Social analytics is a blossoming field. New ways to measure and identify success in social media are developed on a regular basis.
Yet, those developing a social media strategy will often find the metrics of success evolve over time.
To help the analyst adjust their metrics for online growth, there are some characteristics I'd like to see in all social media metrics -
Social metrics need to be social - they can't be locked behind a tool. They need to be able to mix and mingle with your whole suite of social media metrics. It also helps social media strategists show colleagues the value of working in the social media space.
Social metrics need to be real time - social media is real time, so your metrics should be too.
Social metrics need to be captured and stored for longer-term analysis. You need to show reach and impact over time.
Social metrics need to capture social CRM - a way to keep track of those friends, followers, fans and connections that serve as true customer evangelists so you can better support them. The ultimate goal would be to identify connections to these supporters across social networks.
Social metrics need to go beyond numbers to measure the quality of conversation vs. quantity of followers, friends, fans, etc.
Update 6/8/2009: Added caveats/clarification on data pulled
In pulling together some data on twitter clickthroughs, there was a noticeable discrepancy between bit.ly and google analytics data - bit.ly clicks are noticeably higher than traffic source numbers for twitter on Google Analytics. Two caveats:
1. Bit.ly data collected reflects all bit.ly links including those initially posted by @worldresources using the Google Analytics Campaign Code - accounting for an average of 60% of the clicks - as well as those generated by others.
2. I pulled all information by keyword "twitter" from the Google Analytics account - which brings over all pageviews sources coming from twitter and the GA Campaign Code links posted by @worldresources.
But in closer inspection, I noticed that the Bit.ly clicks and Google pageviews data lines - despite being vastly different in terms of numbers - were almost identical in terms of trends.
I did some research on this and here is a list of potential reasons for this -
No two analytics tools measure data the same way - there will always be discrepancies between analytics tools. With bit.ly we are measuring clicks but with google analytics, we are measuring pageviews which may be captured differently.
Google Analytics may be combining multiple clickthroughs by the same twitter/user account as one whereas bit.ly counts clicks and not users
One prevalent theory is that bit.ly numbers are higher because bit.ly data includes bots and automated traffic whereas Google Analytics will not capture those visits (in GA count is computed using Javascript, which bots do not execute).
"...with bitly it doesn’t matter where those URLs are embedded -- Facebook, Twitter, blogs, email, instant messages, SMS messages, desktop clients -- a click is a click and Bit.ly counts it, in real time."
So while some of the referrers may be bots, because twitter feeds are disseminated throughout the web and desktop clients, not all of the clicks are going through twitter. Aha! Note that as of March 2009, bit.ly screened out HEAD requests from click results.
Another theory is that Google Analytics does not count clicks from twitter.com as uniques -- and that's one reason google counts are lower than bit.ly. It isn't clear how traffic from twitter clients looks to GA, but this may account for overall lower count rates on GA.
Not all bit.ly clicks are coming from WRI-generated links, and these charts only includes bit.ly data - it doesn't include click on links using full WRI URLs OR other URL shorteners like is.gd, tr.im, cli.gs, tinyurl.com, twurl.com. I haven't determined how to capture that additional data efficiently - I'm still trying to get my mind around the bit.ly/google data.
Regardless of which numbers you ultimately decide to highlight (Google Analytics Traffic or Bit.ly Clicks), you should track twitter links in Google by including the Google UTM campaign code as part of the link - see the EpikOne post Twitter and Google Analytics: What to Track by Justin Cutroni.
The responses across the board were fairly consistent. The most valuable qualities for a successful web analyst cited time and time again were:
Inherent sense of curiousity. A good analyst always asks questions, wanting to know more.
Business acumen. A good analyst is able to provide context for the data and analysis; therefore, they know the business and the current business climate. They are able to connect the dots because they understand the business purpose and can identify and focus on the business problems and disciplines apart from analytics. They have both a great sense of the data and the business.
Honest, unbiased and credible. A good analyst is not be biased by politics, bonuses, and compensation
packages. They are not afraid to provide a real analysis based on the data, no matter how unpalatable that analysis may be.
