Before we get started, are you locally listed? Do you have local listing optimization?Check getlisted.orgGoogle Places, Bing, Yahoo Business Directory, Yelp, Hotfrog
Measurement that is not connected to an organization’s goals is not analytics. It cannot help you, you cannot make any decisions based on it.
Raw data – Broad overview metrics – Actionable metricsThat said, I am not against measuring the raw numbers. Raw data gets a raw deal in my opinion.Just imagine if your number of visits were to “zero out” on you. Then you will feel the value of the raw numbers.You have to know the broad numbers, just don’t stop there.
As we start to craft a social media analytics plan, we should be asking these questions.The measurements – the numbers – should be helping you to know the answers to these questions.
Public Service!You may find that you are changing your social media goals as we go through the various platforms.
http://www.skrbl.com/Goals, Outcomes, ThresholdsOBJECTIVES:Increase our blog subscribers by 15% in 6 monthsProduce 12 episodes (one per month) of Widget.TV and achieve live viewership of 75 for each episodeGrow our LinkedIn Group to 250 members (a 25% increase) by the end of the yearEstablish a Facebook Fan Page with 500 fans within 6 monthsA list of social interaction metrics / KPIsAlerts (register and response rates / by channel / CTR / post click activity)Bookmarks (onsite, offsite)CommentsDownloadsEmail subscriptions, forms filled outFans (become a fan of something / someone)Favorites (add an item to favourites)Feedback (via the site) Followers (follow something / someone)Groups (create / join / total number of groups / group activity)Install widget (on a blog page, Facebook, etc)Key page activity (post-activity)Love / Like this (a simpler form of rating something)Messaging (onsite)Profile (e.g. update avatar, bio, links, email, customisation, etc)Print page, and other Event trackingRegistered users (new / total / active / dormant / churn)Social media sharing / participation (activity on key social media sites, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc)Tagging (user-generated metadata)TestimonialsTime spent on key pagesTime spent on site (by source / by entry page)Total contributors (and % active contributors)Uploads (add an item, e.g. articles, links, images, videos)Views (videos, ads, rich images)Widgets (number of new widgets users / embedded widgets)Wishlists (save an item to wishlist)
Benchmarking against your competitors.Benchmarking according to your own performance – the question is, “What is normal?”
At least a quarter as a bare minimumHalf-a-year will give you enough information to see trendsAfter one year you can start comparing year-to-date.In business – benchmarking against competitors and against our own “norm”What we in business (dealing with commerce) consider are purchase cycles. Your conversions are different.
It’s easier in a way to deal with commercial conversions: Google Adwords for instance. Testing landing pages, testing key words, testing ad text. We look at click-throughs and conversions to sales.But we also look at softer metrics in the area of brand positioning and developing thought leadership.Brainstorm about real-life conversions: look for the tangible.DownloadsCommentsFewer complaint calls
This is getting to the heart of the issue – trying to figure out online behavior as a reflection of an offline reality.What is at stake here is very important – PUBLIC SERVICE.
Data dump – there is too much information, it needs to be sorted outYou could overwhelm your boss with information to cover up bad performance. Take into consideration who are your stakeholders and what they need to know.
They lay it all out – all of their goals - on the table for everyone to see.
We can learn a great deal from the online marketers – i.e. Google Adwords – because they target the outcomes – click-through to salesWe are talking about online behavior. We can never fully know what people are thinking or intending through their online behavior.Marketers want to know precision, predictability.” Will it happen again in the future.”We need to look for the kind of conversions that make sense to our organizations.
Commercial goals talk about sales funnels.Public service funnels toward conversions?Traffic Sources: Look at organic sources – search engines. This is an indication of search engine optimization.Did you get “Panda slapped?” (March 2011) Our organic search results dramatcally increased after the change in algorithm.Referral traffic shows “brand” strength.Look for RSS subscriptions, backlinks.
Movement from the micro-platforms like Twitter to more hosted types like Facebook and ultimately to your blog/website because that is where your most curated and media-rich material is.
They have a great blog with clear and easy navigation – archive by month and categories.They also have a Social Media Center – a clearing house with social media links to every department!
