Analytics Is King

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?

 

If you are involved with social media at all, you likely heard the announcement that Salesforce.com has acquired Radian6. It was literally the only thing that was in my Twitter stream for several hours during the day. Rightfully so, by the way, this is huge news for the listening and social media world. It isn't a secret that I'm a big fan of Radian6. They've been very helpful to me in my career, and I think the world of their product and people. There's a reason people call them the "industry leader." It didn't take long for the posts to come out dissecting the news (more on that in a second), but I wanted to wait a day before diving into it. So, here are some takeaways that I've had from the news:

1. Positive news for Salesforce.com - It seems pretty clear that this is going to be a huge value-add for the Salesforce.com product. Further incorporation of social listening data with CRM (notice: I didn't say social CRM) can only be a winner. Our motto should be, "the more I know about my customer, the better." This new relationship should only help that.
2. Industry consolidation has started, but should now pick up in earnest - Listen, there's nothing I like more than learning about new monitoring solutions. I'm a data geek. However, in 2009 it became pretty apparent that we had too many players on the stage. When conducting due diligence, companies were looking at dozens of different companies when the differences between them were really miniscule. The same consolidation happened with Investor Relations tools to the point, now, where if you don't use ThomsonReuters or Shareholder.com  it's a complete anomaly. That's OK by me. If I can go one place for the entire solution suite I'd consider that a win.
3. More resources behind Radian6 - Truth be told, there was a period of time as Radian6 was ramping up where the customer service suffered. It has improved significantly as they've added more people, but the considerable resources of a public company should only help add to the people arsenal of Radian6. For those of us who are heavy users, the more potential touch points we have within the organization, the better.
4. Innovation will continue - Radian6 has a long history of product innovation. I remember seeing it in 2007 and thinking that the data was cool, but wasn't entirely there as an offering. Now, it's the industry leader. That growth has happened because they've been diligent about innovating the product. Salesforce.com has that same tradition of innovation. Together, it should be a power house. I don't buy the notion that big public company stifles innovation...at least in this case.
5. The cost of the acquisition shows just how big this market has become - $276 million dollars (plus $50 million in stock) is a gigantic sum of money. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around that because I see it as an excellent monitoring solution. Someone paying that much money seems foreign to me, but it's a testament to the work Radian6 has done. It also shows how important listening to social conversations has become for brands. Trust me, Salesforce.com isn't going to spend the money on a solution like Radian6 if they don't think they can turn around and sell it to companies.
6. Move toward making social analytics more mainstream - Just so we're clear, I don't view Radian6 as a social analytics tool. I view it as a listening tool, and the "analytics" part comes from an analyst. That being said, the more mainstream we make social analytics/data, the more likely we are to continue advancing the space. Data is an integral part of the strategic planning process in social media. Companies are starting to notice it more, but still not to the level it should be. When they are exposed to that power through a CRM platform like Radian6, adoption rates should go up.

As I mentioned above, there was a race to be the first person to dissect this announcement from top to bottom. One of the better ones dissected the implications for Radian6, Salesforce.com and the broader analytics market. There's a lot in that post I agree with, but a few things I completely disagree with:

1. We're taking the word "analyst" a little too far - Not everybody is an analyst just because they have access to the tool. If an enterprise has heavier data crunching needs, they are not putting Radian6 in the hands of a PR person or marketer. And if they do, that PR person or marketer should be smart enough to involve market research professionals.
2. Immaturity of the market doesn't mean consolidation shouldn't happen - The social listening market is very new, and definitely green. However, the race to create a listening platform helped to sufficiently muddy the waters for brands when in truth there was very little difference between the platforms. I'm no economics wiz, but supply had outstripped demand. Consolidation was an inevitable byproduct.
3. Innovation will continue - Similar to what I mentioned above, but I dispute the notion that an acquisition leads to the disintegration of innovation within a company. Have you met the guys from Radian6? Ditto Salesforce.com? Those people are always working to perfect the product. I have no concerns there.

