Here are 10 great ideas on social media measurement and monitoring from Third Tuesday:

1. Ideas can move through social media, leaving a trail of digital breadcrumbs behind.
2. Transparency is a necessity.
3. Through monitoring and listening, treat social media like a customer service line,  engage customers when they are discussing your Organization/Brand.
4. Customer to customer conversations are more important than influencer to customer conversations or business to customer conversations.
5. Listen to types and tonality of conversations and change your behaviour accordingly. Indentify what people dislike and what are your mistakes, then stop doing those things.
6. Your Brand is the sum of conversations.
7. Sometimes it takes a “pain” event to bring companies to social media measurement/engagement, rather than an “opportunity.”
8. Listen at the point of need to generate sales leads. If conversations are about a need that your service provides, it’s a great opportunity to engage with that person.
9. Use the same measurement scale from the very beginning, benchmark over time.
10. Listen to not only conversations about your Organization, but also your competitors.

All of these ideas were from K.D. Paine and Marcel Lebrun. I knew K.D. Paine would be brilliant, but I was most impressed by Lebrun. Marcel Lebrun is CEO of Radian 6, and before Third Tuesday and Mesh I knew very little about him. He definitely knows his stuff when it comes to measurement and monitoring. If you have the chance to hear him speak on the topic, I definitely recommend it.

So there’s a quick look at some great ideas from Third Tuesday. I plan on writing about many of them in the future, in greater detail with my own thoughts on these ideas, plus some more great ideas from Mesh. Stay tuned and thanks for reading!

There is a LOT going on over those two days, so I was sure to take a look at the schedule to make a plan. Below are the seminars I intend to attend, and why. I won’t be live twittering or blogging during these events either,  I would rather pay attention and enjoy it. I will be sure to take notes and blog afterwards! Feel free to say hi if you see me there! 

May 21

1:30pm –  Podcasting Workshop with David Jones and Doug Walker: I don’t know if I’ll ever produce a podcast, but if this presentation is anything like Shill, it’s a must see.

2:50pm – Digital Activism with Michael Geist: This promises to be an excellent presentation. Geist’s columns are always compelling and interesting, and he definitely knows what he’s talking about.

4:10pm – It’s a toss up between  Private vs. Public or Government 2.0, from Community Participation to Co-creation. Both topics are interesting and intriguing. Any suggestions or recommendations? Let me know! Otherwise, I’ll probably make a game-time decision.

May 22

1:30pm – Measuring Social Media: I’m really looking forward to this seminar. It features, among others, Alan Chumley and KD Paine, two giants of PR and media measurement. I’m highly interested in measurement, so this seminar promises to be one of the highlights of Mesh. It was just announced that Third Tuesday will discuss “How do we measure social media” the night before Mesh, so if you don’t have your mesh tickets, you can get a preview of sorts for free. Hopefully I will be at both!

2:50pm – Building a Brand on the Web: Always a great topic for PR, especially for MarComm or agency work. Plus it has a great group of participants, including Maggie Fox of Social Media Group.

4:10pm – Reputation Monitoring and Management: Another great PR topic, one of the most important aspects of PR in my opinion.  A good finale after two days of seminars.

So there it is! My schedule for Mesh 08. If you don’t already have tickets, bad news, they’re all sold out. Is there any social media scalping going on? Hope to see you there!

The debate between Public Relations and Marketing rages on, and seems to intensify as the line between the two gets blurrier. PR is increasingly used for commercial products and improving sales, while Marketing branches out into new tactics as traditional advertising grows stale. Both PR and Marketing are quickly branching out to social media, and finding new ways to fit it into their strategies. So the question keeps arising, who is better fit for social media, PR or Marketing? Here are my two cents.

I’m not going to go into too much detail about social media; we’ve already heard it all before. It’s about two-way communication, dialogue and relationships. Whichever group understands the nature of social media best will certainly prosper, whether they are from PR or Marketing. But at their cores, which discipline is more suitable for this medium?

Public Relations is based on relationships and reputation. Though it has proven useful to the bottom line, the essence of PR is not based on commercialism. It’s as much about listening to important stakeholders as it is about telling your organization’s story to those stakeholders. PR is meant to be the bridge of an organization to the people that the organization affects.

Marketing is based on transactions. It’s about creating and selling products to consumers. There are many inventive ways to do this, but at its core, this is Marketing’s strength and limit.

In my opinion, Public Relations definitely has the advantage here. Social media is about communication and conversation, first and foremost. Engaging in conversation and creating relationships is what social media and Public Relations are founded on. Many important elements of Public Relations aren’t about increasing sales or revenue, and it is these elements specifically that can thrive through social media. Relationship and reputation building, issues management, monitoring and engaging with public opinion and maintaining legitimacy and relevance are just a few ways that PR can use social media without using a transactional model. Social media isn’t based on transactions, and purely commercial interests in this space are often met with public backlash. Especially when advertising tries to mask itself as transparent conversation.

I know this comes as a surprise. The “PR for the People” Blog says PR is suited to social media! Shocking! But here’s the issue I really wanted to get to. How do successful PR practitioners pitch these non-transactional efforts to clients or managers? I thoroughly believe that in order for PR to gain the respect it deserves it must have measurable impact, must relate specifically to fiscal goals and maintain a healthy ROI. How are relationships measured? How can one measure the impact of a PR plan designed to engage the community and build reputation? I understand the importance of using an open system approach, rather than a closed one, and how Public Relations can do just that through interacting with stakeholders. But how does one put a dollar sign on that interaction?

If you have the answers, or just have an opinion you would like to share, please leave a comment! Thanks for reading.