So sitting here on a Sunday night, thinking about the week ahead and clearly unable to sleep I turned to my blog. I mean, this is the 21st century, right? Anyway, if you're reading this don't even attempt to try and place it in a timeline of other posts I've done. Don't even try and figure out its relevancy to the charter of this blog, which is to constantly push the envelope on all things analytics... This post is just off the cuff thinking from my brain. If you get something out of it, that's awesome.

I'm (essentially) a week away from my 32nd birthday and, for as much as I joke about it online, that really isn't old by any stretch of the modern imagination. But because I'm a Capricorn (I really don't believe in all that zodiac sign stuff, really) my instrospective side comes out in large doses at this time every year. Have I done everything I can to make the people who are important in my life happy? Have I done everything to make myself happy? What else can I do in the next year to change both of those things? Have I made the people who have inspired me most proud? Just a few of the questions that have bubbled to mind...

That last question actually got me to thinking... Who has inspired me most? There are literally a TON of people who have inspired me during the course of my 31 years and 51 weeks on this earth, but none more so than my grandparents. My grandmother was a 5'0" 100lb (she'd kill me for saying anything more) woman who couldn't have been more giving to the people important to her. My grandfather was a 6'4" 260lb man who was definitely more gruff, but loving all the same. On the outside, they couldn't be more different. On the inside, they couldn't be more alike. What did they teach me?

• Work hard - Shocking, right? Two late depression era grandparents instilling a strong worth ethic. Stunning. News at 11. But really, they always taught me that hard work means getting to do all of the fun stuff that I wanted to do "when I grew up." They were/are right.
• Be charitable - Because of them, I've never had to struggle for anything in my life. So, in my mind, neither should anyone else if I can help it. Food, shelter, clothes. Basically whatever I can give, I'm going to give it. This side has recently been rekindled, and I'm hopeful I can do more in the coming year. 
• Worry about others more than yourself - Without getting into a great many details, my grandmother took care of my grandfather until the end. She (and he) cared more about how each other felt and if they were happy than they did their own personal happiness. This attribute in both of them is what I take away most today.
• Be expressive - This should be kind of a "no duh" given this post, and maybe some tweets/Facebook posts you've seen from me, but it's something they also inspired in me. It certainly has come back to haunt me on occasion, but you'll never NOT know how I'm feeling. I've tried to hide it. It doesn't work. :) 
• Do the things that make you happy - Sounds simple, but if you want to buy yourself a new TV and you have the means...do it! Life is way too short to not have cool toys!
• Don't bet against Kordell Stewart when he's down nine to Michigan at Michigan - Ok, I needed to close on a fun one... Remember the hail mary thrown by Kordell Stewart against Michigan? I do. Like it was yesterday. I remember my grandfather giving me 10:1 odds that when Colorado was down 10 with about three-to-four minutes to play that Michigan would win. Turns out, I won. Never forget that moment as long as I live. 

Moral of this story is don't wait until your birthday to start thinking about who inspires you most. Think about it more often than I do.

No, actually, the real moral of the story is that without my grandparents inspiring me I'm nowhere close to the human being I am today. Here's to them, and to those who inspire you most! Oh, and here's also to another 32... I'm hopeful they are as cool as the first 32.

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So, this is what a blog looks like? You'll have to forgive the fact that I have not written anything here in almost two months (that's terrible). I've been busy saving the world (slight exaggeration) from misguided social analytics practices, and of course writing a lot for Edelman Digital. Just because I've been busy does not mean I haven't been thinking about what's next for the practice of social (or digital if you prefer) analytics.

Over the course of 2011 we've debated any number of social analytics topics including Klout and online influence more broadly, social media measurement and the role of listening within the large enterprise. Innovative things are happening in all three areas. Maybe not at the same rate of change as the broader social media ecosystem, but change is definitely happening.

I have a feeling we're going to see significant carry over in topics from 2011 to 2012, but I thought I would take a stab at five things you might not be thinking of from a social data perspective that we're likely to be talking about in 2012.

• This is the year Facebook, YouTube and Twitter get serious about its insights platforms. On December 15th, Facebook launched its new Insights platform, which should give brand page owners a better sense for how pages are performing. If you wanted to learn more about those changes, check out the video below from Stephanie Wonderlin of Tweetheart TV. We've also heard in recent weeks that Twitter is going to be launching brand pages, which will most likely be accompanied by an analytics dashboard. YouTube has also recently made changes to its platform as well. One of the reasons we've seen so many analytics tools pop up is because the big three social networks have been awful in keeping up with data needs. I think 2012 is the year we start to see that change.

• A real challenger to Klout will emerge - Lets be honest for a second... Klout isn't doing anything revolutionary, really, with its algorithm. It just so happens that it has greater mindshare than some of the other tools on the market. I think this is the year that we see a true challenger step up that combines a more rigorous approach to online influencer analysis and a user interface that is just as sexy.
• Integrated measurement will start to become a reality - It amazes me that for as much as we talk about integrated communications, we don't talk nearly enough about integrated measurement approaches. I think in 2012 companies are going to be really keen on developing an integrated scorecard approach that brings together all elements of communications.
• Primary research will be a key component of measurement strategies - There are just some elements of a program that we will not be able to measure through free tools. We need surveys. We need focus groups. Surveying online communities and using digital focus groups are going to be big in 2012. If you're not using them right now, you should be. Trust me, my friend Tom Webster will thank you for it. 
• Listening FINALLY goes beyond PR and marketing - More than two years ago, Ken Burbary and I wrote about how social data transcends PR and marketing. The reality is that social data has application to strategic planning, product development and HR as well. Unfortunately, we've not seen this trend really explode as of yet. The progressive brands are starting to use the data in this way. However, I think 2012 is the year we start to more widespread adoption of this idea.

These are just five of the things I'm watching for this year. What about you? What's on your radar?

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One of my favorite movies growing up was Grumpy Old Men. Not only were Jack Lemon and Walter Matthau hilarious together, but for some reason the movie really resonated with me. Most likely, the movie resonarted because Jack's and Walter's characters were so much like my grandfather it was scary. That was what I grew up with --- a grandfather who, like most in his generation, was a little prickly. I didn't mind it. In fact, I thought it was hilarious most times.

Fast-forward 18 years (dear God that feels awful to say) to the explosion of social media and the development of online personas. Whether you believe in personal brands or not (I tend to believe they exist and not in an insidious way like some do), the way we act online does help shape how our respective communities view our personalities. It's natural human behavior to see someone talk, and then form your own opinion of that person and their thoughts. I know that sounds very judgmental, but I don't mean it to be that way. Humans see things, and then form their opinions.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing this in the first place is to clarify something about my own online persona -- I'm not a grumpy person. TRUST ME. The people who follow me, subscribe to me or have friended me on Facebook see one, very narrow view of who I am. Sure, I might appear to be a little prickly at times but if you view that as me being grumpy I'd say you are wrong. What you are viewing as grumpy is actually passion for topics that are important to me.

Call me a sap, or come here and make fun of me if you want, but I have a sincere passion for this business. I made the transition about 8 years ago out of the political world and into professional communications because it sounded interesting and challenging. Professional communications is the reason I'm able to pay for my car, my apartment, my bills, give to charities, help out my family when necessary and, oh yeah, go out to nice restaurants when I feel like it. It's also the reason I was able to break into the social media world in 2007 and continue evolving my career. It led me to Austin, Texas, and Chicago, Illinois for two amazing jobs. It has allowed me to work with, and mentor some incredibly talented people. And, saving the best for last, it has allowed me to meet some INCREDIBLE people that I truly do care for... I owe this business a huge debt of gratitude for making that happen, and I can't be thankful enough.

