A simple example of the power of listening to audience interactivity…even if learned the hard way, courtesy Social Media Examiner, Nov 30 2010.

Loblaws knew they had a great BBQ sauce based on customer comments. But they didn’t understand why sales were so dismal. Until they invited customers to post product reviews on their website.
Only then did they discover the problem was the bottle – it was too tall to fit in refrigerator
doors! They redesigned the bottle and their sales immediately increased. That’s user-generated
content directly leading to an increase in sales. That’s the power of listening to that content.
That’s success, in a bottle.

But who cares?

Below is a list of social media metrics, again courtesy SMM, albeit rarely used, which do demonstrate either direct
ROI value or audience interactivity with a branded social entertainment experience that actually resulted in a desirable outcome.  They are all readily available with existing technologies, real-time and enable «on the fly»
adaptive responses in tweaking/conceptualizing new content opportunities.

*Cost per unique visitor
o Total cost of the placement or application, divided by the number of unique
visitors. (ROI piece)

*Return Visits
o The average number of times a user returns to a site or application over a
specific time period

*Interaction Rate
o The proportion of users who interact with an video or an application. (Some will
be involuntary depending on where the ad or application is placed on screen, so it is
highly dependent on placement.)

*Video installs
o Number of video players actually embedded placed by a user elsewhere: Facebook
page or email. Also called embed, grab or post count-rate

***Relevant actions taken and cost per relevant action.
Action categories (interactivities to drive new business and new creative conceptuals)
o Contest/sweeps entries
o Coupons downloaded/redeemed
o Games played
o Uploads(e.g. images, videos)
o Poll votes
o Messages sent (e.g. bulletins, updates, emails, alerts)
o Invites sent
o Newsfeed items posted
o Comments posted
o Friends reached
o Topics/forums created
o Number of group members

If this looks like an entirely new interactive model...it's not. Word-of-mouth veterans know all these opportunities like the backs of their hands. It's the next step that loses most folk...curation, the process of guiding search and discovery by "seeding" conversations and resources online. Because curation is indeed the new search. Till next time.

Written By:  Brendan Howley, Fresh Baked Entertainment