I have a confession to make…I’m a little bit of a “Scrooge.” While I do love to watch my kids’ excitement during this time of year, I also childishly grumble my way through the list of to-dos and general craziness that seems to have become “The Holidays.”

This week, however, I’ve been reading some things that are warming my curmudgeonly heart. A recent study revealed that despite the recession, 63 percent of Americans plan to make online donations to charities during the Holiday season this year; that is a 12 percent increase from last year! Another poll conducted by the charity World Vision reveals that 3 out of 4 Americans say they would prefer to receive a “meaningful” gift that “helps other people” than a traditional gift of clothes or electronics.

There could be a number of factors influencing this, but I suspect that increased participation in social media networks has something to do with this shift toward a true holiday spirit of giving. Social media is a great, cost-effective way for charities to raise awareness and drive donations in a very personal way. I know that I am more apt to pay attention to a charity that someone in my group of Facebook friends brings to my attention and holds dear to his/her heart. And this year, I notice a lot of creative uses of social media vehicles to help drive awareness and participation in charities – mainly by making it fun and easy to make a difference.

Some of my favorite examples:

• Twitter’s “Turn Twitter Red”Support of World AIDS Day
• The Chase Community Giving page on Facebook, where you can vote for how $5 million in charitable donations are allocated
• Animal lovers can use Facebook Connect to register with BringPetsHome.org, which connects with popular holiday shopping sites like WalMart, Macy’s,Sephora, Amazon and iTunes to help save pets’ lives with each purchase
• With Charity Choice, you can purchase a donation in the form of a gift card that the recipient can give to the cause of his/her choosing
• If you’d like some giving guidance, eHow has a Holiday Charity Giving Guide that can help

That’s some Holiday news we can all feel good about. I feel so good, I’m getting excited for other things I love about the holidays…like the seven-fish Italian Christmas Eve dinner my mother-in-law makes, David Bowie’s rendition of “Little Drummer Boy” and the sure-to-occur multiple airings of “Love Actually,” one of my favorite Christmas-themed movies ever. Bring on the Cheer!

Over the past two years that I’ve been working in the ChatteRL&A social media department at Robin Leedy & Associates, I have had many discussions with co-workers and clients about how we can measure the impact of our social media campaigns. Since analytics and media monitoring is one of my main responsibilities, I have also read and considered a number of opinions about this subject from thought leaders in the space. All of the opinions that I have read and the discussions that I have had all seem to come to the same conclusion: social media can be a hard beast to tame. However, this does not mean that social media is impossible to measure; it just means that it’s not measured in the typical ways that we measure, analyze and evaluate ROI for traditional media.

Gauging the impact of new technology is always challenging; it took a long time for brands to agree to a measurement standard for “traditional” media, and, even more so, traditional PR. Most recently, the popularity of DVRs and online media consumption have led to some of these well-worn standards to be re-examined. So, while it may be a complex task, social media professionals are continuously working to develop different ways to make social media evaluation not only easy, but concrete and realistic, with the ultimate goal of  reaching a standard that everyone can agree on.

The first step to figuring out a solution is to determine what about social media makes it challenging to measure. The answer to this question comes down to the basis of what social media is: relationships. And measuring the value of a relationship both online and offline can prove to be very tricky, though we think, not impossible.

Relationships come in all sorts of shapes and sizes in the “real world” and the relationships you develop in the “virtual” social media world are no different. A blogger can have any number of potential relationships. For example:

• Casual – Reader with no community interaction
• Engaged – Blog reader who also actively comments on posts
• Direct – Contact with the blogger via e-mail, telephone, or another form of interpersonal contact
• Social – This is for the individual that may not even be a reader of the blog but who knows the blogger on a personal level. This can also be divided into further sub-categories – “close social”, “casual social”, etc.

Now the question becomes, “how do you measure the value of these types of relationships and further still, how do you figure out a relationships value if it is the same type as another. There are different factors open to consideration, including unique monthly visitors (UMVs), how many other sites link to the specific blog (aka “trackbacks”), level of commenting on a particular post, the level of engagement readers have with a specific post, which can be measured by the frequency and the content of the comments that are left. Still, none of these measurements quantify the value of the relationship itself; they are just qualitative factors that determine the popularity of who the relationship is with, and the influence the blogger has on their other relationships.

Often overlooked is the factor of time, which can affect the value of a relationship. Much like traditional media, each day can prove to be easier for one relationship over another and the next day it can be completely different. Social media also is affected by time because it is constantly changing. When I first started at RL&A, Twitter did not exist and Facebook behaved similar to a web site, with only static information present. Now, Facebook is real time and relationships can occur in this new medium with entirely different ways to measure in Twitter. The point is that the standards we use to measure social media will also have to keep up with constant change, which makes it even more difficult to measure, although not impossible. Stay tuned as we continue to develop this measurement process.