Creative. They can effectively communicate the results of analysis and can use data to tell a story. They have a mastery over visualization and can take a complex story and boil it
down to story that is simple to the untrained eye, but
complex enough to provide answers.
Marketing savvy. A good analyst can sell the analysis at the right level, is passionate and cares. They market the analysis internally through email, presentations, posting the analysis, providing visualizations and training others on understanding Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
Avinash Kaushik - author, blogger, and analytics evangelist - explained that knowledge
of tools is not a criteria – in fact it is the opposite. We can’t teach analysts how to think, but can teach them what buttons to push.
What matters more is that an analyst have a flexible
mental model, curiousity, and a good breadth of and diverse experience in life. He went on to say that we tend
to look for analysts in the wrong places. We often look for data nerds but we need analysts who can accept the imperfection of web data (because there is a lot of it!) and still see the lessons we can learn from that data.
Avinash believes analysts don’t need to be technically savvy. After all, he explains, his is not looking for a technical implementor. What he prizes even more is the analyst's mental model and analysis.
I used my flip camera to record the eMetrics conversation between Avinash Kaushik and Microsoft's Ian Thomas at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit where they discuss rules for analytics revolutionaries. The sound quality is poor, but audible. Enjoy!
Larry Freed, President and CEO of Foresee Results (@larryfreed on twitter) delivered the following Top 10 Takeaways about Web Analytics at the end of his address at the 2009 eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in San Jose:
You cannot manage what you cannot measure
What you measure will determine what you do
Measure what matters most – your customers (know your metrics and measure the right things)
Knowledge is power, the consumer is in charge
Turn data into information … information into intelligence
Satisfaction (when measured correctly) drives conversion, loyalty, retention and word of mouth
It takes only 2 things to survive and thrive: Satisfy your customers – be fiscally responsible
Measurement is hard – don’t fall for gimmicks
Integration of the web metrics magnifies the value
You are in the fight of your life – now is the time to rise above the competition – satisfy your customers to win
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).
* 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:
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.
* 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.
* 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.
I shared a comment highlighting the idea that, when you move into the social media space, numbers don't measure true human interactions (which cannot really be quantified). Human interactions are best captured through stories.
Which leads to the question, what are we measuring anyway?
Unless you are completely unfortunate, if you join a social media site such as twitter, facebook, linkedin, etc. you are bound to see your connections increase over time. People will find you and friend, follow and fan whether you reciprocate or not. Your numbers will go up by virtue of you being a living, breathing person with an account/profile in the social media space.
So why do we focus so much on numbers if they are likely to automagically increase over time? (Probably because it is easy.) What benefit does tracking the increase show us? (Increasing numbers DO boost our confidence - "you like me, you really like me!")
What matters more is who is behind those connections and what they contribute to your overall purpose for being online in that space to begin with.
So, here is one way to proceed:
Identify your overall purpose - what are you passionate about? What are you doing that is worth sharing?
Who do you want to connect with (by interest, profession, group, individual)? Who do you want to share information with? Who do you want to learn from?
How can these connections help you achieve your purpose? What kind of communication and exchange will provide mutual support?
What online tools can help you make the connections and how will you use them?
How will you measure success? Use available numerical metrics but also include method for regularly capturing non-numerical data - such as stories of how a connection helped you achieve your purpose.
What time commitment are you willing to devote to nurturing this online space? What are you willing to give up to invest in the success of this community you've become part of? How will you allow the conversations to change the way you do business?
What do you think?
1/9/08 update: Check out Steve Woodruff's post, "The Strategic Serendipity of Social Media" over at MarketingProfs. This highlights the unpredictability of the impact of social media ... or as Nick Mendoza writes in his comment on this post "chance conversations yield concrete conclusions."
What we need is a metrics taxonomy that is easier to understand and explain. Perhaps simple and descriptive enough that we could skip the need for explanation altogether. I propose the following three terms:
Exposure - to what degree have we created exposure to materials and message?
Influence - the degree to which exposure has influenced perceptions and attitudes
Action - as a result of the public relations effort, what actions if any has the target taken?
