

8. “ I recognize the importance of social media data but don’t know what do to now…” “I need to provide proof that our social media marketing is working…” Believe it or not, many companies are still catching up with simple brand tracking through social media.

9. Let’s start with some definitions There are few terms you’ll want to familiarize yourself with before we talk about the various monitoring tools, so let’s take a moment to cover them before we jump into the details…

10. Social Media Let’s try to break it down in terms that may prove most effective… If Media is an instrument of communication (think newspaper or a radio or television) Then… Social media is a social instrument of communication – a two way street. As defined by Wictoniary is: Interactive forms of media that allow users to interact with and publish to each other, generally by means of the Internet. Oh yeah, that’s crystal clear now…thanks?!??

11. Influence If you find there are customers who have a strong opinion of your brand, it’s important to understand the influence of those customers . How many followers do they have? Do they get re-tweets? How many external links point to their blog? How many comments do their blog posts attract? What lists are they one?

12. Sentiment Are the comments positive or negative?

13. Volume This is simply the amount of "buzz" that exists. Many monitoring tools give the ability to chart volume for specific keywords over time.

14. Social Intelligence (Manage) The power of data from social media must be harnessed to serve a wider audience – a concept called Social Intelligence. Social Intelligence is a new way of thinking about social media. It involves gathering, processing, and deriving insight from social media to improve the marketing … and then sharing that information so your company, and all it’s teams, can benefit from the feedback. © 2010, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited March 12, 2010

15. Social Media Monitoring Social Medial pro’s and teams use a series of tools called listening Platforms to keep up with the disruptive nature of social media data. In short, they’re listening. Listening platforms are a technology that mines online and offline sources to produce insight that drives marketing strategy. Listening platforms each follows a three-step process: Data collection; Data processing; and Insight delivery Due to marketer demand, these tools advanced, paving the road for today’s offerings. Social Media Monitoring = LISTENING

16. Social Networking (Mediate) Wictionary defines Social Networking as: The interaction between a group of people who share a common interest . Using social contacts to network . ( Internet , business) The use of Internet communities to network and communicate using shared interests, related skills, or geographical location between consumers and businesses . Though the term “social networking” is relatively new, the concept is as old as humanity itself…

17. Social Media Measurement Measurement is more concerned with metrics over a specified time period. Measurement answers questions like: How did my keywords perform over time? How does that compare to my competitors? What are some trends I can glean to make my product more usable by these people who are giving me feedback?”

18. Workflow The process of assigning, tracking and responding to social media, typically in a team environment. An effective social media workflow can prevent double responses and missed opportunities.

19. Revolving Hub & Spoke – H&R Block Social Media Team Legal HR Product Field Com IT Marketing R&D CS

20. So you’ve got the team…Now what about the tools? Ideally, your system of choice should: Go out and look for articles where a defined specific combination of keywords occurs. Tabulate occurrences & present them to you in relevant data reports. Be able slice and dice the data by source, date, & other dimensions Drill down to the social media “atom” level — the individual message — if you need to. … and why is that important?? Constant benchmarking is the only surefire way to know if things are working.

21. Some tools that will save you time & help you quickly find the solution that’s right for your specific business needs! Let’s take a look under the hood…

22. Google Alerts An oldie but a goodie! Google Alerts allows you to set up keyword searches for the name of your company or competitors, for example, and receive updates in your email inbox or through an RSS feed. When combined with iGoogle, you can create a pretty nice consolidated page that contains the latest findings for your selected keywords. When it comes to monitoring social media, this is the least you should be doing; it’s free and an absolute snap to set up.

23. Twitter Advanced Search By using the advanced features in Twitter’s search tool, you can use simple Boolean logic (true or false conditions) to perform some pretty powerful searches. Once you set up your search, you can save the query as an RSS feed so you can keep up to date on the latest news.

24. IceRocket Used by many, Icerocket helps you keep watch over Twitter, blogs, web, news, images and more. Features include a topic cloud and basic listing of mentions. This social media monitoring tool also offers the ability to bookmark your search results for later reference. Although helpful, some users might find the interface and the style of the search results pages a little archaic compared to the other options.

