The Tendo View » engagement

Negative reviews: Don’t bury your head in the sand

Siobhan Nash — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 17:54:28 +0000

They’re out there—negative reviews of your company’s products or services. Although you might prefer to look the other way, responding to negative reviews can have a positive impact on your company’s perception among customers. In a recent Maritz Research and evolve24 study, 83 percent of Twitter complainants who received a reply liked or loved that the company responded. That means a company was able to improve customer psychology 83 percent of the time by just acknowledging the problem and showing it was listening.

Keep in mind, though, that how you respond matters. When it comes to negative reviews, the old adage “It’s not just what you say but how you say it” is true. Remember, you’re talking to customers who are frustrated and unhappy. You want to provide them with the help and answers they’re looking for—not add fuel to their fire.

Here are some tips to help you write responses to turn negative reviews into positive perception:

Be friendly and courteous. Get off on the right foot by addressing the customer by name and acknowledging their experience. A little empathy, such as, “Sorry to hear about your experience!,” can go a long way in soothing an agitated customer. Finally, thank the customer for his or her comments. Even if the feedback is negative, it’s helpful information for improving your products in the future.
Be truthful and authentic. If a customer is correct in identifying an issue with your product or service, acknowledge it. Don’t hide behind a bunch of marketing speak; be honest and forthcoming if there’s a known problem with your product. Also, don’t use boilerplate responses. It shouldn’t appear that you’re just cutting and pasting approved corporate responses from a messaging guide. Talk to the customer as if you’re having a conversation with a real person, because you are.
Be specific in addressing customer issues. The more detailed information or steps you can provide customers on how to resolve their problems, the better.
Ask for additional details. Too often, customers don’t provide enough details in their reviews to accurately assess the problem and provide a suitable solution. Some forums and e-commerce sites provide the ability for customers to comment on a manufacturer’s response. In those cases, respond by asking for additional information about the issue so you can more effectively troubleshoot the problem.
Encourage customers to contact support. It sounds like a no-brainer, I know, but oftentimes you’ll find that customers post their reviews at the moment of their frustration without taking the first, most obvious step to resolve their issue: calling support. If your company provides different support centers or vehicles (phone vs. online), direct the customer to the most relevant support option for their product or situation.
Provide a direct path to additional information. Whatever you do, don’t send the customer to your home page. Remember, you’re trying to improve the customers’ experience so you want to get them to the information they need in the fewest number of clicks. Whether it’s product specifications, a replacement model, or a software upgrade, provide the specific URL for that information.
Create a “triage” email alias. Sometimes customers do call support and, unfortunately, sometimes their problems go unresolved. For those situations, create a special email address that you can provide as a way for customers to contact you directly so you can help escalate their support case.

Finally, don’t ignore the customers who are saying good things about your products or company online. Make sure you respond to positive reviews, too. Statistics show that peer reviews are one of the most influential factors when making purchasing decisions. It’s worth your time to say “thank you” to your brand advocates.

You can run, but you can’t hide from bad reviews, and it’s in your best interest not to. Proactively addressing negative reviews is a great opportunity to develop better customer relationships, gain valuable feedback about your products, and improve the perception of your company.

What best practices do you have for responding to reviews from unhappy customers?

Keep customers engaged past the purchase

Siobhan Nash — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:33:35 +0000

Part of the marketer’s job is to help identify new customers and to keep existing customers engaged. However, many B2B companies are more focused on the former in an effort to generate sales leads, whereas B2C businesses do a better job of understanding their customers, according to a recent eMarketer article. Although there’s a bigger need for content that addresses the early stages of the sales cycle for B2Bs, it’s important to create content that reaches beyond the purchase to keep current customers happy.

To do that, you need to know your audience—their needs, their preferences, and their behaviors. Without that vital information, you can’t create content that effectively builds awareness; impacts a potential customer’s decision to purchase your product or service; or keeps current customers engaged with your company, resulting in repeat business or referrals.

When it comes to creating content, perhaps it’s better to think of the customer experience as an hourglass rather than a funnel, as Tricia Smith suggests in a recent SmartBrief post. This would ensure you’re meeting the needs of current customers, creating information resources that are useful after they’ve made a purchase. For example, start a community on your site where customers can help each other or provide the ability to post reviews of your product or service. And these resources can be a great well of information that you can then use to create new content to help build brand awareness, for example.

