New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City Milan New Delhi San Juan Seoul Singapore Sydney Toronto Social Media analyticS EFFECTIVE TOOLS FOR BUILDING, INTERPRETING, AND USING METRICS Marshall sponder Sponder 00.indd 1 6/17/11 9:48 AM Copyright © 2012 by Marshall Sponder. All rights reserved. Printed in the Unit- ed States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a data base or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 DOC/DOC 1 6 5 4 3 2 1 ISBN: 978-0-07-176829-0 MHID: 0-07-176829-7 e-ISBN: 978-0-07-176862-7 e-MHID: 0-07-176862-9 This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that neither the author nor the publisher is engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. —From a Declaration of Principles Jointly Adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Association McGraw-Hill books are available at special quantity discounts to use as premi- ums and sales promotions, or for use in corporate training programs. To contact a representative, please visit the Contact Us pages at www.mhprofessional.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Sponder 00.indd 2 6/27/11 1:51 PM Going beyond Monitoring: Content Creation and Content Tracking chapter 9 195 It is one thing to create social media and quite another thing to measure it so as to optimize content creation. That’s almost a requirement as platforms become more intelligent and people become serious about using social media as a marketing tool. Some of the case studies in this book, such as the one on InfiniGraph (Chapter 4), discuss changes in online con- tent that are detected by measurement and cycled back to improving content. It’s best to think of the entire process as an ecosystem similar to the SEO organic search ecosystems I wrote about in late 2010, 1 however, in that social media (recent tweets, Facebook discussions, check-ins, etc.) become search content with the Google Search Engine indexing that often result in displaying the latest postings of an individual in search results. What is good for social media also tends to be good for search engine results. According to John Battelle, founder and CEO of Federated Media, social media provides “branded content,” while search Sponder 09.indd 195 6/17/11 10:15 AM 196 n Social Media Analytics engines provide information. “Branded content, however, is far more social [than content mills like Demand Media’s] because branded content is written with a human voice and published by a branded entity [you, a friend, campaign, cause, company, brand, etc.]. Search drives a lot of traffic to branded content, of course, but once there, people are more likely to share branded content than content produced mainly for search results such as ‘how to tie a tie.’ The former is socially shareable (‘hey, check this out, it’s interesting’), and the latter is specific (‘I need an answer, and I don’t think my friends have the same need right now’),” according to Battelle. 2 Arguably, “branded content” is measureable using social media monitoring and Web analytics, and can be considered to be “more social” than nonbranded content (in that people will have more interest in sharing branded vs. unbranded con- tent). But once social media content surfaces, it should fit into a longer-term strategy, where valuable content becomes ever- green. Setting up social media analytics with clear measure- ment goals will assist in achieving that strategy. Looking at search keywords typed into Web sites (find- ing out what people are looking for using Web analytics site search reports) and mashing up that information with social media monitoring of content emerging from site search leads to more and better content for the brand, based on case studies tracking Old Spice and Delta Airlines. 3 Imagine if the content team could prioritize content based on not only this historical demand from search query volume, but also real-time input from social media monitoring. 4 One way to harness social media in order to get your message out: use Google to find bloggers (who are influencers on a subject of the search query by appearing within the top 10 search results) while looking at relevant search queries. 5 Sponder 09.indd 196 6/17/11 10:15 AM Going beyond Monitoring n 197 In addition, by using Google Webmaster tools, Web analyt- ics, or a social media monitoring platform such as Radian6 (Radian6 can integrate with Web analytics platforms such as Adobe Omniture, WebTrends, and Google Analytics), a site owner will have the means to identify and write about what is engaging on its site. Determining Your Social Media Analytics Readiness Social media is a emergent communications medium that is considered to be free and available to everyone. Sometimes this incorrectly leads to an assumption by many on the con- tent creation or on the agency side that measurement of social media can be set up as more of an afterthought. Tracking con- tent can often require just as much enablement work as enter- prise and large e-commerce sites have put in place to track their users and content using site analytics for many years. The usual data on the radar are easy to capture: hits, fol- lowers, page views, and so on. Additional metrics, including knowing the results of efforts in terms of which were the most effective in bringing in sales, expanding the customer base, and increasing exposure of the brand, are also required. Infor- mation is available to show that social media outreach is effec- tive in driving new business and revenue, although often those supporting data are difficult to capture. This elusive quality is what I referred to earlier as “ultra- violet data,” we can’t see ultraviolet light, yet it’s present all around us. The same holds true of much of the data a business or organization should capture; the data exist, but they are not being captured properly for use in site analytics or social media analytics. Sponder 09.indd 197 6/17/11 10:15 AM 198 n Social Media Analytics Another common challenge for social media measure- ment is that most business processes are misaligned with the business’s goals for measurement. The work I did with Ceci- lia Pineda Feret and Havana Central, which led to my white paper with Compete.com on spectrum analytics, mentioned in an earlier chapter, provided two examples of misaligned measurement processes. 