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Social Media Case Study: Walmart’s Fight Hunger Contest

Posted on 02. May, 2012 by Lisa Loeffler in Blog, integrated marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media case studies, social media case study

Guest post by @Lisa Loeffler, Research & Analysis Lead at Convince & Convert. She is also founder and principal of Genuine Media, a marketing agency that helps clients build their individual and brand reputation through social media.

You can’t always see it and many don’t talk about it, but hunger is a daily, global struggle.

To support the anti-hunger movement Walmart, the Walmart Foundation, and some of the nation’s largest food companies like General Mills, ConAgra Foods, Kraft Foods and Kellogg Company launched an integrated marketing campaign to help raise food donations during spring when food bank supplies dwindle, and need surges.

YouTube video highlighting the Fight Hunger Campaign

Using social media as a central component to promote the program, Walmart customers were invited to visit Walmart’s Facebook Contest page to vote for one of 200 communities hardest hit by unemployment.

The community that tallied the most votes was awarded $1 million to help fight hunger. The next 20 communities each received $50,000 for hunger relief.

After a visitor voted they could view what towns were leading and how many votes they had, in real time.

The contest spurred several food banks across the US to create public relations campaigns and they encouraged residents in their areas to vote to increase their chances of winning.

There was a lot of media coverage at the local level, like this contest article in a Youngstown, OH newspaper.

Walmart Hunger Relief Leaderboard (at time of writing on 4/28)

Supporters also took to Twitter to help promote their favorite town. Here’s a sample of Youngstown contest supporters:

Along with video and Facebook, Walmart integrated its Fight Hunger campaign throughout its stores with signage that drove people to visit Facebook and vote for their community. This is excellent, as too often social media isn’t supported in three dimensions.

The campaign’s food manufacturer partners also created custom packaging on some of their products to also promote the program in Walmart stores and neighborhood markets.

Drum roll….. And the winner of Walmart’s Fight Hunger Contest with more than 98,000 votes was Youngstown-Warren, Ohio. The rest of the winners and the story.

Congratulations to Youngstown, OH for showing how a small town with a population of 73,000 can come together and out-vote large urban centers with millions of people, and win for their cause.

Want to support your local food bank? Visit Feeding America for more information. http://feedingamerica.org/foodbank-results.aspx

Social Media for Social Good – A Bright Future

Today’s technology and social media advancements around fundraising have leveled the field. While it’s brought accessibility to a wider pool of donors for the nonprofits that want to leverage it, it has also put philanthropy and social responsibility for corporate giants, like Walmart, under a larger microscope.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a global philanthropy or a small nonprofit at the local level. If you understand, utilize and capitalize on the power of social media for social good you have the ability to get in front of thousands, and perhaps millions of people like never before.

This great social (media) shift is helping corporate giants with philanthropic ambitions become more human and allows the local nonprofit to become more accessible.

How has social media helped make your small- or mid-sized nonprofit more public and accessible? If you’re a large corporation how are you leveraging social media to showcase your corporate social responsibility?

About the Lisa Loeffler:

@Lisa Loeffler is Research & Analysis Lead at Convince & Convert. She is also founder and principal of Genuine Media, a marketing agency that helps clients build their individual and brand reputation through social media.

Social Media Case Study: Walmart’s Fight Hunger Contest is a post from: Convince and Convert Blog: Social Media Strategy and Social Media Consulting

Are You Worthy of Social Media? The 2 Types of Talk Triggers

Posted on 22. Apr, 2012 by Jay Baer in Blog, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media case studies

The single most important element of your social media program is making your company worthy of discussion.

We don’t tweet meh.

We don’t upload blah to Facebook.

We use social media to express feelings that are at the opposing poles of fascination and frustration. So why do so many companies toe the line of average, yet expect customers to shout from the digital rooftops about amazingly mediocre products and services?

If you’re going to use social media to accomplish anything of value, you must have a Talk Trigger that rousts your advocates from their naturally drowsy state, and gets them typing concise messages of adoration. But the paradox is that Talk Triggers for social media most often occur offline, not online. The great meal, the over-the-top customer service, the killer swimsuit, the uber-friendly accountant…..all of them manifest in the real world, not the virtual one. We use digital to communicate analog. In fact, Keller Fay Group estimates that 91 percent of word of mouth about companies occurs offline, meaning that we only use social media to discuss things that REALLY make us want to shout or cry, not the mundane victories and defeats we experience with brands every day.