If I get grumpy it's because I see people not treating the business with the same level of respect that I do. Or, even worse, treating people in the business with a level of disrespect that's bordering on rude. Take a step back and look in the mirror... Are you trashing this business unfairly? Don't get me wrong, constructive criticism is certainly warranted (we need more of it, quite frankly), but what I can't stand are those who trash a business that's helped them (largely) get where they are.

When you see me getting grumpy, that's why. It isn't because I'm an angry person. Ask those closest to me and they'll tell you I'm really about the nicest guy you could ever meet. So the next time you notice my more prickly side coming out, take a step back before you call me out for being grumpy. Is it that I'm truly having a bad day, or is it because people are treating the business with disrespect? It could be that I'm grumpy because I do have bad days like anyone else, but it's MUCH more likely to be the latter causing my hair (such that it is) to stand on end.

One last thing before I close... Whether you're judging me, or someone else, assume you don't know the person. Of the more than 6,000 (no, I'm not pounding my chest) people who follow me on Twitter, a good 99% of them don't know me well at all. You should assume that's the case with the other people you interact with online because there's always more than meets the eye (thanks, GI Joe).

So with that I'll jump off the soapbox for the time being. Just remember, I'm closer to the passionate teddy bear than I am the prickly grizzly. Thanks, as always, for listening.

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We all face adversity at several points in our lives. Heck, we probably face adversity on a daily basis even if it doesn't manifest itself as that in our brains. Whether it is personal or professional, we're constantly being tested on how we react to situations. How we bounce back from getting hit in the face, if you will. It's an important thing this bouncing back. Do we internalize it and learn from it, or do we internalize it and then do something about it? There are no hard and fast rules except that every person and situation is different. The only thing we do know is that we all must process the adversity, understand the issues and then take action however we see fit.

Last week could've been nicknamed Adversity Week 2011 for yours truly. It was compounded by a seven day roadtrip, which included three cities (four if you count a layover), four hotels, several presentations and very little sleep along the way. I'm not going to go into what caused the adversity because, frankly, it's only my business. Just know that I'm not whining about it. I'm learning. Slowly.

Anyway, as some of the events of the last week were unfolding I reached out to a few offline friends for advice. They were very helpful, of course, but I also turned to Facebook and Twitter. I didn't go into detail, but I did voice frustration about how ugly things were. I also noted that I wear my emotions on my sleeve (and I do) to which colleague David Armano noted that it shouldn't be any other way. I tend to agree, but you never know how people take frustration comments online.

Now you can probably imagine that as soon as I voiced that frustration several people reached out wishing me well, which I obviously appreciated. Several others sent me private messages, which was also cool. For the most part, people were just respectful and left it at that. However, there was the small contingent who wanted details, which I obviously despised. Look, it's not that I don't appreciate the thought, but most of the people who follow me on Twitter are contacts, not friends. On Facebook the number of actual friends is much higher, but close friends who I confide in all the time? That is a MUCH smaller number.

I suppose this is the inevitable byproduct of a society "opened up" by social media, but color me unimpressed and kind of irritated. Maybe it's my fault for posting that information in the first place? I'm at least equally complicit, I guess, but where does human decency enter the equation? If an actual friend of mine voices frustration online, chances are good I'm going to reach out with a simple note. I don't know what is happening, and I don't want to know the details unless that person cares to share them with me. This whole "friends" thing is now a pretty fine line thanks to social media and, honestly, has me seriously rethinking the entirety of my social media activities. I am who I am, and I say what I say. I'm (mostly) unfiltered. But, if everytime I do voice some frustration I am hit by people who want to know, I'm not sure that's an environment I want to participate in for the long-term.

Either way, I'm still processing all of this, and the adversity from the last week. Learning is one of my core strengths (at least according to Gallup) so I'm sure this is going to be an ongoing process. In the meantime, if you're faced with a friend who voices some frustration online please don't pry. Just offer up that you'll be there for the person and leave it at that. You never know if you're actual friends, or just online ones...

Thanks for reading...Oh, and I know I'm a terrible blogger. First post in almost two months and it's a downer. I'll try and be back with some uplifting analytics content soon. :)

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Dear Social Media and Digital Marketing Professionals,

I'm writing to you today to say I was wrong. Not wrong in my push to make the influencer identification process rigorous. Not wrong in my criticism of those who over-emphasize the value of free and paid influencer tools. Not wrong about those lazy professionals who think influencer lists should be treated like traditional media lists (read: downloaded and put into an Excel grid, only to collect dust over time).

No, what I was wrong about was the value Klout provides to the marketplace. It isn't the demon seed of influencer identification. It isn't even the worst thing to hit social media in the last few years. NOT. EVEN. CLOSE. Now, before you start calling me a flip-flopper let me clarify a couple of points following my meeting with the team yesterday:

• I still don't think tools should be relied upon as much as they are. You can't just use PeerIndex, Klout or any of the tools available on the market and call it a day. There MUST be a heavy qualitative component to your influencer ID and analysis.
• I still have some questions about the "science." Because the algorithm isn't made available, I can never be truly confident in the results. I can guess what the metrics might be, but we know how effective guessing can be. 
• I still think the score is a vanity exercise. I know what my score is, and I'm betting you do as well. Don't come here and feed me a line about how you've never checked. You're curious. You may disagree, but you want to know. We all want to know how we stack up.
• I still have concerns about trying to calculate relevancy, but they are launching topic pages, which should help mitigate that.

I stand by all of those points even after meeting the Klout team yesterday. However, I was wrong on several fronts:

• The Klout team is expanding and Joe Fernandez is, rightfully so in my view, investing in the science and tech teams. The algorithm (what we know of it) can likely be improved, and with new platforms coming into the fold the formula will have to be tweaked.
• One of my biggest fears was not looking at Facebook versus Facebook, before trying to mashup the scores. I did learn, however, that scores are calculated for each platform and then brought together for the final score. Think what you want about the final score (and I think plenty), but this approach makes sense to me.
• They don't view themselves as replacing humans. Ever. They understand fully that influencer analysis is a mixture of quant and qual, and that no matter how sophisticated they make the algorithm there still needs to be a human interacting with the data.
• We all have our questions about the targeting with Klout Perks programs, but what I can tell you is that I've seen the results of some recent programs and they are compelling. And, for the record, not just superficially compelling either. REAL results.
• Some of the new stuff coming (not going to share specifics as I want to keep the information confidential out of respect for Joe and the team) to Perks and the tool will make it more useful for brands. Trust me. I do this kind of research for a living and have literally seen hundreds of tools. What they are adding makes sense. 
• I'd like to see the algorithm, but I also know they don't owe that to us. That's their secret sauce. If you don't want to use the tool because you can't see the science behind it, that's entirely your decision. Can't say I'd blame you either. But, they don't *need* to share it with us.
• Klout isn't responsible for lazy marketers. As much as we'd like to blame them for feeding the social media vanity beast, they aren't responsible for you taking their data and treating it as gospel. Spend the time vetting their scores. 

So, there you have it sports fans. I was wrong on a lot of levels. Is Klout the holy grail of influence? No. Does it have a role in influencer programs? I think so. Where depends on what your program entails.

Now, feel free to come here and bash me for flip-flopping. I'm a big boy. I can take it.

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Impressions are totally worthless! Why would I measure total or unique pageviews? I care more about behaviors! Followers, likes, Twitter lists are completely meaningless. Stop me if you've heard any of these comments (or variations therein) in your career....I'm guessing you have, right? In the words of Lee Corso, "not so fast my friend!"

