Today I spoke with Nick Koudas of Sysomos who gave me an advanced look at Sysomos Map and Sysomos Heartbeat Social Media Monitoring tools (see my animated GIF below) GIF animations generator gifup.com Nick started by showing me Sysomos Map which is an analysis tool used to produce reports and insights (see image 1) and contrasted it to S ysomos HeartBeat (see image 2) , a real time search trend tool used to keep track of what is happening now. I got an appreciation on how Sysomos is somewhat different than the other Social Media Monitoring platforms I’ve worked with so far - 1. Data (historical back to 2002) is “ atomized” semantically allowing for more complex data visualizations, often, on the fly

Today I spoke with Nick Koudas of Sysomos who gave me an advanced look at Sysomos Map and Sysomos Heartbeat Social Media Monitoring tools (see my animated GIF below)

GIF animations generator gifup.com

Nick started by showing me Sysomos Map which is an analysis tool used to produce reports and insights (see image 1) and contrasted it to Sysomos HeartBeat (see image 2), a real time search trend tool used to keep track of what is happening now.

I got an appreciation on how Sysomos is somewhat different than the other Social Media Monitoring platforms I’ve worked with so far -

1. Data (historical back to 2002) is “atomized” semantically allowing for more complex data visualizations, often, on the fly.    One example is collection of Twitter followers for any influential Sysomos tracks in their system. Sysomos can show the number of unique viewers (de-duplication of Twitter Followers).   System Architecture makes complex analysis easier than what I have seen from Alterian or Radian6.

2. As a result of atomizing data and a better graphical representation than what I have seen elsewhere – Sysomos might be a better platform for certain types of analysis (ie: competitive analysis looks to be better here than anywhere else).

According to Nick Koudas, Sentiment Analysis may also be better than other platforms I’ve worked with.

87% accuracy in sentiment analysis of general text

91% accuracy in sentiment analysis of product reviews

85% accuracy in sentiment analysis of movies and celebrities

That’s not bad!   What I mean to say, at 87% Sentiment Analysis accuracy you an almost do what most people wanted to do with Social Media Monitoring platforms, in the first place, score sentiment of a large amount of information in an automated way, with a certain degree of confidence (that’s not possible to do with Alterian/Techrigy/SM2, Radian6 or any of the free tools out there – though it may/may not be true of Crimson Hexagon).

Influencer ranking and producing Influencer Lists, according to Nick, is fairly easy. Sysomos appears to focus much more on noise reduction – the approach is based on an idea that data full of “noise” is not worth analyzing. I have found that it’s typical to get many unrelated results in most profiles I’ve set up in platforms I’ve worked – by eliminating “noise” or unrelated information, the accuracy of information that’s left is heightened.

Sysomos has  more powerful contextual search capabilities than average – using the program interface you can control how close keywords in your profile need to be to each other to be contextually more relevant (see image below) and more complex queries can be constructed using AND, OF, NOT logical operators.

Besides identifying influencers, Sysomos can map influencers - the map can be added to in realtime and altered while the pages automatically refresh.

Because information is collected and stored atomically, extremely rich reporting can be done, including geo-demographic profiling, isolating influencers by city and state level with a high degree of confidence – this seems to be entirely missing from the capabilities of anything else I’ve worked with.  For example, I mentioned that Alterian and Radian6 are next to useless for geo-location queries, regardless of what the companies tell you and wrote about it in a post on finding local blogs and bloggers where I gave up on Alterian and Radian6 for hyper local searches as the platforms were not designed for it.   In the future, this may change as more geo-local data is transmitted (ie: using mobile devices with geo location turned on – we’re seeing this appear first with Twitter – but it will NOT end there)

While Radian6 and Alterian technically do have the same capabilities – for example

- drill down by location, age, sex, (Sysomos can also break down traffic by industry)

- identify languages (Sysomos can identify and translate back and forth between 55 languages and identify up to 186 languages)

I suspect, it’s not so much what Sysomos does, but the way in which it does it, where it’s strengths are.

The “BuzzGraph” looks similar to what some tools like Crimson Hexagon produce, though the style of the map is somewhat different – and the inclusion of Facebook and MySpace data (data that can be gotten from public  crawling of profiles where they can be found on Google, for example, is powerful, and features people are asking for, more and more.

To sum up this post on Sysomos – I was impressed with how much thought went into the data architecture and reporting capabilities of Sysomos.   It’s a powerful platform and an example of how fast the Social Media space is evolving.

