IntroductIon - MEC

from Volume to VAlue
of fAns/followers
Julian SMitH
GrouP director, analyticS and inSiGHt, Global SolutionS (london)
julian.smith@mecglobal.com
In 2012, we expect to see a growing maturity in
the adoption of social media amongst marketers
and a greater emphasis on understanding
the value created by engaging consumers at
scale within social media platforms. If, to date,
marketers have been fixated with growing the
sheer numbers of their fan base – versus the
competition – then moving forward they will
increasingly ask the question of what value
do all those fans, followers and likes bring to
their brand and business. New breakthroughs
in measurement, as well as further growth of
social commerce, will facilitate this shift.
As they look for more resource and investment
in social media channels in 2012, marketers will
be required to understand better how engaged
online fans contribute to the bottom line and
how they can be leveraged for further business
growth. As marketers seek to maximise the
impact of their social media activities, so the
platform providers and third-party research
vendors seek to answer their ROI questions.
Facebook itself has evolved its audience insights
platform to enable marketers to understand how
fan bases can influence wider audiences better
– raising brand awareness and engagement – by
helping spread content organically. This deeper
social graph analysis can now be supplemented
by comScore’s Social Essentials online
audience research data to better understand the
‘power of likes’.
Millward Brown Dynamic Logic now offers a
FanIndex survey to provide deeper attitudinal
insight into fan motivations, their expectations
and resultant change in perceptions. Their sister
Kantar agency, TNS is now launching F-Power
research to better understand the value and
commitment/loyalty of Facebook fans.
New start-ups are emerging, such as
Campalyst that provide social analytics
to measure the revenues and conversions
from Facebook pages for e-commerce
retailers, and SocialCode that helps
brands understand the monetary value of
their fans.
For us, this shifting marketplace focus,
from volume to value, will drive ever
greater integration of Paid, Owned and
Earned media performance data with
brand health and sales data, providing
our clients a deeper understanding of
their integrated and always-on online
communications effectiveness.
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