Blog posts tagged ROI

Q&A: Like Minds conference organiser Scott Gould

Marketing Donut will be bringing you live blog coverage of the second Like Minds conference on Friday 26 February. To whet your appetite, we caught up with the social media conference organiser, Scott Gould, to find out more about his Like Minds journey and what to expect at the forthcoming event.

How did Like Minds come about?

SG: It started when Trey Pennington and I arranged a meet up when he was over in the country. He suggested we start a "social media club" in the style of what he'd been doing across the United States. I got to work on the idea with Andrew Ellis (who became my partner in Like Minds) in August 2009. Andrew challenged me to make the event highly accessible and affordable rather than expensive and exclusive, with the idea of reaching a wide range of people who were also thinking with an eye on innovation. Hence the name, Like Minds.

What did you take home from the first Like Minds event which focussed on ROI?

SG: It takes investment in the first place to ensure a return on investment. Then you've got the work of social media, engagement, policies, guidelines. And measuring all of this is no 'one tool fits all'. It takes work and careful analysis to have measurement that is meaningful. All of this is effort.

Of course to core business activities, this is how things have always been. But there's this misconception that social media is free and easy. It isn't.

How will Like Minds 2010 format be different from the first event in 2009 (workshops etc)?

SG: We've worked hard to bring multiple ways to get inspired, to learn and connect with each other into one event. Whilst we still have keynotes and panels, like we did last time, we've first of all been able to welcome speakers and panellists who are world class leaders in their respective industries.

We have then created an innovative lunch time workshop format in partnership with local restaurants that allows delegates to talk over specific subjects with our speakers. This means they get workshop time with these experts to get first-hand integration advice. Integration is a big focus for us this year, hence we are also holding free workshops hosted by our sponsors during the week leading up.

You pride yourself on the low ticket price. If that isn’t enough to convince a small business to attend, what is?

SG: Yeah we're proud about the price, but even more proud about the incredible line-up of people we have coming. Our keynote speakers and panelists consist of a range of backgrounds, cultures, industries, sectors and experience. We have the world foremost social media thought leader speaking, Chris Brogan, and two other top ten social media bloggers and Orange's head of internet.

Then when it comes to networking and lunchtime you'll find out how many incredible and successful people are just coming to attend. Some of the delegates flying in from America and Europe are worth the ticket price just to meet.

The theme for this year is People-to-People — tell us more about this.

SG: Social media have introduced a more personal form of business communication, which is replacing the anonymous corporate communication that has tended to prevail hitherto. Thus, the lines between the organisational voice and the individual voices of representatives of organisations have become blurred – to a large extent it’s now the individual voice that prevails. B2B, B2C, consumer, prosumer and owner forms of communication now follow a more socialised model; collaborating and conducting business in a way that is fundamentally different to ten years, and even five years ago.  

Understanding this is vital. We have keynote speakers and panellists talking from such a wide range of experience and expertise that most business types and sectors will be covered at the conference.

• The Like Minds conference takes place on Friday 26 February. Half day tickets are still available and full programme details can be found on the Like Minds website

ROI = Return on Influence

In my role at Actinic I talk to a lot of small business owners. Apart from discussing the latest and greatest ideas in ecommerce a lot of them want to talk to me about social media and how it can work with their business.

Much has already been written about the various tips, techniques and strategies businesses can adopt, so I won’t go over this old ground again. However, one of the questions I have always struggled to answer is “How many extra sales will this make me?”

Social media ROI is a difficult statistic to measure. There are methods and technologies that can help you to quantify things, but it’s hard to feel confident that they are accurate.

Recently social media guru @DarenBBC suggested that we should consider an alternate meaning to ROI, Return on Influence. The explanation is simple, if your strategy is just aimed at selling a few more products you are missing the point entirely. The most successful strategies have a complete focus on connecting with your customers. This enables you to discuss, influence and ultimately own your brand online.

To prove the point do a quick search using Collecta for your brand or product. Collecta is a search engine that scours blog posts, Twitter, Facebook and many others. This content is real time, it’s happening as you search as opposed to looking through a huge archive of out-of-date data. The results can be very illuminating and often humbling.

To properly understand social media, the first step is to get involved, answer questions and show yourself to be human. It won’t turn into immediate sales figures, but influence will lead to involvement, and involvement is an easy thing to measure. Just ask yourself this: how many questions did you answer today? Eventually, there will be a big impact on sales, but it’s not immediate cause and effect.

I speak to many companies that pour huge vats of time and effort into brand protection. Many of them don’t understand that if you’re not the core influencer for your company in these dynamic online communities, someone else will seize that position, and it may cost a fortune to put things right if they go wrong. Sure it’s just about next quarter’s sales figures?