I am going to break one of my unspoken cardinal rules: Only write about real problems and measurement that is actually possible in the real world.
I am going to break the second part of the rule.
I am going to define a way for you to think about measuring social media, and you can’t actually easily measure what I am going to recommend. [Update: Please see update #2 below, you can now easily measure what’s recommended in this post.]
So why break the rule?
Social media is evolving at an incredible pace. Most of us have no idea how to participate optimally in this unique channel – we are doing TV on Twitter (breaks my heart). The impact on the data side of the ecosystem is that massive amounts of data is being generated and much of what goes for measurement in “social media tools” is profoundly sub optimal (I’m being polite). We have IT-minded people engaging in massive data puking (one report with 30 metrics anyone?) and Marketing-minded people who are using lousy measures of success (“I got 158,632 Fans! Hurray!”).
I want to propose a framework you can use to measure success using metrics that matter for one simple reason: They actually measure if you are participating in the channel in an optimal fashion.
Isn’t that revolutionary? Use data to incentivise our companies to do the right thing by measuring what matters, what makes this channel so unique.
No more embarrassing your brand on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, YouTube. And we build out a loyal cadre of followers / friends / subscribers to boot!
So what actually matters in Social Media?
Not the number of Friends / Followers / Subscribers. Not the number of posts / tweets. Not the ridiculous Followers to Following ratio. Not the… well there are so many horrible ones to choose from.
What matters is everything that happens after you post / tweet / participate!
Did you grab attention? Did you deliver delight? Did you cause people to want to share? Did you initiate a discussion? Did you cause people to take an action? Did your participation deliver economic value?
Oh, I totally forgot to say this…. the advice in this blog post is only for businesses and brands that participate in social media. Businesses as in Red Bull and T-Mobile and Johnson & Johnson. Brands (all of the aforementioned plus…) as in Mitch Joel and Stephen Colbert and Nancy Pelosi. If you don’t fall into those two categories then this social media measurement framework might not apply to you.
I’m proposing four distinct social media metrics we should measure, (and this is so cool) independent of the social channel you participate in.
Excited? Let’s go….
1. Conversation Rate.
When I say most brands do TV on social media what I mean is that we do the same uninformed shouting and pimping on social media that we do on TV.
We know little about who is on the other end of the TV set and the medium places limits to what we can do. So to make our marketing more efficient we shout more loudly, more frequently!
We don’t have to do that. We can get a very good sense for who is following / friending / subscribing to us. We can measure if what we are saying connects to them (in near real time!). And unlike all others, this channel has the word social in it! Social as in talk and listen and discuss.
So why not measure that?
Conversation Rate = # of Audience Comments (or Replies) Per Post
One beautiful thing… you can measure this on every social channel on the planet. Blog. Twitter. Facebook. Google Plus. YouTube.
What to do with it?
A high conversation rate requires a deeper understanding of who your audience is, what your brand attributes are, what you are good at, what value you can add to your followers and the ecosystem you participate in.
That is why I love this metric. It forces you to do the right thing right away. And it is a lot of work.
So aim for a higher Conversation Rate. Build your own watering hole in the digital universe. Have meaningful conversations with your audience. That’s Marketing money just can’t buy.
You can always be provocative, say silly things and get a high Conversation Rate. Pick Sarah Palin for your topic. 🙂 But that would not be accretive for your brand equity, would it?
Remember we do not measure to manipulate the metrics, we measure to know if we are adding business value.
How to measure it?
Individually this is not that hard to measure. But across channels there does not seem to be an option.
This is where I need your help. Do you know of a tool that measures conversation Rate easily as defined above across the main social media channels? Please share via comments and I’ll add it here. Thanks!
Up next, our second delightful metric…
2. Amplification Rate.
Every channel has inherent limitations, often exhibited by the number of ads you can buy. On Google (paid search), on Facebook (display ads), on Radio (audio ads), and all other channels you can think of.
But social media has a profound advantage you can tap into.
Not only do you have a network, but every node in your network has a network of its own! If you follow my advice and post something “incredible, relevant, of value” to your audience then they can allow you to break free of the limitations of your network and spread your word around to a more massive audience!
Take me as an example. I have, as of today, 57k followers on Twitter and around 12k on Google Plus. That’s the limit. Even if every single person who follows me reads every single thing I write, I can at most reach 57k people on Twitter.
But the size of my second level network (the unique people who follow the people who follow me) is 6.3 mil. My real “reach” it turns out is not 57k, it is 6.3 mil!
So measure Amplification, the rate at which your followers take your content and share it through their network.