This underscores a best practice we mention often to our clients: Content types and topics should be appropriate to your audience and their goals—as well as your company’s objectives. White papers, how-to articles, and webcasts are helpful for addressing the awareness and consideration stages of the sales cycle, for example, whereas online demos and case studies are useful for influencing the purchasing decision.

Finally, when you’re creating content for all phases of the sales cycle, don’t forget about SEO. A joint study (PDF) from Google and TechTarget highlights the importance of making sure your SEO efforts, such as keywords and titles, are specific to the particular stage of the sales cycle you’re targeting with your content.

What content are you creating to keep current customers engaged with your company?

The Web is dead. Or is it?

Bill Golden — Thu, 12 May 2011 23:59:29 +0000

When Wired magazine published the article, “The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet,” a debate ensued over the future of the open Web and whether it would survive an apps-dominated Internet. As the story explains, more and more consumers are opting for closed, proprietary apps—rather than a Web browser—as the preferred means to use the Internet. (Note: The “Web” refers to HTML viewed through a Web browser; the “Internet” is the network over which Web pages are accessed.)

Describing consumers’ fondness for apps, the author points out that apps “often just work better or fit better into their lives,” and that “the screen comes to them, they don’t have to go to the screen.” The fact that companies can charge money for apps, the story argues, “only cements the trend.”

So, according to the story’s author, consumers find that apps are easier to use and offer better content and services. Whether it’s reading the news, hailing a cab, or finding a recipe, consumers are often willing to sacrifice the nearly limitless choice of the Web to pay 99 cents to several dollars for the convenience and quality of an app.

Since search engines can’t crawl apps for content, they don’t show up in search engine results. Nor can you link to apps on your website. They’re effectively “walled gardens” of content.

This begs some interesting questions for a marketer: Should you dedicate more resources and content to apps and charge for content in lieu of broader exposure on the Web? Or should you develop content for both your public, mobile-optimized website and a proprietary app?

Just how popular are apps?

They’re pretty popular. According to a May 3, 2011 press release from IHS Screen Digest and reported by eMarketer, downloads of mobile apps are increasing at a brisk pace. IHS Screen Digest reports that worldwide, there were 9.5 billion app downloads in 2010 and 18.1 billion in 2011. By 2014 downloads will reach 33 billion. On the apps revenue front, the registers are “cha-chinging,” as they say. According to Gartner, apps revenue for paid downloads and advertising will increase from $5.2 billion in 2010 to 15.1 billion in 2011.[1]

The open Web shows signs of life

Despite the meteoric rise of apps, the open Web’s demise isn’t writ in stone. Some research actually indicates that despite the explosion of apps, consumers will continue to use—perhaps even prefer—the open Web. Jumptap, a provider of mobile advertising solutions, announced in a May 11, 2011 press release, that consumers spend more time engaging the mobile Web on their smart phones than with advertising-supported mobile apps. The results were released in the company’s STAT (Simple Targeting & Audience Trends) Report.

As with any emerging platform or content type, it’s important to embrace the new without abandoning the old. This means as a marketer, you need to consider both the open Web and closed apps when planning mobile experiences for customers.

Here’s a list of important considerations with regard to apps versus the open Web.

Apps

Apps can take better advantage of smart phone features because they integrate more deeply with a mobile device’s operating system. Facebook’s mobile app, for instance, lets you call a friend with one click by finding that friend’s number on your contacts list.
The apps opportunity will continue to grow as the smart phone market expands.
Apps are powerful vehicles for engagement and will continue to offer new business opportunities.
Mobile apps improve brand visibility by putting your brand icon or logo on the user’s smart phone screen.
Coupled with analytics tools, apps can capture consumer behavior and feed CRM programs.

Open Web

A mobile website is more cost-effective in reaching a wider audience.
Despite billions of apps revenue and downloads, globally, more consumers will access the Web via a browser, than use mobile apps.
The barriers to accessing a website via a browser are lower than the barriers to downloading an app—even for smart phone owners.
Mobile browsing technologies will improve significantly—for instance HTML5 will greatly improve browser-based audio and video experiences and make browser functionality more seamless with the desktop.
The mobile industry is still fragmented, which means porting and maintaining apps for different platforms remains a considerable cost.

HTML5: The Web’s knight in shining armor?

Amid the debate over whether apps will render the open Web obsolete, many are hailing HTML5 as the technology that jolts the Web back to life. The fifth generation of HyperText Markup Language, HTML5 is, of course, the programming language that Web pages are written in.