Numbers – fans, friends, comments, likes, Daily Active Users, Monthly Active UsersLook at: daily story feedback, which is the metric that tracks each time you put up a status update on your fan page, how many people see it, click thumbs up on it or leave a comment. It measures engagement. Also: Count the number of hides, which is what happens when people who get sick of your updates click the "X" that hides your updates from their news feeds. It's the Facebook equivalent of an unsubscribe.Impressions:which in the Facebook world means how many people in your total number of fans actually saw your status updates. Not everybody sees your updates on their walls because of EdgeRank, which is Facebook's algorithm for determining which updates actually show up in a user's news feed. The impression number shows you that ratio, and you need to track it over time. If that ratio starts to drop, it means people are getting bored and tuning out. Their impression number is similar to the open rate in email.Did Facebook bring traffic to your blog/website?If you’re looking to see if Facebook was a source of traffic – look at which landing pages on which they arrived. What was their time-on-site, bounce rate, navigation path. Did they make conversions?Export to Excel APIFacebook Insights yes yes (for Facebook Platform developers) Developers can access the data using the Facebook Query Language (FQL) or through Facebook's Graph API. Talk about the need to look at qualitative measurements.
Kristie Van Auken - Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing & Communications OfficerGoals – measurements of outcomes – decision-making – these people do it all.They know who their core audience or core demographic is: the younger mobile traveling setTalk about the guy who lost his luggage and how it played out on Facebook.Very active with promotions on Facebook. Gave away a Harley Davidson (that was parked at the airport). Participation in the promotion was “liking” them on Facebook.
Also, what measurements would demonstrate a need to change tactics?
Facebook InsightsMacro - Fans, LikesEngagement – Likes, substantive conversations, sentiment, conversions like media consumptionComposition – Language, Country, City, GenderReferrals to your blog or website, conversions by media consumption
Tweetreach will calculate how many people have seen something you’ve shared on Twitter. It has a free search function, plus a tiered “for-pay” sets of reports.Klouttracks the impact of a twitter user’s opinions, links and recommendations across a social graph. It takes both the size of the audience and the influence of an individual’s tweets into consideration. Why would you want to know this? First, you’ll want to know how influential individuals in your twitter audience are, and second, you’ll want to understand the effectiveness of your own Twitter persona.Bit.ly creates unique user-level and aggregate links that allow you to view real-time traffic and referrer data, including location.Tweetstats - This is another great Twitter app basically it graphs your Twitter stats including Tweets per hour, per month and Tweet timeline.Twitalyzer - Offers free and subscription. Gives an influence rank. Could help you find influential followers in your list. Can integrate Bit.ly information, and generate location reports.ExcelContax.io yes Klout don’t see it Twitalyzer yes, for $4.99 per month
http://socialmediatoday.com/brendancooper/215917/twitter-influence-who-do-you-believeDid Twitter bring traffic to your blog/website?If you’re looking to see if Twitter was a source – look at which landing pages on which they arrived. What was their time-on-site, bounce rate, navigation path. Did they make conversions?
http://www.retweetrank.comRetweet Rank is different from the others in that it attempts to rank users by how often they’re retweeted and assigns a numerical score. If you’re looking to benchmark how you do against some of your closest competitors, that feature may make this tool more useful other some of the others.http://tweetreach.comTweet Reach uses an interesting metric to produce it’s results. It looks at how many readers could possibly see this Retweet based on the person that actually Retweeted it and the number of followers shared among them (reach).http://retweetist.com/Enter in your username and ReTweetist will populate a list of your recent retweets and the users that retweeted them. You also have the option to enter in a URL instead of a username to see the same data (though that seems to be a bit wonkier). Su.prby Stumble Upon real-time analytics1. Real time analytics showing how many people click through your links, how many came via StumbleUpon in particular and who the most prolific “reTweeters” have been. 2. Easy publishing to Twitter and Facebook, including the ability to schedule those links and messages to be pushed out at a particular time. 3. “Suggested posting time” metrics, based on historical data concerning when people are most likely to click through your links. 4. A handy bookmarklet that makes submission of links quick and easy. Good to build traffic Bit.ly- Sharing functionality. History Viewer. Advance Tools, side bar bookmarklet, developer tools. Good to build traffic Bit.ly has Google Spreadsheet template
Alysoun McLaughlin at COGEL said her agency, the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics tweeted about how long a wait for the lines at the elections. This is measureable. They took a problem, the long lines at the polls, turned it into an opportunity and then had feedback from people and received credit for their effort.Long lines at the polls, but had fewer complaints. Gave their Twitter followers up-to-the-minute information and immediate response.My only issue with it is that tracking sentiment on Twitter is problematic at best. Limited characters, nuanced conversation tone make it very difficult to nail down. If you're using a sophisticated text analytics platform, I'll jump on board. Otherwise, I'd be nervous...
Use Twitter itself to follow hashtag conversations that relate to your organization and its communications goals.Are you having an event? Follow the conversations surrounding the hashtags.Twitter Sentiment – can get you in the ballpark, but you can probably do a better job yourself at determining the senitment of tweets.
