Archive for the ‘measurement’ tag
This Week in Social Analytics #33
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
Social Media Marketing: Tumblr Touts Its Value to Its Users and Brands [from Brand Channel; written by Sheila Shayon]
“Marketers are definitely looking to other social networks beyond Facebook,” said a spokesman for eMarketer to the Post, “not because Facebook is ineffective but because the digital audience is more fragmented than ever before.”
Lost On New Myspace. Can’t Escape Justin. Send Help. [from TechCrunch; written by Sarah Perez]
“But I want to really discover. Maybe it gets better when you add friends, I think. Maybe then, like Spotify, you can peer into what other people are listening to. Otherwise, I’m probably going to end up playing 90′s rock, reminiscing, hoping for a grunge comeback.”
Facebook explains how to optimize your business Page for Graph Search [from The Next Web; written by Emil Protalinski]
“Facebook says Graph Search will make it easier for people to discover your Page and learn more about your business. Whether that will indeed be the case remains to be seen, but if you want to stay ahead of the game then you should take the new feature seriously.”
What Facebook’s Graph Search Means for Marketers [from Social Media Explorer; written by Jason Falls]
“For marketers, though, this evolution of the Facebook ecosystem of utility means one thing: You should have been investing in social media marketing all along. Without a strong social presence, particularly on Facebook, your business is not going to have the requisite recommendations, referrals and content necessary to trip this new search mechanism. If you don’t have much presence or traction there now, you’d better get some and fast.”
Instagram Reports 90M Monthly Active Users, 40M Photos Per Day And 8500 Likes Per Second [from TechCrunch; written by Darrell Etherington]
“For perspective, Facebook itself has 37,037 combined Likes and comments per second, according to stats released by the company in August when you break down the daily average they reported at the time. Instagram’s 9,500 similar actions per second definitely trail, but are nonetheless impressive given that Instagram is mobile-only and a much younger service.”
Socializing Your CEO 2013 [from Weber Shandwick]
“Among other findings, the study revealed that sociability of world’s largest company CEOs has nearly doubled – from 36% in 2010 to 66% in 2012.”
7 Things You MUST Understand When Leveraging Social Proof in Your Marketing Efforts [from KISSmetrics; written by Gregory Ciotti]
“In 2013 and beyond, social proof will gain in importance because customers are becoming more informed all the time.”
Tweet My Fridge: The Bizarre Home Appliances of CES [from The Verge; written by Sam Byford]
Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
TakeFive with TweetReach – Beverly Robertson
Beverly Robertson
Welcome back to TakeFive with TweetReach, our ongoing interview series with influential members of the Twitter measurement universe. This week, we’re excited to speak with Beverly Robertson, National Director of the Pregnancy & Newborn Health Education Center at the March of Dimes (find them on Twitter here). We spoke with her about the incredible opportunity social media presents to disseminate health information, particularly as it pertains to the March of Dimes mission: healthy pregnancies and healthy babies. Beverly hosts a Twitter chat with the hashtag #pregnancychat once a month, featuring revolving topics around health, pregnancy and babies. She also hosts ad hoc chats with the hashtag #preemiechats. More recently, The March of Dimes participated in a joint Twitter chat with the Center for Disease Control for Birth Defect Prevention Month (January) with the hashtag #1in33chat.
TweetReach: Welcome, Beverly! Let’s start with talking about how you got started using social media. Can you describe your first “ah-ha” moment?
Beverly Robertson: Actually, I was in India back in ’07 and saw so many young women texting. Watching them, it struck me: what a tremendous opportunity for delivering health information. When I came back, I looked into creating a texting program for the March of Dimes and it was prohibitively expensive. BUT Twitter was free, and women could access it through their phones if they wanted to. March of Dimes joined Twitter in August of 2007. My vision back then was to offer a pregnancy tip of the day. Everything has changed since then.
TweetReach: When did you start doing the Twitter Chats with March of Dimes? How important was measurement when you started them, and how has that evolved?
Beverly Robertson: We started doing chats on Twitter in April of 2010. In the beginning, I tracked stats as a matter of course– but we now rely on TweetReach to not only see our reach, but understand which topics resonate with our followers and what times of day are best to chat, as well as the importance of having guests.
TweetReach: What has surprised you the most about the chats? What about the data you get from measuring them?