So many conversations about measurement get bogged down in the weeds. Even if we are starting at the proper place -- the planning phase -- the natural instinct is for us to focus on the metrics themselves. I'm not a psychologist, and I don't play one on television so I'm not going to guess as to why that happens. It just does. Where should the focus lie if it doesn't focus on the metrics?

This is a conversation MUCH older than I am so you've probably heard this before, but you start with the business objective. What's a common business objective? Growing your business or improving financial performance, right? As soon as you've landed on that you can focus on the business metric. What's a common business metric? Growing sales of a particular product right? In addition to growing sales, a common business metric is raising awareness of a particular product. When you've landed on those two elements, you can then focus on specific social media metrics. Awareness and sales are two items that are quite often business and social media metrics.

At this point, you've all likely seen, heard or read the article from McKinsey a couple of years ago about how customers are starting to move outside of the traditional purchasing funnel. If you've ever done any digital consumer research (listening, surveys, consumer segmentation analysis, etc...) you'll know that McKinsey is right. How people search for and find information about your product is changing (it might've already changed for whatever that's worth). However the funnel is changing, product awareness is still a component of the funnel.

Now, before I go any further please know that I'd never advocate using JUST awareness-related business metrics or social media metrics. That's where the wheels do fall off of the tracks. Awareness, like any other business metric is just one component of the measurement process. You'll probably also want to track interactions, brand loyalty/affinity and, gasp, sales. Again, though, you'll want to make sure these metrics are aligned to overall business objectives before you start putting anything in stone.

So, if you agree with me and are going to start looking at awareness-related social media metrics more closely what should you be looking at? Impressions, pageviews, likes, followers and Twitter lists are all great places to start. But what about things that aren't served up to you on a Facebook Insights platter? What about aided and unaided awareness questions from a survey? It's certainly possible and in fact it probably should be done more often than it is now. Have you thought about creating a standard survey instrument that you can post on your social media communities? If not, start TODAY.

Awareness metrics aren't the devil. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Awareness is an important part of the sales funnel today, and in the sales funnel that McKinsey represents in the article linked to above. If awareness is part of your overall business goals then awareness should appear in your measurement scorecard. Period.

Go forth and be aware!

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I've been a bad blogger. I logged in this morning and saw I hadn't written anything since July 5th. That's ridiculous, and something I'm going to work on changing over the next few months. It isn't for a shortage of things to say (some people say I'm opinionated, heh), more for a shortage of time given the recent move to Chicago and new job with Edelman Digital.

Anyway, during my long blog hiatus (at least it felt long) I've been giving some thought to what it means to be a good digital citizen. You know, how do you maximize value for yourself on whatever social platform you are using, while simultaneously adding value for others? For the most part, most of the people I interact with on a daily basis on Twitter or Facebook or Google+ do just that. They are giving with their time, and try to add value to conversations they participate in online.

However, with the few good apples come several spoiled ones as well. It isn't that they are spoiled. It's more that they take advantage of their online presence to be overly promotional (certainly their choice) or share things that don't belong online. And by don't belong online I mean EVER. Don't get me wrong here...if a "friend" is dealing with something difficult I'd like to try and be there for the person. That exchange doesn't need to take place in the public stream, however. I'm not going to list off what should, or shouldn't be shared online. If you don't know the line by now, my post isn't going to change that.

Over on Facebook, I posted a status update asking my friends to define what it meant to be a good digital citizen. Some of the answers were pretty fascinating:

• Heather Whaling - "Be responsible and respectful."
• Kyle Flaherty - "Listen before you speak or type and always question everyone no matter their clout or Klout."
• Tim Walker - "The degree to which the Golden Rule applies here -- even if you're dealing with rivals / competitors / enemies -- is overwhelming."
• Tom Webster - "Relationships are complicated dances from first contact to familiarity to trust - just because social media provides a shortcut to one does not imply that there is a shortcut to the others."
• Wendy Boka - "How about making a point to keep the "bitching-about-little-thi​ngs"/criticizing other people's actions, posts, comments, etc. to less than 50% of your online activity."
• Jay Baer - "Play your own game."
• Jim Mitchem - "compassion."
  
• Arik Hanson - "No one mentioned anything about helping or assisting others--essentially paying it forward. See a few folks on this stream who have done/do a pretty good job of that. I think that's a big part of being a solid digital citizen."
• Stefanie Moore - "Two words: be useful."

Those are some pretty amazing comments, right? I almost considerded not writing the post...almost... So, if I were coming up with a list of attributes myself what would they be?

1. Being responsible and respectful - Heather's comment was just too good not to include here. It's true. If you tell someone you are going to do something, you better do it. Your reputation online is gone just as quickly as it is offline if you don't deliver.
2. Offer up constructive criticism when warranted - It's something that Kyle mentioned in his comment, but being critical is important regardless of someone's stature. We all get paid a lot of money to do important jobs for companies. They don't pay us to sugar coat opinions. Why would we do so online? If you are worried about damaging a friendship or connection, I'd argue that it wasn't a worthwhile friendship or connection in the first place.
3. Achieve translucency whenever possible - The idea of transparency in social media is one of the more ridiculous notions I've ever encountered. Listen folks, there's no such thing. With people or brands. There's always something a brand or person isn't telling you online. If we achieve translucency, we've won.
4. Dont share private information. Period. - You would think this one is self-explanatory, but I've seen plenty of instances where it's far from common sense. We don't need to know the intimate details of your date from the weekend. Nor do we need to know how your girlfriend looks in next-to-no clothing. If you want to consume that kind of information offline, please feel free.
5. Paying it forward - Arik was right on the money with this one. Those of us who have achieved some level of success in this business owe it to others to help whenever possible.
6. Add value - I think this is what Stefanie was getting at in her comment, but adding value is critical. You know what isn't adding value? Retweeting that Mashable story that you've seen in your stream about 400 times already. Chances are good we'll see it. No, adding value is offering up a constructive comment about that article if you do plan to share it.
7. Understand that there are limitless possibilities - If you're just starting out online you might be daunted by the size of the networks. Don't be. Spend a little time finding your niche, and understand that you can take it as far as you want.
8. Rome wasn't built in a day - This could've also been, "Patience is a Virtue." Either way, you get the point... Be patient with others and yourself. You won't build a presence in one day. 
9. Dont take things personally - Easier said than done, but if someone is critical of you don't take it personally. 

I'm sure there are others. What would you add?

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Social analytics and measurement are sexy...Or, so I've been told by my good friend Ken Burbary. And guess what? He should know. He lives this space as much as anyone else. Everyone online is talking about it. People are "rebranding" themselves as analytics experts in the hopes of gaining the eye of a potential employer. Can't say that I blame them. This is an important discipline to understand. It's important to have professionals in social media who can speak this language. The questions from senior executives aren't going to slow down, so you better develop a mechanism to report on your success.

One of the inevitable byproducts of that "sexyfying" is professionals across the spectrum racing to develop a system to report on performance. That race leads to, in many instances, strict platform reporting. We've all created them, right? The reports with a simple grid showing how many followers, likes and comments we received over a period of time on Facebook. I'm not pointing the finger at anyone because I know the issue is pervasive. Over the long-term that kind of reporting approach isn't effective for upper management. And, truth be told, you aren't really maximixing the full potential of analytics.

That kind of approach also leads to tweets like the one Brian Solis posted today (see below). To try and get inside of Brian's head for a minute, I think he was trying to say that we should blend an approach of reporting on what we've done with an analysis of where we should go in the future. On that point we agree. If we're truly moving toward social businesses (which I think we are), social media analytics needs to move beyond reporting and toward a collective intelligence model.

