Using Simply Measured to Drive Social Media ROI with Measuring and Planning

Neal Schaffer: 0:00

Hey, welcome to maximize your social actionable advice on how your business can maximize your social media presence. Now, the host of maximize your social, social media author, speaker, consultant, founder of maximize social business through social media center of excellence, and the social tools Summit, Neal Schaffer. Hello, everybody, this is Neal Schaffer, welcome to another episode of maximize your social Well, we're in the lead up to social tools summit happening may 12, in Boston. And we're having some great conversations with some of our gold sponsors that are really providing a lot of invaluable advice to all of us. And today is going to be no different because I have on the line, someone from one of my favorite tools companies simply measured. It's funny, I remember going to Social Media Week in Los Angeles, and this was a few years ago, actually. But I'll never forget when someone asked the speaker who is a agency CEO, you know, what do you do for reporting? How do you analyze and you know, what do you deliver to your clients? And the CEO literally said, I'll give you the answer. In two words, simply measured, it has everything and anything you could possibly ask for. So when I think of those tools, companies that are true leaders in their field, and I think a social media analytics, and I'm sure a lot of you are nodding your head, we think is simply measured. So before I keep going on about simply measuring, I want them to describe their tool and the value they provide in their own words. So without further ado, I'm going to introduce to you Ron shot Ron, welcome to the podcast.

Ron Schott: 1:35

Thanks for having me, Neil, really excited, really, really jacked about getting over there and talking with some of the great minds at the at the summit, it's gonna be really awesome. And looking forward to it. Yeah, you

Neal Schaffer: 1:45

know, I can't wait to have you as well. And you're going to be on a great panel, which is really the the business value of social and really the panel that's closest to talking about social media ROI. So up to talk about that, before we get there, can you sort of describe your role at simply measured?

Ron Schott: 1:59

Yeah, so I'm the director of our professional services team. And that team is actually really cool, especially for me, I come from an X agency background, and our Proserv team is actually kind of like an agency within simply measured, we do a ton of customization work, a ton of data integration work, if you guys know much about our tool. If you do, Neil, you know, we do a great job of social data we're working in like pushing on those edge cases, bringing in new data from sales and from web, matching that up with social data and giving people a deeper look at what's going on with their marketing.

Neal Schaffer: 2:31

That's great. And you know, as I look at your LinkedIn profile, I see that your CEO has the term data geek is professional brand. And and I think that describes, you know, a lot of the people that I've talked to from simply imagine as being true data geeks in a good way. So you know, we talked about analytics, and you know, I wrote a book on social media strategy, maximize your social. And when I talk about social media ROI myself, I, you know, it all comes down to the KPIs and metrics, the analytics and measuring. And I know that simply measure does more than that, obviously, they do that very well. So tell me when when you work with companies that have never heard of simply measured? How do you talk about the value that you know, your suite of tools, your Professional Services offers them?

Ron Schott: 3:10

Totally, so we really try to do things simply, here's something measured. So you know, we've started kind of breaking things down into two distinct areas, when we're talking with people for the very first time talking about the difference between analytics and publishing is usually one of the first things we jump into. Because, you know, there are so many suites out there, and there's some great, great tools out there in the market. But we want to very clearly say that like what we do is, is social analytics, we help people measure and then plan about what they should be doing and social. So that's usually where we start. And like I said, we try to do it very, very simply.

Neal Schaffer: 3:43

So measuring and planning. And it's true that the social media dashboards or sweets, whatever you want to call them do have their own analytics, although it usually compared to something like the report that I can get from simply measured for one single social network is usually lacking. Unfortunately, that's not their strength, right? their strengths really are publishing. So tell me, you know, we you talked about the measure part? What about that planning part? Because I think that's something that's really missed out by people and when, after measuring what they do with the data?

Ron Schott: 4:12

Definitely, that's, you know, I think that's an area where we can make the biggest impact. And that's where my team, the professional services team spends a ton of time focusing is how do we take the data? You know, I mean, these people who have been using simply measure it for years and years have just mounds and mounds and mounds of data in our system? How can we help them use our reports, and use, you know, even customized reports to help them better plan for what they're doing in the future, rather than just measuring what happens after the fact? You know, my big thing again, I come from an agency background was like, I want to be spending money and time on the things are going to drive the biggest ROI for us. So how do we even know what those are? If we're not, you know, measuring on one end, but then using that, again, to plan and optimize going forward.