1. Communications issues between marketing and com- munity management leading to lost sales and analytics tracking. 2. Missed opportunities to engage with Havana Central’s enthusiasts, who check in using Foursquare while having a meal. The case of Havana Central involved individuals who were communicating (or not) while interacting in ineffec- tive ways using incompatible business processes. These indi- viduals were also using out-of-the-box analytics that had not been thoughtfully configured to track the results of their specific business processes. This often happens when using free platforms such as Google Analytics, and it often leads to lackluster business performance measurement. The insights analytics can deliver need careful setup, but it’s not just about measurement; we also should consider tuning the business process itself. Through my work with Havana Central, I came to see that business and measurement goals and tactics that are core to a business need to inform one another, need to be coupled and folded, so to speak, much as we fold our hands together. When we fold our hands, there is no room for misalignment, and that is true of any structure, such as a table, chair, or Sponder 09.indd 198 6/17/11 10:15 AM Going beyond Monitoring n 199 building. Misaligned table legs will cause the table to collapse. Misalign a building foundation, and the foundation cracks. This same level of alignment is needed in social media measurement, yet I find it is hardly given any thought, and is often treated incidentally by content creators, agencies, and brands, which is one of the principal reasons I wrote this book. To audit a business’s readiness for full-spectrum analytics tracking, one should list all the sources of data the business has and which campaigns and marketing initiatives the busi- ness is running; the data sources should be listed vertically, and the marketing campaigns and initiatives should be listed horizontally. (I have written about how to merge these in my white paper on the subject, which you can view or download and read at http://www.scribd.com/doc/38176762/tracking -social-media-roi-using-spectrum-analytics. The information in the following section is based on that white paper.) Enabling Data Collection In some cases, enabling data collection in business is easy and straightforward. But often it is awkward and difficult to patch data holes, or blind spots, where needed information is miss- ing, resulting in an inability to measure business effectiveness. Enabling Ultraviolet Data Taking a closer look at a specific campaign or marketing initia- tive against the sources of data available is the best way to find tracking solutions that address weaknesses in the campaign’s current analytics. For example, an analytics enablement audit was set up to track online reservations at Havana Central that were made via its Facebook fan page using the OpenTable Sponder 09.indd 199 6/17/11 10:15 AM 200 n Social Media Analytics application on it. 6 Using additional codes suggested by the audit process, Havana Central was able to capture impor- tant reservation information within Google Analytics. This is a built-in function of analytics packages, but often it is not utilized. With that information, Havana Central was able to evaluate the marketing effectiveness of Facebook to drive cus- tomers to the restaurant. Going through each campaign and finding ways to use analytics tracking, a business moves toward a 360-degree view of its data, where everything needed to show return on cam- paign investment is present and accessible, ultimately in a dashboard. All that remains is to ensure that the collected data can be overlaid, that a common key (such as an e-mail address, Twitter handle, social security number, address, and so on) identifies all transactions—no mean feat in itself. In more advanced cases, a data cube or data warehouse can be built to marshall a company’s business data into a pro- gramming structure that allows deeper insights than conven- tional analytics software allows for. Employing a data cube or data warehouse allows a com- pany to perform “what if” and predictive analysis on a com- bined dataset containing all company data, leading to insights such as the number of times a customer visits a brick-and-mor- tar store or outlet to make a purchase, or how many times that same item was searched for online. Any information within a data cube can be correlated and analyzed using predictive analysis and regression statistics, leading businesses to save money and resources by optimizing their products, services, and offerings. However, when a common key (such as common record locator for Google Analytics, OpenTable, SeamlessWeb, direct Sponder 09.indd 200 6/17/11 10:15 AM Going beyond Monitoring n 201 e-mail marketing, and so on, as was the case in many smaller businesses like Havana Central) is lacking, the information needed to populate the data cube will be spotty, noisy, or hard to translate to the right structure for it to be effective. In fact, most small and medium-sized business cannot afford to build a data cube today, and even if they could, they would not know how to use it. In the future this may change as businesses become more measurement savvy and platforms evolve to sim- plify and bundle data collection tasks in a way that makes it easier for businesses to implement tracking. According to Gary Angel, the CTO of Semphonic, “When you integrate data into a data warehouse, you open up new questions, targeting opportunities, and analysis methods that otherwise don’t exist.” 7 In fact, business intelligence tools (of which a data warehouse is a part) allow business owners to see relationships in the data that ordinarily would be impossible to detect, and therefore open up new possibilities for analysis. Enabling Business Goals, Strategy, and Tactics Brian Solis, a well-known voice for PR 2.0, has stated that the case for new metrics can’t be made until there is an intrinsic understanding of how social media engagement affects us at every level. 8 In 2010 on the “MP Daily Fix” blog, Paul Williams shared a very well visualized image of what business goals, strategies, and tactics look like for a business campaign. 