CEC Insider

At CEB, mid-year performance review time is here.  Seven busy and slightly hectic months of 2010 have flown by (how is it already August?!).  I have lots of stories to share.  A few things I’m proud of.  A few goals to achieve in the next half of the year.  But how do I put the right story together to truly demonstrate my impact to my manager, let along my manager’s manager???  I doubt newsletter metrics or download numbers for my research pieces will do the trick.

Communicators, have you recently tried to demonstrate your team’s effectiveness?  One of the top cries for help we hear from CEC members is: “Metrics!  We need help with metrics… how to define them, how to present them, and how to link them to the business goals that senior leaders actually care about.”

In a recent poll about Communications dashboards, only 31% of communicators said they have a dashboard they present to senior leaders to demonstrate Communications’ effectiveness.  Of those, only 50% said they are satisfied with their current dashboard. However, this “satisfaction” is questionable if you look more specifically at these respondents’ satisfaction with their dashboard’s ability to do the following: Read More »

If you’re like me, you regularly get hit with social media newsletters, blog posts, and expert proclamations that all declare they’ve found the definitive new social media search engine or analytics tool (e.g., ”13 Essential Social-Media ‘Listening Tools!”).  However, when I begin playing around with these “essential” tools, I’m often disappointed either because (1) they miss too much or (2) they pick up too much.  This prompts me to ask, “Which free tools are actually worth the time???”  Based on conversations with (often frustrated) communicators and CEC’s research, I’ve assessed some of the popular search tools available and provided a quick review of what they can—or can’t—give you.

As context, here are the basic criteria I used when reviewing a monitoring tool:

• Is it actually free? (If the answer is “no”, it didn’t make my list.  This happened with a couple tools like Jodange and Filtrbox.)
• How relevant are the results?
• How timely are the results?
• How comprehensive are the results?
• Is the interface easy to use and interpret?

In addition to the popular tools that I reviewed in the table below, I came across these other fun tools: Read More »

“Even though I have a social media monitoring agency, I do most of my listening through free, channel-specific tools anyway.  My agency just doesn’t have the capabilities I didn’t know I needed.”

“I signed up with Radian6 when it was the popular thing to do, but now I’m frustrated by all the spam that gets through. ”

“We’re looking at signing on with Alterian SM2, but I have no idea if it’s the right choice or if I’m missing another vendor that would be better???”

These quotes from your peers provide a glimpse into the confusion and frustration that a lot of communicators experience when it comes to social media monitoring firms.  As I’ve mentioned in earlier blog posts, I’ve been trying my best to understand how you can listen to stakeholder conversations in a meaningful way.  Based on my interim thinking, I’m dedicating this post to helping you navigate through your social media vendor options.  Read More »

As part of our 2010 research initiative, Influencing Stakeholders in a Networked Environment, I’ve been thinking a lot about media monitoring.  After all, it brings a science to communicators’ efforts to develop messages that resonate with audiences—not to mention flow through their social networks.

In my recent chats with (smarty) CEC members, I’ve heard the name Katie Paine crop up quite a few times.  In case you don’t know her, she’s the CEO of KDPaine & Partners LLC and a PR measurement expert.  So, I thought I’d get Katie’s direct perspective on some of the questions that members—and we at CEC—are asking.

Rebecca, CEC: Communicators are often overwhelmed by the number of monitoring vendors out there, all lauding their services.  Then, when they finally select a service, it’s hard to make sense of all the data.  Is there an easy answer?  What’s been your experience in working with vendors?

Katie, KD Paine: My experience has been that many vendors “sell the dream”; that is, you think you’re going to sign-up and instantly receive all the data and intelligence that you need.  The reality is that it’s hard work. Read More »

Nearly every day, I get to talk to members about CEC’s major research initiative for 2010, and over the course of the past couple months, this has summed up to A LOT of conversations!  I’m asking them about external stakeholder outreach…how the media landscape is changing…how this is tangibly affecting their teams.  Really rich and interesting conversations.  THEN, the conversation turns to media monitoring.  It goes something like this:

Rebecca: So, how do you monitor conversations about your company? How much do you spend?  How do you USE the information?

CEC Member: [Yawn.]  [Then rattles off responses like a robot.]

Now, I’ve got nothing against robots (er, total tangent and perhaps inappropriate, but I actually think robots are HILARIOUS).  That said, I sense that members waste a lot of money on robotic “going through the motions” in this area. To them, monitoring is simply a part of the Communications function.  A box to check off.  Something that has to get done and does not necessarily require much reflection.  It may be the obsessive analytic in me, but I think that (1) communicators typically lack a deliberate and integrated objective for monitoring and that (2) they don’t use the information spit out of their monitoring machines.  Alas! Read More »