Wanted to share this article from the Wall Street Journal…interesting for two reasons: it shows how popular Twitter is becoming with different age groups as well as the growth of status updates (vs. social networking). Food for thought when planning marketing campaigns.

Please feel free to leave your comments after reading the article.

Thanks and enjoy!

A Fifth of Internet Users Now Share Status Updates, Pew Says

Working with bloggers is an area RL&A specializes in, and it continues to amaze me that the one thing we always hear from bloggers is that companies and agencies often put little to no effort into their outreach. This is an area we have been looking to perfect, for some time now. We know that many of the bloggers receiving our pitches are getting tons of requests from other firms, yet we hear that many are not succeeding because they are approaching them the wrong way. In the blogosphere, not succeeding can mean getting a negative post – about the product or even the agency or person doing the pitching, which can have dire consequences and remain online for a long, long, time.

• Don’t mass pitch bloggers – they can detect a canned group pitch every time
• Always take the time to personalize your email, which gets back to relationship building and putting in the time to get to know the blogger
• Respect the blogger’s blog, time and intelligence
• Remember the blog is about the blogger, so make sure the product or service being pitched relates to the blogger and his/her audience
• Be completely transparent about who you work for and/or represent
• Don’t try to influence a blogger’s review

When all checks and balances are accounted for, a good, thorough product review is the result and a lasting relationship is established. Here’s a perfect example -http://thedirtytshirt.com/certain-dri-review-and-giveaway

With the huge increase in consumer-generated content online, that line in the sand between authentic consumer opinion of bloggers and direct marketing to consumers via blogs is being more closely defined, especially as some marketers/companies have taken some liberties in providing hefty “freebies” or payoffs to get influential bloggers to write positive reviews about their products. So it is no surprise that the FTC is now cracking down on blogger payola (how small or large it might be) with more formalized rules (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2353749,00.asp) and, more importantly, fines (for bloggers and companies) for breaking those rules.

And you know what? WE here at RL&A WELCOME IT! Despite how scary this sounds now (especially to that blogger somewhere in Small Town, USA who was really happy discussing her opinions of eye shadow, air fresheners or sippy cups, but now worries she’ll be slapped with an $11,000 fine!), what this really comes down to is ethical business practices in the social media arena. A company with great blogger relationships in key client categories (mommy, health, beauty, etc.) can do this successfully and ethically…as we do daily….without crossing that line. And the companies and bloggers that do cross that line…repeatedly…well, they deserve to be outed, because it shows the rest of us in a better light. If they continue to exist, it taints the whole process.

In fact, when we send a blogger a client’s product to take a look at – knowing full well she could also do a negative product review – we are extra happy to see the following language at the bottom of her (or his post) now:

This review is 100% my opinion and although I was sent the product by mail from the company to try, it did not affect my review. I love this product anyway!

How’s that for an endorsement!

According to eMarketer’s “Community and Social Media Study,” a combined 99 percent of online retailers who were surveyed currently employ (86%) or plan to employ (13%) Facebook fan pages as part of their consumer marketing. This news follows the release of a recent study from the Association Associated of National Advertisers (ABA), which found that two-thirds of marketers utilized social media in 2009, as compared to 20 percent in 2007.

I remember when I first joined Facebook. It was in 2005, and I was a senior in college. The social network, which was strictly for students at that time, was rolled out on a college by college basis. Back then, there were no advertisements, fan pages and product pages. It wasn’t long after that brands realized Facebook was an untapped marketing opportunity with an ever-growing network of consumers at their fingertips. It’s interesting to see just how much the Facebook landscape has changed in the four-plus years that I’ve been a member.

For brands like the drugstore beauty and health brands RL&A represents, Facebook is a manageable and cost-effective way to connect with consumers – one that allows us to learn about their product likes/dislikes, to answer questions that might not normally be asked or answered, and to reward them for being fans in an effort to reinforce their brand loyalty. More and more brands continue to realize that Facebook is now more than just a network of college students. It’s a melting pot of parents, sports fanatics, product lovers, gamers, beauty junkies, health nuts, and everyone in between. In fact, the fastest growing segment of Facebook users is 35-54-year olds, with those 55-plus following right behind.   

It’s been said that “Facebook is now the epicenter of all things social,” surpassing even e-mail in the quantity of messages shared. As PR professionals, Facebook and social media allow us to get a handle on our target demographic in a way that is much more immediate and personal than through traditional media channels, such as print and TV. We can find our clients’ niche, develop and nurture relationships and really show consumers that they’re important to the brand. Facebook can no longer be ignored.