Month: April 2010

21.6% of US adults own or use an iPod, iPhone or Mac computer. That’s right, one-fifth of Americans own some type of Apple hardware.

Stop explaining math to me like I’m in high school.

I get it. ROI = money earned – money spent / money spent. Thanks for clearing that up.

How do I prove how much money social media earned (or saved) for my business? That’s the real question here.

Every time I see someone try to figure this question out it has something to do with measuring referral traffic to the Web site and that leading in some way to online sales that can be attributed to the link you shared on Twitter. Sure, in a perfect world that’s the way it works. But we don’t live in a perfect world. And guess what – your fans? They’re real people. They live and breathe and walk and talk and they do things offline sometimes. So what about that? What about when a customer writes on your fan page: “I don’t like widgets when they don’t have this function.” and you write back and say, “Well actually we have a whole line of widgets that have that function, they’re just more expensive and so less popular. What are you using it for? Let me help you find the right widget.” Then the fan takes that info and visits your store to check out the other widgets. I realize that’s also a “perfect world scenario” but my point is that providing a level of relationship building and support can lead to repeat, or higher value, customers and that isn’t going to show up in your Google Analytics.

The next most popular model is where someone graphs out monthly sales, then they lay social metrics (like fan count) over that graph and say “Look, a spike in fans! and it’s right next to a spike in sales!” And that’s great, because if you have that graph and you can trick someone into thinking that correlation is causation – go for it. If you do no other marketing besides social, or you were very careful not to change any of your other marketing during your test period, it may even be true – though you could still argue that it’s the opposite way, the sales actually led to customers who wanted to become fans in order to get information on the product and maybe future offers. Suffice it to say that overall this method is shaky at best because it fails so massively to take into account all the other variables at play.

So how do you capture the real value – the actual money earned – from social media?

I don’t have answers. I have questions. I have ideas. And I have a desire to talk about this on a higher level where we can start addressing the actual core issue here and stop reviewing basic math equations like it’s a revolutionary concept.

Who’s with me?

Super cool.

This is seriously all kinds of awesome. Combining Nike + Japanese people + Macs. The best combination.

Amazing.

Mac Daily News has caught wind of some information that points to Apple releasing the next-generation iPhone on June 22nd.

The telltale sign is the renting of a conference center, where all three previous generations of iPhones have been announced.  However, if Apple holds true to its past, we’re likely to not hear anything out of the company until well closer to time.

The ModMyi forums are the epicenter of this information, with writer Messany stating “”Although no confirmations have yet come from Apple (naturally), there is speculation that the big [next-gen iPhone] reveal could take place on June 22nd”.

He goes on to say “For what its worth, while no concrete evidence has turned up to suggest the announcement of a Verizon iPhone at the June 22nd event, a late-breaking tip from Flurry Analytics suggested the possible existence of a Verizon iPhone being used in the US in recent days.”

Only time will tell, of course.  But you can rest assured that The Next Web will bring you every bit of information (and a few rumors as well) as soon as it becomes available.

Brad McCarty
Brad is the editor of TNW’s Google Channel, and a music junkie based in Nashville, TN. Find him on Twitter.