Look, the issue isn't data or the amount of it. The issue isn't your boss asking you to develop reports every month (as much as you'd like to blame them). It isn't even whether you can measure social media (you can). It isn't even with how we define analytics, which I'm realizing is a very confusing term for people. The issue is with poor planning. Planning is poor at the benchmark research phase and equally poor when we're measuring performance.

Let me give you a few things to chew on if you're planning to do benchmark research or developing a collective intelligence approach or even measuring your platforms.

• Think about the platform-specific metrics AND the behaviors you've impacted - It's absolutely fine to be reporting on platform-specific metrics like likes, followers, likes on posts, impressions, pageviews, etc... Those things should be part of your scorecard. However, so should things like clicks, intent to purchase, referral traffic to places where consumers can buy your product, comments, shares and sentiment. These things are all behavioral.
• Collective intelligence, or the new world order of business intelligence includes more than social media. Social media listening, even as Brian desribes it below isn't going to replace your offline market research so make sure you bring them to the table. Also, while you're at it, make sure you bring along the search, web and mobile guys as well. I've talked a lot about collective digital dashboards before. It can be done if the parties communicate and plan with each other.
• Develop a standard approach for reporting and listening - How does listening data feed into the organization? How often are you going to report? Are there different versions of the report you need to create? Which tool are you going to be using to gather data? Who within the organization is going to be in charge of managing the tools? These are just the tip of the spear to really unlocking the potential of collective intelligence within the organization.

I'm not sure what to expect out of 140 characters, but on its face Brian's tweet is troublesome. The video is better, but we need to know that data isn't going away. We need to work toward harnessing it to maximize communications impact. We need to be working on developing measurement frameworks that our bosses believe in. Lets stop talking about the abundance of data and work toward doing something with it.

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Yesterday, I took a look at the potential metrics you could be using to measure your performance on Twitter. Thus far, the response has been rather interesting. I think I expected someone to come here and challenge my assumptions on what metrics matter most. That hasn't happened. In fact, most of the responses so far are coming from folks who want to focus more on the content. Tracking the number of @ replies, and engagements and the raw mentions of the brand. All of those things are fine, but you should know they present some serious challenges, including:

• Content fluidity - Ever watch your "all friends" column on TweetDeck (or whatever third party app you are using)? See how quickly that column is moving? Analyzing content on Twitter is important, but it's akin to watching cars on a busy highway. Just because you saw it posted, doesn't mean a lot of others did. Take your results with a grain of salt.
• Sentiment scoring is problematic - I mentioned this yesterday, but scoring tweets is incredibly hard. Nuanced language. Limited characters. Much of the content being repurposed news. You see the point. Manual scoring is better, obviously, but the sheer volume of tweets makes that difficult. 
• Looking at raw @ replies doesn't tell you much - Sure, you want people talking to you on Twitter. Sure, you want to be talking to others on Twitter. However, looking at the raw number of @ replies doesn't tell you much. You should be more concerned with the behavior that follows an @ reply. Does the person talk about your brand more/less often? Do they tell their friends something positive about the experience? If you want to look at @ replies, you also need to be looking at the other behaviors as well.

Either way, these metrics and approaches can be debated. As I mentioned in the post yesterday, metrics and approaches will vary from company-to-company. Those were the metrics I thought made the most sense, but you could easily disagree. But, Twitter isn't the only social channel. What about Facebook? Ahhhhh, Facebook...

Have you ever taken a look at the export from Facebook Insights? It's a pretty substantial list of metrics. In fact, you can get lost in that spreadsheet for days (well, at least I can)! So what would I look at if I'm measuring my progress on Facebook? This discussion can actually be split into two parts, I think: Platform and content

First, the platform:

• Comments
• Likes
• Total interactions (I'd say look at either the first two or combine them into total interactions)
• Clicks (or CTR)
• Shares
• Impressions
• Pageviews
• Overall likes
• Per post metrics (impressions, comments, likes, shares)
• Sentiment of comments

Second, the content:

This becomes a little more science than anything else. First of all, you need to be sure you are capturing all of your posts in some kind of spreadsheet. Capture the post verbatim, the day/time it was posted and the message "bucket" it might fall into. Then, figure out which post metrics you care most about. In most instances, we're talking about comments, likes, clicks, shares and impressions. Then, after capturing all of that data you'll want to create an index score from 0-100 for the posts. See my post for PR Breakfast Club on how to do this. You'll create a ranked list of your posts from 0-100. What constitutes a good post on that scale? I don't know, that's up to you and your client/boss. But, taking this approach will allow you to really hone in on what content is performing the best across a serious of metrics.

This sounds incredibly labor intensive and time consuming, but trust me, it isn't. As soon as you've created the structure, it becomes a matter of populating a spreadsheet everyday. Surely, you have someone who can do that, right?

What do you think? How are you measuring Facebook today?

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We're always (hopefully) interested in how our social channels are performing versus last week, month, year or even versus competitors. To that end, marketers of all stripes often wonder what the best metrics are when evaluating the performance of a particular platform. Depending on the platform in question, the selection process can be daunting. Take a look at a Facebook Insights export sometime and follow the Excel spreadsheet across and you'll see quite a few possibilities.

Yesterday, I received such a question from a very good friend of mine as it relates to Twitter. Now, my typical (maybe snarky) response to these kinds of questions is asking why that wasn't settled weeks/months ago when the page was launched, but we're talking about a friend here so I obliged. While I'm here, though, remember the process of identifying metrics? Setting goals, conducting benchmark research, developing strategy/tactics, implementing your program and then measuring. Go through that process and you'll save yourself some headaches at the end.

Anyway, her question prompted a thought... If I had to rank which metrics I think are the most important for Twitter, how would I rank them? Again, go with me here... How important these metrics are will vary from company-to-company, but I think the discussion is a worthwhile one to be having. First step in this process is writing down all of the available metrics you can think of for Twitter... I'll give you a second to do that...Ready? What did you come up with? I came up with:

• Clicks
• Clicks/post
• Retweets
• Retweets per post
• Tweet reach
• Retweet reach
• Average reach per tweet
• Percentage of posts that are @ replies
• Number of lists
• Followers
• Sentiment? 

A few things on this list...

• Clicks, and clicks per post are probably the two most important metrics in my opinion. Why? They can be easily tracked to a specific end result that the brand cares about (landing on their website and buying something, for example).
• Notice how far followers is on the list? Yeah, moving on. That should be obvious. Looking at followers alone doesn't tell me anything.
• I have a question mark next to sentiment. After posing this question on Twitter, both Justin Goldsborough and Jason Keith raised the point of tracking sentiment on Twitter. My only issue with it is that tracking sentiment on Twitter is problematic at best. Limited characters, nuanced conversation tone make it very difficult to nail down. If you're using a sophisticated text analytics platform, I'll jump on board. Otherwise, I'd be nervous...

If you're managing a Twitter presence, what metrics are you using? What have you found has worked with your client or boss?

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How many times per day do you hear the word, "no?" If you work on the agency-side, you likely hear it quite a bit. Hearing "no" from clients is actually a good thing. It means we need to go back to the drawing board to tweak an idea that we had to improve its business. The days where clients approve ideas as we present them are few and far between. Again, that's OK. Part of our role is to push clients with ideas they may have never considered implementing before.Often "no" is the impulse reaction to those ideas.

"No" can certainly be constructive. It pushes us to levels we hadn't necessarily considered before. However, in an industry that's relatively "new" the word "no" can be stifling. For reasons passing understanding, digital analytics (applies to social media analytics more narrowly as well) tends to be one of those areas where we hear "no" a lot. Why? There's a significant amount of fear of the unknown at play, but genuinely it has more to do with a lack of understanding of the subject matter. Contrary to popular belief, we aren't all data analysts. Tell a marketer he/she is a data analyst in the "new world order" and wait for the reaction. All I can say is get out your shield...