Anyway, those are just some of my takeaways from this news. I want nothing but the best for my friends at Radian6, and the industry at-large. Net result of this news should be positive for the industry...At least in my humble opinion.

In my post recapping SXSWi, it should've been clear that the biggest value driver of the conference for me is networking. I love getting a chance to talk with people I don't see that often who are working hard in this business. The content isn't terrible, it just isn't for me. If I'm trying to learn something I'll go to a smaller event, like Blogworld Expo (shameless plug - Arik Hanson and I co-organize the social business track), where I know the content is more focused and practical. That being said, one of the lasting impressions of the event has to be Gary Vaynerchuck's talk. Gary's premise, based on his new book The Thank You Economy, is that brands need to become more "human." The book goes into great detail about how companies can scale that humanization. This isn't a book review (disclaimer: I've not read it, but am planning on it), rather it is me agreeing with Gary's idea that brands need to become more human. After his talk ended I thought about how my clients could achieve this vision, but also how some people in the social media world should start heeding his call. One of the things that drives me nuts are blog posts or tweets proclaiming the death of a particular platform. A common refrain is, "blogging is dead because of Twitter," or "Quora is a Twitter killer." How on earth would anybody know that? Do you have a crystal ball that the rest of us can't see? Those kinds of posts make for excellent linkbait, but the truth is that none of us really know for sure what's coming down the line. This space is expanding so quickly it's hard to know what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone a year from now. Similarly, there are those who are hyper-critical of what social media has become. Let me be clear for a second...constructive criticism about the value of these tools is certainly warranted. Certain technologies are not for every brand, and there are definitely some snake oil salesmen out there who convince companies that they should establish a presence on every network under the sun. However, slamming a social network because it is no longer you and your four buddies is not only dumb, but incredibly shortsighted in my view. Guess what? You owe part of your career to that explosion. And please, spare us the bullshit of "you've worked harder than everybody else." Most of the people in this space who are recognized for thought leadership are working hard. No, the move of social networks toward more mainstream adoption means you have more career options, most likely a cooler job than you had a few years ago and ultimately more money. Its opened doors you never thought could be opened. Hell, this space has created a book opportunity for me that I NEVER thought would've been possible before getting involved in this space. I think it is time for us all to take a moment to be grateful for those who have:

1. Taught us something new about this space - Guarantee there is someone out there who teaches you something on the regular. Have you thanked them for that recently? I know I haven't. With that in mind, I'd like to take a second to thank Tom Webster. Incredibly smart guy, with an eye for numbers that this space really needs. Read him if you don't already.
2. Gave us our start in this business - Chances are good there's someone out there who told you about these platforms. Or, better yet, helped you gain your first real exposure to others working in the space. For me, that guy was Jason Falls. I pitched him a blog topic in 2009 about social media listening and he published it. I don't thank him enough for that opportunity...So, Thanks, Jason. I appreciate it.
3. Challenged us to continue pushing the space forward - There's someone out there who is pushing you to do better. It could be your boss. It could be a friend. Whoever it is, acknowledge them for what they are doing. For me, that guy was Keith Mabee, now Vice Chairman at Dix & Eaton. I owe him so much for his advice that I could never repay him. Thanks, Keith.
4. Encouraged us to be better human beings - At the end of the day, we can always be better human beings. Have we taken the time to help someone less fortunate than us? Bringing it back to this context, have we thanked someone for going out of there way to provide us with a piece of information we were looking for? I know I need to do this more....You?

So, the next time you are planning to trash social media as "not as cool as it used to be," or proclaim the death of blogging (or insert social network here), take a second to realize that the media you are about to trash has a lot to do with where you are in your career. Resist the temptation to be ungrateful or, in more crass terms, an asshole. The traffic to your site isn't worth it. Thanks, Gary, for helping me refocus on what matters.