25. Addict-o-matic This tool is a consolidated page with search matches across blogs, Twitter, Digg, Flickr and more. Featuring an appealing interface and one-page dashboard, Addict-o-matic is one of the best FREE tools available for summarizing all your "buzz" in one place.

26. BoardTracker Boardtracker focuses on grabbing "buzz" from message boards and forums. Features include a topic cloud and influencer list. There are ads mixed in with your search results which may turn off some users. A premium version is offered. If your target customers are more active on message boards than other channels, this could be the right tool for you.

27. Twazzup Of the Twitter-focused monitoring tools we’ve come across, Twazzup does a great job of getting everything on one page. Sentiment, top links, and influencers are available . The ranking of influencers, however, seems a little mysterious. A quick check of Klout scores on profiles for a few key topics didn’t reflect a high level of influence, so Twazzup must be using a different calculation.

28. Social Mention This social media monitoring tool features an interesting combination of easy-to-read metrics including reach, sentiment, passion, and strength (volume/day). Social Mention tracks blogs, blog comments, Twitter, mainstream news, images, video, and audio. Searches can be saved as an RSS feed so you can easily stay up-to-date.

29. HootSuite HootSuite is a popular tool that can be used to manage multiple accounts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, WordPress, Foursquare and LinkedIn. Although HootSuite could be categorized as an account management tool rather than a monitoring tool, I believe it deserves mention here because of its large user base and powerful functionality. You can push updates to one or more profiles, track click-through, deploy timed updates, monitor your social media buzz across multiple web services, and assign tasks among team members based on roles. If you use HootSuite, you’ll want to use an additional tool to supplement monitoring of forums and blogs. HootSuite apps for both iPhone and Android are available.

30. Scoutlabs Scoutlabs has a great clean interface and overall excellent features for volume trending, sentiment-tracking, learning about key quotes (based on sentiment), and managing workflow for response management. Unlimited results helps protect you from increased monthly cost due to unexpected spikes in volume. It’s a great option for agencies and freelancers because you can give clients access to a dashboard with your logo on it, branding the service as your own. Note that it can be a challenge to output some graphs and reports which may be an issue if you want to produce reports for your clients.

31. Buzzient & Radian6 Buzzient along with Radian6 and others are real powerhouses, the “next generation of data analysis tools” that gives you the ability to slice-and-dice your data to your hearts desire. These types of tools give you a complete platform to manage monitor (listen), measure and mediate or engage with your customers across the entire social web. Integrated workflow, alerts, sentiment, monitoring across blogs, forums, news, Twitter, and more is what these social media monitoring tools have to offer. The amount of monthly volume can influence pricing which is a little scary for companies that may experience wild swings in monthly volume. This is not the type of solution you should set up and hand over to your clients; it provides you with a wealth of information so you can become the go-to expert for them. If you invest the time to learn this tool, you can discover insights that will make you a hero to your clients.

32. So how do I begin or continue fine tuning my social media process?

33. It’s a huge challenge to keep on top of all the activity in the social web. Managing and monitoring, is clearly not enough. The sheer volume of data requires a solid enterprise-class process and platform. SM 4 Mediate Monitor Manage Measure

34. Let’s “Listen” in further on some things H&R Block is doing… Did you hear about…?

35. Our business and our job is about helping people - Russ Smyth

36. We Listen (Manage & Monitor) 2:1 2 Big Ears 1 Brand Voice

37. We Listen (Monitor) Listening Platforms Brand Mentions Social Radar Radian6 Micromedia 6371 23,570 Blogs 1674 15,497 Forums 200 4982 Other 7051 4920 Total 15,482 48,969

38. We Monitor the Pulse of our Clients

39. We Monitor & Mediate 1:1 Get It Right Q&A Community iPhone App Twitter Facebook Blogger Outreach

40. We Monitor & Mediate 1:Many Get It Right Community Blog Facebook YouTube 3:1 Content

41. We Mediate & Measure 5,200 responses (Facebook and Twitter) 10,700 CS-inquiries resolved (Facebook, Twitter, Community) 114,000 questions answered on Get It Right Community