On Twitter:
Amplification = # of Retweets Per Tweet
On Facebook, Google Plus:
Amplification = # of Shares Per Post
On a blog, YouTube:
Amplification = # of Share Clicks Per Post (or Video)
(Share clicks as in number of times your social media buttons were used to spread the content.)
What to do with it?
As you post and tweet and you rock and you roll… measure what pieces of content (type) cause amplification (allow your social contributions to spread to your 2nd, or even 3rd, level network). Understand times and geo locations and topics and things.
Then do more of the type that increase amplification. You’ll get more sharing and spreading of your content. But this is very, very important: You’ll be giving your audience content they consider to be of such incredible value that they want to share it (and hence you’ll know what your audience wants / loves).
Oh, oh, oh and…. over time your 2nd level network becomes your 1st level network… because they discover that you rock!
Marketing, relationships and a reach that money, honestly, can’t buy.
How to measure it?
I don’t quite know how to do it easily across all the channels. Individually you can, see image above, pull out Excel and make magic!
Do you know of a tool that precisely measures Amplification across all channels as defined above? Please let me know via comments, and I’ll add it here.
Now on to a metric that had us at “hello”…
3. Applause Rate.
I’m sure you’ve noticed my secret evil plan to force you to understand your audience (and not just pimp your agenda in Social Media).
One powerful, more immediate way, to understand them is to measure Applause.
One Twitter:
Applause Rate = # of Favorite Clicks Per Post
On Facebook:
Applause Rate = # of Likes Per Post
On Google Plus:
Applause Rate = # of +1s Per Post
On a Blog, YouTube:
Applause Rate = # of +1s and Likes Per Post (or video)
What to do with it?
Simple… you want to know what the audience likes (to use the Facebook terminology) and what they don’t. You get a much deeper understanding of what your audience likes so much that it will +1 your content (or contribution) and allow for that to be then shown to others in their social graph.
And consider this…
If you +1 this blog post, you’ll not help me understand its relative quality, but when someone in our extended social graph does a search on Google for Social Media Metrics your endorsement of this content will show up in the search results. That’s reassuring to your social graph, and it is great for me because your endorsement makes this post stand out over others and I get a relevant visitor/customer.
Sweet, right? Your selfless social media contribution comes back to assist you in driving valuable business outcomes.
That’s why you measure Applause. It matters in ways you can’t imagine!
How to measure it?
Individually the numbers are available in most tools. Easy to find in Google+ (see example in the end). For Facebook the number is included in Facebook Insights, though it is not available as easily in a simple way (at least not as expansively as outlined above). For Twitter, sadly I could not find it anywhere (inside Twitter or other tools).
So help me. Do you use a tool that will allow us to measure Applause Rate? Please share via comments.
Finally the metric any company leader will adore…
4. Economic Value.
I am smiling. I know that the long time readers of my blog would know that I would never let you get away without measuring hard business bottom-line impact of any digital effort!
It is foolish to believe that just Conversation Rate, Amplification Rate, Applause Rate will get you the eternal love and gratification (and perhaps budget!) of your company’s leadership. Yes they care a little bit about this “social media thing.” But if you want their adoration (and let me repeat: budget!) you are going to have to quantify the economic value created via social media.
You don’t participate in social media to only drive business outcomes. I cannot stress that enough. If that is your primary objective you are going to suck at it (and the above metrics will reflect very efficiently how much you suck).
But.
A small percent of the people in your company / brand’s social graph will come to your main digital outpost (usually your company website) and choose to do business with you. Some of them will buy something, others will sign up for your email marketing list, others still will order a catalog or write reviews for products on your site or sign up as an affiliate or create wish lists or marriage registries or phone your call center to order something or… stay with me…. buy your products or services in your supermarket / store / real world thing.
And you know what you can do with macro and micro conversions? You can measure Economic Value!
On all social media channels:
Economic Value = Sum of Short and Long Term Revenue and Cost Savings
Social media participation, done right, adds value to the company’s bottom-line. Some of it can’t be computed. That is okay. But some of it can be and it is your job, nay duty (!), to quantify that.
It is not very hard to do. Read the two posts immediately above. They share very specific guidance for businesses of different types (B2B, B2C, A2K) about how to identify the macro and micro conversions and then compute economic value.
What to do with it?
Those of you who have been at one of my recent keynotes have seen this slide:
Your job is to identify that blue arrow, and the orange box (what it stands for and what the amount is). It is not very hard, just takes a little patience and imagination.
And here is the incredible, amazing, magical thing. Once you have your highest level segmented view of the acquisition strategy, above, you can in two seconds segment down to individual channels you participate in.