Neal Schaffer: 4:53

So tell me as far as the data that you can access for the measuring obviously, any archive data, you have your cost customers across all their networks, I'm assuming that's part of it. Do you also pull in sort of like competitive data as well, if they had set it up in the system correctly, and you have the archive?

Ron Schott: 5:09

Definitely a lot of our clients are tracking competitors. You know, benchmarking is a very good way for them to know, even just, you know, kind of anecdotally, like, how are they doing in their market? How are they doing in their vertical? Or are there even like aspirational brands that they want to try to be like, can they look at those people bring their data and this will be measured, and then use that as a kind of a benchmark as they're going forward?

Neal Schaffer: 5:28

What about you mentioned bringing in data like throughout the company? So what other API's I don't know if it's if it's speaking other tools or what have you, but what other data outside of that social data are you starting to bring in for customized reporting?

Ron Schott: 5:41

So on the on the customer side, it's a lot of web analytics that we're talking with people about. So we're talking about things like Omniture, core metrics, you know, customize Google Analytics, we have Google Analytics, kind of the vanilla implementation already in simply measured, along with Bitly, and Alchemy API in the cloud API as well. But we're, you know, we're kind of edging out in those cases where people are looking more business solutions are looking more business goals, rather than specifically social goals. And so for us to tie those things back to, you know, end action, basket size, things like that, that's ultimately where we want to be getting to.

Neal Schaffer: 6:13

And that's great. So I know that you already work with a number of the leading companies in the world, are there any case studies of brands that have been able to glean pretty unique insights that they've been able to put back into the planning, and they've achieved, you know, amazing results from that you can share.

Ron Schott: 6:33

In terms of brand names, some of those are obviously a little bit under wraps. But I can say we have, we have a number of our larger publishing clients, many that you probably visit every day, that are using our tools to then figure out you know, not only what type of stories are driving the most online interactions, and pageviews, and things like that, but what type of social content is better driving people to those stories? So there's a lot of times where a story or a headline when it's posted on Facebook, or Twitter actually drives a ton of conversation on those platforms. But maybe the actual click through isn't that great. So something was obviously catching someone's eye. But it wasn't enough to get them to go to the story. They're able to then like, look at different posting types, look at different ways that they're posting and see which types of content are driving better on site metrics, which ultimately to them, are their bread and butter.

Neal Schaffer: 7:21

Gotcha. Then when you integrate that with conversion funnels, and what have you, you have complete visibility, right. And you know, what you need to do more of, and I think that's sort of the holy grail that companies tried to get out through piecing together, you know, different tools, and it takes a lot of time and it you know, I don't think they're able to see that complete picture like that you could do is simply measured. Tell me, what are some of the latest we hear, obviously, about the continued increase of use of Snapchat, Instagram becoming more important, even like Tumblr, Google Plus, tell us about the latest social networks that simply measures been working on?

Ron Schott: 7:53

Yeah, so we've done a lot in the way of Pinterest lately, adding Pinterest, to our cross channel reports. Every day, or Instagram reporting gets more and more robust. And I think you're going to see that continue to get more robust as we move on. A great report that we've had for some time was actually our final report. And to be quite honest, it was only as useful as the people using Vine. And, and that report is actually getting more and more useful as you're actually seeing an increase in people using Vine as well, because people are kind of dabbling back into these different networks. The biggest things that we're really focusing on for some of our larger clients, and we're getting asked about are things like international networks, you know, your Sina, Weibo, your WeChat, things like that, as US brands are like pushing outside their borders and starting to think about how they're going to, you know, interact with these people digitally across the world.

Neal Schaffer: 8:42

Have you integrated already? Are you have anything you can announce now, or that's

Ron Schott: 8:45

nothing that we can announce. Now, one of the great things about being a professional services team is that we're not 100% beholden exactly to where we're at with our larger product. And, you know, so sometimes we're the ones that get called in to do that stuff. Right,

Neal Schaffer: 9:00

right. Tell me a little bit about and I know you released it with with a lot of fanfare, maybe a year ago, the ability to measure Facebook presence globally across the multiple fan pages within an organization.