Anyway, if the practice of digital analytics is going to advance beyond its current state we need to start pushing some barriers. What does that mean exactly?

1. Listening needs to *actually* penetrate the rest of the enterprise - When Ken Burbary and I created the social analytics lifecycle almost two years ago, I think our assumption was that listening outside of marketing/PR was going to take hold a little more quickly. Turns out, that really hasn't been the case. It's unfortunate because building dashboards for folks outside of marketing/PR is the quickest way to spread the power of digital market intelligence.
2. Understanding the value in gathering intelligence through non-traditional methods - I struggled with a way to talk about this that wasn't negative, but in the simplest terms we need to understand that with the advent of social media comes an entirely new way to collect data. It's not the same way it was done in traditional market research, and that's OK. We need to understand potential pitfalls with the data, and collect it nonetheless. 
3. Cohesive digital analytics teams - Traditional market research folks have a lot value in this new world order. Surveys aren't going away. Search analytics folks also have tremendous utility as the connection between search and social becomes even more clear for everyone. Ditto social and traditional media folks. You see where I'm going here...
4. Avoid "dumb" measurement debates - Some colleagues may disagree with me, but measuring digital performance belongs under the digital analytics umbrella. No matter where you think it belongs, we need to move beyond dumb debates like whether ROI actually stands for return on investment in social. Or whether social media can even be measured. Or, gasp, whether influencer analyses can even be conducted (they can). Lets focus on substance over these things, please?
5. Testing and learning - The best social programs are born out of testing and learning. Its been that way for quite some time now. The same must hold true for digital analytics. We need to try measurement models that incorporate all kinds of disparate data sets. If it doesn't work, we start anew. This also includes building influencer models that incorporate lots of different kinds of metrics in an effort to really understand what's driving consumers to buy our products. I could go on for awhile here, but you see the point. Test. Learn. Execute. This needs to be the new digital analytics paradigm. 

What I'm getting at here (perhaps not as coherently as I had hoped) is a new analytics ecosystem that needs to be created within companies. This ecosystem involves traditional market research, search, social, mobile and web. Answering "no" to bringing these pieces together isn't a wise plan. During BlogWorld NY, Ben Edwards of IBM talked about its push to truly integrate data across the enterprise. If IBM is talking this way, it's about time we all start talking this way. Yeah, before you jump all over me...I know...It's IBM. Here's the thing though... Almost every enterprise is gathering data across those spectrums. Almost every enterprise has "someone who does that." So why don't they all sit in a room and talk? Novel, right?

Anyway, I'm hoping that the analytics ecosystem I'm talking about here doesn't take years to manifest itself within companies. If it does, it does. However, I'm going to be doing my part to talk about this idea with clients. If they tell me "no," it just means I'm doing my job to always push the envelope and that we're genuinely trying to test and learn.

What do you think? Am I crazy?

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With graduations happening across the country, the workforce is seeing an influx of new employees who are eager to contribute to organizations of all shapes and sizes. They come with new ideas and processes that they've learned through practical experience while still in school. Some of those ideas are for positive organization change, and others are a little more pie in the sky. "Out of the box" thinking is an overused buzz phrase, but sometimes it can be good.

Before I go into the rest of the post, please know that I appreciate original/creative thinking. I'm not an old fuddy duddy... at least not on most things. However, one area where I have to draw the line is resumes. A couple of weeks ago, Katie Morse wrote an interesting post about rethinking the traditional resume. You'll see a couple of comments from me when you check out the post. Again, it isn't that I don't appreciate creative approaches, but this particular approach doesn't seem to fit for me. Why?

For as much as some want to advocate for an infographic or video resume (see the post above for an example - it's kind of messy), human resource professionals (mostly) would not appreciate that as much as marketers. It may eventually land on the desk of a marketer, but your goal is to get in the front door. Often, the front door is an HR pro. Don't confuse them. Give them something they know and understand. If you want to share something with your eventual boss after the fact, rock on. And yeah, unfortunately for you, this is the approach you need to take with 99.9% of companies to this day. This isn't to say that all HR pros are luddites, by the way. Many are on top of this stuff. However, you likely won't know that going in. Don't chance it.

You might be thinking, "fineeeeeeeeeeeeee, if I need to do the boring resume what should I include in it? What are hiring managers looking for?" I've done some hiring for social media positions over the last couple of years and there are a handful of things I look for:

1. Progression - If you've been an account executive for 7 years, I'm going to wonder why. If there's a clear graduation into more strategic responsibilities, I'm going to jump all over that. If you started out doing clips, and are now managing the largest client make sure you point that out.
2. Learning - This is a little harder to identify in a resume, but involvement in professional organizations is one way to identify it. Sure, I've railed against professional organizations before but your participation in those kinds of events shows you don't know it all and want to learn more. This usually comes out during an initial phone conversation (I can tell you of at least one interview I had where the person said the magic "learning words" within 10 minutes and my mind was made up that we should hire the person), but you can tailor your resume to project yourself as a "learner." 
3. Analytics capability - This is an analytics blog, right? :) Seriously though, content creator and strategist is great. Unfortunately for you, about 2,000,000 other professionals who claim to have social media aptitude will tell me the same thing. Comfortability with numbers is NOT something many pros will claim. If they do and it isn't real, trust me, I'll know. You're going to have to be comfortable with numbers soon. Get on the bus. And no, I'm not talking about a faux rebranding of yourself on Twitter or your blog. A REAL capability
4. Dumb titles - Listen, I understand that most times you can't control what title is given to you. But, if your title is social media missionary you are going to have to do one heck of a job explaining what the heck that means in the subsequent bullets. Otherwise, I'm going to laugh and move onto the next resume. Harsh? Maybe. Reality? Definitely. 
5. No jargon - I know what the experts tell you... Fill up your resume with some excellent action verbs. Yeah, boring. Everybody does it. Tell me what you did. I don't care if you, "strategically filled up the coffee machine" every morning. That wasn't strategic despite you putting strategic in front of the statement. Tell me in plain speak.

I should state that I'm not an HR pro, and certainly not a recruiter. And, for the record, you can call me old or a luddite if you will... All I know is that this is what I'm looking for in a resume. The HR pro, while a great person, isn't going to be as progressive as you want them to be. Focus on getting in the door, and then transition to showing your creative side. What do you think? Are resumes dead? Or do they still matter?

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We interrupt your regularly scheduled analytics broadcast for another confession: I love social media. First it was LinkedIn, now it’s all social media. Everything that’s happened as a result of participating in social media over the last few years has been positive. Well, maybe not everything, but darn near close to everything

One of the greatest parts about the space is that you never know when it is going to present you with interesting opportunities. Social media helps you discover everything from speaking engagements to guest blog post opportunities to, gasp, job possibilities.

A few weeks ago, I received a message (through social media, of course) from David Armano asking if I would be willing to get together for a drink while we were all in New York (for different reasons). When I showed up, there was Rick Murray, who I’ve also followed and admired for a long-time online. After our discussion, I was so pumped up that I remember going through every last detail of it in the cab.

These guys were interested in having me join the team? I was incredibly excited.

After more conversations (you know how these things go and don’t need me boring you with the details), I received an offer from the folks at Edelman to come to Chicago and take on a role as Vice President, Digital Analytics. In case you didn’t gather from the context inherent in the first few paragraphs here, I’ve decided to accept their offer and join the team.

WAIT… Did I just say move to Chicago and join Edelman Digital? Does that mean I’m leaving Austin? What about Ogilvy? I need answers!  

