Comments on: A Better Way To Measure Social Media Marketing?

By: links for 2008-05-24

links for 2008-05-24 — Sat, 24 May 2008 23:32:02 +0000

[...] A Better Way To Measure Social Media Marketing? | Insight Buzz A view on Social Media measurement. (tags: Marketing metrics socialmedia) [...]

By: Paul M. Banas

Paul M. Banas — Tue, 06 May 2008 02:27:37 +0000

@Anderson Analytics
Tom,
Thanks for visiting. Like several of the commenters on your post, I’m also intrigued by the BtoB research possibilities of LinkedIn.

Depending on the question and the sample base, Facebook may also be interesting as well. But I think LinkedIn probably has the most immediate utility.

By: AndersonAnalytics

AndersonAnalytics — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:46:18 +0000

There will soon be more powerful tools for market research on Facebook and LI, see: http://www.tomhcanderson.com/2008/05/04/facebook-and-now-linked-enter-the-%e2%80%9cmarket-research%e2%80%9d-game/

By: Don't Think Traffic – Think Demographics | Social Media Trader

Don't Think Traffic – Think Demographics | Social Media Trader — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:02:43 +0000

[...] could already be vast amounts of market research to use depending on the topic of your site. Don’t rely on just one or two studies for your [...]

By: Paul M. Banas

Paul M. Banas — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:05:52 +0000

@Alex
I couldn’t agree more with starting with specific objectives. I’ve always thought that doing research or marketing without a clear objective is like driving in a foreign country without a map or directions. In those cases, it really doesn’t matter what kind of car your driving.

Thanks for the good points.

By: Alex Nesbitt

Alex Nesbitt — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:15:07 +0000

The problem I see with measures being relevant is the lack of context for why any particular data point is tracked. Velocity might be important for some objectives, but not others. Search engine ranking might be good, but if it’s for the wrong keywords then maybe it’s not so good.

We are swimming in data, but lack insight.

We need to start with a framework that starts with top level objectives and drives down to specific measures. Without such a framework, it is impossible to evaluate the usefulness of any specific measure. With a strong framework, you can see what measures matter and which ones have the most leverage.

By: Paul M. Banas

Paul M. Banas — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:36:00 +0000

@Nick
I like your point about measuring the sprint versus the marathon. This is why overall velocities from sites such as Digg may be different than those from sites like Stumbleupon, if you look at the first few days of traffic. Over time however, Stumbleupon will still probably be showing some velocity, although smaller than the initial surge, while Digg will be zero.

@Tad Chef
Interesting you should say that, since that is exactly how I was thinking velocity should be used. I’ve been following some of your posts on the diminishing returns of Stumbleupon traffic and I was wondering what metric would help provide insight in that area.

Another way to look at your question would be to hold time constant (let’s say 7 days) and then calculate an initial velocity per post for Stumbleupon: unique visits over 7 days/# of stumblers. You can then analyze the initial velocity of posts submitted to Stumbleupon by new users versus top stumblers. Or how does velocity compare when a post is submitted by yourself or someone who has submitted you before, versus the velocity of posts submitted by someone outside of your inner circle of readers.

By: Tad Chef

Tad Chef — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 08:43:07 +0000

Yeah! That’s it. Velocity is on point. The only drawback is that it’s dependable on chance and the users who submit stuff. So a low velocity does not mean a certain product is bad. Velocity needs to be compared with contentiousness (like in “viral”) of the submission. A post submitted by a weak user which still has a velocity of, say, 100 would have to be divided by the contentiousness of the submitter/s.
So if top digger Mr Babyman submits it to Digg and it gets on the frontpage with 300 diggs as he has a very high c it would be low end result: v/c = low whereas as noob user who gets it to the frontpage with 3000 diggs would result in a high measured virality.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:08:00 +0000

Velocity is a good measurement for some channels in social media. It seems though that it wont work for all content. I’ve seen time and time again where content peaks, disappears and peaks again. This might only occurs when the initial peak isn’t so high. Perhaps instead of only measuring the sprint, we should also be measuring the marathon.