Your view will look something like the one below, from Google Analytics:
I can focus on the Per Visit Goal Value (economic value delivered by visitors from social media channels across my macro and micro conversions – note the 0% in the macro conversions column, ouch!) for each channel. StumbleUpon rocks ($1.43), Twitter takes the next spot (around $0.60) and then comes Facebook ($0.26, clearly not a winner for me).
Now, not only can I tell my CEO what the small amount of direct value added to the business is, I can also report to her/him exactly which channels are contributing how much. You can’t be in every social channel that pops up. The above data can give you guidance on where to be.
You do Economic Value and you will never, ever have to beg for investment in Social Media, and your career will get on the fast track. I promise.
And just to repeat one more time. A vast majority of value your business / brand gets from social media will be owning your message, building the watering hole I’ve mentioned, having a direct relationship with your customers and so much more. But showing some direct economic value will get you permission to do more of that. Without it you are just another “smarty pants” promising “vague outcomes” via “the next hip thing.”
How to measure it?
Use Google Analytics, Omniture, WebTrends, CoreIBMInsights, etc.
Takes less than five minutes to set up. Provides a lifetime of joy.
Four Metrics That Rock.
Conversation Rate. Amplification Rate. Applause Rate. Economic Value. Four simple measures that get you to focus on the right thing from a social media participation perspective, help you understand how well you are doing at it, and quantify the business impact.
The challenge is that thus far it is hard to pull them all together in one place. As I had mentioned earlier, Excel is your bff for now. My hope is that vendors will stop creating tools in silos (just do Twitter or Facebook or Google Plus or YouTube or…) and start to think of real world needs of Brands and Businesses and pull together metrics we need into one place (from all social channels).
There are small signs of hope.
Crowdbooster has a very interesting view of twitter:
You can see Retweets (x-axis) and Replies (size of the circle) overall and individual tweet perspective. So both Conversation and Amplification. The other two metrics are missing, but it is a start.
All My + is a early prototype of data from Google+ and provides three of the four metrics recommended in this blog post:
It is missing Economic Value. But you can get that out of Google Analytics or Site Catalyst in five minutes.
If you are a tool vendor… I would love for you to adopt the aforementioned metrics, and definitions, into your tool. All I ask for is a donation of one million US dollars to Doctors Without Borders. Doable?
What About Social Media Advertising?
If you are engaging in brand advertising on social media channels then the metrics you should solve for should be the first three. If you do a Promoted Tweet or Facebook Like campaign or whatever Google+ decides to come up with then you want to measure resulting Conversation, Amplification and Applause (of course only if you did not stink at your campaign).
If you are engaging in direct response advertising on social media channels then the fourth metric, Economic Value delivered, comes into play from a strategic perspective. It covers both the immediate value (revenue via macro conversions) and the longer term value (economic value via micro conversions).
For tactical reporting of your direct response social media campaigns, the metrics you’ll use will be the ones I’ve recommended for all other advertising channels (paid search, display, affiliate, whatever).
Here’s that picture, applied to SM DR campaigns:
Value Per Acquisition. Shoot for that.
It will be hard. The enchanting temptresses that are Clicks and Impressions and Avg. CPC will try to lead you astray. Resist their charms. Trust me.
Go for Ninja-hood.
Closing Thoughts.
Social media presents and incredible opportunity to rethink what it means to connect with and influence customers. You need to forget what has worked in the past (and that is why this is so incredibly hard to do. The biggest brands in the world embarrass themselves every day on social media). You’ll have to rewire your brain.
In presenting new metrics for you to measure, what I’m really trying to do is provide a very small assistance in helping you think differently.
I hope it works.
Update: Bonus:
Erik Ohlen was inspired by this blog post to create a very simple, and effective, dashboard where you can track the four recommended social media metrics.
As I had stressed above, currently if you want to report these metrics exactly as defined above and from ALL the social channels mentioned then you have to do so manually. Small price to pay for communicating the actual impact of social media to your management right?
Sheet 1 is the dashboard itself, with instructions. Sheet 2 is where you type in the raw data. Could not be simpler.
When I’d written this blog post it was not possible to measure the metrics that I’d created here. But now there is a very good, still in alpha, tool that allows you to measure the metrics recommended in this post. It’s called TrueSocialMetrics.
Here’s a sample of what the report looks like…
Play with it, and get just the data you need to make smarter decisions when it comes to social media.
As always it is your turn now.
How do you measure the success of your social media efforts today? Got a favorite super lame or super awesome social media metric? Does one of the four (or all four!) metrics above resonate with you? What did I miss about social media? Is there a benefit / outcome / facet that I missed in my measurement framework?
