ZimmComm – New Media, LLC

You know the world of communications has changed. You know it’s about more than having a static web page that you only update every six months. You know your customers, family and friends are all “on Facebook and Twitter.” You know your company should be engaged with people using these mechanisms. But you’re afraid. At least that’s what’s being reported on eMarketer.

But fears still abound. Online retailers remain worried about their own competence at using social media and losing control of their brand.

The primary social media goal of the retailers surveyed was to increase customer engagement, followed by boosting brand loyalty and spurring word-of-mouth among brand advocates.

But I say, “Be Not Afraid.” If you don’t have the expertise to utilize social media then look to your staff or a company like ours to outsource your “engagement practices.” I’m not sure how you would lose control of your brand. Are you sure you have control now? Your customers or members are going to talk about you (online and person to person) and say whatever they want. You don’t have control of that. That’s what social media is all about. People communicating with other people. You need to be there. So get with the program!

After writing about how marketers anguish over web numbers I came across this book and highly recommend it. Perhaps it will help you and your boss better understand what this “new media thing” is all about. It’s Mitch Joel’s “Six Pixels Of Separation.” I got it yesterday and believe it will help those of you who are over concerned about numbers and ROI of new media. Get it and let’s read it together.

We no longer live in the world of Six Degrees of Separation. We’re down to Six Pixels of Separation. Everyone is a simple Google search away.

We are all intrinsically connected. Mitch Joel unravels the fascinating world of new media and how it is changing business as we know it. Written in business language for business people, Six Pixels of Separation is a book about why these changes happened and what you can do about them to make your business grow. If everyone around you is asking what you’re doing on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and you’re still concerned about that newspaper ad you will be running next week, this book is the perfect business primer for you.

Does web analytics give you a headache? Do you have anyone on your staff who has training in how to understand web analytics? If you don’t then you’re not unusual. A story today on eMarketer provides some survey results about what marketers are thinking on this subject.

To prove the success of their campaigns, marketers need analytics. But many report frustration with understanding and using the Web analytics tools necessary to prove their success to management, according to “The Web Analytics War Reader Survey” by Unica.

The biggest challenge for marketers was integrating Web analytics with other marketing solutions, cited by 46% of respondents. Verifying the accuracy of data was a problem for 41% of marketers, while 32% reported trouble with analytics that were not comprehensive and 29% complained of budgets that were too small.

I take exception to the statement above about analytics proving success. If by analytics they mean just web analytics. By this I mean that just because I can deliver a ton of impressions (visits, visitors, clicks, click throughs, etc.) it doesn’t mean the company sold anything. But how often does an agency or marcomm staff member justify an investment by providing a report that says, “We spent X$’s and got a story that aired on 200 radio stations, a feature in a publication with 100,000 “subscribers” and a web banner or post that had 10,000 visitors.” Wow. Sounds good. But what was the result? Did they sell more? Did that story actually air on those stations? Who listened? Did every subscriber read the feature in that magazine? Did every web visitor see and/or click through on the banner or post? How often do you get that much detail? Ever?

I want to find out how you agrimarketers are tackling this issue. What metrics do you want from the web? What is meaningful? What form do you want it in? Are there certain services or software you prefer? If you place a banner ad, what do you want reported to you? How often do you need to see information? What do you consider reasonable?

This is a very important issue in today’s new media world and one that I have spent countless hours researching and discussing. As ZimmComm has developed online communities that revolve around a blog I don’t think reporting unique website visitors is very helpful for you in evaluating an investment in an advertising order. Why? Because there are over 12 other measurements that have nothing to do with website visitors that need to be considered. Here’s an example:

Let’s look at one day’s traffic on our AgWired site. It can be as high as 1,000 unique visitors. If I post your story does that mean that only 1,000 people saw it? No way!!!!! Consider that there are almost 1,000 subscribers to the AgWired RSS feed. They may not visit the site. That’s part of the value of the RSS feed. Consider that every post goes to my Twitter account with almost 1,600 followers and that every time one of my tweets is re-tweeted, it is seen by their followers. Consider that Twitter feeds my Facebook profile where I have 350 friends. Consider that this also updates my FriendFeed. Consider that the images or video I’m using in the story may be included in my Flickr or YouTube account. Consider that there are over 40 other websites that have installed the AgWired widget which displays homepage posts on their website. I’m not even counting the other less used social networking mechanisms I’m utilizing like Posterous, MySpace, etc.

But even beyond the above, what about the search engine aspect of all those places on the web that I have posted/distributed content that are now showing up in key word search results or key word news alerts? What about all the people who are re-publishing my information or sending it to their friends, neighbors and colleagues? Of course now you’ll ask the question, “Who are these visitors?” That’s a topic for another post.

Yeah. It adds up and all the sudden the total number of impressions for that one post could grow from the initial 1,000 unique visitor impressions to as many as 5,000 impressions. In fact, this number may only be good for just that one day or point in time. All our stories are archived. We never delete them. How much higher will that number grow within the next week, month and year?

This is what I’m talking about. This is what we do and excel at. This is what we preach and this is what can help grow your brand.

I’ve been holding off on new posts here on ZimmComm.biz while we decide about some major changes to the site. Those are in the process of being developed and I decided it’s time to provide some updates about what’s going on in the ZimmComm world.

To start with, we can’t say enough good about our relationship with Dave Larson and Larson Enterprises. In just a few months, with Dave’s assistance, we have obtained a number of new clients who are utilizing our services and websites. He’s keeping us busier than ever and our schedule is filling up for the next few months.

I’ll start more regular posting here and bring you more up to date on ZimmComm activities in coming days.