The Measurement Standard: Blog Edition

Social Media Is Going More and More Mobile

Here's an eye-opening chart from Business Insider: "U.S. Share Of Time Spent On Social Media By Device." (Click on it to see it bigger.) I would have guessed, more or less, how mobile most of the social networks are. But Facebook and Pinterest, at half, are a surprise. This chart is part of a new report from BI Intelligence on the state of social media advertising. --WTP

What Your Favorite Social Network Reveals About Your Feelings Of Inferiority

Why is it that social media sites like Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn are so powerfully addictive? Maureen O'Connor's article in New York Magazine, "The Six Major Anxieties of Social Media," pins their popularity on our insecurities and the sites' abilities to stoke our feelings of inferiority. "Because each social media network rewards different elements of human behavior, each gives rise to a different inferiority complex. Let us explore the unique forms of oppression we willingly subject ourselves to when we join and engage... social networks."

But, hey, no worries: there are new apps that will automatically provide you with a fake social media life, much more glamorous than your real one. --WTP (thanks to FullContact for the image)

50 Top Tools for Social Media Monitoring, Analytics, and Management

Pam Dwyer on Social Media Today has listed 50 tools to "distill data in ways that are relevant to your social media marketing plan, enabling you to figure out how to succeed with your audience."

Social Media Apps To Airbrush Away Your Useless Boring Existence

On social media, nobody knows your whole life is a dog. That's becoming more true every day, with new apps to not just super-model your appearance, but airbrush the rest of your boring life as well. This article in Marketing explains how companies like Instasham and CouchCachet provide you with the life your feeble self can only dream of. From CouchCachet’s mission statement: "Start living the life you have always wanted without ever leaving the house." 

This brings a whole new twist to social media measurement. If I've tweaked Twitter to tell the world I'm drinking Dogfish Head 90-Minute IPA, but my real beer of choice is Bud Lite, then isn't that going to skew the research on beer consumption? (Actually, I'm a big fan of Torpedo, which brings on the massive hops but leaves me some change for Beer Nuts. Also, most any of the gruits from Earth Eagle Brewings.) --WTP (thanks to ThoughtPick for the image)

Social Media Effectiveness and Black Unemployment

We like to think of social media as a tool to "bring people together" to accomplish mutually beneficial goals. But it's also clear that social media is a tool with which we gain advantage over other people. This can be especially valuable when finding a job.

More social media connections means more favoritism in determining who gets a job and who doesn't.

3 Types of Rarely Retweeted Tweets

From ragan.com comes this post on what to avoid if you want to have your tweets retweeted. Tactics that will improve your retweet exposure include avoiding truncated Facebook tweets, too many hashtags, and poor grammar and spelling.

Personally, I am so glad to hear that some people are turned off by poor English usage. Of course, I am an editor, so there you go.  (Thanks to MIT Technology Review for the image.) -- WTP

Tools to Track Success on Instagram

Four tools to track Instagram success are briefly mentioned in this post from PRDaily. It's intriguing that one of them, SimplyMeasured, provides "free" analytics, but you must share a tweet to promote the company. What an interesting way to get payment for a service. (The post and the image originally appeared on WaxingUnlyrical.com) -- WTP

Beth Kanter on Measuring Nonprofit Social Networks

The amazingly energetic and prolific Beth Kanter has a recent post on how to measure your social media network. Lots on network mapping and social network analysis for Twitter.

Beth is the go-to guru for nonprofit networking. She is author (with co-author Alison Fine) of "The Networked Nonprofit," which introduced the powerful idea that nonprofits can increase their effectiveness by using social media to expand their supporters. This concept was taken a step further in "Measuring the Networked Nonprofit" which she co-authored with Katie Paine. --WTP

And Today a Facebook Fan Is Worth $174.17

The latest entry in the epic What's A Facebook Fan Worth? discussion comes from Syncapse, pegging this mystic social media marketing number at $174.17. Download their report here.