The breakthrough with HTML5 is its ability to enable a more rich and compelling visual experience, and its interactive features. Unlike its previous generation, HTML5 has the built-in capability to render video and doesn’t require video playback software plug-ins like Adobe Flash and Silverlight from Microsoft.

Although HTML5 has a ways to go before it’s mainstream, it’s gathering momentum and accolades. All the major Web browsers have announced their support of HTML5, including Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome.

And content publishers and technology investors are not lost on its potential. In a March 26, 2011 New York Times article, Jeffrey Jaffe, chief executive of the World Wide Web Consortium, called HTML5 the “next big step in the progress of the Web.” And John Lilly, a partner at venture capital firm Greylock Partners, said, “Right now we’re in an apps world. But people are underestimating the power of the Web. I think we’re going to see an explosion of Web-based apps over the next couple of years.”

So, as if you didn’t have enough to think about, you might want to make sure your new website is built with HTML5.

[1] Gartner, Forecast: Mobile Applications Stores, Worldwide, 2008-2014.

Social media: It’s all about timing

Siobhan Nash — Fri, 06 May 2011 01:21:27 +0000

We all do it. In our efforts to engage with our audience and provide them with quality content, we post what we have, when we have it, to all of our social media outlets without giving a second thought as to timing. You should. Timing your posts and updates to better coincide with a particular platform’s peak usage increases the likelihood that your content will be read and, more importantly, acted upon—whether that’s opening an email, sharing a link, or commenting on a blog.

I recently attended two presentations that discussed this issue of social media timing—one from HubSpot and one from our own Tendo social media expert Charlotte Ziems. Here are some highlights about timing for four key social platforms—Facebook, Twitter, email, and blogs:

Facebook
• Content posted before noon gets 65 percent more engagement than contented posted later in the day
• Friday posts generate the most engagement, followed by Monday and Tuesday
• Saturday and Sunday posts generate the least engagement but the highest number of shares

Twitter
• Twitter updates are retweeted more often when posted later in the day, as well as late in the week
• Click-through rates (CTRs) are highest mid-morning and early evening
• Mondays and Tuesdays yield the lowest CTRs

Blogs
• Twice as many blogs are read in the morning than at night
• Viewing is highest on Mondays and lowest on Saturdays
• Commenting is highest in the morning and on Saturdays, and lowest on Wednesdays

Email
• More email is opened on Saturdays and Sundays (early in the morning) than during the week
• Sending emails more frequently improves click-through rates and doesn’t result in higher unsubscribe rates

The takeaway from this research confirms something we’ve all heard before: the more frequent your activity, the better the response—and that can be further improved by timing your updates and posts accordingly. Try experimenting with the timing of your social media activity; for example, consider sending an email early in the morning and on a weekend and see what the metrics reveal.

Have you noticed certain days and times work better for your social media activity on some platforms? We’d love to hear about it!

3 corporate blogs that set the standard

Siobhan Nash — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 19:17:38 +0000

Blogs continue to abound as companies realize their value as a marketing tool. Facebook and Twitter may be great for updating your followers (many of whom aren’t necessarily your customers) on your company’s latest news and offers, but blogs excel at supporting key business goals, such as lead generation and brand marketing. According to eMarketer, “…the percentage of U.S. companies that use blogs for marketing purposes will rise to 43% in 2012, from 34% in 2010.”

Much like communities, your blog isn’t all about your company. It’s not about telling your customers what you want them to know; it’s about engaging them on topics that matter to them and address their needs.

Some B2B and B2C blogs do this better than others. Here are three blogs that I think succeed at one or more best practices.

Salesforce.com: The company’s CloudBlog touts itself as “An industry view with altitude.” But this tagline is more than a clever turn of phrase. It delivers on the implied promise—higher-level industry insight. The tone is conversational but opinionated. The posts convey information effectively, using bullet points, graphics, and embedded rich media to break up the content. Finally, the writers successfully connect the topics to the company’s mission and goals without making a blatant “pitch.”

Dell: A lot of companies, especially larger ones, have more than one blog to serve various audiences and industry segments. But if your audience can’t find the blog they’re interested in, what’s the point? Dell has one of the better landing pages I’ve seen for organizing multiple blogs. In addition to a clean, simple design, this landing page offers a feed of the latest posts, a search option (which I haven’t seen very often), and a blog directory—both at the top of the page and in the right margin, which also includes brief descriptions of the various blogs.

