The value of your IIA membership
You may be deciding whether to renew your IIA Membership right? Or maybe you’re thinking about joining. We know, in (sorry to bring it up) times like these, every decision to shell out cash is a hard one.
In January of every year we encourage our existing members to renew their membership. It’s a great time to join as well because you will get a full year of all that goodness.
What goodness exactly?
- Did you know that you can save up to €1035 on training costs this year as an IIA Member? With an average satisfaction rating of 85% for events the training is well worth it.
- Did you know that as an IIA member you can approach our working groups for advice relating to a range of issues from legal queries to web development?
- Did you know the value of IIA Resources & Services, if it were to be undertaken by you privately, would amount to the following:
- Legal support on specific queries with a minimum value of €300 per query;
- Training course materials and Case Studies valued at €4,200;
- Development guides and White Papers valued at €3,600.
It’s a solid business case and that’s just the hard numbers. Being a member of the IIA is important, it puts you and your business at the centre of Ireland’s digital economy.
- Members have access to a growing range of business intelligence resources developed for the Irish market including “Join the Conversation: The Guide to Blogging for Business” and many others
- All members have an opportunity to raise their company profile by participating as a speaker, in a working group, as a guest blogger or simply by adding company news or company feeds to IIA.ie.
Hello 2010! How’s it going?
Just a super quick post to wish you all the best in 2010! A couple of things were brought to my attention while I was on leave and I thought the quickest thing would be to share them with you all here.
- Firstly IIA member Pixel Design thought some of you might be interested in Dublin County Enterprise Board’s search for Irish Digital Talent to represent Ireland at a Campus Party Europa Event in Spain in April.
- Secondly I thought it was worth reminding you that one of our members is conducting research about social networking for a masters thesis. Please complete her survey if you have a few minutes to spare.
- And there should be a thirdly. Ah yes! If you are an IIA Member, your membership is now due for renewal. We are doing a special 10% for members who renew online by credit card. Email me at members at iia dot ie for the voucher code.
Guest post: The thorny business of measurement and who blinks first.
A guest post from IIA Social Media Working Group Member Eoin Kennedy of Slattery Communications. You can check out Eoin’s blog here. (I particularly like his most recent post at time of writing about the implications of using multiple usernames across social networks.)
IIA Member Company SimplyZesty recently ran another successful measurement camp. The session itself was attended by less than normal but ran to a familiar structure with two presenters followed by a group activity based on three case study scenarios.
Overall although online is much more measurable than traditional media the demands to quantify it financially have not been met to date. The first wave of measurement has been around physical numbers i.e. numbers of followers, number of posts. These give a topline indication of engagement but translating this into actual worth is tricky. How much is a follower/friend actually worth? Sure it’s great to get some “thumbs up” and “love” but what are these actual measures worth? For property owners such as bebo this poses real challenges. Engagement models are generally built around the pushing and advertising of the page profile but savvy brand holders want more. The burden of responsibility is getting pushed back to the property owners as marketers want more metrics to gauge success while platform owners need agreement on values attached to elements so that they can build charging models. Currently the CPM (cost per thousand impressions) advertising model is the main charging structure used. If the platform owner is charged with the financial delivery then they need to have full control over the creative, which again would pose problems.
Philip McCarthy now ex Bebo gave a good overview of some campaigns that they have run and admitted that measurement is still at an early stage. Bebo does engagement very well but an experience with Coca Cola Burn posed interesting questions about what he should have charged. Current values are around 3 euro cost per thousand which would indicate a value of €60k for the Coke campaign that achieved 20m impressions. The campaign achieved 17,000 visits to the site, 126 comments, 7 photos, 70 quizzes, 679 skins used.
Engagement is something that social media does really well and according to Philip there must be a value to it.
Philip debated using traditional rates that are charged for advertorials, something that is pretty much set and understood with traditional media. Basing digital charging models on established off line models has merit in that brand owners understand them but is probably not the best starting point.
The establishment of a base line measurement was discussed that could be used across other media but no one has yet taken this step to any great degree.
Where this gets particularly difficult is in getting values on things like thumbs up, love and other signs of engagement used on different social networks. It’s great to get them but what do they really mean and what value could be put on them?
One of the areas discussed that could help on measurement in the real world was the use of redeemable bar codes. The idea being that rather than a virtual present that people could send a ‘printable’ bar code or even one that could be displayed on a phone. This could be taken to an outlet and redeemed. This could help track social media activity to actual sales. For example a coffee shop could build an app that allows users to send a coffee to friends. The friend could print out or show the barcode that would be scanned through at an actual coffee shop. By doing this the coffee shop could measure the actual sales generated by the voucher and social media activity. Some good work in being done in this area by IIA Member Company Zappa but problems still exist for terminals to read bar codes on screen.
The overall feeling from the event was that some leadership needs to be established in measuring the value of online campaigns and that the current metrics, while good, are not financially based enough for brand owners. The UK Measurement Camp has also suffered from similar problems.
My own observation is that once criteria that are reasonably sound are established Klout, TweetLevel for Twitter, or Technorati for blogs could start to become industry standards. At some point someone needs to take a brave step. The online community will undoubtable respond and some progress could be made.
I said it would be annual…
Last year I delivered a special virtual hamper to all of our members. I said it would be annual so the time has come again to gather up all your goodies and share them with your fellow members. Your gift can be a discount on a product or service, an hour consultation, a free trial, whatever you would like – just use your imagination.
Send your special offer to members at iia dot ie before Friday 4th December at 5pm and I’ll wrap it up, shake some elve dust on it and send it on it’s merry way.