Please share your feedback, critique, suggestions, and cool tools to measure these four metrics, via comments.
Thanks.
PS: A few helpful links for you:
A couple of my older posts with thoughts on social media measurement:
Many have referred to this era as the “social age.” And withFacebook’s IPO this year, one can’t argue that the advent of social communities has fundamentally changed both our culture and the media landscape.
Social has undoubtedly influenced daily client conversations as well (“We need more fans”). A recent CMO study echoed the growing favor of social – unveiling that CMOs expect to increase their current levels of 7.1% of marketing budget to 10.1% over the next year and to 17.5% in the next five years. But why? Is it because it’s a new media channel you feel compelled to use? Or are you investing more as a way of evolving how you behave? To make your brand truly sociable? Sociability creates bonds between people. But just being in social media doesn’t make you sociable.
Sociable people know who the people around them are – and their role in their group.
When we talk about sociability, we’re not talking about socialites, social climbers, connectors or those seen in the social scene. Truly sociable people – or Sociable Butterflies as we call them – are magnetic. They’re able to seamlessly bring people together and foster a great dynamic between people and in doing so, pull people toward them. Yet sociable people are fiercely aware of who is around them at all times. They ascribe a value or a role to each person in a group nearly immediately upon meeting them. And they orchestrate their conversations to maximize their intended impact and their potential energy.
Now, think of brands. How many brands really know the people who are in their circle (buying their product) or in their communities? As old as it may seem, many brands still define their audiences by demographics – for example, 21 to 44-year-old women. It’s not how you’d describe a friend. Who is that person? What do you really know about them? We need to work harder at really knowing people as people. It’s even truer with social media. You’ve gained fans. Do you know who they are? Are they people you want as fans? What’s their role in your social group? What’s their value within your community?
Many brand managers get worried about negative comments in their communities and conversely very excited about positive comments. But each is often without really understanding the role of that person in their community or their background. What’s the role of those people in your group and what value or effect does that really have?
Ford has evolved their blog “the Ford story” into a new program called Ford Social, an experience that continues to encourage people to submit their stories and ideas to Ford – and with the community at large. This isn’t only proof of putting customers first, but through this, they can really get to know their community of fans. They don’t know just what cars they bought – they know why they’re important to them and they know the life stories that have gone alongside those cars. They can be inspired by them.
Being sociable means really understanding not just how many fans you have – but who they are and what role they can play in your social circle.
Think about that person in your social circle whom you really like being around, that Butterfly. He’s INTERESTING – right? He has interesting things to share, provokes good conversations among the group. That’s no surprise. We found that most Sociable Butterflies are genuinely curious about a range of topics and can seamlessly add something of interest to almost any topic. But importantly, they don’t just flaunt the things they know. They are truly interested in YOU as well. They are outstanding listeners. They don’t just listen blindly. Rather, they ask questions and take a productive part in interactions with friends. They want to know about you. Because they are active listeners, they’re able to constantly adapt to the conversation, incorporating new information and building deeper connections with their friends. It’s all about feedback and interaction with people.
Again, think of brands. Are they interesting? Or more important, interested?
We talk a lot about creating a dialogue, but being interesting doesn’t mean just talking back and forth, it means that you’re adding value in some way. Interesting people give you something to think about, or something to do, check out, share. As a brand, what value are you adding to people in your community? What’s making you interesting through their eyes?
Tory Burch and Red Bull actually do a great job of being interesting. Red Bull provides fans exclusive content about the things their drinkers care about – not the product itself. Tory Burch shares her experiences and influences, building a more personal connection with those that buy – or aspire to buy her clothes.
But being interesting might be the easier part (and where our primary focus has been as marketers); being interested takes effort. Not many brands really dive in and pay attention to what their fans are talking about. Usually the dialogue that ensues relates to a product complaint or question. It’s transactional and often brands are only listening for cues about themselves. Brands have the opportunity to be more interested in their friends. Target’s Bullseye Gives illustrates one way of demonstrating interest. They put $3 million in the hands of their community – asking them which of 10 charities should receive the greatest proportion of the money. Target listened and actually distributed that money according to its share of votes. PopChips is another great example of a brand that has succeeded socially. When they see someone’s hungry, they’ve been known to reward them by engaging – asking where their office is and showing up with a few complimentary bags. That’s being interested.
Brands have the opportunity to push beyond the ROI of gaining a fan, building a capability or mastering a process. Social media isn’t just a channel, it’s a call to marketers and brands to change their behavior. To think and act more like people. To focus on emotion not promotion. To be truly sociable, not just active in social.