O’Reilly Media: This one is a little off the beaten path, as O’Reilly Media is a technology book publishing company. But the company’s blog, O’Reilly Radar, excels at something I believe is essential to connecting with your audience—defining the writers. Just as many of us don’t like interacting with phonebots, your customers aren’t likely to engage with your company if your blog posts are penned by faceless (sometimes nameless) writers. O’Reilly provides a photo, a link to profile information, and a Twitter handle for every writer.

Room for improvement
Although these companies exemplify some of blogging’s best practices, no blog is perfect. Where I think most companies fall short is in burying access to their blogs at the bottom of the home page. There are a couple corporate websites, like HP and Salesforce.com, that provide links “above the fold.” GM does one better, making the “News & Conversations” link the first tab at the top of its home page. A link higher on the home page is good, but more, higher-profile real estate for promoting your blogs and inviting visitors to participate would be even better.

You can find more examples of successful corporate blogs on Mashable.

What do you think makes for a successful corporate blog?

Why you should make your website more engaging

Siobhan Nash — Mon, 03 May 2010 20:14:41 +0000

You’ve got your social media strategy in place and in play. You’re monitoring Twitter accounts, managing Facebook pages, and posting videos to YouTube. But who’s paying attention to your website?

With so much attention focused on engaging customers in various social media outlets, many corporate websites have been left stagnant. You can make your website part of your social strategy, too. The biggest advantage to making your website more social is that, unlike social networks, you control your site.

Clorox is a good example of how adding social functionality can make your website more engaging for your community. CloroxConnects provides a forum for employees, customers, and outside experts to network and collaborate. Members can participate in groups and offer feedback and ideas about specific products, such as Brita, Green Works, and Hidden Valley Ranch.

CloroxConnects provides benefits for all involved. The company has a source for new ideas and employees get visibility, external experts get access to key Clorox technologists, and customers have a sense of ownership in the products the company creates or improves based on their suggestions.

The Washington Post has taken a different approach to improving the social experience on its website. The newspaper has added a tool, called Network News, which integrates a reader’s Facebook friends with washingtonpost.com.

With Network News, users can “like” a story and follow what their friends like and share on Facebook. The social activity, though, is confined to The Washington Post website, keeping readers there instead of directing them elsewhere.

There are other ways in which you can make your website more social, such as adding the ability for customers to review your products, participate in a game, or enter a contest. Have you made your website more social? Tell us how.

3 things you should know about your audience

Siobhan Nash — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 00:52:18 +0000

You’re regularly (read: frequently) monitoring blogs, social networks, and websites for coverage of your industry and mentions of your company’s brand. And you’ve even created a database of influencers for your industry based on this regular trolling. But how well do you know your audience? Probably not well enough.

When I’m not creating content for one of Tendo’s clients by day, I pen a food blog. Just before Valentine’s Day, I received an email from Duncan Hines. I assumed the email was pitching some promotion for the holiday. Having been in the food business for a number of years and a food enthusiast for even longer than that, I get a lot of food-related newsletters and promotions—most of which I delete without reading because I can’t keep up with the glut. Uncharacteristically, I opened the Duncan Hines email.

It wasn’t what I expected. Duncan Hines (or rather the agency the company hired for this effort) had identified me as an influencer—or at least someone who writes a food blog. And, I mean the very least.

“We know that some of the most interesting baking content and discussions are happening online, in blogs just like yours. We came across your site and think that we have some fun baking recipes and ideas that your readers might like.”

“To start, we thought you might like a simple and fun baking idea for Valentine’s Day—Duncan Hines® Conversation Heart Brownies. All you need is Duncan Hines® brownie mix …”

No offense

It’s not that I have anything against using box mixes as a base for grander baked goods. In fact, a couple of my favorite cakes from childhood are souped-up versions of packaged mixes (semi-homemade, a la Sandra Lee, so to speak). However, I have never made brownies from a package.

How could Duncan Hines possibly know that, you ask? By reading my blog, which this person clearly had not. Had she dug into my blog, she would have likely looked at baking recipes and stumbled across my Kahlua Fudge Brownies post, where I say, “… I have NEVER made brownies from a box mix.”

I wasn’t at all offended by the email, but some food bloggers, depending on their focus, would have been insulted at best and outraged at worse. However, it was painfully obvious that Duncan Hines’s agency hadn’t done its homework before launching this marketing effort. Compiling a list of food blogs is the easy part and only the first step in creating a successful campaign of this nature. Unfortunately, Duncan Hines stopped at this point.

Do your homework

If you’re going to try to engage influencers in your industry, you better get to know them—and know them well. At a minimum, you should know:

Who they are. Spend some time researching them and reading their bios to understand their background, training, and experience.