42. Continue, Expand & Measure Proactive Offense: Be there before they ask Client attrition prevention First alert system and improve client service through early intervention – mirror CSO KPIs (client retention channel) Extend Facebook/Twitter CS-response to include other relevant sites – blogs, forums, discussion groups, etc. Low-cost, year-round dialogue - Be THE trusted tax resource Media Industry influencers Enthusiasts Segment relevant consumers Client Acquisition KPIs tied to HRBlock.com Reactive Offense: Amplify Positive Conversation Halo Effect Highlight Client Testimonials, Industry Kudos, Positive Press (Blog feature, RTs, Facebook thank you’s, etc.)

43. Continue, Expand & Measure Proactive Defense: Heavy Lifting through Brand Advocates & First Alert System Educate and train associates who are social media enthusiasts (1000 TPs, FB fans, etc) to be brand champions online, notify team of issues to resolve, help course correct Tap advocates during season to help shift sentiment/provide “People Like Me” defense/course correct conversation/chatter Continue using social media listening tool to monitor conversation pulse, aid content strategy Reactive Defense: Respond Decision Tree - Decide if, who, when, what Customer Service Corp Com Field Legal HR Marketing

44. Our Response Process David Armano, Edelman 2010. Repurposed with permission by H&R Block.

45. Understanding the significance of social media data and acting upon it are two different things. Most companies remain confused by social media data and often try applying their old practices to new channels . They must still figure out the new metrics and establish measurement practices around social data. Seventy-eight percent of CI (Customer Information) professionals deal with social media data by adding listening into their strategies . But most still don’t integrate listening into other aspects of their marketing strategies. Developing a strategy to make listening a core part of the bigger picture is a must. Marketers Know The Importance Of Social Data But Not What To Do

46. • Management buy-in is the key to successful social customer-engagement programs. (Manage) • Integrating social channels with traditional service processes is paramount. (Manage & Measure) • Identify the social channels that your customers engage in (Manage). • Engage with social customers in multiple channels if necessary (Monitor). • Customer support staff should take time to engage with customers on social channels (Monitor & Mediate). • More interactions generate a higher positive impact with social customers (Measure). • Companies with a longer history of engaging customers on social channels from a service perspective experience a more positive impact on their service goals (Measure). • Facebook and Twitter ranked similarly for effective engagement overall. (Monitor) Key Suggestions and Points to Start Improving your Company’s Social Channels

47. • Management buy-in is the key to successful social customer-engagement programs. (Manage) • Integrating social channels with traditional service processes is paramount. (Manage & Measure) • Identify the social channels that your customers engage in (Manage). • Engage with social customers in multiple channels if necessary (Monitor). • Customer support staff should take time to engage with customers on social channels (Monitor & Mediate). • More interactions generate a higher positive impact with social customers (Measure). • Companies with a longer history of engaging customers on social channels from a service perspective experience a more positive impact on their service goals (Measure). • Facebook and Twitter ranked similarly for effective engagement overall. (Monitor) Key Suggestions and Points to Start Improving your Company’s Social Channels

48. “ As organizations adopt social tools and strategies to engage customers from a service perspective, they expect this to have a positive impact on overall customer service goals and objectives.” Survey conducted by: The Social Customer & The Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals, June 2010 Of the 118 respondents, 61 percent (72) said efforts so far have had a positive impact , 36 percent (42) reported no noticeable impact, and only 3 percent (4) reported a negative impact. Survey conducted by: The Social Customer & The Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals, June 2010

49. The social networking community is : A place people can return to Where you can publish a lot of diverse content Where you can offer unique value A place you can differentiate yourself, your company and its offerings and programs Corporate social networks strengthen the ongoing client relationship and allow for delivery of extraordinary value… A Conversation with Mark Yolton, Senior Vice President The SAP Community Network

50. Questions? @vitecinc @zenaweist Copy of this presentation? www.vitecinc.com – V-Club … and that’s how the Social Media Square shapes up! Sustain your own Social Media Square through proper nurturing, measuring and adjusting! SM 4 Mediate Monitor Manage Measure