Happy #smday (& welcome to Google+?)

Today, June 30th, marks Mashable's Social Media Day, "A day to celebrate the revolution of media becoming social." This second annual celebration will be commemorated by hundreds of worldwide social media meetups, an no doubt a fair amount of online buzz.

It's perhaps appropriate then that this week marks the official debut of Google's new social product, Google+. Introduced in this blog post and a series of videos, Google+ is a family of apps designed to capture and synthesize the best of the web. It includes mobile applications such as photo sharing and location-based tagging that connect you to friends like Instagram and Foursquare. The group functionality for sorting different aspects of your digital life looks more streamlined then the new Facebook groups. And then there's "+Sparks," which looks like it could bring together fans of different topics in much the way hashtags on twitter, or tags on tumbler allow users to find one another.

So will Google soon be replacing all our other much-loved social sites? Says Steven Levy in this truly in-depth study of the release on Wired, "observers might wonder whether it’s simply one more social effort by a company that’s had a lousy track record in that field to date."

This post on Digital Trends focuses specifically on the fact that Google+ is creating competition for Facebook with the new Circles functionality, and "could have a winner."

Take a look at this Google video previewing the product:



It's easy to get swept up in the idea that this could change the face of the internet. Personally, I found myself laughing at the repeated use of the "Epic Bros" group name, it certainly makes the product seem human and approachable and like something I could see using. But with the quiet failure of Google Wave not so far behind us and privacy concerns from Google Buzz another black mark on their record, I'm hesitant.

The following quote from the Wired article seems to sum up the key takeaway about Google+:

"Google believes that with Circles it has solved the tough sharing problem that Facebook has inexplicably failed to crack. 'With Facebook I have 500 friends — my mom’s my friend, my boss is my friend,' says Shimrit Ben-Yair, the product manager in charge of the social graph. 'So when I share on Facebook, I overshare. On Twitter, I undershare, because it’s public. If Google hits that spot in the middle, we can revolutionize social interaction.'"

Will Google be able to find that white space? Will users be afraid to allow Google so much access to their personal information? We'll certainly be looking forward to seeing what happens in this space.

Did anyone get in on the early release? What do you think?

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA with a specialization in marketing. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com.

New Research on Social Gaming

A May 2011 study by Saatchi & Saatchi found that of US internet users ages 18 to 44, 50% play social games on a daily basis.

This study, entitled "Engagement Unleashed: Gamification for Business, Brands and Loyalty," also found the following:

"When asked how they would like to hear about a new product, 44% of respondents preferred email communications and 37% would choose some kind of online game experience. Only 3% wanted to be told about new products by TV or radio advertising."

Given discussions of social gaming trends that occurred at this year's Social Media and Communities 2.0 conference and the much-buzzed about potential of a Zynga IPO, social gaming is certainly a hot topic right now. The idea that game players are willing to view advertising or perform market research within the context of a game is a very attractive one to marketers.

Yesterday, IIR had the pleasure of hosting a webinar "Winning the Battle for Consumer Attention in a Fragmented Media World" presented by comScore. This presentation further showed that digital advertising within online entertainment was a growing avenue. In fact, one finding presented was that "exposure to display ads doesn’t just impact online sales – it lifts in-store sales as well."

The full presentation is still available for archived viewing, watch it here.

Given these new findings, would you consider advertising with a social game? Or developing a social game as part of your digital strategy? Have you seen any other recent research on these topics? Share with us in the comments or find us on twitter @Community20.

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA with a specialization in marketing. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com.

Watch "The Holistic Approach to Social Media"

Did you miss last week's webinar "The Holistic Approach to Using Social Media for Business" by Citrix? Not to worry, the archived presentation is now available for viewing. Learn more about turning your business into a social business by viewing the full presentation here.

Topics for this webinar, featuring Alex Beauchamp, Senior New Media Manager of Citrix Online included:

• How to engage and monitor in the social space
• Using reporting metrics, insights and advocates
• How to create social content and execute social campaigns
• and more!

For more ongoing webinar content, visit the IIR webinar home page here. Our next event, Winning the Battle for Consumer Attention in a Fragmented Media World will take place on
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011 from 11:00 - 12:00 PM EST

Featuring:
- Gian Fulgoni, Executive Chairman & Co-Founder, comScore
- Frank Findley, VP, Research & Development, comScore ARS

Register for the webinar here.

Is Your Business A Social Business?

In association with Citrix, The Institute for International Research invites you to join us for a one hour complimentary Web Seminar.

Social Business: How to Create a Holistic Approach to Social Media
- Alex Beauchamp, Senior New Media Manager, Citrix Online

Thursday, June 16, 2011 1:00 - 2:00 PM EDT

Reserve your Webinar seat now

When it comes to social media, there's no single "right way" to use it for business. Within its channels companies of all sizes can engage with prospects and customers to drive sales and provide services in a variety of ways.