I’m happy to say that Nick Koudas will be at Monitoring Social Media 09 in London and the Influence Scorecard gathering in New York during November – and I’m looking forward to that.

To read more about Monitoring Social Media 09 – check out these two posts

Looking forward to Monitoring Social Media 09 in London – Part 1 November 17th

Looking forward to Monitoring Social Media 09 in London – Part 2 – November 17th

To learn more about the Influence Scorecard – thisisbeta.influencescorecard.com/

Go here to see the original:
Sysomos Map and Heartbeat Social Media Monitoring

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I write some of my best posts when I’m tired and about to pass out from a long day of working and writing – since my post on Looking forward to Monitoring Social Media 09 in London – November 17th was re-tweeted several times, and I only covered half the sessions at Monitoring Social Media 09 next month in that post – now that I’m wide awake, after a long nights sleep, here’s the rest of the sessions I did not cover in the first post ( read Looking forward to Monitoring Social Media 09 in London – November 17th , first, then finish up reading this post ).

I write some of my best posts when I’m tired and about to pass out from a long day of working and writing – since my post on Looking forward to Monitoring Social Media 09 in London – November 17th was re-tweeted several times, and I only covered half the sessions at Monitoring Social Media 09 next month in that post – now that I’m wide awake, after a long nights sleep, here’s the rest of the sessions I did not cover in the first post (read Looking forward to Monitoring Social Media 09 in London – November 17th, first, then finish up reading this post).

In The Truth about Social Media Data – I’m expecting to hear “who” is collecting the data and  partnerships where the data is being resold or “white labeled” ….

The Truth About Social Media Data
Giles Palmer, Founder and Managing Director, Brandwatch
With leading brands increasingly turning to social media for insight, feedback and guidance, social media data is under the spotlight. Questions about it’s origins, accuracy and scope have the potential to undermine the whole monitoring industry. In this session Giles Palmer, who has successfully led more than a hundred organisations through the murky world of social media data, explains where it comes from, who controls it, how it is filtered and categorised, its inherent flaws and limitations, and how to avoid misreading the information you are presented with.

In fact, white labeling of monitoring platforms is happening and has been happening for a while – and it might be there are only a few companies pulling the data in the first place off the web.  I know that Alterian/Techrigy/SM2 is white labeling their platform (though I never saw an example of it) and I know Radian6 white labels CisionPoint (I’ve personally seen this) and some contact management platforms, and CRM platforms, like SalesForce, are using Radian6 as a “gigantic EAR” and wrote about it in a few posts at Webmetricsguru.com where Social Media and Web Analytics are going to be merging more and more (which hearkens back to my session on The Future of Social Media Monitoring panel, earlier in the day).

Here’s the posts addressing the merging of data that I see happening more and more New Developments in Search, Analytics and Social Media plus Radian6’s Web Analytics and Salesforce.com Intergration along the work with Tealium.com, which picks up which of your customers was exposed to the brand message when they land on your site.com.

But, I’m expecting Giles Palmer to come up with something more revealing on who is actually getting rich on this “data” about us - (similar to the rumor that the CIA founded Facebook to collect data on us – rumor)  and how our “identity might be  sold from Social Networks and end up somewhere else or used by someone else” – looking towards finding out something I don’t know, yet, like

” …. you’ll be alarmed at a new article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) that outlines how third parties are getting access to your personal information. Sites such as CareerBuilder.com are utilizing cookies from up to ten different tracking domains. These sites are using hard-to-delete cookies that remain on your computer system long after you’ve browsed the site.

Yeah, never liked CareerBuilder.com, but then, I used to work for Monster.com – so why would I? … and that’s what I’m hoping he’ll tell us, and what we can do about it.  Yes, I’m looking for conspiracy theories  in this session (after all, doesn’t the title of this session suggest that?) – lets see if Giles comes out and says that. We’ll see.

If Giles Palmer says what I hope he’ll say – and more – it’ll be worth the plane trip, hotel and conference admission price,  in London, even if I wasn’t speaking (but I am speaking).  I’m tired of going to Social Media conferences that just repeat what we already know, give me something new – Giles.  I bet he will.

In the next session, I’m expecting a Case Study – my guess is it’ll be  sufficiently detailed to glimmer at some truths we all need to apply with Social Media Community Building ….