The problem with trying to determine ROI for social media is you are trying to put numeric quantities around human interactions and conversations, which are not quantifiable.
In this post, Jason includes an interview with Katie Delahaye Paine which is highlights the difficulty of measuring ROI in social media:
For several years, I've been using the following stairstep graphic to visualize how we are trying to engage people in the online space.
You see, World Resources Institute is all about turning ideas into action. We work at the intersection of environment and human needs to provide solutions for a sustainable world.
The basic idea of the following visualization is that we move people from satisfaction with us in general to ownership of our ideas (which then become integrated with their ideas).
I guess it gets down to value - who values us and our content. Value can be shown in many ways and the more engaged a person becomes the more valuable we and our work become.
And the quickest way to create value is to create relationship.
Some basic metrics that work for me to date include:
But the more I look at the above visualization, the more I see an essential element is missing.
You see, it is one-way. What am I - what are we - doing to impact others.
This approach seems like a hammer hitting a nail until it is fully engaged in the crossbeam.
It doesn't take into account that this - all of this - is a conversation. And not just a two-way conversation.
It is a multitude of voices where anyone can contribute something meaningful at any time. Where in the level playing field any voice can suddenly offer something real, meaningful, inspiring, and motivational - sometimes in a single tweet.
In a way, it's like a lottery where the odds are in your favor. Everyone keeps contributing in the hopes that they will gain something, and everyone gains small wins on a consistent basis.
But you have to play to win. And the more people play, the more people will win because the jackpot is higher and the odds improve.
Yet that doesn't even capture it, because at some point we need to sit back, evaluate and say, "Wow, what just happened here?" Taking time to do that and capture the story is a valuable metric indeed.
Back from a useful eMetrics conference and while I digest the information dispensed, I thought I'd compile links to posts highlighting the different sessions.
For most of these posts, I have included a photo of the author -- this is a visual cue to easily pick out author styles to highlight colleagues who were busy blogging the conference.
Let me know if I've left out any major posts . . .
Social Media: Social Network Analysis. Internet based communities have been widely discussed since the arrival of the concept Web 2.0. So far, the opportunities and risks of business models based on such user groups are not fully clear. Therefore a more fundamental understanding of community-based social structures is needed. First results for two top forums and once collaboration network. Fred Türling (SHS Viveon AG)
Social Media: Word of Mouth Marketing Metrics. This panel described their efforts to compute how receptive customers are to referral-based advertising in order to determine how much of their promotional budgets should be allocated and how to determine their return on that investment. Sandra Ponce de Leon (BuzzLogic) Ann Green (Millward Brown)
Social Media: Web 2.0 Measurements in Today's B2B World. An overview of the data and analytic challenges involved in making social media accountable for driving revenue based on real-world experience integrating traditional direct marketing with social media. Joshua Siler (Babcock & Jenkins)
Social Media: Mobile Analytics is Calling You. Learn about the challenges and the differences that come with the mobile web. Sign up for the www.webanalyticsbook.com rss feed to be the first to download the FREE Mobile Analytics E-Book when it is released.
Since facebook opened up it's user base, the demographics have been changing. iStrategyLabs has some great facebook statistics from October 2007 and June 2008 that you view and download -- here are two charts which I generated for my own reference based on that data.
But there is more to the story that is not shown here -- iStrategy has three key takeaways based on the downloadable data they collected:
Insight #1: Facebook experienced 32% growth in US users in 10 months.
Insight #2: Facebook is experiencing explosive growth in the 25-34, 35-54 and 55+ age groups. The 35-54 year old segment grew 172.9% in 10 months - the other two mentioned are growing at a rate of 97%+.
Insight #3: Major metropolitan areas are beating Facebook’s average
user growth rate, and Houston is growing the fastest at a 170.3% clip.
It would be interesting if we could access and download specific data on facebook's international appeal. Some of that research has been done and according to Michael Arrington, facebook is no longer the second largest social network:
Make WebsiteGrader.com your first stop for understanding the technical quality of a website.
