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.

One of the biggest factors impacting Millennials is the impact of a college education and financing that education.  Study after study shows that the college graduate is likely to make a million dollars more than the non-college graduate over the course of their lifetime.

Yet this economy has millennial graduates questioning the wisdom of their decision.  Jobs are scarce and student loan payments come due every month.  A COUNTRY Financial survey noted that 31 percent of Americans have borrowed money to finance their educations. Nearly two-thirds have paid off their obligation and only 16 percent said it had a significant impact on their decision making.

Forty percent of Millennials indicate that their student loans have a significant impact on their lives, a full 24 percent difference from the general population.  This differential is either an indication of the impact of the economy on Millennial mindsets, or an indication that pain mellows with time, or both.

Millennials have been described as the coddled, everyone gets a trophy generation and maybe some of that is true.  What certainly is not true, is that this generation is being welcomed into the workforce with open checkbooks.  The economic conditions may, in the end, be more formative on attitudes and work habits of Millennials than most other factors.

They have been forced to be thrifty and conservative with their dollars.  As a result, they may look more than most generations at the true value of the things they buy.  Cheap and good brands like Jimmy John’s and Chipotle Mexican Grill are well positioned to compete for the Millennial fast food dollar.

Cheap and good poses a wholly different challenge for higher education.   The four year university must build value in the four year experience to justify the cost.  It must realize that the college experience is much more than just going to Biology 101.  It is everything involved in helping a young Millennial grow into an adult with potential, dreams and ability.  The result of that experience is the reason students paint their bodies to cheer on their team.

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.

We thought it would be interesting to talk to a few golfers about Tiger Woods and his current situation…especially as it relates to a lucrative Nike contract. So we went to the Longview Golf Centre with a camera and a list of questions. This video is what a few golfers said about the situation. We’d love to hear your thoughts.

What would you do if you were the Marketing Director of Nike Golf?