Increasingly, we network by e-mail or through social media, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. That’s a godsend for shy people. You can listen to conversations and chime in on your own terms.
But sometimes there really is no substitute for being there–like when you attend professional meetings, seminars and receptions, or parties in your community. For those occasions, knowing how to “work the room” can make the difference between a boring waste of time, and an exhilarating event that expands your circle.
1. Go with a purpose. Remind yourself why you are there. You are using your precious time to network and to make some useful connections, so make sure you aren’t wasting energy. Set a couple of targets like: speak to three new people; or try to learn at least two new pieces of information or gossip.
2. Use inside contacts. If you know the event organizer and he or she is around during the event, ask for an introduction to key people who you ought to meet there. Having a warm overture will make the process of networking easier. It will also save you the time of trying to find people who you don’t know.
3. Be a lone ranger.If you’re attending the event with people you already know well, such as colleagues and friends, don’t fall into the trap of sticking together for the whole event. Talking to people who you already know will lessen your chances of meeting new ones. To extricate yourself, deliberately sit next to someone you don’t know during a talk or a meal that takes place during the event.
4. Get the lay of the land.Observe group formations before choosing whom to approach. Look for people who are most likely to respond positively. These would be individuals standing alone who are waiting for someone to talk to, or groups of twos and threes that are open to new participants. You can see this in their body language: if they are facing outward, chances are they are having a casual conversation and would be happy for others to join in.
5. Be aware of your own body language.Folding your arms in front of your body and looking at the floor forms a barrier between you and the other person and gives the impression that you don’t want to talk to them. In contrast, leaving your arms unfolded and maintaining eye contact will make them feel welcome.
6. Break the ice.Don’t feel like you have to say something profound. Breaking the ice can be as simple as commenting on the venue, the program or the food; asking people where they’ve traveled from or whether they’ve been to the event or place before; or expressing an interest in why they are attending.
7. Mind your handshake. Most meetings start with a cordial handshake. Put out your full hand, avoiding the half-handed (and halfhearted) grip, which can feel like a cold fish. Shake firmly, but don’t make it a bone crusher. Maintain eye contact and smile as you greet your new potential contact.
8. Ask open-ended questions. These are questions that ask who, what, where, when and how – as opposed to questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no. Your goal is to explore ideas and opinions and also to show your listening skills.
9. Go easy on the business cards.Make each one count, rather than handing them out like a meaningless pamphlet. It’s not about volume–it’s about quality contacts. Be ready to hand out a business card if someone requests it or you think that you have a made a good solid new connection. Forcing it on someone who doesn’t seem to want it just makes you look desperate.
10. Be generous. Offer to help where you can and don’t expect anything in return. Most people appreciate a favor and want to reciprocate. In time, your virtue may turn out to be its own reward.
Even during a time of high unemployment, top salespeople are always in demand, and their skills are easily portable from one sales environment to the next. Losing them to a higher bidder or a more lucrative sales opportunity is too easy to be taken lightly.
The cost of hiring a new employee for any position is significant, whether an employee is fired or laid off or leaves voluntarily. The many formulas that calculate such costs vary widely, but can range upward of 200 percent of an employee’s annual salary. That includes not only the obvious tangible costs of severance pay, vacation accrual, and job advertising and recruiting fees, but also indirect costs such as the staff time needed for paperwork, recruiting, resume reviews and interviews, and then new-hire orientation and training. Other hard to quantify costs can include customer dissatisfaction, poor employee morale and loss of revenue during transitions.
Let’s assume the average salary in a given company is $50,000 per year. If the cost of turnover is 150 percent of salary, then the cost would be $75,000 per departing employee. For a company of 100 employees with a 10 percent annual rate of turnover, the annual cost of turnover would be an estimated $750,000.
Once you realize what it’s costing, in both dollars and people assets, you’ll want to seriously consider how to reduce your turnover rate. A first step for reducing turnover is understanding your turnover numbers and issues. Start by answering these four questions.
What is your year-over-year average turnover rate?
Can you tie significant changes in the rate to the workplace’s physical environment?
What is your turnover rate compared to your competition?
Are there times during the year when people leave more frequently?
Answering these questions will help you to begin to understand some aspects of turnover within your sales force and you can start to find ways to reduce turnover in your organization.
Another important knowledge-gathering step is to conduct exit interviews and ask why your salespeople leave. While it can be difficult to get candid answers — employees often realize there’s nothing to be gained by saying anything negative — asking exiting employees to rate factors on a scale of 1 to 5 can point to the problems in a more objective and equally productive manner. You can ask them, for example, to rate the level of sales support, management support, fairness of sales goals and fairness of compensation. Design your questions to determine whether you are creating an environment that salespeople can thrive in.