For all of the good information that is shared online there is just as much that could be (generously) considered questionable. Two of the areas where you see the most misinformation is in monitoring and measurement. Why? Frankly, some of the blame has to be at the feet of the challenges we've faced in traditional communications. We've had a hard time truly grasping the utility of monitoring beyond a reputation management function for years. Similarly, traditional communications measurement has been butchered seven ways to Sunday despite the great work of Katie Paine (and others) to educate everyone. For the record, I refuse to blame that butchering on communications professionals not liking math. That feels like a thoroughly uneducated answer to me. There are a lot of other factors there that we'll explore some other time, but for the purposes of this post know that measurement (well beyond social) is being butchered. Yesterday, Todd Defren wrote a great post about PR measurement failures. The trouble as he points out there is that we have widespread acceptance of formulas and concepts that really don't mean a heck of a lot. The scenario as he painted it was: “Say the client spends $100,000 on PR, in one year.  For the sake of argument, let’s say PR is the biggest (or only) marketing vehicle.  In that one year time period, the client gets 1M website impressions.  Could you not divide 1M impressions by $100K and claim PR is driving leads to the website at a rate of 10–cents per impression?” Wow. Interesting, eh? You can check out the comments for all of the rebuttals (including my own). Here is the hard and fast truth... While we have generally accepted best practices for measurement none of them are without fault. My suggestion to Todd in that post was to come up with an index model that takes into account several different metrics. I'd consider that best practice, but I'll admit there's no direct ROI tie there. While there could easily be a connection made to brand reputation, the metrics are soft(er). Don't get me wrong, we should be searching for the harder metrics/calculations/formulas, etc... However, I'd much rather move the debate toward coming up with a generally accepted framework rather than the Bataan Death March approach we take toward ROI. It wont be perfect, but at least it would be generally accepted. Monitoring, unfortunately, happens to be in the same boat. Upfront, I think it's important we clear up one small misconception: monitoring is NOT measurement. Monitoring helps to inform measurement, but the two terms do not mean the same thing. Now that this is out of the way, when you're going through the process of picking a monitoring provider you need to know that no tool offers 100% capture. No tool is going to offer you 100% technological stability. There will be bugs, and there will be conversations that the systems do not capture. What should you look for?

1. The tool has the ability to adapt - By adapting I mean if you find a source that the tool is not capturing can you send them that source and they can modify the "net" to begin capturing it. If the answer is no, then it is time to look for a different solution.
2. The vendor is adding sites on their own - Obviously, the onus shouldn't be on you to identify new sources for them. They should be taking it upon themselves to advancing the "net" to capture as many sites as possible.
3. Consistency - No matter how diligent you/they at updating their platform, there will be sites that are missed. Just accept it. The worst case scenario, though, is for a certain set of sites to be missed this week and then next week a whole different list is missed. If we're going to have a gap, we should know that the gap is going to be consistent so that we can potentially identify other tools that could help.

With respect to Lexus, the pursuit of perfection in measurement and monitoring is silly. We should be pursuing what makes the most sense for our clients and our organizations. If the metrics fit the goals of the campaign and is generally accepted by those constituencies, then use that methodology. End of story. What has worked for you in the past? By the way, thanks to Kasey Skala for inspiring this post.

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?

Ah yes....tis the season for predictions (errr guesses, albeit educated ones) about what will be happening in the wonderful world of social media in 2011. These are posts that I generally discount. Why? Not because the people delivering them aren't smart. No, it is because we don't hold people's feet to the fire for predictions that go array (sometimes the person making the prediction does) and this space is evolving so quickly I'm not sure how anyone accurately predicts where it is going. Sometimes you get lucky and nail the big trend, but more often than not we're wrong with predictions. By the way, this isn't to slam all of the prediction posts out there. I actually found David Armano's post on HBR to be very insightful. Shouldn't be a big surprise. He's a smart guy. Not to totally shift gears (it will make sense in a second), but I've always been fascinated by the tension displayed between analytics and the "big idea." Trust me, I display no ill will toward the creative people who come up with these ideas. They are wicked smart, and I'm fortunate to work with many of them. That being said, there's always this built in bias toward coming up with the fancy creative. Or the very original tactics. Why? Is it just because it is flashy? That's the only thing I can assume at this point. Unfortunately for the folks wrapped up in the flash, communications works best when analytics and the creative big idea are playing in harmony. With that in mind, go ahead and check out this post outlining some very interesting findings from a recent survey from Harvard Business Review Analytics Services. I'll wait............(cue Jeopardy theme song)...............Ok, are you back? Nothing in there really was that shocking, right? Quite frankly, the social entry point should be debated and considered thoughtfully. We've seen too many Twitter and Facebook accounts go up in flames because of a half-assed approach to the space. No, these two points caught my eye first:

