Analytics Is King

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?

 

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.

If the intent was to point out that looking in the rearview mirror was wrong, or that we have "analysis paralysis" (a phrase he uses in the video included below in reference to having an abundance of data) then I couldn't disagree more. The only way you can understand where the future may lie for your social platforms is to understand where they've been in the past. Where social business professionals need to go is away from data and more toward insights.

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.

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?

For as much as I advocate staying focused on the present, the social media world is one that lends itself well to thinking about what's next. Quite often the answer is, "I don't know," but that doesn't stop us from talking about it. It's no different with social analytics. What are the next great listening tools to hit the market? How do we bring together data we're pulling from the social web with our more traditional offline market research activities? And, for the record, while I agree with the folks at P&G that the value of traditional market research activities is waning, we're still a long ways from outright replacement. We're also curious about the interplay between the engagement professional and the analytics professional. Are the lines blurring? Yes. Are we experiencing a democratization of data across the enterprise? Sure. Is everyone an analyst within an organization? Absolutely not. Should they be? HELL NO! Should they be comfortable with data? Yes, absolutely.

These, among other questions are ones we social analytics dorks consider all of the time. There aren't any answers, yet, but we do have some smart people thinking and talking about it. Next week (Saturday, 4/30, at 1pm EST), I have the good fortune of taking part in an FIR Live show with Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz where we'll no doubt be discussing this and many other things within the social analytics realm. Joining me for the session are Ken Burbary, Katie Paine and Aaron Weber. I'm assuming you know all of these people, but if you don't, shame on you. All incredibly brilliant people within this field.

I'm hoping during the session we have an opportunity to discuss what each of us thinks is next for social measurement and analytics. It's a pretty fascinating topic (at least for nerds like me), with widespread enterprise implications. For example, what happens if I'm wrong about everybody being an analyst within an organization? Do those not comfortable with data get shoved aside even if they are brilliant content creators? Honestly, I have no idea. Before the session next Saturday, I thought it might be interesting to jot down some of the thoughts I've had over the last few months on where I think social analytics might be going

1. Democratization of data will continue - More data available to the enterprise is a good thing, at least in my view. However, because we're going to see more data spread throughout the organization, there will be greater pressure placed on the "modern day" market research professional to be able to adapt. Can they train people to interpret information from a social listening tool if they've never done it before? Can they work with parts of the organization they've never worked with before? Again, democratization is good, if the market research pro can simultaneously adapt.
2. The trend toward more data isn't going ot be slowing down - For as much belly aching as some people do about there being "too much data" available to brands, I don't see that trend slowing down. Interactions on the social web create way too many data points of interest to companies to just ignore. Ahh, this brings us to #3 in this list.
3. Crossing the "insights chasm" - I was having a discussion with an old colleague, Andy Boothe (smart as hell), the other day and I dropped this term in relation to getting people across the (GREAT) divide between data and insights. If we're going to be accessing more data in more spots throughout the enterprise, we need to be making it more actionable than we currently are. That's the chasm, and let me tell you...it's a GIANT one.
4. Future listening tools will look more like BI tools - Whether it's in partnership with companies like Clarabridge, or it is a standalone product, the future listening tools will find a way to incorporate all media and OFFLINE market research data into one powerful dashboard. I'm not talking about Microsoft's Looking Glass here that hasn't been able to gain serious traction because of costs. No, this is embedded into a tool you already are using for a marginal increase in costs. Trust me, if you've ever seen data pulled together from disparate sources to deliver insights it's pretty powerful stuff.
5. Listening teams will become more pervasive - There are a handful of companies who already have such teams (Kodak and Dell being two), but the reason they established them in the first place is that the value proposition of listening in real-time to customers (or just key stakeholders more generally) was painfully obvious. As more companies are exposed to the value of listening, we'll start to see dedicated listening teams cropping up all over the place. And, before you get any crazy ideas, I don't mean 23 year olds you've plucked from their parent's bedrooms.
6. The one stop shop model - Anyone that's done more traditional research in other disciplines, particularly investor relations, knows that these tools go through violent consolidation cycles. In IR, specifically, we've reached the point where public companies are using IR management tools like ThomsonReuters or Shareholder.com and very little else. The social listening tool that brings together CRM, social listening, offline data and anything else you can think of into one spot will win. Trust me, brands don't want to have to hunt through hundreds of different providers. Chaotic buying environments make them nervous.

Anyway, these are just a few thoughts I had in anticipation of next week's discussion. Hopefully you'll be able to tune in.

