Tag Archives: social media measurement

Rebecca Denison

Tuck(er) and Roll With the Punches

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I took a big step in recent weeks. On Saturday, July 2, I adopted a cat from PAWS. His name is Tucker, and he is ten-month old ball of energy who has already stolen my heart.

Because I am a first-time cat owner and a major nerd, I thought of a few ways I’d keep track of how well I’m doing. My family had cats growing up, but I don’t really know all the ins and outs of owning one myself. I wanted to make sure I had a way of tracking my success and his health and wellness in his new home.

I should tell you my goal was just to have a happy and healthy cat who seemed to tolerate me well enough. Continue reading →

Rebecca Denison

There’s an Easier Way to Create Standards: Conform

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The latest focal point of measurement fanatics has been standardization. Most recently public relations professionals convened in Lisbon for AMEC (The International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication) to set standards for measuring PR and social media.

While I applaud their efforts, and they were able to make some important steps toward standardization, it seems the whole industry is going at this problem from the completely wrong direction.

The approach seems to be to try to find standard, but unique methods to measure PR and its value. Continue reading →

Rebecca Denison

Measuring Your Consumers’ Worth

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The Economist Intelligence Unit recently released a report about how the value of customers is being measured. There are some important implications for businesses, and you can download the full report if you want to dig a bit deeper.

One of my favorite quotes from the report was the following:

…measures of customer value that focus solely on transaction activity capture only a fraction of an individual’s behaviour and potential value.

It’s so true. While we always need to tie metrics and measures of social media back to our business goals (and often the bottom line), there is so much more value to the new social customer than the $29.99 they just spent on your website. Continue reading →

Rebecca Denison

Learn How to Measure What Matters from the Queen Herself

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I recently had the pleasure of reading Katie Paine’s latest book, Measure What Matters, during some otherwise long and boring plane rides. Through 14 succinct but detailed chapters, Katie walks you through how to get started with basic measurement and some good examples of specific situations or types of campaigns you may need to measure.

From tackling finding the right measurement tool to measuring the impact of a conference sponsorship, each chapter can stand on its own as a detailed and real-life example. One problem I have had with other books about measurement is the lack of real examples or instructions to help you go beyond the theoretical math. Not so here. Continue reading →

Rebecca Denison

Klout Adds Context to Automated Influence?

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Klout recently announced its latest feature: +K. Similar to Google’s +1, Klout asks that you give users a +K for each topic for which they have influenced you. In theory, Klout scores will now include context and topical relevance.

For example, if you look at my profile topics, you could give me a +K if I have influenced you on social media measurement or public relations. Each user gets five +K’s each day, which means you have to be registered to give others feedback and cannot give unlimited feedback. You can also give a +K to each topic for a person once each week. So if I give you a +K for social media on Monday, then I cannot give you another +K for social media until the following Monday. And +K’s will not last forever, they have an expiration date.

Klout explains that influence can change over time. While there are plenty of people who are influential about SXSW in the first few months of the year, there is hardly anyone talking about it right now. So I may give you a +K for SXSW in March, but a +K for summer beers in June. Influence can be fleeting, and it can grow and shift over time, and Klout is trying to account for that. Continue reading →

Rebecca Denison

Can mPACT Measure Your Online Impact?

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mBLAST recently launched a free version of its tool mPACT which claims to find influencers based on topics or keywords. mPACT looks through, “a database of over 25 million articles, 8 million blog posts, and 753 million social media entries.”

So there’s no doubt that there is plenty of data to be had. But does their algorithm work? mPACT assigns an influence score as well if you sign up for the Pro account, but it’s unclear what metrics factor into this score.

I ran a couple of tests to see how well the tool works for finding influencers. Continue reading →

Rebecca Denison

How Do You Use Numbers to Tell You What Works?

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The last post I wrote received some thoughtful comments that were far more valuable than the actual post itself, IMO.

John Trader in particular made some really great points, including the thought below which is at the heart of many measurement problems:

“We are so focused on our silos that we tend to forget why we are doing what we do – increase sales and convert leads.”

Instead of focusing only on your own efforts and work, you have to focus on the big picture. At the end of the day, all of our jobs are to drive business outcomes like sales. No matter what tactics or channels you are using, you have to define what is working by what is eventually driving sales or other outcomes. Continue reading →

Rebecca Denison

Should User Experience Be a PR function? Should Measurement?

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I was listening to a podcast from the Measure Mob the other day, and it made me think about what pieces of social media are owned by PR. More specifically, I mean which pieces we are willing to take ownership of.

The Measure Men offered an example about how marketing folks focus a great deal on how they are driving traffic to the website, but they don’t seem to care about bounce rates or conversions. In other words, they’re only focused on what they think is their job: driving the traffic. The user experience once they get there doesn’t seem to matter to them.

But it’s not just marketing. I think a great many of us are guilty of focusing on our own little silo without thinking about the larger picture. You may drive engagement with your online community, but are your efforts somehow driving increased traffic to your customer services department? Shouldn’t you care about that? Continue reading →

Rebecca Denison

Metrics and Cockfosters

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I’ve been a bit delinquent in writing my fair share of posts recently due to my recent vacation to London. I spent one glorious week with my little sister and parents exploring one of the oldest cities in the world.

Continually struck by the historic and surreal atmosphere of the city, I often daydreamed about how different my life could be. What if my ancestors hadn’t left for the new world, would I live in London? Would I still giggle at words like Cockfosters and bangers and mash? (Hang with me for a moment, I promise this isn’t an entirely sentimental and introspective post.) Continue reading →

Rebecca Denison

Using Twitter as a Pulse, Not a Firehose

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In case you’re still not convinced about Twitter as a research tool, Twitter’s CEO, Jacky Dorsey, recently gave some wise advice at The Economist’s Ideas Economy: Innovation event:

It’s never been easier to start a company since Twitter exists. We get this instant pulse of what’s happening around any topic.

Let’s face it: Twitter is not for everyone. Not every company or every brand should have an official Twitter handle. I think we will all be happy if our toilet brush never says hello to us in 140 characters.

One thing is pretty universally true, though. With more than 450,000 people checking it out every day, there are bound to be people talking about your product or your core consumers talking about other products they love. Continue reading →