Thanks!
Get social on IIA.ie
Link your company profile with Twitter, IGOPeople, Facebook and more!
We’ve been doing some work in IIA.ie over the summer including moving the site to a managed server and improving the voting system to allow members more say in an easier manner in the running of the association but I think our latest update is going to appeal much more than all that!
Every member company in the IIA has a company profile and a number of users. The primary user is the user responsible for keeping the company profile up to date. This user can now add all the social networking sites where your company has a presence. Some are predefined to get you going but you’ll see from the IIA profile that we have added for example our YouTube page and our Pix.ie profile too. Other possibilities are RateMyArea company profiles, WhoseView company profiles, company Ning networks, Speakerrate profiles, Flickr pages, Google Reader Shared Items – the list goes on!
Each individual user within a company can also choose whether to display their name and role on the company profile. There is also an option for users to include a LinkedIn profile. You can see mine and Fergal’s displayed towards the end of the IIA Company profile.
All users can also continue to add news, feeds, appointments, and vacancies. If your company is a member I would strongly recommend that you take the time to update the site. We are regularly contacted by businesses seeking contractors and partners in a range of areas and while we cannot recommend one company over another we always suggest they search the Members Directory. So it’s imperative that your profile is updated. Adding feeds and other social sites will allow a potential client or partner get a better idea of your latest news, views and crew.
So what are you waiting for? Get updating!
(Have you forgotten your login details? Has your primary user gone on to pastures new? Other login problems? Email me, Roseanne, and I’ll try to sort you out.)
Free money!
IIA Members iQContent have launched iQPrize. They want to help grow a good idea into a great business and they would like to hear from everyone and anyone. They plan to invest EUR10,000 in the idea that impresses them most. Closing date for entries is May 12th and at time of writing they had 16 entries. Not bad odds.
Find out more at iQPrize.ie or watch the video below where Morgan McKeagney, iQContent CEO explains all.
I have some great ideas for the IIA website that EUR10,000 could put a serious dent in; maybe I should have a wee chat with them… 
If it’s Monday I must be in Donegal
I’m going to be busy this week meeting business people at the Donegal Enterprise Board Enterprising Donegal Week on Tuesday and others at the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Enterprise Week on Wednesday. So this is just a quick (late night!) post to say if there are any members who would like to come and meet business people who are looking for advice on using all aspects of the internet in all kinds of business I would welcome your expertise at the IIA stand between 4pm and 6pm on Wednesday 25th March. All details via the link above. At a previous enterprise event I was asked questions about choosing web developers/ designers, email marketing, using social media for business, as well as more bizarre and thankfully expected questions about the IIA and the internet in general!
If you are a member of the IIA and you think you have half an hour to spare please email me at members at iia dot ie.
You’re all winners to us
But one of you is more of a winner Congratulations to IIA member PillarProjects who, having renewed their membership before January 31st like nearly all of you, was randomly chosen as the recipient of a EUR250.00 IIA events voucher. May they wear it well and we look forward to seeing them at future events.
I often talk with our members about the work they are doing on their sites. Like our experience, they often tell me that for every new public facing feature that is developed there are usually five back stage features brought online that help streamline the business. One big feature that we brought online that fell into that category was online renewal. This has really simplified the process for you and for us here in the IIA this year. I have to take your word for it because I wasn’t around on previous renewals. All you need to do to renew now is log in and follow the instructions. This is also the perfect opportunity to update the company profile, add in company news, vacancies or appointments and, one of our most popular new features, your company blog feeds and news feeds, which are used to populate the IIA homepage.
If you are one of the last few member companies who have yet to renew please do so at your earliest convenience. You don’t want me to ring you to ask you because you will NEVER get me off the phone. I talk A LOT!
Feedback Friday 5: Reverb Studios Multimedia and Website Design
This week’s feedbackee (!) is Reverb Studios from Co. Leitrim. I’ll allow Leon Quinn, MD, explain why he is seeking feedback on his site at the moment:
www.reverbstudios.ie is the website for Reverb Studios Multimedia and Website Design, a small company based in Co. Leitrim.
I have had many people comment on my choice of dark colours for the website with the general consensus so far being that “it’s too dark” so I’d like people to look at that issue please. Bear in mind that there needs to be a good contrast between background and text colours and in that regard I believe White on black is as good as black on white! Also bear in mind that a significant number of people have said to me that my colours were “different” and it made my site “memorable”. My influence for the design was the iPhone if that’s not immediately obvious!
I’m planning a re-design soon so any comments may be influential!
Here are some other issues I’d like feedback on too please:
- Layout
- Speed
- Navigation
- Clarity of purpose.
Thanks to Leon for volunteering. Please don’t forget the guidelines when you are giving your feedback.
If you would like to volunteer your site or a client’s site please email me at members /at/ iia /dot/ ie
Imagine if you have a meeting with a client and you want to highlight the areas on their site that require development how helpful this could be. Do get their permission though!
Have a look at previous Feedback Friday entries to get an idea of how it has worked so far.
Free Rockets!
Okay not strictly true But I have something free from RocketJobs, one of the IIA’s first new members of 2009.
RocketJobs is an industry-wide job site with the focus on removing as much clutter as possible and keeping the focus on making search quick and easy. Launched in December, our list of jobs and clients is growing rapidly. Following RecruitIreland’s recent good example, RocketJobs has gone one step further and is offering three free posts to any employer in Ireland. Check out their own blog post about this.
For any additional roles over and above these free postings we are offering 30% extra roles free to all IIA members.
Nice!
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