RonAmok!

For the past two years, this blog has discussed a theory that Audience is an Asset that should be carried on a company’s balance sheet as opposed to the commonly held belief that social media should be tracked as P&L. Over time, the theory has been refined through other posts, such as: Valuating Your Social Media Asset, Social Media is a Mutual Fund and Assets Produce Distributions.

Yet, to be blunt, no matter how much I write, lecture, or consult on this concept, most folks still look at me as if I have two heads. “That’s a nice thought, Ron, but what do I tell my boss when asked about ROI?” Unfortunately, I’ve come to understand that as long as social media budgets are controlled by those afflicted with Communications Myopia, the value of investments in social media activities will remain underestimated–that is, right up until some event forces some of those assumptions to be revisited.

This morning, I read about such an event in the New York Times article: A Dispute Over Who Owns a Twitter Account Goes to Court. The article describes how a company (PhoneDog.com) is suing a former employee (Noah Kravitz) for control over the Twitter audience that he built while working for them.

Originally tweeting under the Twitter handle @Phonedog_Noah, Kravitz had successfully built an audience of over 17,000 followers. Since Twitter allows a user to change their handle without jeopardizing that audience, after leaving Phonedog.com, Kravitz changed his handle to @NoahKravitz. Eight months later, Phonedog.com filed a lawsuit against Kravitz, claiming $340,000 in damages [(17,000 followers) x ($2.50/follower/month) x (8 months)].

Phonedog.com released the following statement to the Times:

“The costs and resources invested by PhoneDog Media into growing its followers, fans and general brand awareness through social media are substantial and are considered property of PhoneDog Media L.L.C. We intend to aggressively protect our customer lists and confidential information, intellectual property, trademark and brands.”

In a nutshell, Phonedog.com isn’t suing him for the handle, which has their brand in it, but instead is seeking to “aggressively protect” its assets (property, fans, followers, lists, trademark). Sound familiar?

There’s an old saying that says: “You don’t appreciate what you have ’til it’s gone.” Phonedog.com now has a new appreciation for its social media assets. What about your company? Is it still trying to figure out the ROI of a blog post, tweet, or YouTube video? Or has it come to the conclusion that its investments in social media are compounding into long-term marketable assets?

This summer, I started writing a book called The Rule of Thumbs. Named after a blog post that I wrote ten months ago, the book covers the research that I’ve been conducting since I wrote Read This First.

While writing, I came across an amazing success story that demonstrated some of the book’s most important principles. The story involves a young musician by the name of Julia Nunes, who used social media to raise $78,000 US in thirty days–for her yet-to-be-recorded CD!

The story demonstrated so many of the book’s concepts that I wanted to release a case study immediately. The result is the following e-book: The Rule of Thumbs.

Please feel free to download a copy in your favorite electronic format: PDF, Kindle, iPad, or EPUB. The e-book is free and requires no annoying sign-up shenanigans.

Please let me know what you think of it!

As creatures of habit, we needn’t look too far to find examples on how much we resist change. We once:

• called automobiles horseless carriages
• called refrigerators iceboxes
• and we still call the act of capturing moving pictures “filming” or “videotaping–” even though we’ve eliminated film and magnetic tape from all of our solid state recording devices.

And if these examples don’t prove how unimaginative we are in naming new things, just look at the lengths that we go through to avoid using them.

Take public relations for example. Today’s PR firms who define their role solely in terms of earning media attention are simply retracing the footsteps of those whom we now look back upon and chuckle. They’re stuck in a rut. Just as the old saying goes: “If all you have is a hammer, every problem will look like a nail,” myopic PR firms can only see social media as yet another way to place their client’s messages in front of yet another audience. They fall in love with social media guy and his 100,000 Twitter followers. They gush over social media gal and her 50,000 blog subscribers. Yet, after lackluster “campaign” results (meaning their media alerts or press releases weren’t tweeted or blogged about sufficiently) the firms come to one of two conclusions: either social media doesn’t work or there’s something more to it than the summation of readership numbers.

Those who conclude the latter soon stumble upon the oft-used buzzword, influencers. ”We need to get your brand message in front of influencers,” they’ll say, before turning to services like Klout to help find them. Klout calculates someone’s influence based on a collection of metrics that includes audience, channels, and the propensity for people to share that influencer’s content. Klout does a great job of creating comparative indices for successful online content creators, yet it doesn’t identify those who are most influential on topics that your customers care about. Specifically, Klout can’t help identify nichefluencers, those whose opinions are respected by specifically the people who care about your products and services. Think about it. Even though Guy Kawasaki has a Klout score of 85, Ashton Kutcher an 84, the New York Times an 86, and the Wall Street Journal an 82, what do these numbers mean to a company that is trying to sell synchronous demodulators to users of rotary variable differential transformers?

A company called Traackr is attempting to solve that problem. Based on a premise that influence is more complicated, the company is also studying who’s responsible for delivering content to the audience that your company cares about. Traackr’s mission is to help companies ”…find the influencers who matter most to you.”

Both companies, Klout and Traackr, illuminate pathways to online influencers. Both can assist PR firms to earn influential media. But herein lies the rub. Considering all of the ways we gather information today, can  these services always identify the most influential people in our respective industries?

What about those who share their valued opinions using private networks such as:

• telephone
• email
• text messaging on their mobile phone
• instant message on a social network

What about those who share their expertise through semi-private networks such as:

• A Facebook account with its privacy parameters set conservatively
• A Twitter user who listens more than tweets
• or in-person events (family gatherings, the golf course, church, the daily train or bus ride).

It’s likely that the most influential people in your industry are hidden behind their private and semiprivate personal networks. But before jumping to the conclusion that invisible nichefluencers are irrelevant, let’s consider how well they’re respected. Have you ever asked a friend for an opinion on an upcoming purchase? Did they send you a link to more information? Was this this conversation available to search engines, Klout, or Traackr? If not, you’ve identified your own invisible nichefluencer.

The past has taught us to not define today’s games by yesterday’s rules. So, in addition to the traditional methods of earning access to other people’s audiences, companies must also build their own.  Audience-building starts with publishing great content that appeals to niche of audiences, where it’ll be found and subsequently shared by nichefluencers–both visible and not. If done correctly, your company will increase it’s own Klout score and Traackr ratings.

Which brings up a very interesting twist on the technologies:

How would your communications activities change if your company earned a higher influence score than its most influential influencer?