• 31 percent of the companies said they didn’t measure the effectiveness of their social media efforts.
• Only 23 percent said they were using social media analytic tools.

Are you serious? That first bullet may not seem like a big number, but 31 percent of companies using social DID NOT measure their results? Wow. Yeah, pretty amazing to see why there is so much skepticism about the space. Anyway, more on that in a second. The second point is even more staggering. Given the number of tools (both free and paid) available to brands, I just cannot believe how underutilized data continues to be. Again, I think this comes back to the point about an over-reliance on the creative/flashy tactics/ideas. We need to escape that, and pronto. With that in mind, I wanted to outline some of the things I see coming to the wonderful world of social media analytics in 2011... Yes, chances are good I'll be wrong on a lot of these and I'm OK admitting that. However, the results above prompted me to consider whether or not there are some serious systemic issues in this space that need addressing. Hopefully this post starts to bring those things more top of mind for folks. The predictions please...........

1. Brands and agencies alike will embrace a balanced scorecard approach to measuring social media. With apologies to Drs. Robert Kaplan and David Norton, we need to start thinking about these scorecards as less of a measurement tool for the tactics we've already implemented, and more of a tracking mechanism for behavioral change. Yes the ultimate behavioral change would be sales, however I'd settle for us embracing things like increases in the number of searches about our brand, increase in our current share of conversation, sharing of our content, etc... Unfortunately, though, we're most often tracking "likes" and "followers." It's no wonder 31% of brands didn't measure progress.
2. Social media monitoring consolidation continues. As my colleague Marshall Sponder pointed out the other day, the monitoring field is littered with providers selling a commodity when most brands aren't really sure how to properly implement the solution they are being given. My hope, and prediction, is that the consolidation of monitoring providers by listening providers continues into 2011. The more we get brands thinking about listening as a market research extension, the better off we will all be. Unfortunately for the pure monitoring providers, they don't fit that bill.
3. There will continue to be conflict between social media analytics and creative. I'd like to think that we'll get to a place where creative and analytics are working in harmony, but I know that's a pipe dream. However, please know that the brands and agencies (shameless plug: our firm has embraced analytics like very few I know) embracing this synergy WILL have a competitive advantage.
4. Data convergence will be real - I wrote a post last month for Spin Sucks talking about how the interplay between social, Web, search and offline analytics was critical to understand for brands when developing a digital strategy. I feel pretty strongly that in 2011 this concept will become more clear for brands and agencies alike.

I'm sure I could come up with more, but if I go 0-4 that sounds better than going 0-10 :-) Where do you see this space going in 2011?

Well, this has certainly been quite a week hasn't it? Everything from tough family news, to reading about (and then apparently creating) drama in the social media world. Well I hate to disappoint you, but this post will hopefully bring back some sense of normalcy to this blog. That said, the interwebs have proven us all wrong before! Anyway, I was having a discussion with a few colleagues at WCG about how I conceptualize listening reports for clients. Occasionally I have the opportunity to dig into an actual report for clients these days, but more of my focus now is on teaching and guiding. It's honestly a blast watching people who aren't necessarily of an analytics mindset dig into the data and find the big insight. That's what makes this job fun. So, after the session was over I had a thought: Couldn't the rest of the people working in this space use some of these ideas? Nothing I'm sharing here could be considered trade secrets. They are just a lot of common sense things I've learned while building reports for clients. Here are a few ideas for you as you embark down the listening path:

1. At this point, almost everybody is using one of the listening or monitoring solutions on the market. If you aren't, wake up! Seriously, it can be pieced together using Google but you're just making your life a lot harder than it needs to be. Anyway, for all of the love I give to Radian6 I actually find their use to be somewhat limited. That's not a slam, by the way. The best use of the platform is in a data capture capacity. Yes, the dashboard that's presented to you is nice and easy to digest for the executive audience. However, I find it much easier to put together a presentation (or report) when all of my data is together in a singular spreadsheet.
2. That dovetails nicely into the second point: Tell a story with your listening reports. This is no different then if you are giving a presentation at a conference. Each subsequent slide should be building off of the one previously presented until you've told a coherent story, or made a strong argument. Far too often we get stuck developing reports that are overly "templatized." If you've downloaded the data into one spreadsheet and you're realizing that it's telling you something different then what your template would allow, then go ahead and change it up.
3. Do some basic online research. This is less of a problem for the brand folks out there. In theory, you know your "product" very well and don't need to spend time as much time reading online. However, for the agency folks who tend to spend only a certain amount of time on a brand reading online conversations before you start listening is critical. Spend some time doing a Google Blog and Group search. What are people talking about there? Spend some time reading about the topic area. What are some of the conversation themes you are noticing? Similarly, play around with the topic area/brand name in Google Adwords. What kind of search volume are you seeing? Are like search terms relevant to the scan you've done of online conversations? Who is likely to be doing a lot of the talking? Men or women? These are just some basic questions, but you'd be surprised how much they'll help you as you start building your deck/report.
4. Start building the deck backwards. I know that sounds silly, but hear me out for a second. The quickest way toward boring your audience with listening reports is by creating the deck from slide 1 to slide 10-15 (by the way, that's all that should be there unless there's something totally wild going on with conversations). I'd much rather you spend time analyzing your data, coming up with a set of key insights/recommendations and then building the deck from the back. It's not necessarily something that's intuitive for us, but try it sometime. You'll see just how valuable the final report will be. If you need to outline the entire deck to be able to do this, then so be it. Do what you need to do.
5. Finally, and most importantly, form a hypothesis. No, this isn't high school science class all over again. You aren't going to be asked to regurgitate scientific method for a final exam. However, now that you've done your online research (pre- building your listening profile) you will no doubt have an opinion of the types of conversations you are going to see. Are you going to see a lot of forum conversation? Are a handful of sites coming up and over-and-over? Is one demographic doing a lot of the talking? Is there no conversation volume about your brand at all? Based on your preliminary research, you'll know what to expect when you dig into your actual Radian6 (or other providers) profile. With that hypothesis in mind (and maybe an outline if you need it), you'll be able to create a deck that not only tells a coherent story, but is also laced with actionable insights.

These are just some of the things that have helped me. When you've done listening reports for your brand/client, what's worked for you? **By the way, thanks to my colleague Alexis Bizares for pushing me as hard as she does to have these kinds of conversations with other people we work with. It helps crystallize my own thoughts that I then get to share elsewhere. Thanks, Abiz!**

Next to why the sky is blue, or why the grass is green, this is easily the most frequent question I receive when I'm speaking with colleagues or a group. The answer? No clue. Unnerving right? The reality is that I actually do not know what the line is between too much reporting and not enough. The true answer is that it probably depends on a lot of different factors. This post is (kind of) coming on the heels of the post a few days ago about too much data. It just so happens that having an abundance of data without a clear reporting plan also makes as little sense as having a lot of data without actionable insights. Instead of telling you which model I think works best, I'd rather just outline some that I've seen work well and let you decide which one works best for your organization.