What matters, however, is that the social media experience your business provides be consistent across the board. A holistic approach is the key to a successful social media program.

Join industry expert Alex Beauchamp to understand the many components of social business and learn how to put them all together into a cohesive plan that best reflects your organization's personality and value.

In this webinar, you will learn how to:
• Engage and monitor in the social space
• Use reporting metrics, insights and advocates
• Create social content and execute social campaigns
• And more...

Title: Social Business: How to Create a Holistic Approach to Social Media
Date: Thursday, June 16th, 2011
Time: 1:00 - 2:00 PM EDT

Register Now. After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar. This web seminar is sponsored by Citrix.

About Citrix Online:
Citrix Online provides secure, easy-to-use online solutions that enable people to work from anywhere with anyone: GoToMyPC® for remote access, GoToAssist® for remote support, GoToMeeting® for online meetings and GoToWebinar® for larger Web events. A division of Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS), the company is based in Santa Barbara, California.

About The Institute for International Research:
The Institute for International Research (IIR) is the world's largest conference company and has been the leader in the provision of business information for over 25 years. IIR produces over 5,000 events annually through its network of offices in over 35 countries.

#MUCONF11: Rounding Up Measure Up

In the wake of the 2011 Measure Up conference we are newly energized to begin integrating and measuring social media marketing.

Over on the Chadwick Martin Bailey Research Blog Brian Neville-O'Neill, CMB's Content Marketing Manager, rounded up his top four takeaways from the conference:

1) “Complexity” and “social” are tightly coupled.

2)Location based marketing has potential (and is in the business of “manufacturing serendipity").

3)Brands need everyone on board, not just marketers.

4) Being “in the game” and just “being social” isn’t enough anymore. You need to engage.

Visit the blog to view the whole post. What would you say are your biggest take-aways from this year's Measure Up event? Is there anything you will be doing differently with your social media strategy as a result of the conference?

If you attended, stay tuned to your email. An executive summary with comprehensive information about the event will be headed your way soon.

To stay connected on this topic all year, follow us on twitter @MeasureUpIIR or join our LinkedIn group.

#muconf11 Live: Day Two, Measuring the Marketing Mix

Today we enjoyed another great day of the Measure Up conference. The #muconf11 twitter stream continued to provide key insights into the great conversations happening in Boston.

In the spirit of yesterday's post on the twitter analytics of the day, I decided to do another quick analysis using two of my favorite free online tools for social media measurement, Social Mention and Klout.

Social Mention is an excellent tool for taking the pulse of a conversation on twitter. It includes metrics such as sentiment, number of mentions, number and names of authors, number of retweets and more. You can see the #MUCONF11 analysis here.

Our top users are largely the same as yesterday, but we did hear from a few new voices (welcome!) Another one of the great aspects of Social Mention is that it allows you to export a excel sheet of top users and keywords amongst other stats (certainly helpful when presenting social media results within the company.)

The presentation "Using Analytics to Drive Revenue: Placing an Exact Value on Your Sponsorship’s “Added Value”" by Greg DePalma of Tivo was perhaps our most buzzed about today.

vdeval: would be interesting to overlay social media data with TiVo slides on most rewound commercials during super bowl #MUConf11

GuyPowell: Cool to have a lot of TIVO data to analyze #MUCONF11

Next I took a look at the @MeasureUpIIR Klout score. Klout is a fun tool that allows you to measure not just your own network, but your network's ability to influence the networks of those connected to it.


As you can see the impact of the live event is having a positive impact in Klout for @MeasureUpIIR


Perhaps more importantly, our Amplification Probability continues to grow.
This score measures the chances of our messages being shared or retweeted. As we learned yesterday:

johnlovett: Value of a FB fan: It's not the "like"; they're already your fans. It's the Friends of Fans where the real growth oppty lies #MUCONF11

Having a high or growing chance of amplification means more reach for your brand, as fans are more likely to become brand evangelists for you to their networks. Do you use Klout or other tools to measure your social influence? Share with us in the comments, or check in again tomorrow for Day 3 of #muconf11.

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA with a specialization in marketing. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com.

