The Measurement Standard: Blog Edition

Best and Worst Times To Post To Social Networks

Here's a very informative infographic from Business Insider to help you plan your social media posting times. Click on it to see it HUGE. --WTP

Life After Death By PowerPoint 2010

Expanded version of Don McMillan's 2008 YouTube hit "Life After Death by PowerPoint":

Best Times For Business Tweets -- Infographic

Fuseworks Studios has created an infographic based on Buddy Media's recently published report, “Strategies for Effective Tweeting: A Statistical Review.”  The report analyses user-engagement from over 320 Twitter profiles managed by various brands, and makes several recommendations for how best to maximize business use of Twitter.

Caveats: At first glance, both the research and the infographic appear flawed. So if you plan to make use of this information, you'd better investigate where it comes from:

• Note that Buddy Media's definitions of metrics are confusing. As in: "Engagement Rate: a combination of the replies and Retweets in the number of followers." What does that mean?

• Note also that Fuseworks' infographic includes contradictory information. As in: "Tweets with #hashtags experience two times more engagement than Tweets without #hashtags" appears at the same time as does "21% increase in engagement when using one or two hashtags." Interesting.

-- Bill Paarlberg, editor, The Measurement Standard (Thanks to Social Media Insights for the tip.)

Amazing Interactive Map of Apple, Inc.'s 748 Suppliers

From ChinaFile comes this interactive map based on last month’s list of suppliers from Apple Inc. This is only the second time that Apple has released detailed addresses of its suppliers. Of the 748 suppliers, more than 600 are in Asia, and 331 are in mainland China. (Thanks to Business Insider for the tip.)

Did Social Media Predict The Grammys?

The short answer: "Social Media Is No Nate Silver" -- unless hindsight bias rules your analysis.

How well did social media do at predicting the winners of the 55th Grammy Awards? The infographic to the left (click on it to see it bigger) includes some answers, thanks to Mashable. It shows SM data as of Feb 7th and the Grammys were aired the evening of Feb 10th.

So how did SM do at predicting the winners?

For Best New Artist, Facebook predicted the winner, but Twitter and Instagram did not.

For Song of the Year, YouTube's second most played tune was the winner. But note that several non-nominees got more play than nominees, esp. outlier Psy and brushed-off Bieber.

For Record of the Year, song plays on YouTube picked the winner decisively, but Facebook and Twitter stats did not.

For Album of the Year, the number of Facebook followers chose the winner decisively, but Twitter did not.

Analysis: While it appears from this infographic that Facebook and YouTube did predict a couple of winners, before the event you'd not have been able to know which of several social media would be the best predictors.

The big point to keep in mind here is that social media is playing off-key anyway: We probably should not expect SM to predict the Grammys, given that the judges use different criteria than popular opinion.

For a markedly more comprehensive analysis of this question, see "Digital Notes: The Scorecard on Social Media's Grammy Predictions."

To view the all of the nominees and results visit The Grammys website.

### --Bill Paarlberg, editor

 

The Best Infographics of All Time: 100 Diagrams That Changed the World

A big, big Thanks! to Frank J. Walton for this tip: 100 Diagrams That Changed the World at Brain Pickings. It's a book by Scott Christianson. --WTP

U.S. Flu Map from Google Flu Trends: Yep, it's going around.

Our readers in the U.S. may be wondering if they have noticed an unusually high level of colds and flu activity this winter. These Google.org Flu Trends graphics prove that it's not all in their (stuffed up) heads. Get this: Google has found that search activity is a good estimator of the prevalence of flu: "We have found a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms." Google Flu Trends is updated every day. Read more about the U.S. flu outbreak in today's NYTimes. -- Bill Paarlberg, editor

Infomap: Where Everyone Is Moving To and From in America

Where are people going to and coming from? Check out Atlas Van Lines' 2012 Migration Patterns Map and infographic. Thanks to Business Insider for the tip.
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Showing When People Get Killed In Cars, Using Excel

Check out "Infographic: Showing When People Get Killed In Cars, Using Excel" over at Fast Company's Co.Design site. It's an educational and lovely use of data and Excel to do just what infographics seem to do less and less of these days: make the meaning of information more accessible. --WTP (Thanks to Frank Walton for the tip.)

Charting a Comparison of Global Election Spending: Infographic

This month's Chart of the Month was researched and produced by Lucas Galan of Report International. (That's it over to the left, and you can see it larger in the right-hand column of this blog.) Here he provides some background on how and why it was developed.

With the US presidential election at a predicted price tag of $2.5bn, one is left wondering just how much is too much spending in the campaign to name the leader of the free world. While some see this as a healthy expression of a passionate debate, for the majority the onslaught of day-to-day advertising warfare is not just repetitive, but wasteful.

We developed this month's chart to examine how the current U.S. election spending compares to that typical of the rest of the democratic world. Rather than looking at the individual markets and extrapolating their cost per vote -- after all, the U.S.’s 131m voting populace is not immediately comparable with the U.K.’s 27m -- we tailored a rest-of-the-first-world sample to be of the same size as the U.S.’s electorate. We combined the voting numbers from the UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Canada, arriving at the sum of 129m voters in elections from 2007-2011.

CoolnessGraphed

Here's a little measurement bon-bon for your Wednesday morning. You'll find many of these chart adventures in expression on CoolnessGraphed on Tumblr. OK, somewhat challenged in the charting-of-the-y-axis area, but still irresistible for their genuine enthusiasm.