1. Bi-weekly - If I were to suggest a preference of one model over another, it would be for at least bi-weekly reporting. I am, and have always been, of the opinion that without the element of timeliness data is just interesting information that you can use at a cocktail party or in a riveting game of Trivial Pursuit. However, to embrace bi-weekly reporting, you need to be seeing a large volume of conversations about your brand. If you are currently listening, and only see a few hundred posts every two weeks then it becomes very difficult to report on results every 14 days. The brands I've seen adopt bi-weekly reporting with low volume, also tend to derive weaker actionable insights. What's the right amount of volume? Without seeing the listening data I'd have no way to answer that other than to say you'll know as you are starting the process.
2. Monthly - Probably the likeliest scenario for most brands. Most brands do not receive the monthly conversation flow of a Dell, or Ford or even Wal-Mart. To report every two weeks wouldn't deliver the same kind of value, but to extend beyond a month would render most of the data meaningless. Monthly reports provide an extra layer of detail, inherently, because there's more data to work with. You somewhat lose the aspect of timeliness, but if your listening program is aligned with your market research efforts then monthly reporting tends to be a great approach. If those monthly reports are produced in a vacuum, however, there is likely to be lesser value placed on the findings because the brand manager is going to assume that there's little he/she can act on in the report.
3. Quarterly - This is the other most popular model that I see, and one I'm not a fan of to be totally candid. Yes, there are some brands where the volume doesn't warrant a bi-weekly or even monthly report, but waiting three months to see results renders the findings almost meaningless. The fast paced nature of the Web makes waiting two weeks almost too long. Your community's behaviors/conversation themes are likely to change often during a three month window. How are you supposed to accurately report out on online behaviors if in the report you're acknowledging that in one month your community cared about X and now they care about Y? Why would you even bother reporting on X? It's old news at this point.

These are just some typical standards for listening. The reality is the reporting model for measurement would be different then listening. We'll tackle that in a different post... :-)

I have a revelation for you... Radian6 is not a monitoring solution.  Yes, if you go to their Web site you'll see several references to monitoring but they aren't your monitoring partner. Need some evidence? Take a look at their "About" page. Where do you see "monitor," or "monitoring?" That's right, you won't see it. Does this mean you can't use them as a monitoring provider? Absolutely not. You buy the tool, you can use it however you see fit. Just know you aren't getting maximum benefit out of the technology. Anyway, this post isn't meant to be a perpetuation of my image as a Radian6 fanboy. No, what I wanted to illustrate is that the terms "monitoring" and "listening" are not interchangeable verbs. Folks who should know better are using the terms interchangeably, and I'm confused as to why. Sure, this could be a total "inside the beltway" issue, but I don't think so. Brands have very established perceptions of monitoring. It's something they want to spend as little money on as possible, and (generally speaking) do not act on. They are getting the clips every day (month/quarter) for "reputation management." If you believe that then I'm looking to sell some swampland in Jersey. No, the clips are coming in because it's what we've always done in PR. We're not even sure why we still pay for them, but we know we "need" them. Where does listening differ? First of all, you'll never hear someone in traditional communications saying they are "listening" to traditional media channels. That's like saying I want to put peanut butter on a piece of pizza (you'll forgive me, but that was the only disgusting analogy I could come up with). It just wouldn't occur to anyone to say. It's becoming less foreign to marketers, but we've still got a ways to go. Anyway, listening differs from monitoring in that it implies a second action. Whether that's helping the person doing the talking with an issue with a product, or adding them to a CRM database (oh, horror, a DATABASE), or leading to a convergence with offline market research, listening should lead to something else. Listening, at its core, is a market research function if you're doing it right. How many monitoring programs do you know that feed market research? Not many I'd bet. Before you come running at me with the pitchforks let me just explain one other thing... I have no problem with monitoring. Are you maximizing your research dollar by using a monitoring solution? No. Is there some value in at least having a tangential understanding of the chatter online? Absolutely. Would I spend my time monitoring? No. Do I understand that listening is a big investment? Absolutely. However, if my vision is improving my product, or customer service, or one of the many things listening can help you do I'd be looking for an opportunity to transition my monitoring practices to more listening practices and investing in the future growth of my organization. To wrap this up... Listening = strategic, leading to a secondary action and often requiring significant resources Monitoring = tactical, and not requiring significant investment in resources That's just how I see it... the words aren't the same so lets stop using them interchangeably.