Beverly Robertson: The most surprising thing is the interactivity- no, not even that- it’s the openness with which our followers not only share their personal triumphs and trials, but their gratitude to us as an organization. Also, don’t host a chat at 3pm ET; people are at the bus stop picking up their kids! Simple really, but it was not on my radar. The most interesting thing (not really surprising) about the data is it how far a simple retweet will go with the right people with a large following. On a side note, beyond the chat reports, I love reading the Tracker reports. It is sometimes surprising to see who is talking about the Foundation and the reach the conversation has.
TweetReach: There are many different ways to measure activity, but how does March of Dimes gauge your success?
Beverly Robertson: We look at reach numbers, of course, but also the number of contributors and growth year over year. I absolutely go back to compare the numbers over time and analyze the strengths, weaknesses, and growth opportunities of the chats– and make changes based on them.
TweetReach: Do you feel the approach or reliance on social platforms is different for a nonprofit organization? What would you recommend to one that is just starting on their social strategy, or is uncertain of how to even begin?
Beverly Robertson: Social Media is critical not only for delivering mission messaging, but in introducing the organization to a new audience, as well as keeping track of what people are saying about you and your mission. It also is critical to take the opportunity to thank your donors and volunteers publicly for all of their hard work and support. I cannot tell you what a tremendous response we get for doing that. My recommendation is jump in, but listen before you speak.
TweetReach: The last chat you held in December was on hyperemesis gravidarum, which the Duchess of Cambridge was recently diagnosed with. How do you typically choose chat topics? Did you find more engagement with this one since it related to a recent news event involving a well-known figure?
Beverly Robertson: Some of our chat topics are planned in advance based on a specific monthly activity (November is Prematurity Awareness Month, for example) while other are more spontaneous, like the hyperemesis one (Editor’s note: The March of Dimes held a Twitter chat on December 5, 2012, on the topic of hypermesis gravidarum, or severe, chronic and debilitating morning sickness). With the flu being so bad this year, we are planning a chat on Flu During Pregnancy on Feb 1st. I also see what people are talking about in my streams, or ask outright what topics our followers would like to have covered. I did not find that the hyperemesis chat was better because it was in the news. I think a better lead time and more promotional opportunity is more critical to success than celebrity hype.
TweetReach: Thank you for taking the time to talk with us and share your thoughts and findings, Beverly!
Beverly Robertson is the National Director of the Pregnancy & Newborn Health Education Center at the March of Dimes. Under her leadership, The Center provides information in both English and Spanish via tradional, written and online inquiries as well as through social networking.
She is heavily vested in new media, leading the social media mission messaging team: tweeting on @marchofdimes, and @babytips as well as managing the blogging team for News Moms Need and Nacersano blog. She holds webinars, workshops and speaks at many conferences on the benefits of social media and the need to engage the public, as well as the importance of Hispanic Outreach. She keeps a watchful eye on non-profit uses for new technology.
Beverly has a MLS degree from Rutgers University, an MA in history, and an archival certificate from New York University. She has a BA in Spanish from Ohio State University.
This Week in Social Analytics #32
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
There Are 181,000 Social Media ‘Gurus,’ ‘Ninjas,’ ‘Masters,’ and ‘Mavens’ on Twitter [from AdAge; written by B.L. Ochman]
That’s up from 16,000 in 2009.
What CEOs Need to Understand About Social Media [from Social Media Explorer; written by Nichole Kelly]
“One of the key reasons social media has struggled to show ROI is because many current tracking systems only track the last thing a prospect touches before converting, but the social media conversation usually happens before this point and therefore doesn’t get any portion of the credit.”
Watch Out CNN: New Twitter Search Capabilities Will Rule Breaking News [from ReadWrite; written by Jon Mitchell]
“This contextual step is critical for making a news destination relevant. And if Twitter itself can master relevance, what’s the point of other news sites? They’re slower, and they have less information about what’s happening and what’s interesting to people. News organizations had better start thinking about how they can continue to matter in a world where Twitter is the destination, not just a pipe for sending links.”
Best Days to Post on Facebook by Industry [INFOGRAPHIC] [from Spiral 16; written by Eric Melin]
“The thing is: Not all Facebook posts are targeted at the same people, so you have to beware of ‘general research.’ about Facebook or any other social media trend. It may not apply to your industry or audience.”
Teens <3 Tumblr More Than Facebook [from Fast Company; written by Kit Eaton]
“While 55% of 13- to 18 year-olds and 52% of 19- to 25 year-olds liked Facebook for social networking interactions, supporting the conventional notion that Facebook is the world’s dominant social net, 61% of the young group and 57% of the adult group preferred Tumblr.”
