A buzz word is a buzz word and makes my head buzz

I was in a meeting at Visible Technologies a few months back, sitting with a handful of "propeller heads" when Miles Ward, Director of Community Intelligence, floated the term "algorithmic recursive analysis" as part of his stream of conscientious and I swear I started to sweat and think I was unarguably the least qualified Sr. Manager in the room. No one else seemed phased. Leading up to Miles dropping his recursive bomb, terms like KPIs, EMI, ROAS, SEO, SEM, Reverse SEO, PPC, CRM, CMS, were being lobbed around by an extremely smart set of engineers and markcomm leads. Yet I was sitting there stuck on the term that I didn't know: algo something recursed what the? So I stopped the meeting and I asked the group, "What is algo recursive what did you just say Miles?"

After hearing the answer I made a point while at VT to never conclude an internal meeting without fulling understanding the wide sweeping set of acronyms that were being exploited by the propeller set. I also took it upon myself to create a crib sheet for us public school BA-types who needed to understand the full set of terms. My group at VT - Sales, Service and Strategy - needed to be able to translate this info for a much broader and simpler set of key stakeholders and clients. Daunting task. But necessary. If me or anyone else on my team couldn't translate and placate the understanding of our client set, then we were going to set ourselves up to surely fail. We needed to educate, support and make high paying clients not only smarter in the SM space, but we also needed to make sure they understood VT's methodology and technologies. Mr. MIT meet Ms. UW and Mr. Chico St. Daunting task indeed.

Providing clients that basic, intrinsic understanding of all things business intelligence, propagation of messages and campaigns, recursive analysis, algorithm-influenced influencer factors, and how to navigate VT's SAAS (software as a service), became my #1 objective across 35+ clients. So yes, I started sleeping less and sweating more than usual.

The payoff was grand. My evolving understanding led to a broader, sometimes in the clouds understanding of how SM works, why it works, when it works, and a sense of the overarching pitfalls of not obeying the key principles of SM. In my learning, I gave credence to the following key themes:

1. To be successful as a marketer in the world of SM, you have to monitor and learn from SM. If you skip this phase(s), you will lose
2. To be successful marketing in SM, you have to be very careful when you jump into a conversation or into a "skeptical" community
3. To be strategic and to fully maximize engagement tactics in SM, you must baseline everything, before you do anything. And the beauty with SM, is the ability to do just this at a nominal cost.
4. You can not divert from the general public's perception of your brand. NOTICE: I said you can not divert from the public's perception of your brand, not divert from your perception of your brand.
5. To be lucky in SM is to be lucky in life, business, and craps. When you roll the dice, no one knows what number will show and how those around the table (in the community or forum or blog sitters) will react and proact against your position, opinion or promotional message.

Algorithmic recursive analysis = when a math problem begets a math problem a few million times over to get to the very best answer. In essence, the term just means a math-led process ensures that the answer delivered (think of this like a Google search query) is the best answer possible within the constraints of the time afforded.

Yes, SM-talk can be confusing. Make sure you have a qualified instructor lead you through the minefield. A little hand holding and general counsel while you become more educated and competent will pay exponential dividends.

Saint St. was formed by a core group of friends and peers who believe in the power of Social Media. The group also values strategic planning and the need to measure the heck out of every key action or interval associated with a particular campaign or initiative - from beginning to end. And then measuring effectiveness based on a pre-determined set of KPIs and operational metrics. It's the only way you can truly judge effectiveness.

Recursive analysis = not settling for just "ok" ROI

CLOW

I had to share this note I sent an old friend...it helps to explain the power of Social Media

You should leverage algorythmic recurssive analysis of your SEO PPC if you really want to play with big buzzy words...Do you have any budget for counsel?

Trade works too. I like fox and mink pelts from France (it's almost Thanksgiving so I thought I would nod to our ancestors...)

Having SEO dialed is good. I'm assuming then when someone on Google types in "Element Victorville" and goes all Boolean on you peeps you all populate in the first five listings, organic that is. If not, we can work on that too.

I think what you are saying you need to do is: - to jump into a predetermined number of ongoing forum/blog dialogs and seed your promo messages, thus driving awareness (1) and then traffic to your community (2)? I believe that is a good start. I would just add the desire to increase sales-centric conversions (thus adding more tangible KPIs). Sales centric conversions include measuring people who you meet in the blogosphere, entice them to visit your eCommerce site or community, they register, and either begin to shop, or add products to their Watch/Wish List, or actually even close the loop and purchase. We can help.

Simply - locate the most strategic people who will purchase via eCommerce channel (you mentioned someone else owns and operates B&Mortar locations).Talk. Talk some more. Tell a funny story. Gain some trust. Seed. Remind them. Talk some more...and then watch them enter into your sites via a vanity URL (the whole transaction path can be proctored through tracking tags and a site-side analytics provider (e.g. Atlas).

As they progress, you monitor. Now here is where the science comes in...The purchaser gets hung up. And you know they are hung up because the metrics and analytics are telling you they stopped the transactional process. That's ok. At that point you go back and talk with them in the community you met them. You tell them another funny story. And you incentivize their continued pursuit of buying a $30 Element hat by offering a 35% discount. The "dude" goes on to buy the hat because the discount is "sweet" and then you make a margin closer to 12% versus your standard whatever...And you then add him to your community, you then drip messages to the guy regularly, and offer him smaller, and smaller discounts...until, yes, he pays almost full price. Because he has become a Maven...That is Social Media Engagement 101.

Science and marketing merge and your company makes more money.

Saint St has access to a team of more than 50 SMEs (Subject Matter Experts who can communicate smartly in SM). We build a team of the following:- Producer- 2-4 engagers (SMEs)- Account Coordinator pilot an engagement program from Nov. 17-Dec 1 around a holiday theme (tone and incentive). And we engage, and we measure.

Then we review successes and failures and build a metrics report. This first campaign helps to establish a baseline for the broader 09 approach.I love Social Media for two reasons: (1) it's where 90% of all consumers live and breath and learn and socialize and shop, or at least some combination of the set of engagement practices. (2) the whole exercise is measurable, whereas TV, radio, billboards, etc. is not as measurable, albeit measurable (through special phone numbers and vanity URLs.

If I were you guys, I would do this. But first, make sure that your messaging, technology (sites), systems, customer service, etc. is perfect. Because if it isn't, the blogosphere will tell that story, and very loudly.

I hope this helps. I had fun writing it out. Probably will drop this into my blog and share.

SO I DID. I just re-purposed this note to a friend. Because you can. It's called syndication in SM.

And I will continue to syndicate this message. And then I will measure how well the core story "propagated." Another big SM word: propagation.

Propagation is what happens with things that TIP (per Mr. Gladwell and his Hush Puppies.). Visible Technologies, my past employer and my current friend and partner is the leading SM monitoring and engagement counsel consultancy in the world. Smart peeps. MIT-level smart (two staff, and both friends of mine).

Wishing you all a beautiful Sunday.

CLOW