Let me take a second and try to address some of the questions:

1. Yes, I am moving to Chicago. Before the initial conversation with David and Rick, I had no plans of returning to the Midwest anytime soon. Sure, I love Chicago. Yes, I absolutely love everything about Minneapolis. Of course I love going home to Cleveland. But, the winters! Opportunities to work with guys of this caliber are not presented everyday, especially to those of us who are numbers dorks
2. Yes, it also means that I’m leaving Austin. After moving here in February 2010, I felt like this would be home for a long time. I love everything about the city and its people. I’ve made some tremendous friends here, and be damn sure I’ll be making plenty of return trips (aside from SXSW, of course)
3. It does, in fact, mean I’m leaving Ogilvy. This was the most difficult decision of all. Even in a relatively short period of time, the “Ogilvy red” has made its way into my veins. I love the people. I love the culture. It has great clients. This move should in no way change your opinion of that firm. It’s TOP NOTCH.

To say I am excited to join the likes of Jill Knisley, Zena Weist, Dave Fleet, Michael Brito, Chris Lightner, David Almacy, Phil Gomes and of course David and Rick was just something I couldn’t miss out on. These people are incredibly talented, and I can’t wait to work with them!

A few quick things before I continue to plan….errrrrr…. panic about moving cross country for the second time in two years in just a few weeks:

1. Several people helped me with this decision along the way. To Kyle Flaherty, Bridget Jewell, Allan Schoenberg, Damion White, Lisa Grimm, Gina Gretchko, Katie Huntley and Sonny Gill…. I can’t thank you all enough. Difficult decision and your unwavering support made it a lot easier. Again, thanks!
2. I’m going to miss my friends in Austin, “like whoa!” That, “like whoa” is credited to Lauren Warthan, who I’d most definitely put in this category. It’s going to be tough to leave such a great group of people, but hopefully we can all hang out again soon!
3. Go Bulls! The, “anyone but Lebron” motto will continue in the Windy City…

SWEET HOME CHICAGO (apologies Robert Johnson)

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Do you watch television? I'm assuming a large percentage of you at least watch some television on a regular basis, right? Please, please say yes and don't make me feel bad for watching as much as I do.

If you've been watching television recently, you've likely run across a series of ads that are being run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the dangers of smoking. The campaign is more about the dangers of tobacco, but the ads focus more on smoking. If you haven't seen one of the ads, check it out:

I think we can agree that it's a pretty powerful spot, right? What I didn't realize is how the CDC is leveraging the power of social channels to continue spreading the word. They have a relatively robust Facebook, Twitter and YouTube presence that you should see. I'm not currently doing any work with the CDC, or this campaign, but this feels like an excellent use of social media that hits the reader/viewer in a moving way.

At this point in the post you might be asking yourself why on earth is the analytics guy talking about a social media case study. Quite frankly, I can't remember a time when I've written about a company, government agency or anyone else's use of social media. I think I jumped on the Dominos thing a few years back, but that's about the extent of my recollection of any posts like this... So why?

Truth be told, this is a very personal campaign for me. I lost my grandmother in her 60's due to emphysema, and my uncle in his early 40's from mouth/throat cancer. Both were lifelong smokers (with periodic quitting as so often happens) who got started in an age where it was (more) socially accepted. They both wanted to quit, but after that many years habits are very difficult to break. Trust me when I say it's a very difficult thing to watch two relatives you love very much deteriorating right before your eyes due to something they know is deadly but can't stop.

To be totally transparent, I love cigars. I don't smoke them often (like maybe 2-3 times per year), but I do enjoy them. After watching Rick Stoddard's commercial (and the other campaign ads), though, all I can think about when considering smoking one is my grandmother and uncle. What would they think after they preached to me that I should never start smoking something so toxic?

I may still smoke a cigar now and then, but it's going to be hard to do so without seeing Rick's face. When you get a chance, go over to the Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages and check them out. Consider subscribing, liking or following. It's a worthwhile cause... If you don't do it for me, consider doing it for someone you love that is smoking. You never know what that like, follow or subscribe might lead too.

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My name is Chuck Hemann, and I have a confession to make - I have a crush on a social network. Yes, it's true. I've kept this love in the closet for a long time, but now I feel like it's time to reveal that love. It's likely a social network that you don't think about on a daily basis. We're so busy tweeting, and offering up status updates that we've neglected a tool that can dramatically improve our careers. You're probably asking which social network I'm talking about, right? Well, the answer is LinkedIn.

Yes, my crush is on LinkedIn. Why? I've received more utility since joining that platform than any other by a long shot. Sure, Twitter has helped amplify my blog posts, and I do enjoy connecting with friends via Facebook. However, professionally speaking, I've had more success with LinkedIn than Facebook and Twitter combined. But, when I tell people about how much I love LinkedIn, I'm typically met with skepticism. "It's spammy," people say. Or, "all I receive are annoying emails from recruiters on LinkedIn," they remark. I'd say there's a lot more to LinkedIn than recruiting emails, but let me offer up a couple of reasons why I think people don't like it:

1. It's not an online contact list - Just with anything else, you get out of it what you put into it. Unfortunately, most just connect with people on LinkedIn and then don't bother to continue building a relationship. LinkedIn isn't a replacement for your Outlook contacts. It is, however, a place to build real business relationships after making a connection
2. Recruiting emails - We all get them, and we seem to be getting more of them through LinkedIn. Why is it annoying? It should be flattering that people want to talk to you about an opening. Get over it.
3. Connecting with everyone - This isn't Twitter (or even to some degree, Facebook) where you need to accept every new follow request. If you really don't know someone, why accept their request? I don't. I think your LinkedIn contact lists are filled up with people you don't know and that makes it inherently not valuable.
4. It's not sexy - You don't get to upload photos, or tweet about your weekend doings on LinkedIn. It doesn't have crazy applications that allow you to visualize your social graph. It takes work, and it isn't sexy. Trust me though, it pays off.

So, if I get so much value out of LinkedIn how do I do that? What are the tips and tricks that I've used? Here are a few that might help you:

1. Don't connect with everyone - Related to #3 above, but I don't accept every LinkedIn request. In fact, not even close. If I don't know you, or never met you, I'm not going to accept your request there. If you want to connect for some sort of business purpose, send me an email through LinkedIn explaining why. If it's beneficial, I'll accept.
2. Download your contacts frequently - I try every week to download my contacts and go through them to see who I've not connected with in a long time. If there are some people, I'll spend a few minutes dropping each of them a line to see how they are doing. You'd be amazed how far that goes.
3. Offer up recommendations to people you have worked with - I'll admit to not doing this enough, but write recommendations for people you know. It helps them, and it helps you when they (likely) return the favor.
4. Participate in groups - You know those emails you receive showing a digest of posts from the day? At least read them, and try to answer a question if you can. It's helpful to the community, and you're seen as an industry expert after doing so.
5. Think about making connections for friends - Quite often, friends ask me if I know anyone in a particular city. My response? Here is a list of my LinkedIn contacts. Take a look through it and let me know who you see. If I know someone in that place, I'll be sure to make the connection. Again, it helps you and helps them.

LinkedIn isn't sexy, and takes a lot of work. However, if you put in the work you'll derive significant value from it. Don't be a communications pro that underutilizes LinkedIn. Next week, spend a little more time on LinkedIn versus Facebook or Twitter. See what happens...

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Is the discussion around/practice of online influence actually regressing? Identifying and then activating influencers is an important topic that deserves informed debate and the implementation of only the best tools. I actually think we have quite a bit of the former, and the latter is the gigantic black hole that we're all getting sucked into.