So, I thought I'd try it.
According to the blurb posted on the it's welcome page, Hubspot's Website Grader is a free seo tool
that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. It provides a
score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social
popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic
advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective.
HubSpot's vision is to provide a (killer) marketing application and
provide great advice to small businesses so they can "get found" by more people and turn them into customers.
Specifically, Website Grader currently reports on:
On-Page Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Off-Page SEO
Blogosphere
Social Mediasphere
Converting Qualified Visitors to Leads
Competitive Intelligence
I plugged in the URL for World Resources Institute - www.wri.org. For this first go-around I did not include any competing sites. After a short pause while the Website Grader logo bug gyrated on the screen, I got my result.
92 out of 100.
Pretty good, huh?
But then I read the evaluation and discovered some discrepancies.
WEBSITE GRADER RESULTS
On-Page Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
PageTitle. Deemed too long. We were encouraged to cut it back to 70 characters.
Metatags. We were chastised for not adding the meta description and meta keywords). I remembered debates several years back that indicated that since metatags weren't useful for SEO, they were virtually obsolete. SEO Logic has a good post about the importance of metatags, which they believe are still useful. [Unfortunately, the page isn't dated, so I don't know how old this post is.]
Images. WRI got an okay rating on this, except for concern about our image use.
WebsiteGrader felt we used too many images so the user might have to
wait longer (to allow the images to download) to view our page. Oh,
yes. And we need to make sure all our images have ALT tags.
Off-Page SEO
WRI came out okay there with some cool information about our Google Rank and the ability to find our site in Yahoo, DMOZ, and ZoomInfo.
Blogosphere
Not so good. But that was mainly because Website Grader couldn't find WRI's listing in Technorati. Yes, we are in Technorati and have been for some time. WRI has authority and a rank (which changes every so often).
Social Mediasphere
WRI came out okay in this arena as Website Grader was able to find us in del.icio.us and digg. Assuming these were the only social media spaces checked, it would be good if WebGrader could expand its social media sphere to include facebook, flickr, friendfeed, slideshare, twitter, youtube, etc.
Converting Qualified Visitors to Leads
WebGrader searched for RSS feeds and forms to calculate ability to convert visitors to leads. They found at least one form, but had a hard time finding WRI's RSS feeds. In fact, while WRI has 8 feeds worth of information you can access in the address bar of our website on every page, Website Grader came back with a report that "RSS Feed: Not Found".
Competitive Intelligence
Since I didn't select any competing websites for my initial test run of Website Grader, there wasn't a great deal of information available here. I did go back and plugin a couple of other URLs, but my overall ranking didn't change. Maybe it will change as they work out the kinks in during this BETA testing phase.
CONCLUSION
Okay, so Website Grader is in BETA. We all need to remember that. And because WebsiteGrader.com is still in BETA, they are interested in any feedback they can get.
But here are my initial thoughts.
As with all apps in BETA, things are going to change. But Website Grader provides some good information and areas to improve upon. Some of the problem areas are clearly BETA programming difficulties while others are areas WRI can easily address.
Given the number of freebie website ranking and comparison tools out there, adding another to our stockpile of analytics tools (Alexa, Compete, Google Trends, Technorati, BlogJuice) is useful. Especially when the tool can also offer suggestions for improvement.
It will be interesting to see how Hubspot rolls this tool out once it is out of BETA. Will they charge for the services? Currently, it doesn't warrant this. One thing for sure, pulling in more data (and getting the current data right) from a broader range of resources is what will make this tool worthwhile in the long term.
So, WRI came out pretty good. A relatively solid site, based on the available data and, according to Website Grader,
A website grade of 92/100 for www.wri.org
means that of the hundreds of thousands of websites that have
previously been evaluated, our algorithm has calculated that this site
scores higher than 92% of them in terms of its marketing effectiveness.
The algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables,
including search engine data, website structure, approximate traffic,
site performance, and others.
The software is
constantly being upgraded and the algorithm enhanced. The number of
potential recommendations provided by the tool is also increasing
frequently. Please check back often.