#muconf11 Live: Hot Topics and Prolific Twitterers

Today the 2011 Measure Up conference kicked off in Boston, MA. If you were following along with the #muconf11 twitter stream, you probably saw an intensive and exciting knowledge exchange. For those who weren't following along, here were some of today's top tweets

johnlovett Monster's BI Vision: Data>Info>Knowledge>Intelligence is a blueprint for solid #measure strategies everywhere #MUCONF11

GuyPowell Foiled Cupcakes 93.7% through social media channels. Fantastic story on how to micro-target your audience #MUCONF11

rroussev #MUCONF11 When does social media become traditional?

johnlovett "Before you even get to #SocialMeasurement you need to be planning to determine what's important" *Key* fact from @vargasl #MUCONF11

bonniesituation #muconf11 More data =/= more useful data -- Kanishka Das, P&G

GuyPowell 4 reasons to talk about a product. great/bad product, need 4 recognition, desire to help others, great advertising.Very important #MUCONF11

ROIEvangelist Advertising has a negative effect on WOM and social media - Purush Papatla #MUConf11

stevengroves Being 'in the game' and just being 'in social' isn't enough any more - you need to engage - Jon Giegengack / CMB at #MUCONF11

VirtualMR Don't assume that you need to be social. You probably do but it is worth quantifying how much. (@cmbinfo) #muconf11 #cmo

vdeval the real growth opportunity for brands is friends of fans and not just fans @bruich #MUCONF11

Seeing as this was a conference focusing on analytics, I decided to play with one of the many free analytics tools available today, The Archivist, and take a look at the top influencers and topics of day one of #muconf11 statistically.

It's hardly surprising to see that conference chair Guy Powell was a top user of the hashtag. @VirtualMR and @JohnLovett were also top contributors. Many other attendees chimed in as well.

Next I looked at top words used in our twitter stream in order to identify hot topics. After the obvious words "Social" and "Media" amongst others, we see that Jon Giegengack of Chadwick Martin Bailey spurred conversation during his presentation "Due Diligence: Maximize the Return on your Social Media Investments" as did Kanishka Das of Procter & Gamble with "The Incremental Lift of Social Media on Traditional Media"

Lastly, I was curious which twitter platforms were popular amongst this crowd. Hootsuite and Tweetdeck, as well as the regular web interface dominate on this chart, but some users were participating via Radian6, iPhone, Android, Ipad and even Facebook and Foursquare.

It's amazing how much data you can gather from even a free service like this. To view the full size Archivist graphics and more detail, click here.

What recurring topics and themes did you notice during day one of the event? Do you ever use free analytics like this for research? Share with us in the comments, or find us on twitter @MeasureUpIIR.

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA with a specialization in marketing. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com.

Complimentary Webinar: Winning the Battle for Consumer Attention in a Fragmented Media World

In association with comScore, The Institute for International Research invites you to join us for a one hour complimentary Web Seminar.

Winning the Battle for Consumer Attention in a Fragmented Media World
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011 11:00 - 12:00 PM EST

Featuring:
- Gian Fulgoni, Executive Chairman & Co-Founder, comScore
- Frank Findley, VP, Research & Development, comScore ARS

Reserve your Webinar seat now here.

Consumers' media consumption patterns are evolving as dynamically and rapidly as the market is fragmenting. Using insights gleaned from groundbreaking new research, comScore Executive Chairman Gian Fulgoni and comScore ARS VP of R&D Frank Findley will illuminate how consumers' media consumption habits are changing across TV, Internet, Print and Mobile. They'll also discuss some of the dramatic impacts these changes have on brand communications, media planning and copy evaluation. While the landscape is shifting in many different ways, one thing is for sure - all marketing outreach must occur in a holistic manner that recognizes the many touchpoints impacting the customer.

This webinar will reveal new thinking about how you can best harness the power of cross-platform insights to more effectively build your brands. It will highlight some of the key implications of this increasingly fragmented landscape and provide actionable tips that will help you address today's multi-media measurement challenges.


Register Now. After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

Measure Up Podcast: Tim McMullen

In preparation for next week's Measure Up conference, we'll be highlighting conversations focusing on marketing measurement best practices in a Measure Up podcast series.

In today’s edition, Measure Up conference chair Guy Powell and Steven Groves, co-author of the recently launched book ROI of Social Media, interviewed Measure Up speaker Tim McMullen of Redpepper. McMullen will be participating in the Panel "Board Room Buy-In: How to Create Relevancy of Marketing Metrics within the Corporate Environment" with Gary Katz of Marketing Operations Partners, Ellen Campbell-Kaminski of LexisNexis, and Mark Krebs of Kirkland’s on Wednesday, June 8th at Measure Up. In today's podcast McMullen discusses some techniques for getting that all-important buy-in, and finding the right metrics to be measuring for your marketing plan.

For a sneak peek of the session and some of his ideas on the topic, listen to the podcast here.

To learn more about Measure Up, visit the event webpage. Plus, follow us on twitter for exclusive industry content, continued event updates and more @MeasureUpIIR.

We hope to see you at the conference next week, it's not too late to register! Register with code MEASURE11BLOG for 15% off the standard rate here.