Listening to conversations online is a critical component of social media programs. Every post that talks about getting started in social media talks about the importance of listening. It's becoming one of those set in stone principles of social media, and is almost never disputed. What we are spending more of our time on now is how do companies do listening more effectively. Truth be told most companies are doing it pretty well, but aren't really maximizing it to its true benefit. This isn't anything like monitoring traditional communications outlets, and it certainly has greater application than just within the marketing function of organizations. We can use listening for PR, marketing, strategic planning, product development, customer service, investor relations, etc... The possibilities are literally endless. Lets take a step back for a second and consider how companies typically get started listening to online conversations. Around the same time they understand the need/want to do social they also realize they need to pick a monitoring (the word makes me cringe) provider to help them understand the current social media ecosystem about their brand and topic areas of interest. They go through a process of looking at a kagillion (that's not a real number) different providers and come out the other side either more confused than ever or with a clear direction on which of the twenty kagillion (also not a real world) providers is best for them (if you need a great resource on listening providers,  be sure to check out this wiki from Ken Burbary). Setting aside for a minute whether I think conducting this level of due diligence is needed, and I don't, what you should realize is that many of this providers have VERY similar platforms. If you don't notice it after looking at about five of them you aren't really paying attention. You can probably tell by the tone of this section of the post that I'm not a fan of this approach. So, how do you actually get started listening to social media conversations? Nothing is easy in this space (if someone says it is I'd like to know their secret sauce), but I think there are six basic steps to get the ball rolling in the right direction: 1. Identify your goals. Like measuring social media, it is important for you to outline the goals for listening. This is not traditional media monitoring where your solution was tended to every other day. It is important to think critically about what you are going to use the data to accomplish. 2. Decide on your listening provider. There are quite a few social media listening solutions available on the marketplace. Conduct due diligence on at least five of them before selecting your partner. 3. Decide on your listening team. Listening is a job that requires more than one person to manage. Your listening team should be cross-functional, but largely housed within marketing or public relations. 4. Undergo training for personnel. Many social media listening tools are highly complicated to get setup the first time. If there is training courses offered by the provider, make sure members of your team participate. Also, look for opportunities to train other members of the organization on how to analyze the data. 5. Identifying the metrics you want to listen for. Most monitoring solutions offer several different kinds of metrics that you can analyze. Don't fall into the trap of trying to look at every possible metric they provide. Pick the ones that fit your goals and analyze those. 6. Building your listening platform. When you are building your listening platform you must understand that it will take time. You will need to change your existing keywords. You'll need to add keywords. Whatever the case may be, the best listening platforms are those that are constantly evolving. For those of you that have experience building listening platforms for companies or clients, what have you found is the best approach for getting started?

What’s Next for Social Media Analytics? At WCG, we’re fond of talking about “next practices.” Best practices is a buzzword that’s been sufficiently killed by communicators for years.  Yes, best practices are important, but with the speed in which social media moves, it’s almost impossible to label anything a best practice.  Why would you want to anyway?  Are you really going to model your social media program on what some other brand has done?  Do they have the same customers as you?  Are they trying to achieve the same goals that you are?  The answer to both of those questions is probably “no.” So where do you get started?  We’ve advanced well beyond the stage where you need to hear us tell you how important listening is for your brand.  It helps inform content, it helps alter content and it helps us measure the overall performance of your program.  Most brands are starting to grasp that concept.  What’s not being fully leveraged yet are the volumes of data and information available to a brand leader through the social Web.  When we’re listening to online conversations, we’re typically doing so to inform our marketing and PR efforts.  That’s great, but there’s much more to the equation than marketing and PR. Last October, Ken Burbary and I developed the Social Analytics Lifecycle for brands looking to really take data available on the social Web to the next level.  Our thought was that data on the Web, while being leveraged for marketing and PR could also be leveraged in the areas of product development, strategic planning, customer care and sales.  Fundamentally, the lifecycle works by gathering data, filtering out signal from noise, segmenting the data by corporate department, developing insights that form business strategies, which ultimately lead to execution. And, as is the case with any “lifecycle,” the process then continually repeats based on changing goals. There’s obviously more to this story that we’ll get into in future posts (like the convergence of Web, social and search analytics), but so far, we’re not seeing many (if any at all) brands using social data in this way.  Are you? Where do you see the evolution of data going?

"Content is king." How often over the last 12-24 months, as social media has really exploded, have you heard that phrase? Probably more times than you can actually count, right? I know I've heard it a bunch. It's one of those "buzz" phrases that causes everyone in the room to roll their eyes. Why? Well, it's easy. We all know that content is important, but what people really want is a road map that helps them identify what content, specifically, will resonate with people. Brand leaders (ones not living under rocks) know that company's are successfully engaging in social media. The ones who are still sitting on the sidelines are doing so because they aren't sure where to get started, and what content they should use to reach their customers. I've spent the last few years studying/helping to implement "next practices" (thanks to my boss, Bob Pearson, for that one) in social media and can say definitively that where brands fall down is in the lack of adequate pre-launch research. Realize, that as much as we talk about doing pre-launch research in social media there are still plenty of brands engaging in a practice known to many weekend golfers as "hit and hope." "Lets launch our Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Flickr channel because everybody else is doing it." Or, "we have tons of content that people care about." And even, "we know because we've used it in press releases, our Web site and in media pitches." Guess what? They often don't care. This, my friends, is where research comes in. Are you doing pre-launch listening? How are you combining those findings with offline research that your market research team has conducted? Are you truly identifying who the influencers are in your space? NOTE: There's definitely some very cool, and more scientifically sound methods to define influence in your space then what Fast Company is doing. More of that to come in future posts. These aren't the only questions that need to be answered, but are likely the primary ones you should be focusing on. So where does that leave us? Well, I think based on the title of this blog, and the first part of this post you'll realize how important I think research is for brands. It's essential. So much so that I think analytics is the true king. Oh, don't get me wrong, I think content is important. But without solid research your content is likely to miss the mark. This blog will be talking a lot about "next practices" in social media research. Sure, we'll be talking a lot about general social media issues as well, but we'll eventually gravitate back to analytics. Hopefully I will give you plenty to think about, and implement in your own programs. If there are things that are eating at you now, just drop in a comment and we'll tackle them one-by-one. Looking forward to embarking on the journey with you!