Gotcha!  By simply reading this article you may have self identified yourself as one of the 40% of marketers who are experimenting with social metrics, learning which works best for you.  Or one of the 37% who struggle to find good ways to measure social activity and its impact.  This all according to a Forrester Research, Inc.  study of Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals.

Measurement is always a challenge, but it’s more of a challenge if you don’t start with clear expectations of what the social media effort is supposed to do.  Forrester suggests a good way to think about it.  They suggest creating a value chain for social media tactics or ideas.  It goes like this:

Using (specific social activity/approach)      , we help (primary audience) accomplish (target social objective) and make (specific process or goal for the audience) better as measured by     (relevant measures and metrics) which is worth (bottom-line business value)    .

This looks easy enough, and it is easy to write.  The problem is defining the bottom-line business value and sticking to your guns in holding social media accountable.

Nearly every business should require a “bottom-line business value.”  Most marketing activity is judged by its contribution to sales.  Maybe the objective is more and better leads.  More loyal customers.  You could even argue that engaging a customer in a dialog helps you understand their mindsets better.  All legitimate ways of thinking about it.

So, you dive in.  Start a Facebook page.  Put some posts up. And there’s silence.  Deafening silence.  Hello-is-there-anybody-out-there silence.  You’ve seen those pages.  Maybe you have one.

You know if you ran a traditional media campaign and nothing happened, leads dry up, sales are stagnant, awareness doesn’t change that the campaign would die a quick and brutal death.  If you sent a direct mailer that didn’t produce, you’d never send the same mailer again.

But with social media, we have a hard time holding it to the same standards of results.  Why? Is it that we fear that if we’re not doing it someone will think us not current?  Is it that we would admit that we don’t know how to get the audience to engage?  Is it that a failed social media effort wouldn’t look good on our next review?  Or is it that we can’t bear the thought that our target audience is just not that into us?

A record 28,682 students are enrolled at Iowa State University this fall — up 2.6 percent from the previous record set a year ago. What’s even more impressive is the gains occurred in virtually every category: Undergraduate enrollment, international student enrollment, graduate student enrollment, a record number of transfer students and the most diverse student enrollment in the University’s history. And this year’s freshman class is the second largest ever at ISU.

All of this occurred in spite of a declining number of high schools students to draw from.

Lots of colleges and universities around the country are experiencing enrollment increases. The economy has played a big role. But for Iowa State, this year’s records are no anomoly. They continue a steady trend of enrollment increases that have been taking place during the past five years.   

We’re proud to have played a part in helping Iowa State achieve these milestones with campaigns that have invited teens to “Enjoy the Adventure at Iowa State.” These campaigns succeed year after year because they address teens’ anticipation that their college years will deliver the best experience of their lives, the chance to discover who they are and what they want to become, in an environment where they fit in.

There’s an old axiom among fishermen that goes something like this, “Some lures are meant for catching fishermen and others for catching fish.”  Having grown up fishing, my tackle box is living proof of that truth.  Seems like the flashiest and most colorful lures never caught a thing while the rattiest, most beat up piece of wood with hooks has a history of catching the most and the biggest.

The real truth is all lures will catch fish if fished properly, at the right time in places where there are fish.  Social media seems to be one of those kinds of lures.  It’s the hottest, shiniest new lure out there in the marketing lake. There are a lot of people fishin’  but only a few that are catchin’.

R2integrated just published a study indicating that nearly 50% of companies using social media have no social media strategy.  That probably also explains why 65% of those reporting indicated that they hadn’t increased sales as a result of using social media.  Yet 77% said they were doing social media for lead generation.  Huh?  Fifty-four percent said that social media is integral to their business.  Whaaaaa???????

So, half don’t have a strategy, Most know what they would like it to do. It’s not doing what they would like it to do but it’s integral to their business.  In the word of Bill Cosby, “RIIIIGHT!”

Social media has caught a lot of fishermen but it hasn’t put many fish in the boat.  So as most businesses cast and crank their social media lures into a vast ocean with a few prospects swimming in it, there are a few who’ve used strategy to locate fish concentration and entice those prospects into their pond.

What is a social networking strategy?  If you think about it in purely social terms, it’s why you get invited to a dinner party.  You either supply interesting conversation…which usually means you’re don’t talk about yourself constantly because you’d be a complete bore and you’re really not that interesting.  Or, they really like your significant other.  In any case, your social media strategy should have its own shiny new lure to draw fish into your area of the lake.  Then you need to know what bait to use to get and keep them involved.  And that’s the difference between fishin’ and catchin’.

ZLRIGNITION and two clients have been honored by the Central Iowa Chapter of the Public Relations Society of American for work the agency performed in 2009.

The agency and Iowa Public Radio earned a Public Relations Mark of Excellence (PRIME) award of merit for the network’s 2009 Annual Report: Enhancing Connections. The award was the top honor presented in its category.

ZLRIGNITION and the Iowa Department of Human Services won a an Award of Merit for Cover the Kids Day. The program mobilized more than 1,500 churches throughout Iowa to help spread awareness of the hawk-i health insurance program for children. It contributed to nearly 30,000 calls to the DHS and the submission of 69,000 applications for enrollment in hawk-i and Medicaid from October through December 2009.

There continues to be dialog about social media versus traditional media and how social replaces traditional…at least that’s from people who make their living with social media. Traditional media advocates are silent in fear of being labeled “old school.”

We think it’s the wrong argument. We think that social media has much more in common with traditional media than the new gurus would have you believe.

The key difference is the fact that two way communication can be much more powerful for good or bad. A bad magazine ad wastes money. A bad discourse between a brand and it’s social following can destroy the brand.

We’ve all seen companies who rush to Facebook or Twitter effort does nothing more than pimp product or company information. It’s amazing to us how the appreciation for the audience’s interests is ignored for self interest. More, they intrude on a space reserved for “friends.” Not for long though, the ignore button is easier than a DVRing past commercials. These efforts usually have few fans and most of the fans they have will be already connected with the organization sponsoring the effort.

The discussion between social media and traditional media should really be about how to integrate the two and magnify the effectiveness of each. At what stage of affinity does social media really kick into the equation? Does it happen at the awareness phase? Or, closer to the “I’ve bought and I love/hate it phase?” Which media is better at which point of affinity?

If you have a product that has caught fire and your customers can’t wait to tell others about it, social media can create awareness and demand. If you have a product that is a hard to love necessity of life, not so much.

If you’re struggling with the argument of social media versus traditional, take a moment and create a scale that goes from totally unaware to loyal customer. Ask yourself which media strategy makes sense at what point of the continuum? How do you move a prospect from totally unaware to in love of your product? Then make it all work together by connecting the dots between all the options you have on the table.

If you do that rather than rushing into ineffectiveness, you’ll have a cohesive plan that makes the most of your marketing dollar.