Analytics Is King

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.

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?

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?

 

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.

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.

Just when you thought you had seen everything... Here I was, just going about my Monday...Catching up on e-mail and my Twitter stream when my good friend Heather Whaling sent me a link. Now, I think the world of Heather, and the work she does for her clients so naturally I clicked on the link. If only I could hit the rewind button and NOT click on that link. I spent the rest of my Monday trying to calm down after reading this post. What post is that you might ask? Ragan's PR Daily posted an article written by Jessica Epperly of The Wakeman Agency on measuring the value of editorial coverage. This post starts off innocently enough comparing and contrasting the role of advertising and public relations within organizations. Advertising is paid and media placements are earned...Yada yada yada... We've all heard that song and dance a million times. Where this article really comes off the tracks, at least for me, is in the discussion of how we measure success in PR and advertising. Yes, my friends, you thought right: We're back in the world of advertising value equivalencies. Ugh..and here I thought we were well on our way to moving beyond these ridiculous metrics. Perhaps we are and this is an isolated case? One can only hope, right? I don't want to go too deeply down the path to discredit advertising value equivalencies as a metric, but if you wanted to read more on the subject I'd suggest you check out the works of Don Bartholomew, Katie Paine and Sean Williams. All of them have done EXTENSIVE work to discredit the value of AVE's as a metric to evaluate success in PR. Much of their work can be found on their blogs, but I'd also encourage you to check the work from the Institute for Public Relations on this subject. It's all great, and it all, pretty much, tells the same story - advertising value equivalencies are a scourge on the PR profession. As I said, I don't want to go much down the path of discussing the science (or lack thereof) behind AVEs. However, there are a couple of things that have me very concerned after reading this article:

1. This is what makes measurement hard to talk about with companies - There is no doubt that Ragan.com is a reputable site. I read PR Daily myself, quite often, when it comes across in the stream. However, publishing an article like that is pretty reckless. We already know there is great misunderstanding about measurement in the marketplace, and by posting something that's so egregiously wrong you only serve to feed that beast. Similarly, there are going to be a lot of companies out there reading that article, looking for a measurement solution and using it as sort of a "bolt on." This will only lead to companies measuring the wrong thing more often than they currently do.
2. For the 400th time, advertising and PR DO NOT carry the same value - I'm not getting into which one of the disciplines is better than the other. I truly believe that a successful communications mix incorporates all elements of paid, earned and owned media. That being said. there hasn't been any research that I believe that would suggest advertising and PR deliver the same value to organizations. The answer, in most cases, is it depends. Some companies get more mileage out of advertising, while others get more out of PR. It depends on where you sit.
3. Page rank is so bogus I think I want to vomit - As if the discussion of AVEs in this article isn't enough, we go down the page rank path?! Oh, for the love of... "Whether your story appears at the beginning or the end of a magazine can impact the media value," says Epperly. Well, no shit! However, are you sitting over the shoulder of someone reading said magazine to know if they are making it to the end of the magazine? The answer is no, and the math behind trying to apply some sort of figure to those kinds of situations is less than ideal.

Listen folks, I'm all for integration. I want an integrated approach to communications and measurement. Unfortunately, blending PR and advertising by using advertising value equivalencies is a recipe for disaster. The better approach is to come up with a list of metrics that are reasonable measures of success for PR, and run with it. If some happen to be influenced by advertising, then great. Have that conversation. Until then, though, DO NOT USE AVEs. THEY ARE A SCURGE ON THE PROFESSION. CAN I GET A WITNESS?

Does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man? I can't remember the last time I actually wore a suit, so for the purposes of this debate lets just go ahead and say that the man makes the suit. Anyway, a favorite sport for those of us who do data analysis for a living is bashing public relations professionals for not being as diligent with making decisions based on numbers. Or, better yet, not coming up with appropriate measurable objectives (or measuring at all to be totally candid about it) for their campaigns. I think we're getting better (hopefully Katie Paine would agree with me), but the PR profession is nowhere close to being data/measurement snobs. Will we get there? I'm not sure we need to have every PR pro be a versed data geek, but it wouldn't hurt. In the business, we'd call that last sentence a smooth segue... Yesterday, Keith Trivitt wrote a very interesting post on the heels of the PRSA National Conference arguing that social media is creating a data deluge for PR that will help create a new breed of professionals in the business. This had me thinking... does data create the professional or does the professional embrace the data and manipulate it to fit his or her needs. I'd like to believe Keith. I really would. But enough years working in research (either traditional or new media communications) tells me that an abundance of data does not necessarily lead to a more data-focused professional. Should it? Yes, absolutely. Will it is still yet to be determined. An even better question to ask is why would it lead to a more data-conscious professional? The data has been there for years, unfortunately, with little action taken on the part of the professionals. Just because the social Web has created more information than we can possibly digest doesn't mean professionals are going to immediately embrace it. I think they should, but that's a point for a different show. Even if the professionals did embrace this new dataset, would they know what they are looking at? Would they know how to pull out the insights? Would they know how to incorporate social data with search data with Web traffic information? What about with offline data? What about incorporating findings with their traditional media dashboards? I think you are seeing my point here...The shift occurs when the culture of PR shifts not when more data is created. This fundamentally starts at the collegiate program level, and I know several universities (Kent State University near my old hometown and the University of Southern California) are starting to realize it. However, we're not talking about a small problem. The universities, and then in turn the students must want to go there. I do a fair amount of speaking to students (much of which at the Universities I've listed above) and I can tell you that these kids aren't necessarily warming to data. Do they get there? Yeah, eventually. Will they embrace it when I walk out of the classroom? I don't know, honestly (further evidence for homing devices in kids?). This issue is more generational than anything. Will we see a seismic shift as the more senior members of this PR generation retire? Who knows. That's for someone significantly smarter than I am. I tend to think, though, that the new generation of professional has been brought up with a more data/measurement-conscious eye. The question is will that eye become fully trained in time to lead the ENTIRE profession into an era where there's more of a focus on making data-centered decisions than ever before. That is still TBD in my opinion. Anyway, after yesterday's more personal post I figured it was time to get back onto the wagon. What say you? Does the data make the pro or does the pro make the data? You tell me.

