Being on the Marketing and PR, side your thoughts always run into 'what's the value', leading to evaluation. Today, I met with one of the lead Application Developers at Terralever, for Facebook, Justin Copeland. We were talking about some applications Terralever developed for Facebook, including one for the BMW 1-series car. I went into it with him in regards to what he thinks the application did for the product and how comparably could have changed the way the company does business today.
I keep thinking about the correct evaluation for such a program as using a Facebook application to garner attention and get sales—it's missing. Social Media evaluation has put a scare on a lot of traditional ad agencies, pr agencies and possibly interactive agencies, out of the pure fear of no solid evaluative measurement.
Sure, things make me scared when I try them, but that doesn't make it a reason to sit in the Stone Age and not implement these into types of programs into everyday business – whether you're on the client or agency side. It's do or die time. If you feel in fear as an agency, take a small amount of time and push social media directly on yourself, how else will you be an expert? Do some pro-bono work, in return for complete usage in a case study. Anything to get yourself out there. Otherwise you'll be missing the boat and not be looked at twice as a company.
So, this still leads me back—is there an evaluative program to use for examining social media and how its use heightens the activity that's being done.