The Power of Listening & Responding: Skype
Robin Grant, Managing Director, We Are Social
Robin will talk about how We Are Social helped Skype to set-up and run their own real-time social media listening and responding programme. He will provide insights into the tools and methodologies used and explain the impact social media monitoring had on Skype’s business. He will also describe how it helped them to manage a major crisis.

The key to this session is finding out what they did, specifically, and how it actually turned things around – I’m not expecting to find out anything that revolutionary here, but if I did, I’d be glad – if I found something about community building, reacting quickly, etc, that is generally not well known or understood, but could be ground breaking - I’ll just go on the record as saying – I’m not expecting that level of insight from this session, but if it happens, it’ll  an added bonus for being at #msm09 .

In Surviving in iPhone Territory - I hope Chris Thomas gets into the nitty gritty of what platforms he used (I’m thinking Crimson Hexagon – sorta suggested by the title – but maybe I’m wrong) and how hard it was to come up with the insights – how many hours did it take,  how many people worked on it – what kind of problems they came across when pulling the data – and what they learned about the HTC and how to launch it against the iPhone that they’d not know about unless they ran this study (in other words, Social Media ROI came out of it).

Surviving in iPhone Territory: A Competitive Analysis of the Launch of the HTC G1
Chris Thomas, Head of Research, The Conversation Group (TCG)
Chris Thomas presents the findings of a TCG research project covering the launch of the HTC G1 – the first smartphone to use the Google Android operating system. The project showcases the contribution of social media research to competitive intelligence, brand positioning and strategic communications. Covering a three month period around launch, and including almost 100,000 unique items of discussion content. The presentation offers lessons for the effective blending of quantitative and qualitative analysis methods, and evaluation of the relative contributions of a range of free and licensed monitoring and analysis tools.

So, Chris Thomas will probably be talking about the undertaking … the kind of stuff, blending of quantitative (web analytics data, for example) with the qualitative (questionnaire, sentiment data, tone, etc).   As you know, merging both sets of data is challenging – and I wrote a post about it a few weeks ago in A Social Media Scorecard based on Digital Footprint Index and a companion post On Measuring Social Media … thoughts and a Scorecard.

So far, Crimson Hexagon seems to have gone the farthest, of all the entrants in this Social Media Monitoring arena, with the potential implications and applications of merging qualitative with quantitative data, but they have yet to carry it out nearly as far as they could, or should, in my opinion.  It would be nice is someone from Crimson Hexagon was in the audience – or even, on a panel, but I don’t think they’re going be there – they should be.

Developing the idea of merging – what if Crimson Hexagon’s analysis of Obama’s HealthCare Speech last month to Congress, using Twitter accounts only,  captured not only the opinions about how people felt (qualitative data on sentiment and opinions- see below)

… but what if Crimson Hexagon also collected the Twitter accounts of each opinion along with the opinion mapping?  I know they have the data, they have a 75% to 80% accuracy, at this time, of mapping snippets to the actual opinion categories, and a 3% error rate in drawing out the percentages of each category – why couldn’t they take a stab at matching it up – or … we’d find out the match is pretty noisy …. maybe we’d contact half the people we could identify who said Obama’s speech was great and find out they don’t agree – or maybe we’d find out to what degree they did agree.  Maybe we’d approach the people who said Obama lied, see if that categorization is accurate.    We’d go to the next level or two with this data – because that’s what is logical to do.

Now, I’m familiar with STA Travel - I used to have a client who I did web analytics for that did Irish, Scottish and English vacations – STA is one of the biggest travel firms Europe, but getting travel agencies to use Social Media has been …. well, as fruitful as getting Architects to use it …. travel agencies have been, mildly stating it, un imaginative and not willing to take risk, at all, which is what Social Media, today, requires.

Getting Started with Social Media: STA Travel case study
Celia Pronto, Marketing Director, STA Travel
Most brands know they should get involved in social media, but where should you start? Hear from STA Travel how they moved from traditional marketing to placing social media at the heart of their business, including: Getting internal buy-in, How they developed their strategy, What measures they use to define success.

That’s why this session should be so interesting – think about it – there’s so many opportunities to get user generated content from people who take trips using travel packages – of using YouTube and other video data to augment views of a particular hotel, travel attraction, even a particular travel package that is still running – along with the TravelAdvisor reviews of hotels and restaurants that we’re already able to use for the last couple of years.

