Think about the last report you wrote or read. What was it about? What was the biggest takeaway?
Now think about the data behind the report. Ideally that report told the same story as the data. It sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s surprising how many times I read reports that seem to totally miss the point.
I finally got to dig through Nielsen’s Social Media Report, and I was surprised to find that some of the biggest insights were not called out or highlighted in the report. Continue reading
Last month I wrote about a demo of Searchmetrics Essentials, and this weekend I had the chance to get a first-hand look at the dashboard.
Essentials looks at the connection between social and search data, particularly SEO. Take the chart below, for example. This shows Social Visibility for individual blog posts from PRBreakfastClub.com. Social Visibility is defined as follows:
With a Facebook share or a Google plus-one users can vote on the quality of a site. Therefore, the aim is to motivate users to perform as many of these actions as possible. Social Visibility presents these results and prioritizes them according to the network and type of action. Continue reading
Lately my boyfriend and I have been getting into cooking. Nothing terribly fancy just yet, but we’ve been cooking homemade meals every night for a couple months now.
Whenever we select a new recipe, I try to read a few reviews and get a sense of what worked and what didn’t from others. Maybe the peanut butter flavor was too overpowering. Sometimes others recommend cooking for a shorter period of time to prevent burning. And many times, I’m left on my own to guess what will taste best.
These recent experiments got me thinking about those of us in charge of building marketing mixes. For the vast majority of brands and companies, throwing all eggs into one basket is a bad idea. We know that, and we know that using just the right mix of channels and tactics is the key to success. Continue reading
Even though The Lion King in 3D topped the box office this weekend, I raced to see the new Brad Pitt flick, Moneyball. I read the book on which the movie is based when I was in college just getting into PR and measurement. (If you haven’t yet read Michael Lewis’ book, Moneyball, I highly recommend it.)
In the movie, one baseball coach uses the power of statistics to build a record-breaking team after losing his three all-star players. The movie glosses over much of the nitty gritty math, but you walk away with the same overall message: numbers are powerful. Continue reading
Hear me out. The other day, Jay Baer wrote a blog post that made my blood boil. Absolutely boil. I’m sure my eyes bugged out at my desk, and I think I may have cursed a few times while reading it.
But you know what? It made me think. Hard. As did the comments, so read the conversation when you can.
While I get frustrated with tools like Klout claiming to be standard measure or metrics, what really frustrates me about these tools is they help lazy marketers be lazy. These tools builders know that busy marketers and other professionals using social media are looking for one-stop solutions, so they attempt to provide one. And once that tool is out there, there’s no stopping anyone from using it as they want, even if it seems ridiculous to most of us. Continue reading
Education. Time. Budget. Resources. Foresight. Successful measurement and analysis is prone to numerous roadblocks. (What did I miss?)
The big upside to the four problems I named: in an ideal situation these problems can be solved: Continue reading
Sometimes I find myself thinking (and talking) in circles about measurement. Often when I get going on a new project or concept, I find myself lost in the weeds and forgetting the big picture. This, of course, is a deadly measurement sin.
Where I most often get stuck is the nitty, gritty granular details of measurement. Do I want to look at tweets and retweets separately? Do I need to break sentiment out by channel or roll it up?
What I’m forgetting is that all metrics and measurements should tie back to a goal. If I need to slice and dice the data 100 different ways to show success, so be it. But if I’m just doing it because I can (and because it’s fun), it’s most often a waste of time. Continue reading
We keep hearing about “big data” lately. At least I do. Data is suddenly everywhere we turn, and more companies are popping up to help us collect and make sense of it.
A few years ago, big data was for IT or analysts or nerds. Marketers and PR folks are slowly jumping on the big data train, too, and companies that are learning to integrate and mine data for insights are getting ahead.
On a smaller scale, more and more we all need to understand how to find value in all of the data our consumers are producing each day (and data which results from our own work). It may not reach the scale of big data, but there are still hidden treasures hidden among news, tweets, check-ins, blog posts and Facebook pages. Continue reading
My boyfriend was recently asked to help review a new Masters program plan for a local university. Part of this plan included success metrics like the following:
– Number of students enrolled in the program
– Feedback on courses and professors from students (through annual surveys)
– Number of students who find employment (upon graduation or within six months)
– Number of students who receive a promotion or other recognition (upon graduation or within one year)
While the first two are valuable metrics for other purposes (budgeting, curriculum building, etc.), I would not necessarily consider these to be success metrics. Continue reading
Let’s get something straight: generalizations are not gospel. I’ve seen too many blog posts and articles lately which use broad generalizations to show how to be successful with social media, particularly Facebook.
For example, analyzing when your brand’s Facebook page community is most active (time of day, day of week) is incredibly valuable. This can help you time your own activities to catch the most people at the exact right time. But writing posts at noon because you read a blog post that says that’s when people are most active is lazy.
Studies like that look at Facebook brand pages across industries and categories. Their core consumers are likely vastly different, and each page likely has very different fan bases. Averaging these numbers doesn’t tell you anything for your own brand. It tells you the average time of day people across 30 different Facebook pages are most active. Continue reading