We all (I hope) understand the importance of research to any public relations, advertising, marketing or social media campaign. Research is the beginning, middle and end of any campaign. It can help identify appropriate messaging, help us gauge the success of our campaign, identify potential influential online community members and provide a solid benchmark Despite its importance, the conversations we have about research are often strained. Whether it be about budget concerns (some recommend ~10% of an overall budget be spent on research), the client’s sense of urgency in getting started or just an unfamiliarity with the topic, we typically do not handle the conversation about research very well. So how do we make the conversations go a little more smoothly? I have four ideas that might help you: 1. Make research one of the first things you bring up. Not only will it make you look like you are concerned with their bottom line, but it will show that you are thinking about the campaign on a strategic level and not a tactical one. 2. Avoid jargon and acronyms. Public relations (even social media and advertising) is one of those professions that is littered with acronyms and jargon. For whatever reason, we are in a hurry to make something an acronym, or compose a sentence comprised entirely of jargon. The research conversation is typically no different. I’m not advocating talking to the client like they are five, but don’t start off the conversation by using a term like “KPI” without any context. 3. Be confident in your results. I can guarantee that if your client senses you do not believe in your results, neither will they. If the results are negative, then position them as a way to tweak your campaign to get the desired results. If they are positive, don’t be so quick to take credit for all of your hard work. Praise the client for their work, but also demonstrate how you can continue improving to make the next report even better. 4. Provide actionable insights - For whatever reason, there's often a reliance on FYI's. By FYI's I mean interesting information that doesn't immediately lead to the client solving a specific business problem. Along the same lines, one key to actionable insights is timeliness. If you're providing old data chances are good the window to actually act on that intelligence has passed. I don’t believe for a second that these are the only things that would make the conversation about research easier. Are there other things that you have done when talking to clients about research? I look forward to hearing from you.

How many conferences have you been to in the last 12-24 months that have utilized Dell as a case study for the adoption of social media? Probably somewhere between a bunch and more times than you'd care to count, right? Well, I can tell you that all of those case studies applauding their adoption of social are true. I had the good fortune of being invited to participate in Dell's first Social Media and Community (SMaC) Unconference with several people from outside of the organization, including Kelly Feller (Intel), Shel Holtz, Amber Naslund, Chris Barger (General Motors), Katie Paine, Jordan Williams (REI) and Andy Sernovitz. It's hard to encapsulate an entire day of talking about social media with such smart people in a single blog post, but I'm going to give it a try.

1. Dell's commitment to listening - This is probably one of the biggest takeaways for me, given the role I currently hold with WCG. During our panel discussion to start the day, there were a couple of questions specific to metrics/listening. Dell's commitment to doing listening correctly really showed through in the afternoon sessions. I had the privilege of sitting through probably 2-3 sessions on listening where we talked about everything from categorizing conversations to setting up profiles to filtering through noise. All great discussions, but what really struck me was how committed everyone was to listening to the voice of their customer. Even Dell's Chairman and CEO, Michael Dell, made it a point to mention how important listening was to the organization. NOW THAT IS COOL! If there are brands still on the fence about listening (and I know there are) it's time to get off!
2. Scaling social media - No surprise, but Dell's social media team is large. Given the size of the group you would think it would be very difficult to coordinate. However, after spending the day with a large chunk of the team it appears they are more coordinated than I could've imagined. Major kudos to Manish Mehta on building a fantastic team.
3. Measuring social media - Again, no surprise. Everybody is wondering how you measure this stuff. One of the points I made during the opening panel discussion was that a focus on ROI is great, but don't lose sight of other metrics. Categorized more as awareness or assessment metrics. When given the opportunity it's absolutely imperative to show direct linkage to sales, but relationship and trust metrics are just as important when trying to demonstrate the value of social activities. I think that's something the folks at Dell understand, but it's something I worry about for the industry-at-large.
4. Commitment from the top - Everyone in the audience was excited to hear from Michael Dell at the end of the day. He had a lot of great things to say, but his dedication to social technologies that help the company get closer to its customers was the biggest takeaway for me. C-level executives who are still skeptical about the value of social should spend 30 minutes talking to him. They'd instantly be turned around.
5. More brands should pull together teams in this format - It doesn't matter how big your social/digital/community team is in this case. Bringing them together to recognize their work (an excellent point made by Shel Holtz early in the day) is critical, but it also helps in building team comradery. That's all in addition to bringing together ideas that someone in another business unit may not have thought of previously.

I could probably go on for days about what I learned yesterday, but i'll stop there. Before I go, I wanted to thank Manish, Bill Johnston and Richard Binhammer for inviting me to participate in the event. It was a great experience for me to talk with so many smart people in the space. Wish you, and your team the best of luck moving forward.