Four leading brand marketers joined FOCi Group during the Brand Innovators Panel at digiday:SOCIAL. I had the pleasure of moderating top talent from Dial Corporation, Mattel, POM Wonderful and Publishers Clearing House. Each executive was very candid about their strategies, challenges and successes in utilizing social media within their marketing mix. As part of a series of columns, we'll recap the panel highlights. Today's insight: Quantifying the Value of Social Media with The Dial Corporation

Michael Bell, Brand Manager of Innovation for The Dial Corporation talked about the launch of GetMagnetic.com, a new initiative where Dial targeted a younger consumer than they had previously (males aged 25-34). It was not a brand, but an innovation specific activity. Elements included: 

• The GetMagnetic.com Microsite
• A Facebook page
• "Professor M" PR campaign (complete with a Twitter persona)
• Viral videos featuring "Professor M" syndicated via Adconion.

And the outcome? Dial's "Magnetic" became the #1 new product launch in the men's body wash category for 2009.

Tracking social media initiatives to sales metrics is a no-brainer -- particularly for a CPG brand like Dial -- but at digiday:SOCIAL, we dug a little deeper into the thinking behind the stats they tracked.

Brandon Gutman: What are the metrics you use when evaluating social campaigns? How do you correlate your social media spending with ROI?

Michael Bell: We use multiple soft metrics (Blog conversations, Twitter/Facebook activity, YouTube views, etc.), but the most useful is the Online SOV (share of voice)/SOM (share of media), as it allows us to benchmark against the competition. It also helps ensure that we're maintaining the proper proper SOV/SOM ratio as it relates to more traditional media.    
 
Do you see social media as a scalable media channel that can generate brand interaction and, ultimately a measurable, positive ROI?  Or are you looking at the social web as a channel for new applications and revenue models altogether?

Social media is not only a scalable, efficient media channel – it’s also an opportunity for us to create high-engagement consumer communities where trial potential is typically 4-7X greater than general advertising conversions.

Brandon Gutman is a Founding Partner of FOCi Group, a Digital Brand Management™ consultancy building and optimizing digital practices for the Fortune 500 community.  Follow Brandon on Twitter at http://twitter.com/brandongutman.