Union Metrics CEO on importance of social measurement [from Biz Report; written by Kristina Knight]
Here’s an excerpt from the two-part interview with our CEO, Hayes Davis.
“‘The best ads have always reached us on an emotional level and we’ve kind of abandoned that on social networks and other parts of the web. In a couple years, I think we’ll look back on the last 10 years of tiny, mostly text-based ads as a bit of an aberration. In 2013, we’ll see brands trying to better reach their customers with interesting content combined with resonant visuals. 2012 may have been the year of the GIF, but 2013 will be the year the GIF gets down to business,’ said Davis.”
This Week in Social Analytics #31
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
Library of Congress has archive of tweets, but no plan for its public display [from The Washington Post; written by Adrienne LaFrance]
“But the library hasn’t started the daunting task of sorting or filtering its 133 terabytes of Twitter data, which it receives from Gnip in chronological bundles, in any meaningful way.
‘It’s pretty raw,’ Dizard said. ‘You often hear a reference to Twitter as a fire hose, that constant stream of tweets going around the world. What we have here is a large and growing lake. What we need is the technology that allows us to both understand and make useful that lake of information.’”
Tools do exist to measure this raw data: as part of Gnip’s Plugged In To Gnip Partnership, we have access to the full firehose of Twitter data and can help you find the reach of your tweets and more.
2013: Measuring the Intangibles of Social Media [from Social Media Today; written by Jay Deragon]
“These elements are causing a shift from measurement of tangible results to measurement of intangible results. Intangible results are about understanding and measuring intangible capital to effect tangible results.”
2013 Predictions from a bunch of “Dummies” [from Common Sense; written by Aaron Strout]
From the authors of many “______ for Dummies”, predictions mostly in the realm of social media and social media marketing (eBay snuck in there too).
The Shift to Visual Social Media– 6 Tips for Businesses [from Socially Sorted; written by Donna Moritz]
“We also made the shift from Tell to Show. Facebook, Twitter and Blogs became more visual. Images were showcased everywhere. Microblogs evolved into Multi-media Microblogs with sites like YouTube and Tumblr offering the rapid, visual transfer of information in entertaining formats. These platforms allowed us to devour visual material quickly.”
Oh, The Places Tumblr Can Go [from TechCrunch; written by Ingrid Lunden]
“The core of Tumblr’s ‘social’ experience is how people consume and share content based on their interests, rather than through a conversation with their social circles. This has been one of Tumblr’s most distinctive traits, but it also leaves a window open for features that the company might also try to introduce or encourage more in the future.”
Ablogalypse is upon us, right on time [from LOLINBLR; posted by Laura Olin]
“Tumblr” is now more searched than “Blog” on Google
Tumblr: David Karp’s $800 Million Art Project [from Forbes; written by Jeff Bercovici]
Tumblr has momentum:
“When Hurricane Sandy flooded massive data centers in New York, knocking the Huffington Post, Gawker and BuzzFeed offline, all three gravitated to Tumblr as their temporary publishing platform. Hollywood has taken note, with no fewer than three new TV series in development spawned by Tumblr sensations that went viral. And this: When Oxford Dictionaries U.S.A. designated ‘GIF’ its word of the year for 2012, it credited Tumblr with pushing the term, a technical name for a type of compressed image file, into the mainstream.”
Where will 2013 take it?
This Week in Social Analytics #30
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
6 Twitter Analytics Tools to Improve Your Marketing [from Social Media Examiner; written by Aaron Lee]
Thanks for the mention, Social Media Examiner!
Why Marketers Shouldn’t Discount Tumblr [from Social Media Today; written by Samantha Rupert]
“Why aren’t marketers flocking to Tumblr? Tumblr has over 85.8 million users, and receives 17,970,132,992 monthly page views. Why would marketers neglect a blossoming social network with such a versatile interface?”
Tools, Process and Culture. . .Oh My! The Social Media Culture Chasm [from Social Media Explorer; written by Malcolm De Leo]
“Simply put, as consumers, we are hooked on trusting what others say to make decisions in our personal lives, but as companies and professionals we are extremely reluctant to use this same data to more quickly and efficiently make business decisions.”
The More Measurement Changes, The More it Stays the Same [from The Measurement Standard; written by Katie Delahaye Paine]
“. . .people are still saying that you can’t measure PR or you can’t measure social media because there are no standards. The good news is that whether they like it or not, standards are being set.”