What they cover. Get to know their areas of interest and understand what topics they cover.

What category they fall into. You should segment influencers into categories based on your industry. For example, I consider myself a casual foodie who focuses primarily on recipes but also writes the occasional review and offers some educational information. I wouldn’t fall into the expert, celebrity, or natural food categories.

The bottom line is this: Know who you’re talking to and only engage those influencers when it makes sense. Targeting me for a recipe based on boxed brownie mix was a miss. However, Duncan Hines could—and should—email me with cake mix-based recipes, because I have, in fact, posted such a recipe.

Just remember, if you’re selective in what you pitch to whom, you’ll likely get the outcome you desire and create a fruitful new relationship.

Do you track influencers? If so, how?

Turning bad news into good business

Siobhan Nash — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:25:56 +0000

“Bad news goes about in clogs, good news in stockinged feet.”
- Welsh proverb

It used to be that angry customers had only a couple options for expressing their dissatisfaction with a company’s products or services. They could call customer service, write a letter or e-mail. However, the proliferation of social media and blogging platforms have provided numerous outlets for customers to voice their displeasure. Worse, with such outlets as Facebook and Twitter, negative opinions spread faster than wildfire.

It’s inevitable—companies make mistakes. They’re staffed with humans, after all. How they respond to those mistakes and how quickly, though, can make all the difference.

I recently received an e-mail from Mount Shasta Resort, where I had once made reservations. (I can’t seem to remove myself from their e-mail list, but that’s another post.) What caught my attention about this e-mail and stopped me from immediately hitting the Delete button was the subject line: “Please Accept Our Apology.” Of course, I was intrigued and read further:

“We enjoy sending out specials to all our on-line members; however, we are still learning to use our new e-club system. Our last special had a pre-filled subject line with language that may have offended some people. The resort would like to apologize for this mistake. Please print out and bring in this coupon and receive 10% off in our Golf Shop, Restaurant or Lounge.”

Two things struck me about this e-mail: The company was quick to respond (I had only just received the “offending” e-mail the day before) and took full responsibility for the mistake, rather than blaming the new system.

Unfortunately, companies don’t always respond this well when they make a mistake. Take Best Buy, for example. Last month, the company offered on its website a 52-inch HDTV that typically sells for $1,600 for just $9.99. Not surprisingly, customers were quick to place orders for this steal of a TV deal.

When Best Buy realized the mistake , the company removed the offer from its website and announced that it wouldn’t honor the purchases. The company placed a recorded message to this effect on its customer service line, as well as posting messages online. Best Buy fell back on a company policy that reserves the right to “revoke offers or correct errors,” even if a credit card has already been charged.

Needless to say, disappointed customers quickly started voicing their displeasure at losing out on the TV deal of the century and at the company’s policy. They Twittered, they blogged, they wrote email.

Best Buy’s biggest mistake wasn’t the pricing error; typos happen. No, the company’s biggest mistake was missing the opportunity to engage with its customers. Instead, Best Buy hid behind company policy.

(To be fair, though, Best Buy is ahead of the curve in empowering employees to use social media for customer support with Twelpforce .)

Does this mean that every time your company makes a mistake you need to give something to your customers as compensation? No, it doesn’t. Does it mean that you have to respond to every customer who pops off with a negative comment about your company, product, or service? No, it doesn’t.

What it does mean is that you should listen to what your customers are saying and determine if you need to take action, even if it’s just acknowledging and apologizing for an error. Communication in the age of social media isn’t just about pushing out your company’s message. It’s about engaging your customers in conversation, and this dialogue affords you a great opportunity to improve your business. After all, your business is your customers.

Going under the hood with viral marketing

David Vespremi — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 22:17:59 +0000

A bit like the Supreme Court’s definition of pornography, viral marketing is something you know when you see it, although it’s hard to define outright. All viral marketing campaigns share one element in common–an unstated agenda.

When used effectively, virals can and do perform in ways that traditional PR and advertising simply can’t. But how do you separate an excellent viral campaign from a dud? With five key criteria in mind, let’s rate one of the more recent viral splashes: Jared Holstein’s “fake Shooting Brake” Porsche promotion for TopGear.com America:

Eyeballs

The more people see and share a viral, the higher the mission-critical eyeball count. After a false start or three, The Shooting Brake viral sputtered to life and managed to pick up enough of an audience to achieve liftoff. We’ll give it a C+ for taking the time to analyze initial seeding attempts and be willing to try again in less-than-obvious places.