If you find those leaving feel that sales quotas are unattainable, that they can’t live on their compensation between sales, or that they simply think they can make more money someplace else, you’ll have a better understanding of what you can do to change the environment.
A great deal of employee turnover can be attributed to mistakes made during the hiring process. The problem lies in the employee selection process. Simply put, when you hire people for the wrong job, they leave.
There are hiring practices you can implement that will help reduce your turnover and increase retention of your best people. Here are a few:
Make attracting high-performers part of your ongoing business practices so you are always “hire ready.”
Define your hiring criteria, including the job description, so that you hire the right people for the job.
Learn how to screen resumes for top performers.
Give your hiring managers the skills they need to do the job right.
Gather the right kind of data to ensure your candidates have the requisite skills.
Create a consistent and thorough interview and selection process.
Hire salespeople by looking at three areas: experience, technical skills, and communication skills and problem-solving skills.
Too often hiring managers glean valuable insights into employee preferences, strengths and weaknesses during the hiring process and then fail to use the information as a resource to help develop and retain the employee. So rather than focusing exclusively on hiring, you should also begin to think about how to develop sales staff immediately. All that you learn during hiring can be used to continually improve the job-person fit.
Creating a development plan for your salespeople helps show them what they can do to grow and develop, to advance, to become more valued, and to be more satisfied in their work. Development plans also point out what kind of support and assistance they will need to get where they are going faster.
You and your employee will work on the development plan together, but the more involved the employee is in determining the areas to work on, the more committed that individual will be to accomplishing the goals. The objective is to create an environment that encourages continuing feedback from managers, which will help employees advance more quickly, achieve more, avoid unnecessary problems and setbacks — and stay with your company.
Assessing employees starts on Day One. Your hiring process shouldn’t be complete until you have a fully-oriented employee with their own development plan — a clear plan of action that will engage and hold your new hire accountable.
Because the sooner you set expectations for your employees, the more likely you are to have a productive team that supports and grows your business. And that isn’t the only benefit. There are three primary reasons to create individual development plans for managing performance. A development plan will:
1. Set expectations for performance. It gives employees clear expectations for their results. Statements in writing mean there is a greater likelihood of meeting or exceeding expectations. Having clear goals makes them more achievable.
2. Create a coaching document and put a process in place with a road map for advancement and a schedule to review progress, which holds managers accountable for providing feedback.
3. Create a benchmark that shows growth and improvement or the lack of progress against goals. This benchmark will assist you in developing your team members at all levels. Creating a record of improvement will make it easier to adjust the job fit for the employees and to make decisions in a more timely way about where you want to invest in developing employees.
Development plans show what employees can do to grow and develop, to advance, to become more valued, and to be more satisfied in their work. They also point out what kind of support and assistance they will need to get where they are going faster.
Components of the Plan
One mistake many managers make, often because they use poorly designed development plan templates, is to take on too many challenges at once. Keep the plan as simple as possible. Identify a combined total of two or three measurable objectives within the following three job-related categories:
Focus on the employee’s career growth. Examples include attending classes, seminars or workshops, or participating in on-the-job training or self-study programs (e.g., books, DVDs or web-based training).
Help the employee improve personal aspects of his or her performance, behavior or conduct. Examples of task-oriented performance goals are improving computer proficiency, time management or presentation skills. Or the employee can focus on correcting behavioral problems that negatively impact group morale, job performance or job satisfaction. Examples of such goals are developing conflict resolution or stress reduction techniques and building collaborative coworker relationships. As with professional development goals, effective performance objectives are well defined, are measurable, and are clearly linked to specific job-related outcomes.
Provide specific assignments to participate in or manage ongoing or future projects. When setting project-oriented goals, outline the scope of the role the employee is to play, list resources and completion time frame, and define the desired result.
Components of an Effective Objective
Objectives must be ones the employee has agreed to accomplish within a specified time. The goals should be specific and challenging but attainable. Identify everything that both the employee and manager need to provide to accomplish the goals as an objective. Each objective should have four parts:
State the desired achievement for task mastery or improved behavior.
Define the applicability of each goal to the function.
Specify the method of learning.
State the time frame for achievement.
When to Assess
Many companies tie development to performance appraisal. While it’s true you need to set expectations before you can identify areas for growth, employee development is an ongoing process. Reviews should be scheduled as often as needed according to the support, advancement, and abilities of each employee.
