Disqus - Latest Comments for briantroy

Re: 4 Reasons The Social Media Industry Has a Credibility Problem

briantroy — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 14:48:54 -0000

Since you asked - specifically - what we'd add I'd offer the following.
Instead of lecturing business about how the "don't get it" and need to "change everything" maybe we should be thinking about how to apply SoMe to business and solve the problems they've already got. Particularly where small businesses are concerned, the last thing they need is some schmuck telling them they've got another problem (didn't we just get SEO taken care of... now I'll go out of business if I don't "do" SoMe?).

Maybe it is time we got business fundamentals first (because they HAVE NOT changed) and SoMe second.

Re: Marketing: Find a Real Need and Fill It

briantroy — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 14:43:14 -0000

Honestly, this may be your best post ever.

Instead of solving real problems too many of us are absorbed with the venal (go freemium and get lots of users fast) and the self absorbed.

The irony is, I was just thinking about getting several of the smartest people I know together and tackle a real, tough, meaningful problem. Something like - how do we truly enable remote work and take a huge chunk out of the energy problem? Or, how can we fundamentally change education by re-thinking how we distribute knowledge from "teachers" to "students"?

These are the new "big problems" - how to generate more (and more annoying) faux marketing models are not.

Re: The Social Customer Strikes Again

briantroy — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 23:47:37 -0000

There are two components here:

1) Addressing customer issues.
This is the no-brainer. If the owner cares about the market, her/his customers and maintaing the business SCRM can and should be used for detecting and handling loyalty events.
Some people think this is the big win... I disagree.
2) Continuous process improvement.
Companies don't go out of business because of a big PR event... they go out of business because they move farther and farther away from providing the market with what the market wants. One way this happens is by doing lots of small bad things (like a unclear $2 overcharge) over and over again. If you think about it, this is probably why you quit brands... at some point you just say "Why am I putting myself through this?".

SCRM (not that I buy SCRM as the name of the segment... but whatever) is really truly suited to helping businesses, big and small, understand the market better. What pisses them off, what makes them ecstatic? What do our competitors do really well... and not so well? What do we do really well... and not so well? In the answers lie the ability to better address the needs of your target market - and win market share.

Or, you can call the customer a pain in the ass. Wonder why "Joey's place" does so much better when "we are far superior" and quietly drift out of business.

BTW - if the customer service was the issue, there is NOTHING that can be done now. Customer service can save operational mistakes... but it is hard to use Customer Service to save bad Customer Service revealed by operational mistakes.

Re: Social Media Analytics for Small Business: Still Missing in Action

briantroy — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 19:24:01 -0000

Jay -

The only thing I'd add to what you and Francine have already said is that for the majority of Small Businesses the primary metric is survival. Old fashion incomes exceeding out-goes.
Once they get past that... it is all about acquisition. We've all seen startups go from "man I really need more customers" to "crap, now I have a bunch of customers... what do I do with them?".

Acquire, Customer Loyalty and Delivering on the needs of your target market. 3 simple things for Small Businesses. Not a Social Media Strategy, but harnessing Social Media in the support of those 3 things.

Brian

Re: Social Media Analytics for Small Business: Still Missing in Action

briantroy — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 19:15:34 -0000

AMEN. What I don't see in the report is anything about Actionable Intelligence for the things businesses already need to do. You know, stuff like acquire customers, keep customers, understand what potential customers want from them (target market fit).
The fundamentals haven't change - so the question is, how does Social Media help me do the things I already need to do for my business?

That question drives my roadmap for justSignal... and I look forward to sharing our new features and tools as we roll them out in the coming months.

Brian

Re: Are You Solving Your Customer’s Problem – Or Just Selling What You’ve Got?

briantroy — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:20:51 -0000

I think that's right Jim - and more importantly, if you are trying to build a real business knowing what problem you are solving and for whom makes all the other fundamental questions much easier to answer:
1) Who is your target market?
2) What is the value proposition?
3) What is your differentiator?
4) What is your durable competitive advantage?

Re: Social Media and Email – More Alike than Different

briantroy — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:27:41 -0000

For many companies - who look at Social Media as a new way to reach prospects - you are exactly right. Follow/fan/friend is just opt-in - and all you've done is agreed to be sent direct marketing.
I'm actually pretty certain that by the end of this year the "marketing" end of Social Media will be rolling into integrated direct marketing - with vendors like Infusionsoft beginning to expand from email and postcards to include Facebook, Twitter, Buzz, etc.
We need to start talking about Social Media as product (for those brands with high social utility) and Social Media as a method to improve execution (think Six Sigma or Toyota Production System).
Those two areas are a lot more interesting than the devolution of Social Media into direct marketing.

As an aside - if Social Media becomes just a Direct Marketing platform - I predict a significant backlash.

