The Brains of the Outfit

I love articles like this one. I think Kievman has missed the point of doing social media for business and of marketing in general.

Marketing is about ROI.

If companies haven’t been able to find the real-world results of their social media efforts, there are two distinct possibilities. Either they’re not doing social media effectively, or they’re not measuring it correctly.

I’d be willing to bet that DemingHill’s largest Fortune clients care about ROI as the first thing of importance, but they understand that all the activities that Kievman mentions in this article are tied to strategies that bring measurable ROI.

Relationship building creates ROI by creating brand equity and increasing net promoter score. Kievman mentions “creating communities of key constituents.” Why do you do that? Those key constituents are either going to be influencers or buyers. Another point Kievman misses is that customer service, brand monitoring, brand awareness, and crisis management can all be performed or influenced via social media.

This statement is really problematic to me: “…if you are not converting outside of social media, social media will not help you convert and improve your ROI.” If an activity has a net zero effect, that’s truly money for nothing. The whole raison d’etre of marketing is to increase conversion. Does it have to be direct? No – very few marketing activities are direct.

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I find myself continually faced with the same problem, and it’s a marketing classic. How do you measure brand equity? Or more to the point, how do you communicate it in a way that makes sense to non-marketers, particularly those in small business?

brand equity – the monetary value of a trademark or distinctive name identifying a product or manufacturer beyond any amounts spent building it.

I’d argue that most businesses aren’t really interested in the asset value of the brand, particularly the small and medium businesses that make up the majority of my clientele. The question most of my clients would love to hear answered is this: “How much market share, revenue, or profit will be contributed by this campaign beyond that which we can directly measure in conversions?”

To quote a friend of mine: “I’m sorry, but I’m fresh out of clairvoyance.”

There are some pretty simple rough measurements you can do periodically that will give you an idea of what your brand is worth in revenue terms. At the simplest level, it’s the difference between the stock value of your company and the book value of your assets. If you don’t have stock, it’s still not terrifically difficult. Assume a growth rate based on historical figures and do a net present value calculation of your forecast revenue for the assumed life of your business. (20 years is a common figure.) The difference between that and your asset value is the value of your intangible assets. For most small to medium businesses that don’t have significant technology or R&D, that’s roughly equivalent to the incremental revenue generated by the brand. But that still doesn’t help with the clairvoyance problem.

Here’s what I’m getting at – while brand equity is a good reason to do some projects that don’t have significant, measurable ROI, it’s important that you look at those projects closely, as marketers will frequently use brand equity creation as an excuse to do questionable projects. If you hear a marketer making brand equity claims, ask a few questions.

• Is brand equity creation a priority for me right now?
• Are there other projects with more measurable returns that are more valuable to me?
• Am I willing to make an attempt to measure my brand equity over time? If not, am I willing to trust this marketer to create brand equity that neither of us are likely to measure?

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Shane Harris asked this question back in 2004 in Government Executive magazine, and I’ve kept a copy of his article ever since, to remind me of this simple fact.

PowerPoint is a tool, like many others. And while it sure beats transparencies for ease of use, it still doesn’t change the essentials of presenting.

As a presenter, take an egotistical moment to remind yourself of this: You are the star of your presentation. Your slides are there to support your point, to guide your audience, and to provide some visual breaks. They are not there to tell your whole story. In fact, if a reader can get your whole story from your slides, then why do they need you anyway?

You might be asking yourself why, in the midst of writing about branding and social media, that I’m bringing up PowerPoint? Because for many B2B clients, getting to the presentation is a big step in conversion, and they feel that their PowerPoint is the presentation. PowerPoint is a support tool, nothing more, but there are some very basic design and marketing concepts you need to follow.

1. Be brief – use as few words as possible on as few slides as possible. Enough to support your point, no more.  Even this point is too long.

2. Be aware of time – a good rule of thumb is that it takes 2-3 minutes per slide to get through a presentation. I don’t care if you talk like an auctioneer, you’re not going to break the 2-minute per slide mark. So if you have a 30-slide presentation, you need an hour at minimum. If you only have 40 minutes, don’t bring more than 15 slides.

3. Be aware of design – I’ve worked with a ton of project managers. Not people who say they can manage projects, but certified PMP‘s. These folks love to draw tables and charts to illustrate their points. Unfortunately, they also have a tendency to draw charts that require hours of explanation, and that nobody else understands. Charts, graphs, tables, and illustrations are their to help make your point. If your audience can’t look at them and understand them immediately, they’re useless. So illustrate your point graphically, but simply.

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