David Armano wrote an excellent post examining Klout, followed by Rebecca Dennison writing her own review of some of Klout's new features. Rebecca also wrote a great post looking at mPACT that you should check out. I'm not being critical of Rebecca or David because both of their reviews are great, and obviously very helpful to the person that is coming to this space for the first time.

Before we launch into the meat of the post, lets debunk a few influencer misconceptions

1. The process can be automated - The extent of the possibilities around automation begin and end with identifying outlets and writers. The actual number crunching/qualitative analysis should not be eliminated. In my experience, clients feel better about the final output when it has been scrubbed by a human.
2. Influencers are bloggers - I can't tell you how many times I see examples of "influencer lists" that are comprised entirely of bloggers. As if the entire social web centered around blogs? Have we forgotten YouTube? Forum users? Twitter users? Mainstream press? Your influencer list needs to be all encompassing otherwise you have an incomplete list.
3. Because someone has written negatively about my brand they shouldn't be in my list - This one causes a bit of a headache for me. You can learn just as much from the negative comments as the positive ones. In fact, probably more. Why eliminate these people?
4. I have to reach out to everyone on my list - One of the things I advocate all of the time is trying to come up with a list that includes people you might only listen too. Another segment that you'd be reaching out to directly, and still another that might be receiving a mass pitch. A mass pitch?! In social media?! The horror! It can work. Trust me.

There are others, but I don't want to get bogged down in the misconceptions. Rather, I'd prefer to tell you what tools I'd use if I were starting to build an influencer list from scratch. And no, just to get it out of the way, the process would not involve Klout, PeerIndex, mPACT or any tool like it. So where do I begin?

1. Google - No duh, right? This is where the process usually begins and ends. I'll develop some sort of query (that involves my client's name, some industry keywords and competitors) to start identifying outlets. Ideally, I'll start with at least 6 months worth of results (though I'd prefer 12) and just start clicking through. Yeah, it's a manual process. Yeah, it's time consuming. Yeah, trust me, it'll be worth it in the end. Oh, don't forget running similar searches in Google Groups, and Blogs
2. Listorious/Twitter Search - Both of these are invaluable resources for Twitter users. Check them both out.
3. YouTube/Flickr searches - Self-explanatory, right? But you'd be surprised how few influencer lists actually involve video bloggers. There are ton of them out there with broad reach
4. Compete/Quantcast/Alexa - Several people, including my friend Dave Fleet, have written posts identifying issues with compete data. It's true. However, obtaining traffic data for sites you don't own is generally problematic. All you can do is attempt to verify the data on multiple platforms.
5. Yahoo! Site Explorer - An excellent tool for looking at a site's indexed pages and inbound links. Both excellent barometers of overall reach
6. Microsoft Excel - I'm assuming you have this on your computer, right? Ok, moving on...
7. Blogrolls - Pretty invaluable in identifying other bloggers stemming from your initial Google searches. Use them and use them well.

Anyway, those are the tools I use to start building my lists. Does this take more time? Sure. Are my results likely to be more accurate/relevant to the client? You bet your ass. Don't give in to easy. Conduct your due dilligence.

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So, we're about five days after BlogWorld and I am just now getting to write my recap. I suppose I could come up with some ridiculous excuse of wanting to gather my thoughts (and I was doing that, actually), but it was mostly because I was trying to enjoy my Memorial Day weekend. Plus, like most of you I'm sure, after five days of talking about social media the last thing I wanted to do was to come here and write more about social media. Enough already!

Anyway, BlogWorld NYC offered much of what I love about this business: an opportunity to interact with some of the brightest minds in this business. I've talked about it before, but these conferences are valuable to me just from a networking point-of-view. If there are a handful of sessions that I get something out of then that is a bonus. And no, I mean actual networking...not just attending every party under the sun and getting hammered.

So besides networking, what did I take away from this year's BlogWorld? Oh, before you ask, no, I didn't take anything away from the closing keynote. Yes, I mentioned to Rick Calvert that it wasn't my favorite part of the conference. No, it's not because I was offended by the content, though I can see how some people took it the wrong way. My bigger beef was with the overall style of the closing keynote. I want to leave on an up-lifting note, and not on a comedic one. But, these are all things I've said to Rick so I'll just leave it at that...On a more positive note...

1. Tactics win out over strategies - With as much as the blogosphere talks about strategy, I think we're in danger of turning it into a buzz word. Most bloggers are actually talking about tactics and not strategies anyway, but I'm not sure how well talking about strategies translates to conferences anyway. Most attendees that I talked to told me they wanted to hear from others about what worked. Sure, there are strategic elements in that, but mostly people are concerned with what tactics worked. They can then take those tactics away, adapt to fit THEIR strategic goals and everybody wins.
2. Tom Webster - One of my favorite sessions (I'm a numbers guy, right?) was Tom Webster's presentation on "The Social Habit." If you missed some of the tweets, or Tom's talk, you can download the research here. It was a fantastic talk with very actionable items coming from the data. Tom delivered the goods...if you have an opportunity to see him in the future, please do so!
3. Cautious optimism about the power of social media - This has something to do with the data Tom presented, but I left the conference feeling only cautiously optimistic about the power of social. Yes, I think social is valuable. No, I don't think that's changing anytime soon. However, Tom presented a data point about the power of social channels in influencing purchasing decisions. In the survey, 72% of respondents said that no social network influenced a purchasing decision. Only one social channel - Facebook - was above 1% (Facebook was 24%). 
4. Is location-based marketing really all we think it is? There were multiple presentations about location-based platforms, including a keynote with Aaron Strout and representatives from very large brands, but I left wondering just how useful these are for the mainstream brand. Tom's presentation mentioned that while a larger percentage of American's are aware of LBS tools, a very small number actually use them daily. I sense, as Tom noted, that this is a great opportunity for other mobile platforms that we've been ignoring in our race to satisfy our shiny new object affliction. We'll see...only time will tell who is right.
5. People are measuring the right things! - I've become overly jaded by case studies. Yeah, there are some fancy, creative ideas floating around, but I could care less about fancy and creative. I care about whether something works or not. To date, I was never sure how often the "right" things were being measured in social media. However, leaving the conference and hearing presentations by Lisa Grimm, Shannon Paul, Jess Berlin and many others I feel better about how people are measuring social. They aren't just looking at reach, but more tangible business metrics that executives care about. Perhaps we're on the right track after all? 
6. Damion White - Damion is a very good friend of mine (we were colleagues at WCG), so I was happy he was able to make it out to the event. I've always known him to be an incredibly smart guy, but seeing him exposed to other smart people pumped me up. He was a huge hit, of course, with his ability to drop beats (yeah, I just said drop beats on a social media blog), but so many people told me after the conference how smart he is. I've always known, but I'm glad everyone else has had the same experience. 

I could go on for awhile, but what were your big takeaways? Anything you'd like to see in LA that wasn't present in NYC? We're going to be starting to plan for LA here in the next few weeks (gasp), so please let me know.

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It occurred to me as I was reading through my recent posts last night (it's amazing what you'll do to pass the time in an airport or airplane, huh?) that you might be thinking I'm an angry guy. If you've just started reading me here, or following me on Twitter you might think I'm replaying the classic 1990's comedy, Grumpy Old Men. I've been doing a lot of ranting on my blog and Twitter, and I realized last night/this morning how ridiculous I've been acting. So, if I've been bumming you out with that attitude all I can say is I'm sorry.