IN booking this trip to London next month, I used Expedia and got a good deal on a 4 star hotel and RT flight – because I read those reviews and looked at the pictures, and looked, and looked … in fact, I visited Expedia on at least 5 occasions to do research before I booked.   What do you think I got in email box a few days ago – contact with a personal team that will answer all my questions about London and a custom mini guide to London, sent to me as PDF – I didn’t get that two years ago when I was last in Paris for LeWeb07 and I booked my flight and hotel with Expedia.  Here’s Dave Sifry explaining it, himself (hint: maybe Dave Sifry ought to come to #msm09 and explain his custom travel guides in person)

Dave Sifry has been doing just that – custom Travel Guides – and testing it out at LeWeb 07, which I attended – though I didn’t come in contact with Dave Sifry there (but Scoble and Sifry had dinner – I wasn’t invited – ha, ha – and that was half the reason I went – to hang out – and go the Louvre, of course).  Maybe Dave sold his technology to Expedia – or maybe what he does is a much more customized version of what Expedia is now trying to do.

Maybe it’s not just for the publishing industry – but for the Travel Industry …Duh!

” … This could be a game changer for book publishing. A new company called Offbeat Guides produces personalized travel books based on your itinerary and travel details. It was founded by Dave Sifry, a serial entrepreneur (and friend) from San Francisco who previously led Technorati and LinuxCare. Dave has participated in our We Media conferences for many years. He’s steeped in knowledge and awareness of how the web is changing behavior and creating new opportunities to inform the planet. Here’s Dave’s blog post on the new business, which just opened for public beta, and more about personalized publishing from the company blog here.

I may add, the Travel data is pulled of the Web, in real time, and customized to you (maybe I’ll get one, just to compare with what Expedia gave me).  Ideally, Dave ought to just supply it to Expedia, STA, etc, for a fee – but that’s a creative use of Social Media – since some of this information might come from user reviews and insights – and I can see where it could be made even better by adding personality type matching with YourUniverse or something similar – I think YourUniverse – http://www.youniverse.com/ had a fascinating – I took a bunch of tests last year but then lost touch with it – but coupled with Sifry’s guide – it could be a very, very, powerful combination.

In fact, using http://www.youniverse.com/ with Travel Agencies Social Media could be a “Killer Application” if done well.  Just another one of my insights –  fortunately, YourUNIVERSE has done the bulk of the work - so messing this one up really will be in how the data is matched up with your itinerary – I suggest a partnership with them – they have the best network for personality testing with images – maybe the only one – best to build on it.

Travel agencies have clearly been late to the game, yet Travel Agencies, have the most to gain, in many ways, from Social Media – due to the wealth of content and the willingness to share it -  so I’ll be looking at what Celia Pronto says about the Social Media program STA put in place.  I’m expecting a very good case study here on the value of Social Media for STA, in terms of bookings, customer satisfaction, loyalty – Net Promoter Score, even – this is what I am hoping to hear.  It also would be nice to hear about how STA “enabled” customers to share their data with each other.

In Social Networking Data – I’m expecting Paul to talk about, and begin to summarize what has been discussed earlier in the day and pick up on the Crimson Hexagon example I gave above.

Social Networking Data – The Vital Ingredient for 360 Customer Understanding
Paul Alexander, CEO, Beyond Analysis
Social networks have the potential to provide companies with instant, reliable and valuable feedback – to help them reduce their reliance on expensive market research. But how useful is this new data source? Can “buzz” ever match the quality of traditionally researched data? And how far can casual online interactions be used to map transactional or behavioral shifts? In this session Paul Alexander demonstrates how several leading brands are approaching these questions and found answers to them.

The question becomes, how useful is this data if Sentiment Analysis is only 60% accurate and is often not even related to the Topic our using the Social Media Monitoring Platform to discover?   Since the data is so “unstructured” and “noisy” without significant work to clean the data and structure it – might the results be more of a detractor than not?

I think we’ve been there before, and I doubt this session will actually tell us something that new, but it would be good to hear about what measures are used for “Success” and get something actionable (i repeat, actionable) from this session about how we can sell social media to resistant stakeholders and clients that are still afraid to dip their toes into the pond.