Each job and organization will evaluate and measure its employees using a variety of tools. Some of the most common include:
Biannual or annual performance standards/reviews/appraisals: These usually include quantitative and qualitative sections where both the employee and manager have opportunities to make remarks. They state expectations and goals. The employee’s performance is measured against these goals at the end of the time period. Traditionally, these appraisals are directly tied to annual bonuses or pay increases.
Budget and quota measurements: These include measuring a person’s performance against budget expectations and quotas. Employees are evaluated based on how well they perform, and rewards are directly tied to performance.
Regardless of how you choose to evaluate employees, using a development plan customized for each individual will make the performance evaluation process easier and fairer and offer ongoing opportunities to provide coaching and feedback throughout the year, not just at performance review time. It also reduces the risk of surprise in the results for the employees.
The manager and employee will work on the development plan together, but the more involved the employee is in determining the areas to work on, the more committed that individual will be to accomplishing the goals. The objective is to create an environment that encourages continuous feedback from managers, which will help employees advance more quickly, achieve more, and avoid unnecessary problems and setbacks.
To me, LinkedIn has always seemed like more of a place to hunt for a new gig than anything else. And since I haven’t been in the job market for a while, I’ve paid it little mind.
Plus, I’ve always thought LinkedIn was kind of … well, boring. If Facebook is a rave at a hip downtown hot spot, LinkedIn is a stuffy reception with piped-in music at one of those soulless function facilities conveniently located at the end of an exit ramp.
Does that sound harsh? For sure. But now I’ve realized that I couldn’t have been more wrong.
While the early adopters flock to Google+ and our kids and moms become power-users on Facebook, LinkedIn is where business gets done. Execs from all Fortune 500 companies are there, and 59 percent of those active on social networking sites say LinkedIn is their platform of choice over Facebook or Twitter, up from 41 percent who called LinkedIn their most important social account a year earlier, according to a June report by Performics and ROI Research.
LinkedIn, it turns out, is a happening place. As of this spring, it has more than 100 million members in more than 200 countries, on all seven continents. In June–following a splashy and successful May initial public offering–LinkedIn counted 33.9 million unique visitors, up 63 percent from a year earlier, according to internet analytics firm comScore. That traffic meant it eclipsed Myspace as the second most popular social network on the web (after Facebook). (Of course, suggesting that LinkedIn eclipsed Myspace is a little like noting that the Rolling Stones are more popular than The Wiggles. The former remains relevant and continues to increase its audience, whereas the latter has limited and specific appeal–albeit to a passionate and loyal following.)
All of this adds up to making LinkedIn the dark horse in social networking. Or, as my friend Greg Straface calls it (he handles business development at Boston advertising and marketing agency PJA), the “unsung hero” of the social platforms.
It turns out–as I suspected–there’s an awful lot of job searching going on at LinkedIn. But there’s much more going on over there, too. Market-research firm Lab42 finds that top-level executives and entry-level workers use LinkedIn differently: Younger members use the site mostly to post résumés and network for jobs, while more experienced professionals use it to demonstrate thought leadership and expertise, promote their businesses, conduct market research and–perhaps most important–win new business.
So how might companies use it to win new business, specifically?
Target searches for keywords you’ve identified as central to your business. For PJA, Straface targets “VP of marketing,” specific ZIP codes and company names to identify key contacts to call, e-mail, InMail (send a message via LinkedIn’s internal messaging system) or forward a hard copy of his agency’s portfolio.
Track who is looking at your profile and your staff’s profiles. Straface then researches those companies in more depth, identifying their marketing directors and sending out the agency portfolio by FedEx to land on their desks the next day (and again following up with a phone call, e-mail or InMail).
Research, or as Straface calls it, do “reconnaissance” work. Watching (via Google Analytics) which domain names visit the PJA site on any given day gives him a clue about which companies might be in the market for a new agency. Back at LinkedIn, he can research the top decision makers to proactively approach–again, via a call, InMail or portfolio outreach.
Set up a company page. Setting up your business as a “company” on LinkedIn isn’t going to generate a bunch of leads, but it does give you an opportunity to have a presence on LinkedIn beyond a personal profile to ratchet up your company’s charisma. I like the way you can embed banner images and videos in your company page, as well as feed your blog posts and tweets. You can also feature your products on your page and seek recommendations for them. That’s a kind of social proof that only enhances your credibility.
Discern patterns. Notice who’s connected in your industry. In the marketing agency world, for example, there are several key consultants often tapped to help companies with an agency search. Noting that one of those consultants is suddenly connected to several execs at a single company may indicate that the company is poised to begin an agency search. “Which suggests to me that I might want to get my brand in front of them both,” Straface says.