This is Your Brain on Social Media [from Social Media Today; written by Brad Friedman]
“So, what would you give up to keep your access to social media? Studies show that younger generations believe their access to social media at work is more important than their salary. Some actually report that if they were to be prohibited from logging into Facebook at work, they would decline the position. Unbelievable? Take a look at the following infographic provided to us by Online Courses and see how much we love social media and why.”
This Week in Social Analytics #28
It’s back! This Week in Social Analyticsreturns to fill your Fridays with our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
Abiding fixation: U.S. social media use clocks 121 billion minutes [from The Chicago Tribune; written by Salvador Rodriguez]
Twitter, Tumblr, Google Plus and Pinterest had their U.S. numbers grow by whopping percentages.
Top 7 Social Media Fails of 2012 (And What You Can Learn From Them) [from The Daily Egg; written by Sherice Jacob]
The Takeaway: Never leave a #hashtag unattended. Especially if you’re a large chain with questionable practices and even more questionable ingredients. Research any upcoming events or abbreviations that may conflict with your chosen hashtag, campaign or announcement.
Got Social Data? Must Transform Analytics Operations [from ClickZ; written by Stephanie Miller]
At the end of the day, what we need to do is figure out (and focus on) the business problem we are trying to solve. Are we looking for insight on where to put more capacity for our operations or data center? Are we looking for the next product to launch? Are we looking for new markets to enter? Are we looking to validate the value of our current product mix? The management of data must always be in service to the business objectives.
Social Media Analytics: The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts [from Wired; written by Rado Kotorov]
The key to solving the social media data conundrum is embracing the concept, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Rather than reinventing the wheel or making risky, costly investments, companies can use their existing knowledge and technologies in new combinations to gain valuable insights from social media.
Twitter Adds More Keyword Targeting Options And Trending Topic Matching for ‘Promoted Tweets’ [from TechCrunch; written by Alexia Tsotsis]
‘For instance, if you sell bacon, you can now keep your campaigns more than six degrees apart from Kevin Bacon by using ‘Kevin’ as a negative keyword,’ the Twitter blog explained in its characteristically humorous fashion.
Tumblr, Demystified: Eight Things You Didn’t Know [from CNBC; written by Cadie Thompson]
8 stats and facts about the company from CEO David Karp, such as, “On average, Tumblr users spend more time on Tumblr browsing content than Facebook users spend on Facebook, according to Comscore data”.
This Week in Social Analytics #27
It’s back! This Week in Social Analytics returns to fill your Fridays with our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
Why reach and frequency, not engagement, are the social metrics brand marketers should care about. [from Social Straight Up; written by Matt Ramella]
“The key takeaway -> If you’re stuck on optimizing content for engagement rate, then the way you are measuring can run the risk of de-valuing audience reach. Remember, exposure to brand messaging has been proven time and again to build brands and grow revenue.”
Forbes Study: Rules of Engagement [study from Forbes/Turn]
Measuring the power of social currency: this study provides valuable information on how consumers engage with brands. (Requires short signup form to download.)
Facebook Mobile Use May be Near its Saturation Point in the US [from ReadWrite Social; written by Dan Rowinski]
“We have watched all types of mobile use explode in 2012. In the United States, we have hit an inflection point where most people will be accessing the Internet primarily through their smartphones and tablets. The question becomes how much more can social-media companies like Facebook or Twitter grow on mobile?”
Beat the Monster: Measure the Success of Your Community [from SocialMedia Today; written by Melissa Barker]
“Community building is both a science and an art. It should not come as a surprise that measuring the health of a community also requires a combination of both.”
What’s a Like Worth? Let’s Do Some Math. . . [from FastCo; written by Kit Eaton]
Dan Zarrella from HubSpot develops a simple formula to calculate the worth of a Facebook Like helping marketers decide how much effort to put into the platform.
Mary Meeker’s Latest Must-Read Presentation on the State of the Web [Business Insider; written by Jay Yarow]
Mary Meeker’s (of Kleiner Perkins) presentation highlights a lot of the changing trends across the web in 2012; a “must-read for anyone in the industry, or anyone with an interest in technology.”
Your in America: Overnight Twitter sensation teaches grammar and Twitter reach
The latest Twitter account to enchant us all, seemingly overnight, is bringing delight to grammar enthusiasts everywhere: “Your In America Bot” (@YourInAmerica) swoops in on unsuspecting offenders of the English language, who are, entertainingly, mostly trying to shame others for not speaking English.