Re: The Chicken and the Egg Social Media Conundrum

briantroy — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:36:20 -0000

Alternate Title: Hey Marketing - Welcome to the World of Product Management

There is little doubt that you've got this one right Jay. What I find so interesting is that now Marketing has to play by product rules. It is about Target Market Fit - or more simply: What problem are you trying to solve and for whom (specifically).
Traditionally marketing has been exempt from those rules - they simply took the output (soccer moms between the ages of 26 and 34 with more disposable income than time) and sought to broadcast the message via mediums that already had those eyeballs.
Where "social" marketing differs is that marketing now needs to earn those eyeballs (What problem are you solving?) by producing content valuable to the target market. Then, and only then, can they get the marketing message across.
I actually see this as a benefit to both the company and the consumer - finally we will have a consistent message, value proposition and perhaps even tactics across the business execution cycle. Marketing can (and will) act as a partner with product management providing insights into the wants, needs and aspirations of the target market.
Just imagine how powerful it will be for companies that buy in and have product and marketing pulling on the same rope in the same direction.

Re: In Arizona – Education is now an Option

briantroy — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 12:23:18 -0000

As I said - more money doesn't solve all the problems.
More importantly, what I'm speaking to is creating a sound tax policy - cut taxes under every possible economic circumstance isn't a sound tax policy.
Creating a sound economic policy (nevermind the whole democratic system of government) requires a well educated population. As much as we'd like to believe cutting taxes ensures a robust economy - it simply isn't true or sustainable.
Shifting the tax burden to a national tax is simply a tax increase... why not do it in the state or local government instead? Why not a state property tax pool that can be dispensed per student (instead of staying in the district from which it was generated).

Listen - We have to fix the flawed priorities, we have to fix the poor funding decisions that the local schools make (sports over music/arts) - but defunding education isn't the answer.

Re: Social Media ROI – The Believers and Non-Believers

briantroy — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 11:59:04 -0000

I actually believe it is more complex. Most companies (in my experience) are looking for guidance and help with ROI. It is the Social Media practitioners (i.e., experts) who suggest that social media activities need not be held to an ROI that trouble me. My take is that there are two things involved:
1) They don't want to be held accountable for specific measures of success.
2) They want Social Media to "fundamentally change how companies do business" - which, for them, impies that they should do it regardless of ROI.

Re: Social Media ROI – The Believers and Non-Believers

briantroy — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 11:52:53 -0000

KD - I was very careful in my post to call out that I have no in depth knowledge of your position "KD Paine – of whom I have no previous knowledge – is one of the believers (at least for the purposes of this post)."

This post was a response to those who throw up their hands and say either we shouldn't have to ROI Social Media or that it can't be done.

I certainly was not suggesting you fell into that category.

Re: Social Media ROI – The Believers and Non-Believers

briantroy — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:13:14 -0000

As you point out (and as I did a previous post) you have got to know what outcome you are trying to achieve.
Social Media is extremely measurable - and ROI shouldn't be a problem at all. What I'm reacting to is the "well, it isn't really important that we are able to ROI this... you should just do it because it worked for..."

Re: A Simple Prescription for Social Media ROI

briantroy — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:07:45 -0000

Thanks Jim - Proximate Cause is an important concept for formulation of ROI and is already widely used and accepted in enterprises.
As importantly, folks have to stop trying to ROI on metrics that do not have a direct and hard value. That dog just won't hunt.

Re: Social Media Metrics Mean Nothing

briantroy — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:56:51 -0000

In some ways we can draw parallels between our current "political process" and Social Media metrics. Sadly politics has become a game of sentiment where "winning" is getting elected over and over again. In effect, reelection is the outcome metric - so why are we surprised when they fail to consider silly things like "make the country better" or "solve important problems" in favor of "increase my contributions" and "energize my base".

Just like I'd expect any company that ran itself that way to have some pretty sizable issues... I expect the same for the country until we actually begin holding our elected representatives accountable to some rational outcome metrics.

Re: Social Media to be Adopted as an Enterprise Solution in 2010 – Isn’t it?

briantroy — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:53:19 -0000

Not sure I agree with the title...

I'm of the opinion that 2010 is the year of measurement, meaning and metrics. Only after we have those things can we truly begin to allow enterprises to formulate ROI, outcome metrics and sustainable initiatives for using Social Media to improve their CORE METRICS (sales, revenue, profit, etc).

You said "... all the while monitoring the things that can be monitored, applying a return-on-investment metric to the data and thus being able to manage what kind of incremental return they can create..." - that is the money phrase and the real point.

Less anecdotes, more metrics.

Re: I’m glad I’m not President Obama

briantroy — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:46:06 -0000

Not everything CAN OR SHOULD happen in real time. Rome wasn't built (or sacked) in a day...