[caption id="attachment_87" align="alignleft" width="270" caption="Photo by wasabicube"] [/caption] I've been thinking (sorry Ben. I stole your blog's title) a lot recently about the abundance of data that's available on the social web. Yes, before you make any jokes about how geeky that sounds, I do think about things that impact our profession quite often. In its most basic form, the Internet leaves a trail of breadcrumbs for brands (or enterprising individuals) to follow. Why? Why do brands give a damn where you've landed after doing a search on Google? The answer is obvious to those of us working in the space: If we know where our current/future consumers are spending their time it makes it much easier for us to target them with advertising/marketing material.  This is what we do, right? We find customers, then we target customers and then we hit them with a barrage of marketing material that hopefully causes them to buy our widget. That's overly simplistic, but I think you get the point. Anyway, as you traverse the Information Superhighway (p.s. how long has it been since you've heard that phrase? I really just used it for posterity) talking, sharing, offering up reviews, posting videos, posting photos, editing Wikipedia there is likely someone like me sitting behind a computer somewhere far away trying to analyze your behaviors. I'll give you a moment while you're thoroughly freaked out by the thought of me looking over your shoulder as you use a computer... (cue Jeopardy theme music)........ Ok, are you ready? Right, back to it. Now, let me hit you in the face with another often forgotten fact: The practice of following the purchasing behaviors and intents of consumers has been going on for a lot longer than the social web has been around. Why do you care now? Is it somehow because we're tracking you while you are in the comforts of your own home/office? I'm assuming, just for the sake of this discussion that it is not blind naivety, though I'm sure there is plenty of that going around.  Can it go too far? Absolutely. If you needed any proof of that, check out what happened to Nielsen when they were caught scraping a public forum. A nice write-up in the Wall Street Journal is what happened. I'm not going to go on about whether or not companies should be tracking online behaviors. My personal point-of-view is that we need to get over it. The data gathering process either by Google, or some other vendor is a multi-million (if not billion) dollar industry. That means, in simple terms, that the industry isn't going to change unless forced to by the changing of social norms or government regulation. And, whether or not we have a right to privacy when we're posting things in a public forum is a discussion for someone much smarter than me. No, what I want to touch on is the difference between gathering data and gathering data to derive actionable insights. We're doing far too little of the latter. This is where companies (and the agencies that help them) get lost. More and more brands are starting to listen to online conversations. However, most often we're listening but not really digging as deeply as we need to be. Make sure you check out Connie Bensen's post on Jay Baer's blog yesterday for more information on how you can take listening beyond gathering share of voice, media mix and tone. Since I'm a numbers/equations dork, here's how I'd think about this: The right amount of data = timeliness + solves a business problem. There's no magic bullet for how much data you could/should be gathering. However, if you are gathering data in an effort to solve a business problem, and it's timely, then you are on the right track.  I'd argue that if the data isn't timely, it's just interesting information. If it doesn't help further a goal, or solve a problem, it's just interesting information. Right now, unfortunately, we're gathering data for the sake of gathering data. There's far too little actionable insights being developed as a result of this data collection. So before you start down the path of data gathering ask yourself a few questions: 1. Where is the data going to come from? 2. How do we incorporate it with existing data? 3. Will the process happen quickly enough for the data to still be timely? 4. How does the data help solve a business problem? (Notice I said nothing about cost here. This kind of data is invaluable. It's often the reason we do or do not do something. You can't place a cost on that accurately). There's no such thing as too much data. There is such a thing as too much data that's not actionable. Don't think about the problem of an abundance of data as anything more than an opportunity to solve a business problem. If it doesn't, throw the information in the trash. Have you encountered situations where you think you have too much information? How did you overcome?