How do you build a Talk Trigger for your company? There are two options.

Spontaneous Talk Triggers

The Talk Triggers that create the most intense advocacy behaviors are those that occur in the wild. The moment-in-time occurrences where a brand exceeds your (typically low) expectations in a dramatic way, causing recipients and observers to grab the closest smart phone and post the “you will NOT believe what just happened” messages that put a smile on your face and make you rethink (perhaps subconsciously) the values and merit of the company in question.

This happened to me a few months ago when a Southwest Airlines flight attendant made a young boy’s day by taping his crayon drawings to the front of the plane, and congratulating him publicly. It was one of the warmest, most genuine things I’d ever seen. I live blogged it (viva in-flight Wi-Fi), and it became a popular post here at Convince & Convert. Southwest subsequently wrote about my post on their blog, and also mentioned it in the in-flight magazine months later. The flight attendant was congratulated in the employee podcast, too.

The spontaneous Talk Trigger was the actions of the flight attendant, and it created a lot of chatter and advocacy.

What creates this type of trigger isn’t a plan or a spreadsheet, but rather corporate culture. A culture that values BEING social over DOING social. A culture where employees are empowered to work outside the script. I’ll bet if you did a social chatter analysis of spontaneous Talk Triggers and mapped them against level of detail of corporate social media policies and other guidelines, you’d find that “open” cultures yield more in-the-moment triggers. (Maybe I’ll write an eBook about that).

Planned Talk Triggers

The other way to create socially-fueled advocacy is with planned Talk Triggers. In this case, the brand is using one or more points of disproportionate awesomeness in a premeditated way to encourage digital statements of support. The planned Talk Trigger is of course more reliable, and can be measured, tested, and optimized. The one thing it cannot be is untrue. If a brand embraces a planned trigger and “nudges” customers to create spread, that trigger better be terrific.

I encountered a fantastic, planned Talk Trigger recently from an outdoor fireplace company called Blue Rooster.

To warm the cool-but-still-pleasant nights spent on the patio of Convince & Convert global HQ in Bloomington, Indiana the missus and I decided to purchase a chiminea. We settled on Blue Rooster based on reviews, size, and style.

It showed up on time, was higher quality than anticipated, easier to assemble than feared, and worked better than hoped.

But the best part was the Talk Trigger. In the parts bag of every Blue Rooster fireplace (I presume) is this marvelous, tiny envelope with three of the company’s business cards inside. The envelope reads:

“Trust us, everyone will ask about your new Blue Rooster Chiminea. If you don’t feel like talking, just hand them one of these! Call or email us if you need more.”

Indeed, several of my friends have asked about it, and now that I’ve written about it here, I can give out the cards.

It’s awfully hard to be great online if you’re less than great offline.

What’s your Talk Trigger?

(for more of this kind of case study, check out my Social Pros podcast – with written transcripts each week)

Klout, the Super Bowl, and Our Addiction to Shooting the Messenger

Posted on 26. Jan, 2012 by Jay Baer in Blog, influencer outreach, Klout, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media case studies, super-bowl

Two weeks ago, I received a Klout Perk to be part of the Social 46, a gathering of Indiana’s top social media influencers. According to the Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee, Klout was used to help identify the participants, and the list was augmented manually with known local bloggers, gadflies, and connectors. I do not know how many of the 46 were “found” by Klout versus already known by the committee, and it’s not particularly relevant.

Last week, the group convened to learn more about the Super Bowl festivities – which have a breadth almost unfathomably far beyond the football game. (see the killer mobile app) In addition to a briefing by the host committee, we were exhorted to help make Super Bowl 46 in Indianapolis the “most connected” Super Bowl ever. What that means in practice was (and remains) a bit murky.

The original plan was for the participants in the Social 46 who created the most chatter to receive special prize packs for their social diligence. This idea was scrapped by attendees who almost universally expressed a desire to help shine the light on Indianapolis as proud residents, eschewing game mechanics.

