Dooley Online: Facebook

It all started on facebook.

"Ecobag Products" wanted to be my friend. I guess a connection with an environmental product makes sense - I work for an environmental organization and dutifully take my cloth bags to the grocery store to avoid using paper or plastic bags.

There is an ongoing debate about brands on twitter - I fall into the category of believing brand twitters can work as long as they truly twitter.

But brands on facebook with personal profiles - well, it was kind of weird. On facebook, PEOPLE have personal profiles, people create groups (where anything goes) and events, and brands (which can include very popular people) are represented through pages.

At least that's the general rule of thumb.

So Ecobag Products sat on my facebook friend requests page ... for several weeks. Each time a new friend request came in, I'd see Ecobag Products sitting there - unfriended.

Then today, I received the following digg ...

I read GenGreenLife's review of a new eco-friendly bag (which wasn't really) and I started thinking about lonely, unfriended Ecobag Products.

So, I entered "Ecobags" into my Google Chrome address bar (BTW - Google Chrome totally rocks as an internet browser). I found myself at the Ecobags website.

Hmmm ... not bad.

I then typed in reusable bags and found -- what else -- the website of reusablebags.com.

Among other things, reusablebags.com claims,

We've been fighting the massive over-consumption of plastic shopping bags since 2002 and have made a significant impact - inspiring hundreds of news stories and empowering individuals with practical products and activist tools.

Among their plethora of bag choices - Ecobag Products!

ECOBAGS® started in 1989 with a simple goal - to produce quality bags at great prices so that "Reusable becomes a way of life." From their classic string bag to their hemp/cotton blend totes ECOBAGS® are sturdy, sustainable and affordable

Well, Ecobag Products seemed to share my personal goals and had developed some kind of reputation in its niche market.

So, I went back to facebook to see how lonely, unfriended Ecobag Products was doing.

Ecobag Products had 118 friends as a brand.

I had 149 friends as a person - and I had a sneaking suspicion that I've been on facebook longer than Ecobag Products.

Hmmmm.

This builds on Beth Kanter's post, "What is the value of listening to social media channels for your organization?"

As a web analytics person, a challenge has always been getting the right metrics to the right person at the right time.

In this post I'm going to focus on two areas where we currently provide metrics for World Resources Institute staff.

Website metrics (http://www.wri.org)

Moving from Webtrends and AWStats to the free Google Analytics tool was the first step in unlocking our content.

Having said that, we are still using AWStats to track PDF downloads because not all links to PDF downloads originate through our website.

Having years of data locked up in MS Excel spreadsheets, this year we decided to take a different approach and develop tools that could be accessed directly by our staff.

This year we incorporated some basic metrics into an "Analytics Snapshot" posted on every page of our website (staff need to be logged on to the site to access).

* Page views pulled from Google Analytics.

* Number of diggs

* Number of blogs in Technorati linking to the page in the past 60 days.

* Blog links captured throughout the internet - this number is generally higher than the number identified in Technorati because it includes blogs not currently indexed by Technorati. We also allow staff to add blog postings they find which are not currently captured.

We also have a tracking dashboard which captures some basic site-wide statistics, including:

* New content published on the site by type for the past 3 months and past 3 years.

* Top 10 site searches (search term, number of searches)

* Top digged content (page title, url, number of diggs)

* 7-day snapshot of top 10 pages with most page views (title, url, date posted, number of page views, content type, and sparkline)

* 2-month snapshot of top 10 pages with most page views (title, url, date posted, number of page views, content type, and sparkline)

* Top 10 publication pages for the past 3 months (title, url, date posted, number of page views, and sparkline)

* Top 10 projects for the past 3 months (title, url, date posted, number of page views, content type, and sparkline)

* Top 10 stories for the past 3 months (title, url, date posted, number of page views, content type, and sparkline)

* Top 10 charts and maps for the past 3 months (title, url, date posted, number of page views, content type, and sparkline)

We also provide training and direct access to WRI's Google Analytics account for all staff requesting it so they can run their own reports on the content of interest.

Social Media metrics

In preparation for incorporating major social media stats into these analytics dashboard, we have labeled website content using the Google Analytics campaign schema:

URL?utm_campaign=entry&utm_medium=entry&utm_source=entry&utm_content=entry& utm_term=entry

utm_campaign	utm_medium	utm_source	utm_content	utm_term	destination URL
blogging	twitter	microblog			URL
socialmedia	facebook	wri-group			URL
socialmedia	linkedin	wri-group			URL
newsletter-type	email	newsletter-name-yyyy-mm-dd	hyperlink	hyperlink-text	URL

We use tweetburner.com to both shorten our URLs for posting on twitter (twurl them) and to track our clickthrough rates. Having said that, tweetburner has had problems since Crosspring.com took over - around December 12, 2008. While tweetburner is still capturing clickthrough data, it isn't rolled up on a day-by-day basis so we can't track our growth in clickthroughs over time - something which we found valuable in the past:

There are more than 400 applications currently available to help you manage and track your twitter account. We use the following tools on a regular basis to develop twitter metrics, track conversations, and listen online:

* search.twitter.com. If you haven't used this tool, use it. It is by far the best tool for tracking the conversation on twitter. Search by @twittername, by #hashtags, and by keyword.

* twittercounter.com. This tool was recently updated to show graphs for last week, last month, and the last 3 months. You can also post a badge on your website to advertise the number of followers you have.

* tweetake.com provide you with a backup of all your Twitter data via a .CSV file. You can download and analyze information about your followers, friends and tweets.

* twittergrader.com measures your twittering mojo, just for fun.

* lessfriends.com identifies who follows you, who you follow and where there is mutual following. A good tool to make a quick account of who you may not be following (but should be).

There are many other tools out there - try them out and determine what works best for your organization's needs. Lists of many tools can be found through my delicious.com account - http://delicious.com/lldoolj2/twitter+tools

Lessons Learned

Listening to the conversation has taught me:

* Opt-in email newsletters are still king in terms of click-throughs. Email will never die, but you need to use it properly.

* People who enjoy the conversations I'm having and connect to me in one social media venue will often connect in other social media spaces as well (twitter, digg, facebook, linkedin).

* People who are leaders in online conversations about our issues are not always the same as those who are leaders in the offline world. You should reach out to both audiences.

* People who choose to follow me or my organization do so because of the conversations we participate in and the issues we care about. Keeping the trust of those who follow and support us is an important responsibility.

* It is important to leverage the active social media networks that are already out there - jump in, listen, contribute and you will develop a core group of dedicated followers who will become advocates for you and your work.

* Free tools I use to connect and to listen: Google Reader, Google Alerts, Google Analytics, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Facebook, LinkedIn, Technorati, SlideShare.net, YouTube, Flickr and other social media. WRI has also been awarded a Google Grant - we are testing our keywords through Adwords and will continue to monitor our clickthrough rates.

* New staff and interns often connect to the World Resources Institute facebook group. There are a variety of ways for an organization to exist in facebook - as a group, as a page, and as a cause. Do your research before determining which of these best reflects the purpose of your organization on facebook.

* WRI's LinkedIn group members share news and respond to posts. It is worth building or expanding your organization's presence in this tool.

* It is useful to maintain both organizational and personal profiles in the major social media, as appropriate. This promotes different conversations and connections appropriate to each profile.