9 Many times, people fail to formulate their business goals in a clear way; this complicates the measurement of their goals and tactics. Once the diagram or map of instructions is created and vetted, it should be used for enabling social media business strategy along with social media metrics (and other metrics, as Sponder 09.indd 201 6/17/11 10:15 AM 202 n Social Media Analytics needed). Filling in the gaps and correcting erroneous assump- tions is much easier than trying to devise a program with no idea of how it is to be structured or flowed. Creating a Tagging Strategy Once a program outline is approved, it is time to put goals, strategies, and tactics into place, along with analytics track- ing (such as Google Analytics, Adobe Site Catalyst, or WebTrends). This provides a significant part of the analyt- ics tracking needed and is not difficult to implement pro- vided that analyst understands how to create, assign, and add tagging to Web sites and URLs. Enabling social media mea- surement by using Google Analytics, 10 it is possible to cap- ture key performance indicators such as traffic (quality and quantity), engagement level, goal conversions, e-commerce direct sales, and cost savings by comparing social media with other marketing channels. Google Analytics tracks campaigns, advanced segmen- tation, goals, and custom reporting through structures built into the platform and enriched by using custom URLs and Google Analytics URL Builder. 11 Creating Custom Tagging in Google Analytics Generally speaking, a tagging strategy for analytics should include the following traffic definitions 12 : Source: Web site sending traffic Medium: Traffic type, such as social media or cost per click Campaign: A campaign name determined by user Context/Term: Unique identifier used for split testing purposes Sponder 09.indd 202 6/17/11 10:15 AM [...]... efforts and social media mentions Setting Up Goals in Google Analytics It is fairly easy to assign goals to campaigns in Google Analytics (although you need administrator privileges), which help track such goals as successful completion, goal value, channel value, and e-commerce transactions Sponder 09.indd 203 6/17/11 10:15 AM 204 n Social Media Analytics Custom Reporting Using Google Analytics custom... designed as robust market research platforms However, as social media analytics matures, and as more of the Web is tagged with metadata, the utility of social media analytics platforms for market research will increase Forrester Technographics Profiles Forrester’s Technographics profile13 categorizes traffic based on participation in social media Its focus is on behavior, and it could be a useful addition... 2010, integrating social listening into social CRM Salesforce.com’s acquisition of Radian6 in March 2011 is a good indication of how crucial CRM is becoming in social media analytics I discuss this in Chapter 12 By the time this book is published, most of the early movers in social CRM will be available on the market, according to the Altimeter Group,17 including social marketing insights, social sales... monitoring process 2 Better method for listening to (and engaging with) the social media world; reduce time spent on monitoring 3 More comprehensive look at social media conversations; ability to dig deeper to identify key influencers and target audience 4 Measurement of the benefit of social media campaigns; ability to link ROI to social media efforts “We decided to start using Alterian SM2 just over two... own social media programs So it began looking for a better method of listening to the social media world “Our desire to get closer to patients and the general public online, and engage with those who were socially connected, meant we had to be able to monitor a much larger number of sources,” Texada adds Aims and Objectives Here are the objectives of the project: 1 Proper structuring for the social media. .. few of the typical platforms are enabled for social CRM, where both tracking and the possibilities of social media ROI lie The time of social CRM and integration is here, according to the Altimeter Group.15 While just about every social media Sponder 09.indd 206 6/17/11 10:15 AM Going beyond Monitoring n 207 listening platform can “monitor” the basis of social CRM—the conversation—it takes an entirely... and engaging experiences with their customers and prospects through social, digital, and traditional marketing channels Alterian’s Sponder 09.indd 209 6/17/11 10:15 AM 210 n Social Media Analytics customer engagement solutions are focused in four main areas: social media, Web content management, e-mail and campaign management, and analytics Alterian uses its technology either to address a specific... the time of this writing there are few platforms available to track content as it is consumed across marketing channels, but that is likely to change as social media analytics matures as a marketing discipline Tracking Social Media Outreach Using Social CRM With all the work going into creating and measuring the right content for the right audiences comes the need to engage viewers directly, when it... comprehensive monitoring of social media channels Sponder 09.indd 212 6/17/11 10:15 AM Going beyond Monitoring n 213 2 Enhanced listening, which builds stronger relationships through better patient relations and customer service 3 Social media has become a more strategic tool for M.D Anderson, driving more engagement with the public and health-care community 4 ROI and the value of social media can be easily... emerging use of social media analytics, though the applications are still immature I think content and channel metrics for social media will mature rapidly in the next two years, as content owners learn to work with these platforms and change content in real time to better engage with audiences that are on their Web site This chapter discussed some ways to track online content, such as analytics tagging . properly for use in site analytics or social media analytics. Sponder 09.indd 197 6/17/11 10:15 AM 198 n Social Media Analytics Another common challenge for social media measure- ment is that. should be used for enabling social media business strategy along with social media metrics (and other metrics, as Sponder 09.indd 201 6/17/11 10:15 AM 202 n Social Media Analytics needed). Filling. market research platforms. However, as social media analytics matures, and as more of the Web is tagged with metadata, the utility of social media analytics platforms for market research will