Ron Schott: 9:11

Totally, I mean, that our global fan page report is incredible. And actually the way that our data team on the back end, the guys who don't get all the fanfare, a lot of the time worked to structure how we bring in and report on global page data. That's actually it's huge, you know, when we're working with clients like Microsoft and others that have presences all around the world and not only just for one product, but for many products like reporting becomes a big, big time suck for them. But being able to see these things and an all up dashboard structure and see how the different you know realities are actually contributing to the overall success of a program is incredible.

Neal Schaffer: 9:48

Yeah, that that is incredible. And I was really blown away with that announcement because if you don't have simply measure it, how do you how do you even go about measuring off that right? So pretty incredible. Let me ask are you doing or is simply mentioned looking at the paid social market, Facebook ads, Twitter ads and trying to add that into I mean, you, you're measuring everything else, right? I'm just curious if you've been doing work on that, or you already have things about that.

Ron Schott: 10:12

Definitely. So our Facebook and Twitter ad products are continuing to evolve. Facebook ads is one of those areas where we came out fairly, fairly early, and we're doing a lot in terms of evolving those reports. I think you're gonna, you're gonna see some great stuff there. Our end goal is to offer that full planning and measurement across all social and digital channels, whether it's paid or, or owner, and, and you know, that's really the area where we're aiming right now.

Neal Schaffer: 10:39

That's great. Yeah, I mean, I do the, I won't say the line is blurring. But it's almost if, if you have a Facebook presence, it's almost the best practice that you're using paid social Reddit. I remember one one stat that said 94% of marketers with a Facebook fan page are actually advertising on it or have advertised on it. So it's almost mainstream, right? So if someone is interested in looking at simply measured, I know that you offer a ton of free downloads you authorize your get. So is that really the best way to get started? Or is there a different way? Or what would you recommend?

Ron Schott: 11:08

Yeah, that's probably the best way to wait in I would say one of the best things that I've always loved this about simply measuring before I came here was our blog, and the content that we put out, we have an awesome team of people and writers for our blog, including people across the company, we have engineers and analysts that write for a blog as well, like the content on there, I think it's enough to get you hooked. From there, we do have some some free reports that you guys can go and check out download and like they actually work. They're not just, you know, click on this thing. And we serve you up some dummy data like these are actual reports that you can run on accounts. And from there, you're probably going to get a call from one of our awesome salespeople, and they can walk you through the process.

Neal Schaffer: 11:46

That's great. Yeah, and I should also point out to everyone listening, that it's not just the blog, but simply measured, regularly publishes amazing ebooks, and reports, filled of stats and data. So if you're trying to, you know, analyze, where you should be investing your money in terms of the social network, if you're trying to create benchmarks, those free reports can actually be used for that informations. And I know a lot of people use them for that. So thank you simply make sure we're providing those those, you know, really industry standard type of content. I'm Ron, I know, I'm really looking forward to meeting you. We're only a few weeks out anything else you want to add about simply measured,

Ron Schott: 12:24

I would just say that, you know, you guys can always check us out on social at simply measured on pretty much all the major networks there. And when you're in town and Boston, you know, if you guys are going to be tweeting along with the event, feel free to tweet questions at us. If you're not one of those people that wants to get up in front of the room and ask a question. That's always a good way to do it. I think we're gonna have a great conversation there. So I wouldn't encourage you to actually stand up and become part of it the room, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Neal Schaffer: 12:51

Yeah. Thanks, Ron. And I think one of the takeaways from this conversation, I mean, obviously, the most important takeaway is that simply measure continues to lead the field and continues to expand on what they do to provide more value to their customers, but thinking about not only using data for measuring and for ROI, or what have you, but feeding that back into the planning process. And regardless of what tool hopefully you'll you'll be using simply measured. But regardless of what tool you use, I think that's something critical that we all need to be doing more of. So Ron, I thank you for your time today. We'll see you real soon in Boston and for everybody, wherever you are listening the world. Thank you again and make it a great social Day. Bye Bye, everybody. Thanks for listening to maximize your social. We appreciate all of your iTunes subscriptions, ratings and comments. If you would like to appear on this show or recommend content, please contact Neal Schaffer at Neal at maximize your social.com Please also make sure to check out Neil's new community, this Social Media Center of Excellence at social media ce o e.com. As well as Neil's first social media event, this social tool Summit, which will be in Boston on May 12. And in the Bay Area this fall. Thanks again and make it a social day.