Created on November 23rd, @YourinAmerica counted just under 15k followers only five days later, with an output of fewer than 100 tweets.
How is that possible? Let’s look at the reach of the single tweet above.
Not bad. But let’s understand how almost 250,000 accounts were reached, when this account has only a fraction of that number of followers, even at the rate it has grown.
Here’s the activity breakdown for the tweet:
So actually 241 separate Twitter accounts contributed to the exposure of this one tweet, mostly by picking it up and retweeting it: 219 retweets, 12 replies, and 18 other tweets were made. On the day this tweet was published, the account had about 8,000 followers, meaning just about 3% of the follower base was able to lead to this much exposure on a single tweet.
And here’s where it really gets interesting: looking at who is doing the retweeting. @SarahSpain, ESPN1000 host, has a lot more followers than @YourinAmerica and her retweet of the original tweet is actually what generated the most exposure.
In this way, TweetReach helps you figure out who the major influencer is in the reach of this particular tweet, in way that would be much more difficult and time-consuming to figure out manually.
This gives you an idea of whom to cultivate relationships with on Twitter. If you see that one account with a lot of influence (be that a large audience or simply highly engaged followers) consistently interacts with you and/or retweets your content, you know they like what you have to say and are helping you grow your own audience.
For example, the second most retweeted tweet only had 7 retweets – compared to the original, unaltered tweet’s 207- but this is still important to note because it indicates that @alysonfooter has an engaged audience of her own. (Note that these numbers reflect the two messages that were retweeted the most– the original and one with the original message plus commentary. More retweets were also made with different commentary added to the original, which altogether add up to the total number of retweets made: 219.)
Perhaps the most interesting takeaway from @YourInAmerica, however, will be if anyone really does learn a grammar lesson. So far most of the victims seem to have deleted the offending tweet in question after falling victim to @YourInAmerica.
TakeFive with TweetReach – Jim Kneer
Welcome back to TakeFive with TweetReach, our ongoing interview series with influential members of the Twitter measurement universe. This week, we’re happy to highlight Jim Kneer, New Media Specialist for the NBA Champion Miami HEAT basketball team. Coming off a terrific championship season and an Olympic gold medal for Team USA player and Miami HEAT forward Lebron James, we thought it would be a great time to get Jim’s views on Twitter measurement.
TweetReach: Welcome Jim! Can you describe your role in the HEAT organization? How have you used social media, specifically Twitter, as a part of your social media strategy for the team?
Jim Kneer: Our New Media team is the eyes and ears of HEAT fans around the globe. Our job is to connect with as many HEAT fans as we can. We create relationships with our younger fans that will evolve into a strong brand loyalty. We view Twitter as the first true means of establishing two-way communication with our fans.
Our franchise is just entering our 25th season, so we are a relatively young franchise. We are just starting to see our first generation of life-long HEAT fans reach fiscal maturity. It is our goal to take advantage of the amazing team we have to build our fan base and social media, and Twitter specifically, allows us to reach out and communicate with fans.
We use Twitter to provide real-time coverage of all HEAT related news and events. Our New Media team covers all HEAT practices, games and provides behind-the-scenes coverage of HEAT related events.
TweetReach: How important is measurement of engagement on Twitter to your strategy? Do you have specific goals and campaign metrics that you use to measure performance and success?
Jim Kneer: Measurement of social media engagement is key for us. While we may not have specific goals for each initiative we undertake, engagement metrics play a key role in our future initiatives. We like to look at the performance of our tweets and use that data to tailor our coverage to the areas we get the most engagement. We always want to deliver the content our fans want the most.
We also like to use this data to determine time of posting. We want our posts to generate a lot of replies and we try to provide as many answers as time and scheduling allow. Conversely, pictures and posts that will generate a lot of re-tweets are often made during our “off hours” since less attention is required.
TweetReach: Has your social media measurement strategy changed as you’ve gone from the regular season, to the playoffs, to the champion series, to the off-season?
Jim Kneer: During the season, we utilize a lot of the measurements to build our strategy. Each regular season, we find a different tweeting “sweet spot.” Some years we see more interactions of pictures, some years it may be statistical information that gets the best response. Our job during the regular season is to perfect our strategy. Socially, we do not want to be become a nuisance.
