In this piece from Raconteur - The Social Business, Shoutlet discusses why a consolidated approach from marketing and IT will drive results from social media efforts.

1. Shoutlethasfeatures
builtintoitsplatform
thathelpbrands
makesenseofallthe
socialdataattheir
disposal
25%
of marketing
budgets is spent on
content marketing
Withproperplanning
andexecution,smart
CMO-CIOteamscan
produceapositive
ROIintheirsocial
marketing
anincreaseinsocial
mediamarketing
spendingwillbe
fuelledbyincreasing
numbersof
addressabledevices
5
Overthenext
years
Data-driven
marketing has now
become a necessity,
propelled by the
quick rise of digital
marketing and
social media
“The new reality is that the CMO
and CIO’s paths are now intersect-
ing, and data-driven marketing
means technology plays a front
and centre role,” says Roy Juges-
sur, head of Europe, the Middle
East and Africa (EMEA), for social
media marketing platform pro-
vider Shoutlet. “CMOs and CIOs
have come to realise that they must
work together to keep up with the
demand, and stay relevant in this
ever-changing landscape.”
In its Western European Social
Media Marketing Forecast, 2012 To
2017 report, Forrester notes that
increasing social media marketing
spending over the next five years will
be fuelled by “increasing numbers
of addressable devices; consumers’
willingness to use them; continued
consolidation of the social network
landscape in Europe; and growth in
the number of Western Europeans
whousesocialnetworks”.
But the fact remains that adoption
is much slower than in other parts
of the world, particularly in North
America,duetoamuchslowermat-
uration market, habitual usability by
the consumer and the marketer’s
understanding of how to improve
the brand-fan relationship. As a
result,animportant part ofthedeci-
sion-making process comes down
tohardnumbers.
Social marketing’s return on
investment (ROI) is still a challenge
for many, but with proper planning
and execution, smart CMO-CIO
teams can identify areas for invest-
ment and, eventually, return. To
get started, brands need to keep in
mind the “VSP” of social data:
Volume
There’s a staggering amount of
social data to be tracked and con-
sumed. According to Mary Meeker’s
D11 Internet Trends report, social
contentcreationandspendisexplod-
ing. It’s shaping the human experi-
ence. Social users are exposed to
more information, new experiences
and they’re sharing them. People
can’t consume content fast enough.
And consequently brands can’t cap-
ture the data fast enough. With this
explosion of content comes an even
bigger explosion of data. For the
CMO-CIO approach, the volume of
content will inform many of the con-
tent generation, budget and techno-
logical support decisions that have to
be made. But how do you know what
to look for? And how do you make
senseofitall?
The capabilities of social media
have exploded and its embrace has
becomeacriticalpartofasuccessful
brand’s organisation. Social’s oppor-
tunities are boundless, and the abil-
ity to connect with fans and potential
customers has spurred the need to
understand how it is impacting the
bottomline.
Social touches nearly every part of
business, from how companies con-
nectwithconsumerstohowemploy-
ees collaborate with each other
aroundtheworld.
Until this disruption occurred, chief
marketing officers (CMOs) and chief
informationofficers(CIOs)wereoccu-
pied with their own aspects of the
business. CMOs focused squarely on
how marketing impacted their goals
and had little need to understand the
technicalities, and CIOs didn’t expend
much energy on understanding how
themarketingmachineworked.
However, data-driven marketing
has now become a necessity. This
has been propelled by the quick rise
ofdigitalmarketingandsocialmedia.
CMOs are finding themselves knee-
deep in the technology-decision pro-
cess, and CIOs are getting involved
in how these new platforms interact
with established systems, helping
determinesecuritylevelsandmore.
CMOs and CIOs are coming
together to understanding how IT-
related marketing decisions affect
the overall organisation. According
to B2B Marketing Insider, market-
ers on average spend more than a
quarter of their marketing budget
on content marketing. How then
can they ensure they’re getting the
biggest bang for their buck?
theraconteur.co.uk twitter.com/raconteurmedia 5
COMMERCIAL FEATURE
Segmentation
Social data can be broken down into
three buckets: high-level, mid-level
and individual-level data. High-level
is the bird’s eye view of your brand’s
impact in the social stratosphere that
will help identify your target demo-
graphic. Mid-level is a deeper dive
into the data, which highlights inter-
ests and social activity of your fan
base. Individual-level will expose your
brand’s biggest fans and who is most
likelytoevangeliseyourbrandonyour
behalf. Utilise this social data to iden-
tifyandtriggeractioninthesefansina
brandadvocacyprogramme.
Potential
Having data underline the working
relationship between the CMO and
CIO can uncover potential oppor-
tunities for the overall brand and
Whysocialdatamatters
inmarketingandIT
Thenewrealityis
thattheCMOand
CIO’spathsarenow
intersecting,and
data-drivenmarketing
meanstechnologyplays
afrontandcentrerole
Marketing and information technology are poised to
form a profitable partnership by tackling social media
together in a consolidated approach
organisation, including: better col-
laboration between employees
and external audiences, such as
your social fan base; improved
speed and efficiency through having
CMOs and CIOs on the same page;
informed content strategy by taking
your social data and viewing it from
different angles to expose gaps in
content, and highlight areas that
are resonating with your audiences;
and better results, understand-
ing what works for both internal
and external communication, and
applying that knowledge to future
programmes to position your brand
for success.
Approaching social planning and
execution through the eyes of a
data-minded CIO-CMO executive
teamcanonlyimprovethewaybusi-
nesses approach and implement
social marketing. In making an
effort to understand the volume of
data, how to segment the captured
metrics and applying these lessons
to take full advantage of social’s
potential is the winning formula for
provingsocialreturn.
Shoutlet has features built into
its platform that help brands make
senseofallthesocialdataattheirdis-
posal, giving them the ability to view
it through all three segment lenses.
Customers have successfully utilised
the social analytics features to help
build the social profiles necessary to
identify, engage and empower their
strongestfanrelationships.
To learn more about Shoutlet, visit
www.shoutlet.com or contact us at
sales@shoutlet.com
THE POWER OF SOCIAL DATA
Many companies monitor
social data to uncover
mentions about their brand,
trends in their industries and
feedback on competitors
pieces of content are
processed each day by
Facebook
2.5bn
tweets are processed
each day by Twitter
400m
hours of video content
are uploaded to YouTube
every minute
48Digital marketing in all
its forms has become a
primary way to reach
customers
SEGMENTATION OF SOCIAL DATA
DATA TYPE IDENTIFY PUT IT INTO ACTION
HIGH WHO YOUR AUDIENCE IS
WHAT THEY CARE ABOUT
WHO’S MOST VALUABLE TO
YOUR BRAND
BUILD YOUR BRAND
ADVOCATE PROGRAMME
DESIGN TARGETED
CAMPAIGNS
PLAN YOUR
CONTENT STRATEGY
MID
INDIVIDUAL
42%80%
THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL DATA
of marketers plan to
apply more social customer
data to drive marketing
campaigns in 2013
of marketers plan to
further integrate social
data
FORECASTOFDATA-RELATEDMARKETINGEXPENDITUREIN2013
48%
23%
20%
6%
2%
1%
6%
Increase slightly
Stay the same
Increase greatly
Not determined
Decrease slightly
Decrease greatly
Source:Marketersuppingtheanteonbigdatain2013,MarketingProfs
Source:TheMarketer'sGuidetoSocialCustomerData,2013,Shoutlet