Let me give you a couple of reasons why I've been so cranky:

1. I am extremely passionate about this space. I love social media. Heck, I love all forms of communications. When people mock it unfairly, or don't treat it with the respect it deserves, that ticks me off. This space has been very good to me, and a lot of others... it's about time more start acting that way. 
2. Unprofessionalism. Folks, if you're representing another company at a conference -- speaking or otherwise -- you need to be prepared with a game plan going in. You can't just show up and "hope" all goes well. If you're speaking, spend MONTHS preparing. If you're attending, figure out who you want to meet ahead of time. It's not hard with some simple planning.
3. Stretched a little too thin. I have a problem saying "no." I think many of us do. I've been juggling my job, the book, BlogWorld planning, speaking at conferences and *trying* to have a personal life all at the same time. Again, no excuse for acting like a jack ass...
4. Getting taken advantage of. It took a couple of real friends pointing it out this week, but there have been some who have taken advantage of my willingness to help people. That stops now. It has only ended up burning me.

So, if you've never met me and have only had cranky/overly sarcastic exposure to me here and on Twitter here is who I actually am:

1. Willing to help make connections. This relates somewhat to number four above, but I am generally willing to help people make connections. My network isn't huge, but if a friend asks me to help make a connection I'm going to do that.
2. Caring. Not to sound too much like I'm sitting on the set of Oprah, but I care a lot for my friends. If they have an issue and need to talk, I'm always there for them.
3. Lives and dies with the successes/failures of friends. This speaks to number two a little, but when my friends have a win in their life, I'm extremely pumped up. When they have a failure, I'm extremely down.
4. I love working in this field. The rapidly changing social media landscape makes this job an absolute blast every day. I can't imagine not working on the stuff I'm working on. Along those same lines, I'm uber-focused on advancing the practice. If you're not trying to push it forward, get the heck off the bus.
5. Focused on family. Again, not to sound like an Oprah special, but I care deeply for my family even if they are 1,000 miles away. My nephew is the greatest kid on earth, and my sister is OK...you know, in a younger sibling kind of way. :)
6. Cooking. If you don't see me talking about social media, or just communications more generally, you'll likely see me talking about restaurants/cooking. I love it almost as much.

Anyway, I'm sorry again for being so cranky lately. It won't continue. If it does, feel free to call me out on it. Thanks for following and reading, despite the angry attitude.

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So, tomorrow kicks off BlogWorld Expo NYC. Of course, we're all buzzing in anticipation of the first BlogWorld to be held outside of Las Vegas. Everybody loves New York, right? And, of course I'm biased, but the content at BlogWorld is second-to-none. A couple of weeks back I provided you three sessions that I thought were under the radar, but definitely worth your time at the event. Today, I wanted to give you three must-see sessions while you're here. Yes, again, I'm biased. And yes, again, these are all from the social media business summit track that Arik Hanson co-organize. So, without further delay...

1. The Social Habit - One of the best in the business, Tom Webster, is going to be releasing some VERY cool data on how we interact on the social web. In addition to being a great speaker, Tom gets social media and gets analytics. Trust me, that's a rare combination. It should be an excellent presentation, and one worth your time.
2. Applied Social Media Measurement - Of course, right? The analytics guy is pumping up the measurement panel. BIG SHOCKER, right? Wrong. In this instance, you have four people on a panel that are actively doing measurement for clients. And not just DOING measurement, these people are experts in this field. Make sure you check this one out during the week.
3. The Rise of Social Commerce - Yeah, I'll admit it...I've been Sally Skeptical on the topic of social commerce for the last few months. My beef isn't with whether it is important or not. It is more so that I'm not sure that the mainstream world will be adopting it at near the clip we think they will. Is mobile commerce happening? Of course. How quickly? That's still TBD. This is why I'm very curious to sit in on this session. I have no doubt that I'll be convinced of something different coming out of the room.

Please know that Arik and I give great thought into what submissions are accepted for BlogWorld. However, we're under no delusion that we've nailed every topic or know of all the great speakers on particular topics. Remember, we have to do this all over again in Los Angeles so if you have thoughts please don't hesitate to comment here or find one of us during the event. I'm looking forward to it, and I hope you are too.

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At the risk of sounding like a complainer, or as someone who is always ranting, I wanted to take a second to address some recent developments in social media. Of course, there are things daily that cause one to shake their head or pump their fist. Social media elicits strong opinions from all sorts of people. Whether you're on the client or agency side, young or old, you likely have an opinion on something related to social media. That's cool. In this case, opinions are mostly good. Opinions mostly help us push the space forward. However, as with anything in life these opinions have limits.

There are several memes in social media that should cause you to scratch your head. If you aren't scratching your head, you aren't close enough to your clients or bosses to understand what's really important to them. For example:

• Social media experts are "clowns." Let me be perfectly clear for a second - I think Gary Vaynerchuk does amazing work. He's an incredibly smart guy who's done a lot more for the space than I have done to date. However, when he called 99.5% of social media experts "clowns" he was wrong. Not that there isn't a large number of faux experts, it's just that companies don't care. If you're good, companies will recognize it. If you suck, companies will cut bait. If you think otherwise, you're wrong. And no, for the record, it doesn't make the job for those of us who know what we are talking about harder. It actually makes it easier in the end.
• Snake oil salesmen - This is another one of those memes that should die a very quick death. It's in line with my first point here, but companies just don't care. They don't care what you think of other people in social media. They care how YOU can help THEM. End. Of. Story.
• Social media is not really media - Tell you what, try an experiment with 10 people you know within large companies. Ask them whether they think social media is actually media, or whether it is an accurate reflection of what the space is or does. I'd bet my life that 10 out of 10 will either stare blankly, say they don't care or both.
• Defining ROI - Again, I'd bet you a significant amount of money that a marketing professional within a company has never once asked themselves whether ROI in social media actually means return on influence or return on engagement or whatever other stupid RO acronym you'd like to come up with. ROI within companies is return on investment. Nothing else. Stop it.
• Does PR or corporate communications or marketing own social media - This is one you could possibly argue, but realistically companies only care how those elements come together to deliver a strategic approach to social. Who owns it is a secondary concern at best.

Just so you don't think I'm a complainer, what should we be talking about?

• Measuring social media effectively - We need less talk and misinformation about measuring social media. At Ogilvy, we approach measurement as KPIs and diagnostic measures. KPIs could be things like sentiment, or positive share of voice or, gasp, sales. Diagnostic measures are those that are specific to the platforms you are using. If you are using Facebook you might look at clicks/post, likes/post, comments/post, etc... Again, it depends on your goals. Lets start talking with companies about how they can effectively measure social media success.
• Defining, measuring and implementing influencer programs - There is a significant amount of debate about how to measure and define influence. A lot of informed opinion, I might add. The jury is still out, but influencer programs aren't going away any time soon. We need to land on appropriate proxy metrics for influence, and soon. We need to understand how we're appropriately leveraging our lists, and soon. There may never be total agreement, but we need to get closer than we are currently.
• A more strategic approach to social - Unfortunately, social media is still overly tactical. Companies that are incorporating elements of paid and earned media into social campaigns are actually few and far between. We need more of that. We need more companies who want to leverage social across the entire enterprise (read: a truly social business). Social media can help your business, but only if you let it be more than a broadcast channel.
• Using listening data proactively - There is some value in using listening data reactively as a marketing intelligence tool, but it is most effective when your content is nimble enough to be influenced by conversations you are seeing online about your brand and your industry. We need to be formalizing listening teams at the brand level in order to do this well. Yes, it costs money, but ask Dell whether the social media listening command center hasn't already paid for itself. I bet it has, and not just by a little.

I'm sure there are other things we should be talking about, and I'm hoping you'll come and do that for us. Either way, social media needs to stop acting like the next iteration of Ringling Brothers Circus by focusing on things companies couldn't care less about. Lets refocus on what's important, and help to really drive business value. Who's with me?

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