Macro – followers, your number of tweetsEngagement – Reach, Retweets, mentions, sentimentComposition – makeup of your followersReferrals – traffic to your blog or website, consumption of media
Did LinkedIn bring new talent as in a new hire to your organization?LinkedIn Analytics: Compares your pageviews to other companies in your industry.The LinkedIn analytics tab collects data on who is visiting your company profile, who is following your page as well as their industry, company and function (position). In addition, LinkedIn company analytics also tracks visitors to your careers tab, products and services tab, promotional banners and which visitors reach out to your employees.The Analytics tab provides data on visitors to your Company Page by industry, title, function and company, page views over time, clicks on jobs, messages sent to recruiters, clicks on employee Profiles, and clicks on job "Apply" buttons. This tab is not visible to members. The Analytics tab is only visible to Company Page administrators. When no administrator is assigned, the tab is visible to employees with a confirmed company email address and a current position at your company listed on their Profile. Export to ExcelLinkedIn Analytics – I haven’t found it. API: I’ve seen for-pay services use it
LinkedIn as a monitoring toolLinkedIn as a citizen engagement tool (We in business deal with customer service)Did LinkedIn bring traffic to your blog/website?If you’re looking to see if LinkedIn was a source – look at which landing pages on which they arrived. What was their time-on-site, bounce rate, navigation path. Did they make conversions?
Macro – your company network, members of your groups, visits to your pageEngagement – LinkedIn Answers, activity on GroupsComposition – Visitors’ industry, title, function and companyReferrals – traffic to your website, media conversions
Export to ExcelYouTube Insight - yesUnderstand how people discovered your video. See specifically which search terms on YouTube or Google led the user to your video, which related videos led to your discovery, or which websites embed your videos.See the age and gender of your audience. You can adjust time and geographical data to explore how your audience differs before, during, or after specific initiative or in specific regions.The "Hot Spot" feature tells you which parts of your video are hot and which are cold by looking at bounce and rewind rate to videos of a similar length. At any time point in the video, you can see if more or less viewers are dropping off than on average.Examine both an interactive graphical trend line and a heat map of where video views are coming from. You can adjust the period of time display and the continent, country, or even US state.Observe how many times viewers rate, favorite, or comment on your videos.
Macro – Views of videosEngagement – Rates, favorites and comments; sentiment analysis; “hot-spot” analysisComposition – gender, age, locationReferrals – traffic to your blog or website
Google Analytics has ability to export to Excel, PDF, CSV, TSV, XMLGoogle Analytics API
Toggle between PowerPoint and Google Analytics DashboardGive basic tour of Google AnalyticsCombining Metrics to reveal meaning.Google Panda slapdown
The trouble with visitors and unique visitors is we don’t really know. New vs. Returning – returning is an indicator of brand loyalty, new visitors (especially ones that come from organic searches) show good visibility, good SEO.
Which platforms are showing up?Is your site mobile optimized? What content is most visited by smart phones – especially good to measure against site average. Use two metrics – with time on site. Use second dimension of landing page.
Traffic Sources: *** Define direct, referring, and organic sourcesContent: Content by title, top landing and exit pages, In-page analyisis – shows you how the content is performingKeywords: Google Adwords Keyword Toolhttps://adwords.google.comLook to see how many people use a keyword term per month in Google organic search Google Webmaster Toolshttps://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=enLook to see what Google thinks are our keywords based on our text. Google Analytics:Keyword report (in left menu, under Traffic Sources)Look to see what people are actually typing into search engine to arrive at our website Google Search Engine:General organic search, Allintitle: searchLook to see how many search results come up – showing how many sites are optimized for the keyword.Categories of competitiveness
This one is often the forgotten step-child of the measurements.Following this metric can give you a peek into your visitor’s mind. What are they look for?If you further segment this information – check their navigation behavior: new vs. returning visitor, time-on-site, bounce rate, landing pages, exit pages, conversions, etc. You can get an idea whether they are finding what they need and are basically happy, or whether they are a frustrated visitor.
Report ability Excel Developer API Web and blogsGoogle Analytics yes yes TwitterContax.io yes Klout don’t see it Twitalyzer yes, for $4.99 per month Bit.ly Has Google Spreadsheet template FacebookFacebook Insights yes yes (for Facebook Platform developers) Developers can access the data using the Facebook Query Language (FQL) or through Facebook's Graph API. Metricly no yes LinkedInLinkedIn Analytics ? I’ve seen for-pay services use it YouTubeYouTube Insight yes Social Mention ? yes
Export to ExcelSocial Mention – I have not found it. API - yes
https://www.twentyfeet.comhas a free trial period, then starts at $2.49
Social Media Metrics & Measurement WorkshopKatie D. Painehttp://www.slideshare.net/sncr/social-media-metrics-measurement-workshop