Generally, the group has taken to the cause like a crafter to Pinterest, with dozens of tweets, photos, blog posts, and more popping up daily – and the game isn’t for another 10 days. Former reporter, now PR guy Tom Spalding is chronicling the blow-by-blow with regular Storify collections from the Social 46 trenches.

Personally, I’ve done very little on the Social 46 front other than live tweet the initial confab. There are three reasons that I’ve been on the sidelines:

• I’m a new Hoosier, having moved to the state in August 2010. I don’t have as much of a connection to it as others in the Social 46.
• I live in Bloomington, not Indianapolis. I’m about 75 minutes south, and still get lost in downtown Indy where the festivities are taking place. I don’t have a lot to offer in the way of insider tips.
• My “influence” is not Indiana-based. 4% of my Twitter follower are Hoosiers, according to Peek Analytics (which I love for in-depth examination of persons in social media). This compares to 84% for Tom Spalding, for example.

I’ll do more next week, when I’m visiting the official Super Bowl Social Media Command Center (run by Indy social/content agency Raidious), and checking out Super Bowl Media Day, the Super Bowl Village, and NFL Experience with my family.

Shooting the Super Messenger

For now, however, I’m more interested in the burgeoning kerfuffle (a great band name, feel free to steal it) around the Social 46 itself.

Social 46. Instagram shot from @meggiehd

In exchange for lending our time and personal networks to the Super Bowl cause, the host committee plied us with a laptop bag, a Super Scarf, a beanie hat, a time-specific ticket to the NFL experience, a ticket to NFL media day and the “right” to use the #social46 hashtag (which of course anyone could use if they want to do so). By my estimation, total value of $150, max.

Am I grateful to receive these gifts? Sure. The scarf is toasty. The media day ticket saved me $25 out of pocket, and who can turn down the joys of a special hashtag? But do these items influence how, why, or whether I participate in this program? Not really.

However, it concerns me that the host committee did not instruct any of the Social 46 on how to disclose that these items were provided for free, potentially putting the host committee and all participants in violation of FTC disclosure guidelines. A quick (albeit cursory) check of content created by the Social 46 shows that disclosure is wholly absent. I have addressed it below through cmp.ly (which I love, am an investor in, and very much wish the host committee would have adopted).

Beyond the fact that the host committee dropped the ball on disclosure, there is a truly extraordinary amount of vitriol within the Indianapolis social media “community” about who was (and who was not) asked to participate in this Social 46 program.

Some of the complaints are simply misguided – like this post from local communications consultant Allison Carter – who seems to believe that companies and organizations should be required to publicly state how they determine who to include in outreach programs. I’m sure Wal-Mart will gladly publish their blogger outreach criteria. Ford too. And Dell. Just ask. Maybe a Wiki? Should companies also publish the rationale every time they send a targeted coupon in the mail to high efficacy consumers based on past purchase history? Ridiculous.

In other cases, the ire is downright nasty, with all manner of name calling and reputation questioning occurring on Twitter and elsewhere. I guess I’m fortunate that none of it has involved me personally, but I’ve never been happier to NOT be part of the Indianapolis social media “community” which is making that label look more and more like a misnomer.

As Ms. Carter states in her post:

And I’ll be honest: I would have loved to have been chosen. But this isn’t about me. This is about helping our city come together to show the world what we have. However, this program is causing divisions, cliques and confusion. I hope this program is a smashing success and Indy becomes a social media darling. Social 46? Prove me wrong.

If your objective is to “show the world what we have” then why do you give a hoot about a free ticket, a silly hashtag, and a goddamn scarf? Is the subtext that unless you’ve been selected and anointed as part of the Social 46, that you are not eligible to help visitors enjoy the game? Where’s the community spirit in that? If you want to help, help. By tying reward to the behavior so intrinsically, you are supporting the very construct you rail against.

As Ricky Gervais says, offense is taken, not given. And the participants in the Social 46 didn’t request to be included. They were identified by a computer and/or by members of the host committee. To tear them down because someone – for reasons algorithmic, altruistic, or otherwise – selected them versus you or anyone else is the ultimate shoot the messenger scenario. If you’re not happy about being “left out” of the uber-prestigious scarf giveaway, take it up with Klout or the host committee.