Syncapse's chart at the left demonstrates that the $174.17 average varies so widely between brands as to make an average figure pretty much useless. As have been most efforts to nail down the elusive number.

The best discussion of this topic we've seen is by Olivier Blanchard, "The 5 basic rules of calculating fan/like/follower value." In which he goes over the reasons why an average is often just marketing snakeoil, but brand- and context-specific calculations can be very informative.

The hunt for the value of a Facebook fan is the modern day equivalent of the Alchemist's search for the Philosopher's Stone. It's more worthwhile for the research insights it yields than for locating the actual item itself.

What strikes me as really interesting about this Syncapse report is their comparison of fans vs. nonfans: "they tend to be brand users first, they spend more, engage more, advocate more, and are more loyal." See the chart below.

Some marketers may take this as proof of the value of investing in encouraging people to become fans. But what if fans are just different people from non-fans? What if some people just naturally want to be fans and behave like fans, yet other people, with different personalities, don't?

Maybe fan-based social media marketing works on some people (who are inclined by their nature to become fans), but just does not work on other people. -- Bill Paarlberg, editor

 

Katie Paine's Top 10 Social Media Measurement Tips

So, you are doing social media. You are probably following Katie Paine's Top 10 Social Media Keys to Success and keeping your eyes out for Katie Paine's Top 10 Social Media Mistakes to Avoid. And now you want to know if your social media is working, and how to demonstrate its value. Here is your answer: Katie Paine's Top 10 Social Media Measurement Tips:

Katie Paine's Top 10 Social Media Mistakes to Avoid

So, you're developing your social media presence, perhaps with the help of Katie Paine's Top 10 Keys to Social Media Success. To be sure you don't stumble on the way, here are Katie Paine's Top 10 Social Media Mistakes to Avoid:

Why Hashtags Are #Hopeless?

Daniel Victor has a post in The New York Times about why hashtags can be useless: "Hashtags considered #harmful." Like when they refer to such a popular topic that they can't function to focus one's audience. I'd guess that most people who use hashtags are well aware of this, and tend to use more specialized ones, and in a more strategic manner. Also, for a "social media staff editor," it's surprising that Mr. Victor limits his discussion to only the most obvious use of hashtags. Read the comments for a broader discussion. #folksonomy #context #knowwhatImsaying

Meanwhile, Business Insider announced today that Hashtags Have Gone Mainstream. #gofigure --WTP

Read It Again: Olivier Blanchard On Facebook Fan Value

Olivier Blanchard's post on the cost and value of a Facebook fan ("The 5 basic rules of calculating the value of a Facebook ‘fan’") is, at almost two years old now, no spring chicken, social media-wise. But I promise that his insights will still juice up your next cocktail party, meeting with your agency, or interview with a prospective social media measurement hire.

His discussion of why the cost of reaching a potential customer is not equivalent to the value of that customer is brilliant. He develops an excellent framework in which to discuss cost vs. value of customers acquired for any medium.

I especially like his emphasis on the idea that these types of cost and value figures are averages across a wildly fluctuating population. A fan or customer's value is likely to be very flexible between individuals, over time, and between products. So to come up with some average and claim it's useful as the value of a fan is pointless:

...the notion that the “value” of a Facebook fan can be calculated absent the context of purchasing habits, brand affiliations, fluctuations in buying power, market forces and shifts in interests and even value perceptions is bunk.

-- WTP (thanks to KDPaine for the tip, and to Olivier Blanchard for the illustration)

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Facebook Reach Metrics Must Read

Wow. If you have anything to do with measuring the success of your Facebook page, or if you've ever wondered how many of your fans actually see your Facebook posts, then you have to look at Emeric Ernoult's post on the Convince and Convert blog. Although it's called "Busting Facebook’s Most Widespread Myth," it's really a primer on the complex world of Facebook reach metrics. Here's a sample:

 ...pages in the range of 100,000 fans have an average fan reach of 6.7%. However, the average of the worst 5% performing pages shows a reach of 0.6% of fans (oops!), while the top 5% performing pages reach an average of 20% of their fans with each post.