In what appears to be the last session (unless the listings are not chronological) we get a discussion of free vs. paid tools

The Price of Knowledge: Free vs. Paid Monitoring Tools
Brad Little, Director, Industry Solutions Online, Nielsen
When choosing a social media monitoring tool, there are lots of questions to consider: why are there so many approaches and services? How are they different? What justifies the price variances? Can’t we get this for free? What is being measured? What resources should we invest? In this session Brad examines the differences between social media monitoring tools, how they work and what to consider when choosing a provider. He will aim to get beyond the sales hype and look under the bonnet to help you select the right solution for your company.

Personally, I would prefer to see this session and the Future of Social Media Monitoring (which I’m speaking on) switched in sequence.  Here’s why.

First, the issue of weather to use Google Alerts, HowSociable, BackType, TweetDeck, Freeninum version of Alterian/Techrigy/SM2, etc … vs. Cision, Radian6, Crimson Hexagon, Collective Intellect, etc, etc …. is one that every person faces in this field – it comes up over and over – and is best dealt with at the beginning of the day – where we can uncover pros and cons which we can then take to us to the following sessions.

Furthermore – the discussion of “free” vs. “paid” tools mirrors the same arguments going on in the Web Analytics arena - with Google Analytics, with it’s free, but powerful platform, pushing other vendors out of business since buying Urchin, or pushing the like Omniture, Coremetrics, WebTrends, into directions they’d not ordinarily want go in (such as the Omniture acquisition by Adobe last month and the matching up of Radian6 data with WebTrends – plus the SalesForce.com connection with listening platforms).

This week, at Emetrics Summit, Google is going to announce something new with Google Analytics - what if it was the acquisition of one of the Listening Platforms (like Radian6, for example) and it’s merging with Google Analytics data – which would be logical – would that not be a game changer?

I don’t know if that’s what Google is going to announce this time – but who has the most data in the world in one place?  Google. Who has the most to benefit from adding Listening Platforms into Analytics and Advertising … Google.

I predict, something like this will happen in the next year or two – and it will change the game – in a big way.  I can’t tell you it will happen next week – or next year – but it will happen.  Prepare for it.  Pro, it will help everyone but will hurt some of the big players.  That’s all I can say now – consider it an Intuitive, Prophetic Flash – one that seems logical, given where its all going.

Second, The Future of Social Media Monitoring – should be the last session of the day, because in many ways it’s forward facing and may be impacted by what was said in some of the other sessions – such as “The Truth about Social Media Data” (where are future is going to be data about us being “sold off” or not?) or the impact of new developments in listening technologies like Crimson Hexagon have in Public Relations (after all, several PR firms have been building on Social Media, of late, building Social Media into their campaign pitches – and the Monitoring and Measurement of Social Media, and I should know – because I’m personally involved with that at this moment).

I believe Monitoring Social Media 09 next month, in London, on November 17th, ought to be widely covered – and if your able to make it -  (anyone who wants to come to #MSM09 can get a 10% discount by using code MSM0910).

Hope to see any of my readers who are at the #MSM09 or a Tweet-up in London, that week – details will be following in a few weeks.

Go here to read the rest:
Looking forward to Monitoring Social Media 09 in London – Part 2 – November 17th

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Google is taking over more of what used to be an SEO Job – Reputation Management, according to a new post at the Google Webmaster blog titled Managing your reputation through search results : ” … Think twice before putting your personal information online . Remember that although something might be appropriate for the context in which you’re publishing it, search engines can make it very easy to find that information later, out of context, including by people who don’t normally visit the site where you originally posted it. Translation: don’t assume that just because your mom doesn’t read your blog, she’ll never see that post about the new tattoo you’re hiding from her.” “… Create a  Google profile

Google is taking over more of what used to be an SEO Job – Reputation Management, according to a new post at the Google Webmaster blog titled Managing your reputation through search results:

” … Think twice before putting your personal information online. Remember that although something might be appropriate for the context in which you’re publishing it, search engines can make it very easy to find that information later, out of context, including by people who don’t normally visit the site where you originally posted it. Translation: don’t assume that just because your mom doesn’t read your blog, she’ll never see that post about the new tattoo you’re hiding from her.”

“… Create a Google profile. When people search for your name, Google can display a link to your Google profile in our search results and people can click through to see whatever information you choose to publish in your profile.