I come from an email marketing background. Email marketing has always been referred to as “permission-based marketing.” Moving over to social media, I always treat it as “privilege-based marketing.” We have been lucky to earn a spot in our fans’ timelines and newsfeeds. We treat this as a privilege. We try to avoid straight sales pitches, instead offering exclusive first looks or first opportunities to buy. This gives our sales pitches a more exclusive, offer-based characteristic.
Once we hit the post-season, we intensify our social media efforts. We know that our fans’ appetite for information increases and we begin traveling to away games to help provide coverage to which they may not otherwise have access. This coverage increases each round, as fans want more and more information. During the 2012 NBA Finals, we sent two staff members to Oklahoma City to cover everything, and we were rewarded with a really comprehensive behind the scenes look at the team during our title run.
Our off-season strategy is to provide relevant content when it occurs, but more so to focus on increasing our interactions with fans. We try to reply to as many relevant mentions as we can, while also increasing the amount of interactive tweets we send out.
TweetReach: What’s your opinion on the “second-screen experience” during televised games? Have you seen more consumers actively engaging via Twitter during games and how do you make the most of that for the team?
Jim Kneer: During the regular season, we work very closely with our broadcast partner, Sun Sports/Fox Sports Florida. Last off-season, we had a series of social-broadcast meetings and were able to develop a very interactive broadcast. We developed a Facebook Friday component to help draw viewers to our broadcasts, especially when our local broadcast is up against a national broadcast of the game.
We also got our broadcasters Eric Reid and Tony Fiorentino on Twitter and they were able to interact with fans and answer some questions live during all broadcasts. Additionally, we created a dedicated hashtag to track all comments.
Fans were also actively engaged in twitter polls for the pregame spotlights as well as the poll question for games. We wanted to create a very social feel for our broadcasts and are very happy where they stand after our first season.
TweetReach: Can you describe one of your more successful social media efforts? Were there specific measurement goals you wanted to achieve and how did the campaign perform? Any lessons learned you can share with our audience?
Jim Kneer: I think one of our most successful efforts this year was the unveiling of our new “Black is Back” uniform. We knew this would generate buzz, but the scope of the appeal was amazing. We were able to reach over 4.5 million unique accounts and generate almost 17 million impressions.
We also made a big social media push for the release of our Miami Floridians throwback jersey. This effort reached over 5.8 million unique people and total impressions reached 13 million.
I think the most important thing we took from these campaigns was that we needed to be ready and able to take advantage of these situations the moment they arise. Once we noticed the feedback, the posts, and tweets we were receiving, we really ramped up our efforts. We learned that by monitoring early reaction to a post you can really ride the positive public sentiment and stay ahead of the curve.
TweetReach: Thanks, Jim!
TakeFive with TweetReach – Dan Naylor
Subscribers to the TweetReach Pro service are always innovating when it comes to measuring Twitter campaigns for their brands and clients. And, the good folks at ISM Search & Social are certainly no exception.
Welcome Dan Naylor, resident scientist and Services Director at ISM to a new edition of TakeFive with TweetReach. Tutored in behavioral science, Dan gets shamelessly excited about the convergence of audience analysis, creative thinking and client ambition and we’re thrilled to have him share his thoughts on social media measurement and the fine work ISM is doing with their clients.
TweetReach: Welcome Dan! ISM is an integrated digital agency – you not only do social media strategies for your clients, but also SEO, mobile, affiliate marketing, and other campaigns. How have you seen your clients approach Twitter as part of their overall digital strategy?
Dan Naylor: ISM exists to influence online behavior of specifically defined target audiences. We try not to distinguish our campaigns by the channels and focus on defining the target audience, mapping the location of the available audiences and creating content that convinces the users to move from where they currently exist to our clients’ channels. The individual job of each channel naturally presents itself as an obvious candidate during the process of building the campaign strategy.
However, Twitter enables us to interact with any existing social conversation (that’s on Twitter). We can approach the target audience directly, or through influencers should the brand have low credibility within the target audience or subject area. In addition, the inherent frequency of Twitter means we can move through the gears very quickly. Both factors ensure that, for now, it is our most powerful outreach channel.
TweetReach: And, how important is measurement in the social media strategies you put together for your clients?