Participate in LinkedIn groups catering to your target market in order to engage in conversations with the right people. Seek out groups with lots of activity rather than simply lots of members. (You’ll have to join them to get a sense of the activity.) For Straface, those groups target CMOs and business-to-business marketers. He monitors each group’s discussion posts and responds thoughtfully with content rather than a pitch. The goal is to engage rather than sell outright.
Does all of this work? Yes, although it takes some focused effort. Straface says he spends anywhere from one and a half to two hours per day on the platform. But to him, it’s worth the effort. PJA has won actual business via LinkedIn: inquiries, agency pitches and at least two new accounts worth between $300,000 and $400,000. Mining LinkedIn in this way, he says, “is only the tip of the iceberg.”
Of course, be aware that your competitors are also able to apply these same tips and tricks; they are privy to the same social insights that could be giving them inside information about you. Your competition can also notice who you are connecting to, which could tip them off about new business in the offing. That’s one of a few downsides of social media transparency. But that’s a column for another day.
I have created this new series of posts to get the most out of the networks that i´m connected with. Instead of writing and talking to anyone individually – which is getting more and more complicated as my networks have grown to a couple of thousands of high profile individuals and companies.
So the idea arose that i simply blog the new ideas that are crossing my way once a week. And if you are interested in introducing your idea, Investment or event – just let me know – and send me an excecutive summary.
It would be perfect if you can support the idea and spread it through your networks to make it a max success.
From following US destinations there are direct flights to Punta Cana: Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cleveland, New York, Sandfort, Charlotte, Miami,
Minneapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Atlanta, Pitttsburg, St-Louis, Cincinnati, Boston, Hartfort, San Juan, Newark, Orlando, Atlanta, Houston, Fort Lauderdale
Also there are direct flights from 11 destinations in Canada, 22 destinations from Europe Inclusive Russia as well as 11 destinations from South & Central America. The casino occupies 5.380 square feet of space that its rents from the resort. There is a possibility to extend the casino space if needed for the future.
The management restarted a junket players program end of 2010 which had considerable increased the profit and the value of the company.
All this generally will give a long term extreme positive effect for the casino operation which will increase the value of the company in a remarkable way!
This casino reflects a good chance to step into the Dominican gaming market in a very secure and safe way for a professional company as well as for a private investor to increase his return on equity!
Golfcourse in Belarus
Brandnew Golfcourse incl. a Golfresort with 350 houses, hotel, restaurant and all the other needs.
The course was planned by a english architect and the building company is from England as well. The start for this project is 2012 and should be finished in 2016.
Requests from a lot of people in my Network has shown that investor interest in innovative young companies is alive and well, particularly for companies with global ambitions.
Early stage investment has always been seen as an exciting, but risky alternative asset class, but set in the context of today’s market turmoil, its relative risk profile is altered. These businesses are perfectly poised to exploit their market opportunities as more established players divert resources to deal with the effects of the credit crunch.
So we decided to set up a Fund that is investing in the potential Leaders of the future but were also seeking for companies with an established Management Team.
We picked companies from the fields of Logistic, Software, Social Media, Recycling/ Waste Management, B2B Event-Management, Sportrights/ Promotion to have an as much as possible diversified portfolio of leading companies.
On the logistic market we are focussing on well established niche players with a large potential to become leader in their Area (German-speaking countries)
In the recycling/ waste Management we have identified a company that is looking to finance their growth into Asia and Eastern European countries. There patented technology gives them the Advance to become the global market leader.
On the Software market we have identified a company that will revolutionize the advertise market and is now in talks of their first large partnership. (Potential: Worldwide Market Leader)
In the B2B – Eventmanagement sector we have identified a company with a complete new approach of bringing together demand and supply. They have now a five-year advance to other competitors and plan to expand their business to the BRIC and N-11 countries.
In the field of Sportrights/ Promotion we have found a company that is already established in Asia but is looking to expand worldwide.
Another interesting company we identified has patents on the CO2 neutral improvement on Power plants. Their Focus is on old Russian Power Plants where they managed to improve output by 10-15%. The potential at the moment is majorly Eastern Europe.
The estimated IRR is +20% and the Fund Duration is planned for 5-7 years.
The management will always be involved with own money. If you have questions about the settlement just let me know.
As I had stressed above, currently if you want to report these metrics exactly as defined above and from ALL the social channels mentioned then you have to do so manually. Small price to pay for communicating the actual impact of social media to your management right?
Play with it, and get just the data you need to make smarter decisions when it comes to social media.
GetItDone 