Klout Kan’t Win

I’m on record as liking Klout, and not just because it keeps me ensconced in beanie hats. (see my post: 3 Reasons critics of Klout are missing the big picture) Does its methodology have flaws? Of course it does. But you know what else has flaws? Having PR interns surf the Web to semi-randomly click on blogs and Twitter accounts to put together murky Excel spreadsheets of “influencers” that are then sold to clients as “research.” At least Klout provides half-truths with a side of mathematics.

And the reality is that whether it’s Klout or something else, companies and organizations WILL continue to make liberal use of social scoring data. It’s a shortcut, a way to find the trees in the forest. We are entering an era of bespoke relationships, whereby your real-time interactions with companies will be dictated (at least to some degree) by your purchase history, “influence”, location, and other factors. It’s the Delta SkyMiles program on steroids, and unfolding second-by-second. If you don’t think companies are going to start routing social customer service inquiries to different teams based on Klout score (or similar), you need to wake up.

Do I wish we were all treated equally? As a human being, yes. But that’s not the way the real world works, and it’s certainly not the way we’re headed in an era where every behavior is tracked, and Big Data can be used to filter and segment and optimize.

The Lesson of the Sneeches

Most Klout perks are of the product variety, or are national in scope so that the recipients and non-recipients aren’t personally acquainted. Do I bemoan the fact that I’m not eligible for free RoC Deep Wrinkle Night Cream? I guess, as I’m not getting any younger. But I don’t begrudge those who can use their Twitter habit to smooth their crow’s feet.

In the case of the Social 46, the psychology is altogether different. Because the participants were selected to be signal amplifiers and adjuncts of the host committee, there is a perception that we are “representatives” (albeit reps that are unofficial and untrained – as Ms. Carter wisely pointed out in her post, which was not wholly without merit). And conversely, that those not selected are not “worthy” of being representatives.

The reason people are bent out of shape (far disproportionate to the reward, I’d say) is that the “haves” and “have nots” are public. This is the lesson of the Sneetches, as delivered by the sneakily wise Dr. Seuss:

If the star belly Sneetches got their stars via email; or were notified 1:1 by Sylvester Monkey McBean when they logged on to his website; or just got a star shipped to them via FedEx, the Sneetches without stars would never have known about it, and wouldn’t have put up a fuss.

If you’re going to use Klout as a sorting and identification mechanism, think twice about doing so in a local or regional market (or any other closely knit community online or otherwise). And if what you want your group to do is shout about their participation publicly over a short time frame, be prepared for blowback.

That’s my view from ringside. What’s your takeaway from the Social 46?

Klout, the Super Bowl, and Our Addiction to Shooting the Messenger

Posted on 26. Jan, 2012 by Jay Baer in Blog, influencer outreach, Klout, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media case studies, super-bowl

Two weeks ago, I received a Klout Perk to be part of the Social 46, a gathering of Indiana’s top social media influencers. According to the Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee, Klout was used to help identify the participants, and the list was augmented manually with known local bloggers, gadflies, and connectors. I do not know how many of the 46 were “found” by Klout versus already known by the committee, and it’s not particularly relevant.

Last week, the group convened to learn more about the Super Bowl festivities – which have a breadth almost unfathomably far beyond the football game. (see the killer mobile app) In addition to a briefing by the host committee, we were exhorted to help make Super Bowl 46 in Indianapolis the “most connected” Super Bowl ever. What that means in practice was (and remains) a bit murky.

The original plan was for the participants in the Social 46 who created the most chatter to receive special prize packs for their social diligence. This idea was scrapped by attendees who almost universally expressed a desire to help shine the light on Indianapolis as proud residents, eschewing game mechanics.

Generally, the group has taken to the cause like a crafter to Pinterest, with dozens of tweets, photos, blog posts, and more popping up daily – and the game isn’t for another 10 days. Former reporter, now PR guy Tom Spalding is chronicling the blow-by-blow with regular Storify collections from the Social 46 trenches.