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NPR: What Americans Actually Do On an Average Day Off

Here's an update to the post of a few weeks ago ("NPR: What Americans Do All Day Long") that tells us what they do on their weekends. Read the post on Planet Money.

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NPR: What Americans Actually Do All Day Long

Measurement geeks will love these two fascinating infographics that demonstrate how Americans spend their time, thanks to the American Time Use Survey, by way of National Public Radio. Go to the page to see them large enough to read the fine print.

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Lifehacker: How to Choose the Best Chart for Your Data

 

This post by Alan Henry at Lifehacker will help you to choose the best type of chart for displaying your social media measurement data or public relations measurement data. First, understand the type of statement you want to make with your data, then choose the type of chart that best presents that kind of message. See also this post from Sanket Nadhani in tutorial 9. --WTP

(The chart above is from Andrew Abela and The Extreme Presentation(tm) Method, thanks!)

The Amazing Story of Measurement, from the Lufkin Rule Company

No, this is not about social media measurement or even public relations measurement. It's about a booklet entitled "The Amazing Story of Measurement" published by the Lufkin Rule Company in 1949 that presents the history of measurement (like feet, yards, furlongs, and miles) in comic book format. I'm thinking it qualifies as an early form of infographic.

Did you know that Thomas Jefferson recommended in 1790 that the U.S. adopt a decimal-based system of weights and measures? Or that a "nail" is a measure based on the length of the last 2 joints of the middle finger, and that one nail was set as the thickness of a brick? If not, then perhaps you should be reading more comic books. Go see the article at CreativePro.com. 

--WTP

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  --Bill Paarlberg is editor of  The Measurement Standard blog and newsletter, and of Katie Paine's book “Measure What Matters.” He is also editor of the book “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit,” by Beth Kanter and Katie Paine, which will be published this year by Wiley.
  Follow Bill Paarlberg on Twitter.

The Measurement Standard is a publication of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement. Katie Paine, CEO of KDPaine & Partners, will be glad to talk with you about measurement for your organization.

 KDPaine & Partners' Facebook Page.

Interactive Media Map from Forbes

This is so much fun: An interactive map of the U.S. that shows which news sources are read in which states. Go try it out at Forbes.com. It's updated every month, and here's where it comes from:

For Forbes, Bitly has investigated how people consume news by looking at how people in different states differ in their preference for news sites. Through the clicks of millions of people in each state visiting different news sources, Bitly is able to uncover relationships between geography and media.

--WTP

Key Social Media Metrics for Marketing & Sales: Infographic from Social Media Today

Trying to determine the right KPIs for your marketing objectives? It's your lucky day. Social Media Today has just put out a very comprehensive and informative infographic that summarizes social analytics for marketing and sales effectiveness. Click to the right to enlarge it, or go see it at Social Media Today. --WTP

Bad Infographics Are the Measurement Menace of the Month

Infographics are the quintessential example of marketers thinking that social media is a cheap and easy way to promote themselves.

by Katie Paine

I’m a metrics geek, a data devotee, and the Measurement Queen. So, theoretically, anything that makes measurement and data more palatable should be an instant +, right? So what’s my beef with infographics?

I don't have a problem with all infographics, just the ones based on bad data. Too often infographics are pretty to look at, but have no substance to back them up. I see them as the Kardashians of measurement.

Here's an example. "The Value of a Social Following" appeared in PR Daily and is the equivalent of Kim’s short-lived nuptials: Designed for no other reason than to attract attention and comments, and not based on a solid foundation.

The infographic, produced by Imbue Marketing, includes typos, wrongheaded ROI thinking (the cost to acquire a follower is not the same as his or her value--and neither of them is ROI), and cites four feeble "sources" that provide flimsy evidence to support the graphics.

No self-respecting marketer or communications profession would build a strategy on dubious research, so why should the same professionals believe any of the data in this infographics.?

Infographics are the quintessential example of marketers thinking that social media is a cheap and easy way to promote themselves. The reality is that with infographics you get what you pay for. Those that are based on real facts and research are very expensive. The ones that are thrown together based on shoddy research and dubious facts are also very expensive—to your reputation.

I now know to trust nothing that Imbue Marketing says. And shame on Alan Pearcy and the folks at PRDaily for even promoting this stuff.

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Katie Delahaye Paine is CEO of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement. Katie Paine is a dynamic and experienced speaker on public relations and social media measurement. Click here for the schedule of Katie’s upcoming speaking engagements. Katie and Beth Kanter are authors of the book “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit,” to be published this year by Wiley.

The Measurement Standard is a publication of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement. Katie Paine, CEO of KDPaine & Partners, will be glad to talk with you about measurement for your organization.

 KDPaine & Partners' Facebook Page.

Dan Zarella: Contra-Competitive Timing to Maximize Social Media Impact

This excellent infographic on the best times to post social media just in from Dan Zarella at HubSpot (see also a infographic on this topic from last summer, "The Science of Social Timing"):

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A Useful and Informative Infographic: The Marketing Measurement Checklist

Regular readers of The Measurement Standard know that we can be very critical of infographics that don't provide much info. (See, for instance, “TweetReach: Nominated for Most Vapid Golden Globes Infographic,” and “The Secret of Victoria’s Secret Revealed by Hubspot Infographic.”)

But here's one that we really like. “The Marketing Measurement Checklist” is just what it says, and is useful and informative. A big thanks to Jason Miller and Business 2 Community. --WTP