There's a whole lot more. Go read the post. --WTP (thanks to Entrepreneur for the image)

Katie Paine's 3 Favorite Social Media Research Papers from IPRRC 2013

by Katie Delahaye Paine

 There were so many great papers on social media at this year's IPRRC. Here are my three favs:

Paper #1
DiStaso, McCorkindale, and Agugliaro: America’s most admired companies social media industry divide

Not much to admire in the social media practices of many of Fortune’s Most Admired.

 

Tina McCorkindale and Marcia DiStaso

As usual, the “MarTina” team of Marcia DiStaso and Tina McCorkindale produced one of the most interesting papers of the conference. Together with Alexa Agugliaro, they studied how the companies on Fortune's America's Most Admired list are using social media. This is a paper that every corporate communications officer in America should read.

 

First off, Twitter is by far the most widely used platform, followed by YouTube and then Facebook. That might surprise some people, but the reality is that while 955 of the Most Admired appear to have a Facebook page, 51% of those are just using their Wikipedia page on Facebook.  

Coca-Cola Discovers – and A Survey Confirms – That Social Media Doesn't Influence Purchases

A Coca-Cola Co. study has found that online "buzz" has no measurable impact on short-term sales, but online display ads work about as well as TV.

...when Coca-Cola put buzz sentiment data into the same analytical framework it uses to evaluate other digital media, Mr. Schmidt [senior manager-marketing strategy and insights at Coca-Cola] said, "We didn't see any statistically significant relationship between our buzz and our short-term sales."

Note that this study only concerned “buzz,” which the company defines as conversations taking place on social networks and measures by “counting the raw publicly available comments” on Facebook, YouTube, etc. See the article in AdAge.

Proposed Social Media Measurement Standard Definitions for Item, Mention, Reach, and Impressions

The Digital Analytics Association, in conjunction with SMMStandards, has proposed definitions for the terms "item," "mention,"  "reach," and "impressions." You can view and post your comments on these definitions at the #SMMStandards site. Here's a quick summary:

-- ITEM: An ITEM of content is a post, micro-post, article, or other instance appearing for the first time in a digital media.
Comments: This definition of ITEM replaces “clip” “post” and other unclear terminology. ITEMs of content refer to the content vehicle in its entirety, which means that a single ITEM can contain multiple MENTIONs and derivatives. Derivatives of ITEMs such as comments, likes, etc., should not be counted as additional ITEMs.

Just Say "Neigh" to Horsemeat: Gorkana's Tip Sheet On the Scandal

In case you haven't had your fill of the horsemeat scandal, The Gorkana Group has researched and prepared an infographic (click on it to see it bigger) with the high points of the controversy and its coverage:

• Over 200,000 social media mentions,  and over 21,000 mainstream media mentions.
• Mainstream media discussed details of the scandal and politicians’ outrage, social media was dominated by humour.
• Statistics showing a rise in sales for vegetarian brands and independent butchers indicate genuine consumer anger.

Meanwhile, here in the U.S., we do not have horse slaughterhouses, and do not import beef from any of the countries where the contaminated beef was found. Still, some have voiced concern that a similar scandal could occur, as "The absence of a strong national program of animal identification means that our farmers are actually more at risk." -- Bill Paarlberg, editor, The Measurement Standard

#measurepr Twtter Chat Is Today at Noon

The bi-weekly Twitter roundtable question-and-answer #measurepr is today and every other Tuesday. Hosted by Shonali Burke, the chat fields questions and comments from anyone on traditional and social media measurement. Today's chat features the always-informative-and amusing Richard Bagnal as guest. ###

Mashable: One Dead Simple Article On Social Media ROI

Don't bother to read Mashable's article "5 Dead Simple Ways to Track Social Media ROI" for the 5 simple ways, because they are so simple you've probably heard them before. (Like coupons, unique phone numbers, and Google Analytics.) But, to give the author credit, he does introduce a bit of the "Can you -- should you? -- measure social media?" discussion right at the end.