Personally, I’ve done very little on the Social 46 front other than live tweet the initial confab. There are three reasons that I’ve been on the sidelines:

• I’m a new Hoosier, having moved to the state in August 2010. I don’t have as much of a connection to it as others in the Social 46.
• I live in Bloomington, not Indianapolis. I’m about 75 minutes south, and still get lost in downtown Indy where the festivities are taking place. I don’t have a lot to offer in the way of insider tips.
• My “influence” is not Indiana-based. 4% of my Twitter follower are Hoosiers, according to Peek Analytics (which I love for in-depth examination of persons in social media). This compares to 84% for Tom Spalding, for example.

I’ll do more next week, when I’m visiting the official Super Bowl Social Media Command Center (run by Indy social/content agency Raidious), and checking out Super Bowl Media Day, the Super Bowl Village, and NFL Experience with my family.

Shooting the Super Messenger

For now, however, I’m more interested in the burgeoning kerfuffle (a great band name, feel free to steal it) around the Social 46 itself.

Social 46. Instagram shot from @meggiehd

In exchange for lending our time and personal networks to the Super Bowl cause, the host committee plied us with a laptop bag, a Super Scarf, a beanie hat, a time-specific ticket to the NFL experience, a ticket to NFL media day and the “right” to use the #social46 hashtag (which of course anyone could use if they want to do so). By my estimation, total value of $150, max.

Am I grateful to receive these gifts? Sure. The scarf is toasty. The media day ticket saved me $25 out of pocket, and who can turn down the joys of a special hashtag? But do these items influence how, why, or whether I participate in this program? Not really.

However, it concerns me that the host committee did not instruct any of the Social 46 on how to disclose that these items were provided for free, potentially putting the host committee and all participants in violation of FTC disclosure guidelines. A quick (albeit cursory) check of content created by the Social 46 shows that disclosure is mostly absent (good job by Bob Burchfield!). I have addressed it below through cmp.ly (which I love, am an investor in, and very much wish the host committee would have adopted).

(EDIT: Ashley from Klout reminded me that on the Web page where you accept Klout Perks (all, not just this one) is a note about making sure you disclose promotional items. Thanks for pointing that out Ashley. FTC does state thought that the party responsible for compliance is the brand or the organization, not the blogger. Thus, I’d still argue that the committee probably should have mentioned it at the meeting. Could have been just a 10-second aside, but would have been a good CYA.)

Beyond the fact that the host committee dropped the ball on disclosure, there is a truly extraordinary amount of vitriol within the Indianapolis social media “community” about who was (and who was not) asked to participate in this Social 46 program.

Some of the complaints are simply misguided – like this post from local communications consultant Allison Carter – who seems to believe that companies and organizations should be required to publicly state how they determine who to include in outreach programs. I’m sure Wal-Mart will gladly publish their blogger outreach criteria. Ford too. And Dell. Just ask. Maybe a Wiki? Should companies also publish the rationale every time they send a targeted coupon in the mail to high efficacy consumers based on past purchase history? Ridiculous.

In other cases, the ire is downright nasty, with all manner of name calling and reputation questioning occurring on Twitter and elsewhere. I guess I’m fortunate that none of it has involved me personally, but I’ve never been happier to NOT be part of the Indianapolis social media “community” which is making that label look more and more like a misnomer.

As Ms. Carter states in her post:

And I’ll be honest: I would have loved to have been chosen. But this isn’t about me. This is about helping our city come together to show the world what we have. However, this program is causing divisions, cliques and confusion. I hope this program is a smashing success and Indy becomes a social media darling. Social 46? Prove me wrong.

If your objective is to “show the world what we have” then why do you give a hoot about a free ticket, a silly hashtag, and a goddamn scarf? Is the subtext that unless you’ve been selected and anointed as part of the Social 46, that you are not eligible to help visitors enjoy the game? Where’s the community spirit in that? If you want to help, help. By tying reward to the behavior so intrinsically, you are supporting the very construct you rail against.

As Ricky Gervais says, offense is taken, not given. And the participants in the Social 46 didn’t request to be included. They were identified by a computer and/or by members of the host committee. To tear them down because someone – for reasons algorithmic, altruistic, or otherwise – selected them versus you or anyone else is the ultimate shoot the messenger scenario. If you’re not happy about being “left out” of the uber-prestigious scarf giveaway, take it up with Klout or the host committee.