Dan Naylor: Without measurement any performance is open to interpretation and since most people have an opinion about social media, we prefer not to leave the measurement of performance to interpretation. Ultimately, if we can’t measure a specific activity we either remove it from the campaign or invent a new measure. However, while we pride ourselves on an analytical approach to digital marketing, we are clear that measurement data is only evidence that we delivered the campaign objectives. In putting together the social media strategies for our clients we are clear that a complete understanding of the campaign objectives is just as important and the majority of the measurement data stays in the background, until the client wants a deeper understanding of the progress.
TweetReach: What metrics are most important to you? How do you measure engagement?
Dan Naylor:
- Exposure – the number of occasions content has been delivered
- Reach – unique people to whom content was delivered
- Engagement – interaction with the content
- User journey – click-through
We try to measure all channels using a channel-specific version of the four metrics above, mostly to better assess how individual channels are contributing to the overall user journey. We measure engagement specifically as a measurable interaction with the content. For instance, for Twitter we simply measure mentions. A mention is the first measurable interaction with the content and the result is either additional reach if that mention is part of a retweet, additional mentions if a reply, or a click if the user has moved to one of our other channels.
We have also been developing our click tracking systems to provide better social attribution modelling to better reflect a user that moves between channels. Ultimately, we have moved away from the measuring status (likes, fans, followers, etc.) and now track activity.
TweetReach: Let’s talk about the measurement of reach. How do you weigh the importance of the quantity of a campaign’s reach (the overall size of the potential audience) vs. the quality of that reach?
Dan Naylor: Quantity vs quality is a debate that will never end; it is as old as marketing itself. In Twitter the relationship between exposure, reach, engagement and click-through all give indications of how the audience is responding to the content. For example, if exposure and reach numbers are close together over time the content is consistently reaching new audiences. If they are far apart, tweets are repetitively being delivered to the same audience. In both cases the engagement and user journey metrics will indicate how the content plan should be amended in real-time.
TweetReach: How do look think about the mix of different social media platforms when designing social media campaigns? Are you trying different approaches with different networks? How important is measurement with each?
Dan Naylor: We are constantly evolving with the channels and adapting campaigns as new channels and audiences converge — remember MySpace? ISM is focused on organic growth so I exclude the additional advertising opportunities that exist in each channel; we consider advertising important but a little like cheating. The type of brand, target audience, speed of impact, budget and any integration with non-social platforms governs the ideal mix of channels.
Twitter is the only channel that is universal in all of our current campaigns. We use Twitter to identify, outreach and engage with target audiences, especially if the audience is new to the client. Since Twitter users are seeking information we find Twitter to be the most efficient channel at seeding content and driving traffic to additional channels. The relative open approach of Twitter to performance data and the relative low production cost combines to enable us to test fast and then roll out conclusions to slower moving channels with higher production costs.
TweetReach: Can you describe one of your more successful social media campaigns? Were there specific goals your clients wanted to achieve and how did they do? How important was measurement to the campaign’s success?
Dan Naylor: The best example of using existing Twitter networks to greatly increase the reach of our client brand in new audiences is our work for Mercedes-Benz in the UK. We were asked to increase the younger audiences exposed to the brand. We identified current owners of Mercedes-Benz cars with large existing followings and existing profiles in younger audiences. Initially by @messaging the target influencers we sparked organic conversation about their vehicles. For the first 6 months of 2012, from a Twitter following of 35,000 we averaged reach (unique Twitter ids) of over 1,500,000 per month and exposure consistently in excess of 5,000,000 deliveries. The organic outreach activity contributed to increases in Twitter and specifically Facebook communities over the period and drove significant traffic to other Mercedes-Benz campaign activity.
TweetReach: Thanks for your thoughts, Dan!
Dan Naylor is Services Director of ISM Search & Social, a specialist digital agency in London. At ISM, Dan is responsible for strategy and content delivery across the agency. A graduate of marketing and behavioral science, Dan’s career started client-side, rising to C-level communication and marketing positions. Whilst managing overall marketing budgets, Dan recognized that customers weren’t responding to traditional channels as they had done previously. Dan began focusing on digital marketing and audience behavior in 2006.
Dan moved agency-side in 2010, determined to help remove corporate management silos that he believes continue to stop social media fulfilling its potential as a business tool. ISM helps clients segment and develop their digital audiences, pioneering an approach to mapping social connections to influence behaviour and produce seamless User Journeys. ISM advises corporations including Mercedes-Benz, Arcadia Group, Jaguar Land Rover and AIG. Dan is shamelessly excited about the ongoing potential of digital marketing and the convergence of quality data, creative thinking and client ambition.
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