How to be an innovator? Being different to do different things.

I think that people who love technology and projects, the dreamiest job is being an Innovation Director, the person who is always thinking about improving, developing and setting up new different projects or strategies, to ensure the future and the progress of the company.

Maybe, our company is very successful, but are we completely sure our business model is going to work in 5 years? Have we got some risks? I worked in a tourism company which was very successful for 10 years but they didn’t pay attention to the Tourist Internet Boom and afterwards, they tried to react but it was too late, they finally closed their business. So we can’t remain calm, we always need to study the environment, the market, the client and to invent new strategies and services.

So, an Innovation Director must be curious (go to salons, events, read articles...), always looking for improvement, analytical (don’t forget that without data, we are just a person with an opinion), creative and, it’s mandatory to have a long term vision. Currently, this position is really linked to technology (Internet of Things, Big Data, Digital Transformation…), so this person must move in these environments too.

But the most important thing is to be different. It’s impossible to be innovator if you haven’t set up a lot of projects, if you haven’t had the experience of failing and recovering and if you haven’t done different things, working in different companies and positions. Sometimes, recruiters are looking for a candidate who has already worked in the same sector or in the same position, and I really think this is less important. Several times when we are doing something and we are blocked, we need someone different to see what we haven’t seen.

And everybody can innovate in their role: sales, marketing, finance… Everybody can find a place to innovate and to improve their works. And companies need people like that, special now, when the competition is very hard and the client is very demanding.

I saw a video of Thomas Edison’s story. He was expelled from school, because he was different but her mother didn’t give up, she taught him for years and everyone knows the story that came after, he became a genius. So, please, if you see a different CV but with the knowledge, don’t put it in a side, maybe he / she can invent the light bulb in your company.

5 KPIs to measure your Social Media Strategy

No company discusses if it’s necessary to be or not in the Social Media, but many people have several doubts about the results. The main advantage of online Marketing (and it’s the reason why I love it) is that it’s easy to measure. So, how can we know if our Social Media Strategy works fine or may have an impact in our sales?

First of all, we must have a clear strategy, objectives and target for each Social Media. It’s not the same working with Facebook or Instagram, and the strategy and posts shouldn’t be the same because each one has his own target. Then, we have to measure their effectiveness and to find improvement areas with or without tools. We only need to know that the most important KPIs are:

1) Reach: Followers or Likes / Target Audience 

How many followers / likes do you have? First, we have to determine our target audience because, how can we know if 1000 followers are a lot or not? We also have to see the growth of followers and why they are growing to check the campaign impact (maybe a TV campaign has a strong impact in your Social Media). And, don’t forget to see the number of people that have stopped following you too (maybe for the impact of a complaint). This KPI could inform us if our acquisition campaign goes well.

2) Share of voice: Mentions of your brand / Total mentions of your market 

It’s the classical word of mouth. Nobody mentions your brand or shares content if it’s not relevant. If your content or your brand is interesting to your audience, they are going to share it with their friends (through a “Like”, “retweet”, hashtag…). You can compare this rate with your competitor to know if you are better positioned.

 3) Engagement: Users with interactions / Followers 

An active follower is almost as important as 100 passive followers. An active follower can be a brand evangelist and this is better to obtain new clients than a campaign. At this point you can see if there are some more attractive posts than others and to find the perfect communication. We say that an engaged user is someone who is interacting with your Social Media at least once per month. 

4) Feeling: Negative or positive comments / Comments 

This KPI is a little complicated to determine but very useful. We have to know if our brand is well or badly considered, maybe we have a high number of interactions but just complaining about our service. We need to do it in a manual way though, because a machine can’t do it for us, not available software can sense the irony or the comments with a double meaning.

5) Social traffic: Views in your site from SM / Total views

It’s so easy to know it, Google Analytics tells you! So, look if this rate is increasing, if your Social traffic is higher than your SEM traffic, it would be better to invest more budget in Social Media. You can measure the ROI of Social Media.

With these rates, you don’t have any excuses for assessing if your Social Media Strategy works or not! And above all, these rates work helping you to improve and to continue learning, go!