• If a customer writes a negative review of your business, you could ask some of your other customers who are happy with your company to give a fuller picture of your business.
• If a blogger is publishing unflattering photos of you, take some pictures you prefer and publish them in a blog post or two.
• If a newspaper wrote an article about a court case that put you in a negative light, but which was subsequently ruled in your favor, you can ask them to update the article or publish a follow-up article about your exoneration. (This last one may seem far-fetched, but believe it or not, we’ve gotten multiple requests from people in this situation.)

The last example isn’t as far fetched as the Google blog post makes it out to be; it’s been known large newspapers like the New York Times, in an attempt to bolster their organic search traffic, search optimized much of their archived news stories, and in some cases, it had a noticeably bad effect on the reputation and finances of individuals who had old stories written about them (court cases that were later resolved in their favor) that were harmful to their reputation – getting that stuff taken down is a real headache, and often not easy to get at or accomplish.

Google’s advice falls in line with what we already do for many areas of our lives, such as our medical health, it asks us to be proactive and take responsibility for managing our own reputations by thinking about everything we write down on the web, first, anywhere.

The concept that elements of a webpage can be taken out of context by the search engine, I find, intriguing - though it’s quite evident that it’s true, not only for Search Engines, but for Social Media, as well.

In two cases this year, both on Facebook, I commented on what someone else wrote in a Facebook post,  and due to the way the original content was written (in the first person, yet without the author penning their name in the content) when I shared that story, it appeared that I authored the content.   It was quite amusing to me that Jeff Pulver created Soccom in NYC – as I shared it – people started to contact me and ask if I would include them in my conference……. which got me thinking that someday … maybe I ought to have a conference … if it’s as easy as that (except I’d have no way of paying for the setup, so I stay away from creating my own conferences, for now).

But what Google is saying about Reputation Management for Search AND Social Media also applies to the rest of life – because people create meaning in their own minds by taking elements of information surrounding them.  With the atomization of content and Twitter’s 140 character snippets of information – we are all now predisposed to collect snippets of information, just as Search Engines do (after all, it’s people who create Search Engines to emulate the way people process information, much as God created Man/her/its  in his own image   – and if we step back and realize what that means – and then turn it back, inside out – it looks like we can take whatever we see in life, and make it any color or meaning we want – which echos modern psychology, actually.

Information is out there – we put out information about us, others write about themselves and us too, and search engines, made in the image of it’s creators, us, assembles the information in ways that are programmed (by us) but in a much less sophisticated manor than we can – therefore, it’s easy for us to take what search engines present to use, out of context – because we’re now creating our own context and meaning.

My main thought about all of this – if everyone is telling us – be responsible for your own health, reputation, income, social life, etc – how come more and more people feel they can’t cope?  Especially with their Reputation – they can’t cope ……. why?  Easy ………. in every other area of life, you can talk to someone about your problem (i.e.: go to a doctor to talk about health – go to a financial advisor to talk about your finances, go to a lawyer to talk about a case for or against you) but when it’s your Reputation, delivered by Search Engines – who can you talk to at the Search Engines?  A web form?  A SEO person – probably, but they aren’t in control of Search Engines – the computer scientists who run Search Engines, they are the responsible ones, and they don’t want to talk to you or me, in most cases.

So, Google’s post on Managing your reputation through search results is good advice – but it also means it’s one more thing we have to do, manage our online profiles and crawl the web to figure out what stuff people are saying about us, so we can correct it.      Just as we do in other situations, we have to constantly generate good information about ourselves so the Search Engines and Social Networks pick that up -and augment our Reputation, proactively, wherever and whenever we can.

Welcome to the 21st century.   I’m almost tempted to think of that Social Media Guru movie I posted last week - at the end of it, the Social Media Guru says to the potential client …. you have to do everything yourself -since it’s Social Media – ha,ha.

Maybe, the same thing can be said for Search Engines – they want you (us) to do most of the work – they don’t want to manage your reputation for you – but in a way, they are – because, unless your proactive, what ever information people get on one another, is delivered, for the most part, by Search Engines and Social Media, and both may present snippets of information, leaving it up to each individual to make meaning of it.

See original here:
Google Reputation Strategy and Public Relations works for Search and Social Media

Popularity: 9% [?]

I have been working on this question for a few months, since I got interested in Word Clouds, and found they might be a crude, but effective way to show progress with Social Media Campaigns . Noticed Alterian/Techrigy/SM2 as an Advanced Theme tool could be effective is showing the changes in a campaign; I took a monthly snapshot of May – September 09 for  a profile of a small restaurant chain in NYC whose Social Media Program I’ve assisted with, mostly around metrics reporting.