Long ago, when I was a political campaign consultant, I learned a maxim that seems particular apt in this case: The smaller the stakes, the bigger the fight.

Klout Kan’t Win

I’m on record as liking Klout, and not just because it keeps me ensconced in beanie hats. (see my post: 3 Reasons critics of Klout are missing the big picture) Does its methodology have flaws? Of course it does. But you know what else has flaws? Having PR interns surf the Web to semi-randomly click on blogs and Twitter accounts to put together murky Excel spreadsheets of “influencers” that are then sold to clients as “research.” At least Klout provides half-truths with a side of mathematics.

And the reality is that whether it’s Klout or something else, companies and organizations WILL continue to make liberal use of social scoring data. It’s a shortcut, a way to find the trees in the forest. We are entering an era of bespoke relationships, whereby your real-time interactions with companies will be dictated (at least to some degree) by your purchase history, “influence”, location, and other factors. It’s the Delta SkyMiles program on steroids, and unfolding second-by-second. If you don’t think companies are going to start routing social customer service inquiries to different teams based on Klout score (or similar), you need to wake up.

Do I wish we were all treated equally? As a human being, yes. But that’s not the way the real world works, and it’s certainly not the way we’re headed in an era where every behavior is tracked, and Big Data can be used to filter and segment and optimize.

The Lesson of the Sneeches

Most Klout perks are of the product variety, or are national in scope so that the recipients and non-recipients aren’t personally acquainted. Do I bemoan the fact that I’m not eligible for free RoC Deep Wrinkle Night Cream? I guess, as I’m not getting any younger. But I don’t begrudge those who can use their Twitter habit to smooth their crow’s feet.

In the case of the Social 46, the psychology is altogether different. Because the participants were selected to be signal amplifiers and adjuncts of the host committee, there is a perception that we are “representatives” (albeit reps that are unofficial and untrained – as Ms. Carter wisely pointed out in her post, which was not wholly without merit). And conversely, that those not selected are not “worthy” of being representatives.

The reason people are bent out of shape (far disproportionate to the reward, I’d say) is that the “haves” and “have nots” are public. This is the lesson of the Sneetches, as delivered by the sneakily wise Dr. Seuss:

If the star belly Sneetches got their stars via email; or were notified 1:1 by Sylvester Monkey McBean when they logged on to his website; or just got a star shipped to them via FedEx, the Sneetches without stars would never have known about it, and wouldn’t have put up a fuss.

If you’re going to use Klout as a sorting and identification mechanism, think twice about doing so in a local or regional market (or any other closely knit community online or otherwise). And if what you want your group to do is shout about their participation publicly over a short time frame, be prepared for blowback.

That’s my view from ringside. What’s your takeaway from the Social 46?

(EDIT: I want to make it perfectly clear that I believe this to be on the whole an excellent program, and a darn fine idea. Was it perfectly executed? No. But that’s why it makes a good case study for others to learn from down the road. Viva Super Bowl.)

Our Dangerous Addiction to Social Media Case Studies

Posted on 15. Nov, 2011 by Jay Baer in Blog, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media analytics, social media case studies, social media case study, social media ROI, tom webster

The two most important words in social media should be “so what?”

As Tom Webster eloquently put it in his recent Blogworld keynote, when research wears the cloak of content marketing, it’s a recipe for the incurious to pull a fast one on the masses, disguising pointless data as gospel.

Tom was referring to data-dredging and the spate of statistical “best practices” that bubble up in social media like something in Jed Clampett’s back yard. But it applies equally to the basket of case studies that are left for us each day by the sites that chronicle social’s advance. It’s like Moses in the bullrushes but with “math” instead of blankets.

The Recalcitrant Social Media Cheerleader

Point Less

Too often, we try to wield these case studies as a crude evidentiary weapon, trying to persuade ourselves or our superiors that our belief system around social media, social business, social CRM and all that jazz is in fact correct. But in almost every case, you’re bringing a knife to a gunfight. Or maybe even a limp noodle.

Case studies should be used for ideation, not ratification. Even in the best possible scenario, where the case study in question is extraordinarily applicable to your business goals, social media situation, KPIs, budget, timeline, customer personas and more (which is a rare alignment indeed), you are placing significant influential value on ONE outcome. That’s anecdote-driven decision making at its worst.