Engagement

If YouTube videos “A” and “B” each have 100,000 views, but “A” has 1,000 comments whereas “B” has 10, viral “A” will have proven to carry a higher level of engagement. Here, ‘brake did really well. The ratio of user involvement in the dialog was extraordinary as viewers of both the video and still images felt compelled to toss their $0.02 in on the debate and repost for others to weigh in. A+

Longevity

Short lived but highly engaging virals that capture a lot of attention often have superior recall rates to those that stay at a slow simmer and net a greater number of views over time. The chatter surrounding the Shooting Brake viral began to diminish around the one-month mark, around the time the instigators revealed all. We’ll give this a B for performing above what one might have expected through the clever use of three separate permutations of the ‘brake.

Brand Relevance

Every viral walks the line between being so tenuously connected to its parent brand as to have no meaningful impact and being so closely connected as to not have any hopes of ever succeeding as a viral. Mr. Holstein and crew get a solid A here. TopGear is, and always has been, cheeky, irreverent, subversive, and often sarcastic. In this case, TopGear wanted web traffic to support TopGear.com and new awareness of its original content. Job done.

Reach

A viral that transcends and rises above topical environments, and is just as big of a hit among Scrabble enthusiasts as it is among Labrador aficionados, is more relevant than one that fails to break out of its defined silo. The ‘brake transitioned from automotive to gamers, back to automotive, into mainstream press, and now, by virtue of this write-up, into the industry press for marketers. That’s another A+ for bridging the gap and capturing our collective imaginations.

The sixth, unspoken variable is one that will warm every marketer’s heart–-solid ROI. Here, Holstein leveraged the sizable coffers of Microsoft Game Studios in its promotion of Forza 3 to achieve great effect with his own viral promotion. There is nothing like riding the slipstream of someone else’s online spending spree to capture value far beyond one’s own investment in a project. A+ to team TopGear on this note as well.

ROI on the brain

Charlotte Ziems — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:15:48 +0000

I had a nice Memorial Day week off and returned to work this week refreshed. And thinking about ROI. And metrics. And measurement. Why? Several reasons.

First, I attended the CMO Leadership Forum on Tues. with some Tendo colleagues and heard sound bites like these:

“Fear of waste is more prevalent than fear of price in recessionary times. ROI is key.” -Bill Pearce, SVP & CMO of Del Monte Foods (who also explained why investing during times of recession is the best marketing tactic)
To retain customers, focus on “less eyeballs and more mouthfuls“, because it’s more cost-effective than going out and finding new customers - Umberto Luchini, Marketing Svcs. Dir., Skyy Spirits
“Marketing is the new finance” – Ann Lewnes, SVP Corp. Mktg for Adobe, referring to how marketing needs to rely on ROI and measurability to support its campaigns.

The second reason I’ve got ROI on the brain is that I am a 2009 Fellow for the Society for New Communications Research (or SNCR) and as such, I get to contribute to a research project with some pretty interesting folks. The project, which is beginning to gain momentum, focuses on social media metrics and measurement. Our project overview points to what often appears as a disconnect between what an organization sets as goals and what they actually measure-for instance, so many of Tendo’s clients say they want to “get closer to our customers” but the primary metric they use to gauge effectiveness is click-throughs from the blog to the corporate website. What’s the true definition of the word “engagement” and how do you measure its ROI? While our project is focused on social media metrics, I think that many of our findings will apply to metrics for content and communication. Call me weird, but this stuff is really fascinating to me.

I’ll keep you posted on the status of the project-right now we’re gathering names of companies that want to participate as case study subjects and/or survey participants. Our research results should be out by the end of the year.

In the meantime, I’ll point you to one of the “pretty interesting folks” on my research team-Katie Payne. I met Katie at SNCR’s NewComm Forum last month and can’t wait to read her book “Measuring Success-The Data-Driven Communicator’s Guide to Measuring Public Relationships“. Though much of what she writes and studies is framed in the context of PR–which isn’t what Tendo does–I do think it’s relevant to any form of communication (Web content and social media included) in which you’re using words to establish or deepen a connection. Katie founded a consulting firm focused on measurement–KD Paine and Partners–and also writes a blog here.

Next week, I’ll focus on video–Suzie Reider, head of advertising for YouTube, gave a great presentation at the CMO Leadership Forum on how marketers can use YouTube’s tools. Plus I’ll tell you about a cool new “video case study” service that Tendo’s developed.