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?

 

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?

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?