If you only need to hear one story that you find persuasive, I can convince you of ANYTHING if I get to select the parable.

Beyond the fact that case studies are often strategically irrelevant because the company profiled is in a different industry, with different goals, competitors, and customer expectations (among other variances), perhaps the biggest problem with most social media success stories is that the measures of that success are largely without real merit.

Social Media Case Studies – The Crack of the Stat

My favorite example last week was the glowing report on ClickZ of Louisville Slugger‘s scavenger hunt promotion. Evidently, the erstwhile manufacturer of wood and aluminum bats launched (with agency help) a one-day promotion on October 29 in St. Louis. They hid 45 commemorative World Series bats around STL and posted clues on their Facebook and Twitter accounts as to their whereabouts.

I’m no baseball manufacturing expert (but I do adore the Louisville Slugger Museum in downtown L-ville), but I’m guessing they ultimately need to sell bats to kids and weekend warriors to maintain/expand their business. The MLB buys what they buy, and the Twitter acumen of the company has a zero percent impact on whether Derek Jeter swings their wood.

Strategically then, the question becomes “does hiding and giving away 45 bats and talking about it in social media ultimately sell more bats to amateurs (either current or new customers)?”

And the simple answer is that we do not know. This case study appeared 10 days after the conclusion of the promotion. Is 240 hours enough time to determine the true impact of this promotion? Of course not. November is hardly peak season for bat sales anyway, and any bottom-line impact of this campaign would need a while to germinate and flower.

But that doesn’t stop the agency (presumably), the company, and ClickZ from proclaiming the unmitigated success of the effort. On what basis? Evidently, Louisville Slugger saw a 834% increase in the “talking about this” metric on Facebook, which purports to measure total number of Facebook users referencing the brand in any capacity whatsoever.

Well, if you go to 45 locations around town in one day and give stuff away, a goodly portion of the people angling to be the recipient of free goods will be updating status, location, photos and so forth. It’s what we do now, and our proclivity to shout from the status rooftops about the awesome thing we’re engaged in at this very moment is exacerbated by three factors: deviation from the hum drum norm; a crowd; and free stuff. Wisely, Louisville Slugger designed a program that hit for the cycle, and St. Louis residents choosing to spend a portion of their Saturday chasing after free baseball bats responded on Facebook en mass.

But does a 834% increase in people “talking about you” on Facebook achieve business goals like sales, retention, average order size, advocacy, etc? Again, in this instance we do not know yet. Before this initiative (and I give them credit for divulging real numbers) Louisville Slugger had 755 people talking about them for the week. Afterwards, it was 7,049.

The brand spent considerable time and effort to drive a short-term spike in conversations about it on Facebook. So what? You might argue that because they also saw 100%+ week over week increases in Facebook fans and Twitter followers, that this campaign was a smash. Again, so what? They have 21,000 Facebook fans, and their best posts (announcing a second giveaway) show an engagement rate of .03.  They have 3,200 Twitter followers, and the account essentially parrots their Facebook status updates.

I’m not suggesting this is a flawed campaign or wholly without merit. We simply do not know whether it has strategic or financial merit, and I’d love to see a case study that tracks sales and customer retention in the St. Louis market on a 60-day trailing basis. Now THAT would be a case study.

I am not irked by the idea, or the effort behind it. I am irked by the near-instant reporting and self-congratulatory reach around that content repositories, agencies, and corporations are engaged in every time they find some statistic that allegedly proves that their idea was a big success. And I’m irked that we fall for it every time, retweeting and sharing and printing it out for our boss to read on Monday.

We can do better than that, can’t we?

The poll mechanism above is a Quipol. Quipol is a brand-new, supremely easy-to-use polling tool created by my friend Max Yoder. It includes embedded comments (maybe you left one) and a handy thumb up/down function. It’s built for bloggers (easy to embed), and you can also drop Quipol’s on regular Web pages and elsewhere. The comments can also be shared to Facebook or Twitter.

Max is an awesome guy, and an inspiration. He’s 23 and already paid off all his student loans and is bootstrapping Quipol on his own nickel (no VC) by saving 61 percent of everything he makes at his day job (working for Compendium – a former client here at Convince & Convert).