Settle down people... there are no straight lines, instant gratification or easy & fast solutions.

Re: The great IMAP migration…

briantroy — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:07:35 -0000

Yes, this post is getting pretty old, but I'm glad you were able to figure out how to get it to work with newer versions of the tools.

Re: E-Mail Marketing Suppliers, can you do this?

briantroy — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:43:09 -0000

Your frustration is understandable... and may be the Achilles heel of many Software as a Service or "Cloud Computing" vendors. Really, this is nothing new... vendors lock you out of your data and provide you "features" to see what they've decided you need to see.

I contend that the most interesting (and valuable in terms of ROI) questions are those that are unique to you and your business. That is why my company - justSignal http://justsignal.com - is built on the principal that your data is yours.

Want to pull it all out every hour and put it in your reporting database? No problem.

Re: How to Use Twitter and Asterisk for Call Notification

briantroy — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:03:45 -0000

Joseph -
Thanks for letting me know. I've added a link to the script in a zip file. Let me know if you have any issues with that.

Brian

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/09/social-media-is-infrastructure-pr.html

briantroy — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:36:18 -0000

Louis -

I had hugely high hopes for this post... I thought you might really address the title you chose. Here is why:
I really think Social Media IS INFRASTRUCTURE. Companies will use it to do the things they already have to do (communicate, support, service, lead gen., product management, etc) using a new valuable set of input. Where Social Media will really impact business will be from the ability to drive information found in social media into every decision making process in the company.

You can't do that with trite "sentiment tools" or vague "social index metrics". You can do that by mining out what your customers would like to see in the next product release, or the quick and easy things you can do to make flying your airline a better experience.
I know that isn't as sexy as "brand sentiment" or "share of voice" - but it is where the rubber meets the road and (I'm convinced) where the ROI for Social Media in business lives.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/08/twitter-to-embrace-retweeting-releases.html

briantroy — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:20:57 -0000

The HUGE disappointment from all of this is that it appears the search API was left out. If this fails to appear in Search AND the Search API the vast majority of the utility will be lost. ReTweets in my timeline are great... but ReTweets on topics I search for are what really matters...

Re: Mission accomplished – VoIP Softphone for Mac

briantroy — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:38:34 -0000

I agree... I'd assume it is a simple change. As far as DND goes my solution for that is command +q (quit the app). Amazingly effective :)

DND should be easy for them to implement as well... From what I've been told by others the DEVs are very responsive.

Re: Mission accomplished – VoIP Softphone for Mac

briantroy — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:25:22 -0000

Sadly, no... That is my one gripe with the applicaiton.

If you have multiple registrations (lines) it is very difficult to tell - while the phone is ringing - which registration (line) the call is coming in on. That is because is simply says "incoming call on line X" - which means I'd have to remember which of my registrations was on which line. I have not contacted the developer about this... but if it is really a problem for you that is exactly what I'd do.

Thanks!

Brian

Re: The State Of Social Media Measurement (aka Brand Monitoring and Listening Platforms)

briantroy — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:15:42 -0000

I get troubled by the notion that there will be a ranking/scoring algorithm for Social Media akin to Page Rank or Nielsen - simply because that system will inevitably be mired in the mess that is authority and influence. I get that rank is what the PR/Marketing crowd wants, and I understand why, I just doubt the efficacy of any such ranking.
More to my point, we tend to seek a single "lever to pull" which directly results in revenue (sales) - but that is a myth. The reality is - what generates and keeps customers is consistent execution across a business. As you put it, it is the decision making processes. More importantly, it is the quality with which those decision making processes accurately reflect the needs/wants of the target market across the spectrum of business activities.

Understanding who the influencers/authorities are is important, but it is far more important to do the right things based on the insights gained. Doing that enables the influencers to to carry your message for you with authenticity and credibility. Putting influencers/authorities in your pocket and failing to execute the on the insight is just more top down marketing.

For my money - it is all about the insights applied across the business.

Re: The State Of Social Media Measurement (aka Brand Monitoring and Listening Platforms)

briantroy — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:59:56 -0000

The best part of this post was the last sentence. "It will find its greatest success by subtly integrating into the morphing DNA of numerous business and decision-making processes."

My theory is that this space (call it what you will) will follow a very similar trajectory to that of CRM. Very little of the initial hype will become real-world ROI. The ROI will come from companies - as you put it - integrating it into existing business and decision-making processes. The challenge (as I see it) is for vendors in this space to stop trying to tell them all the questions and all the answers. The only questions that matter are those that matter in decision-making processes that already exist - to the extent this "source" can help inform those processes it will be adopted and generate ROI.

So I totally disagree that "point solution" applications answering specific questions will dominate... as a matter of fact, I'd argue that success will depend on the ability to ask un-anticipated questions and extract information.