As the social space begins to mature and more attention is paid by marketers on how you can provide some type of measurement on your outreach efforts through social media channels, efforts are being made to define benchmarks for metrics. To that end, Joe Thornley, of Thornley Fallis Communications, has organized a Social Media Measurement Roundtable for May 20th, 2008 in Toronto. There are some very smart and accomplished people coming (yours truly included), and we will be spending the day debating and trying to establish “dashboards” for measurement and assembling the results in a white paper for social distribution. The participants hail from Communications, PR, Marketing, Analytics, and the social media space. Kudos to Joe & team for doing the heavy lifting and organizing this session.

As those who know me, or read my blog, are aware, I’m a wee bit of an oddity in the social media space because while recognizing the power (and necessity) of community, communications and honest engagement, I also come at the space from an integrated marketing standpoint and recognize the need for brands to continue to “brand”, that awareness still matters at a certain point in the interaction/funnel, that there will always be a “next” but history and context still matter, businesses need to sell stuff, and that the digital tools (and creative) used can impact the nature of the interaction… among other things! To that end, a few of the issues I’m very interested in talking about is interaction and engagement from the “time spent engaged”, “long-tail” & “opt-in” aspects. I’d also love to hear from the community on any questions or points you would like raised during the day-long session!

Leave a comment, drop me a line, or tweet @ me with your thoughts or insight… I’ll share results as we go, and plan on attending Third Tuesday Toronto (on yes, wait for it, a Tuesday this time! :)) and will be happy to chat further!

[photo credit: chrisjohnbeckett via flickr]

It’s the little things you do that can make a big difference. What are you attempting to accomplish? What little thing can you do today that will make you more effective? You are probably only one step away from greatness. ~ Bob Proctor

This week’s version focuses on customer service at two local eateries. One, a national chain, the other a mom & pop shop.As the old adage goes: the devil‚Äôs in the details‚Ķ how much are you paying attention to the details that matter to your customers?

The ‘little things’ that made a difference featuring Timothy’s and House of Cheung:

There is a Timothy’s location in my neighbourhood which is closer than the local Starbucks (my coffee brand of choice) so occasionally, if I’m in a rush or the weather isn’t cooperating, I’ll head over there. I’m by no means one of their loyal customers, but I still am one. Unfortunately the service just seems to get worse and worse each time I stop in. Buying a cup of coffee and a pound of beans should not take 15 mins and require repeating ones self 5 times to each of the two people behind the counter. And yes, I was the only person in line. (That example was only the most egregious one out of many).

The employees at this Timothy’s just don’t care about their jobs and it shows. I’ve never seen a manager or supervisor working the floor; the coffee beans displayed have been expired for a year; the employees don’t appear to know how to work the cash register; and on and on.

That is a training issue and a motivation issue, the product itself is fine. It can be fixed if management is motivated themselves to do so. Until that time my visits to Timothy’s will cease - the walk a few blocks further will do me good. Paying attention to things like how long it takes to complete an order and donating expired product vs. offering it for sale really do make a difference.

This experience is contrasted with House of Cheung a restaurant in Toronto. We found this restaurant when Kevin was looking for solid reviews online for Chinese food delivery (we moved from Chinatown area and the restaurants we used to frequent don’t deliver) and after fruitless searching with all the “review” sites came across a post on a message board [how old skool!] that sealed the deal. We ordered and the food was fantastic. A month went by and we placed an order again. Lo and behold the same gent who delivered the food the last time was the one who answered the phone and remembered Kevin and where we lived exactly. The least painful food order in history.

That kind of attention to detail comes from a deep regard for your customers and the product you are providing. Not all employees will have the same commitment as a restaurant owner, but if they feel empowered, respected and part of a team it will resonate back to the customers they are interacting with.

Needless to say House of Cheung is our Chinese food restaurant of choice from here on out.

{ps - check out the comments from the inaugural post, both Colin and Jonathan have two great posts that fit right into the “little things” meme}

[photo credit: +lyn on Flickr]

It was great being at SES Toronto this year and Andrew did a fantastic job as Chair! Lots of juicy tips, tactics and strategies for building SEO through social media.

The talk I gave on Day 2 (the last speaker even!) was slightly off the beaten path from the other presentations which focused on specific tools and tactics for spreading word of mouth online. I went back to basics and spoke about the fundamentals of building true and long-term WOM, planning and ensuring you find the strategy that fits for your brand. My presentation, for those interested, can be downloaded here. My fellow speakers, Rand, Helen and Neil had some valuable tactics in their ppt’s so if you can track down copies of their decks I would recommend it!

If you were at the conference and attended either the Site Clinic session or the “Get Dugg” session, I’d love to hear your feedback… is there something you wished I had expanded on? Or scaled back?

I’m looking forward to next year already! :)

[Photo Credit: John Cohen on Flickr]

SES Toronto 2007; Search Engine Strategies Toronto; Andrew Goodman; Neil Patel; Rand Fishkin; Helen Overland

I’m spending the next two days at Search Engine Strategies Toronto where I’ll be part of the “Site Clinic” panel today and the Get Dugg WOM panel. If you’re in the neighbourhood stop by and say hello! The conference appears to be rock solid this year and has something searchie-goodness for everyone.

I’m not one for live blogging, but hopefully we’ll have a few bloggers on hand to provide summaries as we go for those not attending this year.

SES Toronto; Search Engine Strategies Conference

Alas, it has been a while since I got a post up here and for that I apologize. I can only say that it’s been a whirlwind three weeks with TFC (all good of course!) and I’ll be back soon with a couple of posts I have on the backburner.

In the meantime, ICE 2007, the “Interactive Content Exchange” is happening on March 21/22 at the Carlu in Toronto, where I will be the panel: It Had to Be ‘You’ the afternoon of the 22nd.

From the abstract -

There’s no doubt that Social Media is big business - and big business has taken note. News Corp. bought MySpace. Google bought YouTube. Yahoo bought Flickr. Are these the new ‘mainstream media’ of social media? And if so, what’s coming next on the fringes? ‚Ķ or is social media looking for a direction?

That’s one tiny piece of the conference which covers Mobile, Broadband, Games and Social Media. With over 100 top-notch speakers, it should be an informative and enriching two days.

There will also be pre-event podcasts from some speakers, or “ICE Cubes” as Alan has dubbed them :) - details to come.

To round out the social nature of a bunch of people getting together to talk shop, TFC is hosting (per Joe: it is a collaborative effort - see the comments) Third Tuesday as usual on Tuesday the 20th Wed the 21st. Based on the turnout for last month’s it should be a packed house. Check Meetup.com for details on the venue and to RSVP.

See you there!

Tags: ICE 07; Third Tuesday Toronto