I have been working on this question for a few months, since I got interested in Word Clouds, and found they might be a crude, but effective way to show progress with Social Media Campaigns.

Noticed Alterian/Techrigy/SM2 as an Advanced Theme tool could be effective is showing the changes in a campaign; I took a monthly snapshot of May – September 09 for  a profile of a small restaurant chain in NYC whose Social Media Program I’ve assisted with, mostly around metrics reporting.

The charting software could be improved – it could have additional colors (depending on predominant sentiment, for example) and overall, could have been done a lot smoother – but, as it is – the charts, which I animated, appear to show that success in a social media campaign may be seen with messages that get “clearer” and “more focused” vs. those that get more elements.

Here’s the frame for May 09  – see how “noisy” it is?

Now, look at September 09, two full months after a Social Media campaign has been running -

The larger globes mean more conversations around a specific topic – the closer the globes are, the closer the topics are related, according to Alterian.

I’m just wondering if Social Media is like Art – here’s what I mean …. in painting, it’s the clarity and focus of a message that makes it effective … might the same thing be true of Social Media?

That’s a deep thought and I’ll continue to think about it – and perhaps, talk to it in London, next Month at Monitoring Social Media 09 conference that I’ll be speaking at on November 17th.

Read more here: 
Showing Progress in Social Media Campaigns is an Art

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Thanks to a new research study from comScore, GroupM Search & M80 exploring how Social Media and Paid Search Interact we learn Social Media can improve Paid Search Performance for a brand by up to 300% (see the study, embedded below).

Thanks to a new research study from comScore, GroupM Search & M80 exploring how Social Media and Paid Search Interact we learn Social Media can improve Paid Search Performance for a brand by up to 300% (see the study, embedded below).
The Influenced: Social Media, Search and the Interplay of Consideration and Consumption

I’ve been thinking, for a while, Social Media isn’t just a marketing channel – it’s a mode of communications, perhaps part of all the other marketing channels, much like a co-enzyme Q 10, that helps cellular respiration by supporting the rest of the body’s metabolic processes.   In fact, when I was a Board Director at the Web Analytics Association, who founded the Social Media Committee, it became clear, after the first year of the committee’s existence – Social Media supports Research, Advocacy, Marketing, Communications – often making them all work better.

And that’s what the ComScore-GroupM study shows -

Studies like this are great – they seem to reinforce common sense – and give us an idea of what we might expect when leveraging Search and Social Media, together.  Common Sense – the more a touchpoint is “nurtured” and fed with information relevent to the search query (by Social Media – especially social media that’s about the brand or term being searched for) the more likely a searcher is going to click through to the search campaign’s landing page – almost 50% more likely – once exposed to Social Media.

And, the searcher who is exposed to Social Media is also more likely to stay online longer – as the chart above, shows (72 minutes with Paid Search Alone vs 170 minutes with Paid Search AND Influenced Social Media).  However, I want to point out time spent online isn’t necessarily time spent on the Brand’s site – plus this study comes from ComScore – which mainly uses Panel Data and extrapolates it to a much larger population, and therefore isn’t 100% accurate.

The so-called  “co-enzyme” effect of Social Media is further amplified in that Consumers using social media are 1.7 times more likely to search with the intention of making a list of brands or products to consider purchasing compared to the average Internet user.

One other thing I’m reminded of while writing this post – that typical Paid Search operates as “interruption” media just as most other advertising still does.  The other day, I stood waiting for a bus and someone approached me, wanting to give me leaflet – I wasn’t interested – while another person, nearby, accepted the leaflet.

Now, most of the time I don’t like people just coming up to me and asking for my attention – the lady next to me, took the leaflet offered, and immediately went over to the nearby garbage can, and threw it out.    How many times is that repeated – probably 99% of the time – which explains why a paid search ad is clicked on less than 1% of the time, on average – not to mention other forms of media that fare even worse.   It’s almost as if, we, having become so exposed to media and brand messages, have tuned out – and don’t want to be interrupted – but we still want to be marketed to – just not in the same way.

Taking it another level – we often get to learn more, lower our barriors in social activity – talking and relating to one another, or a brand we’re considering buying from – it seems to me, we can’t ignore that we need to have a conversation -but that conversation needs to be about something – something interesting to us.

So the The Influenced: Social Media, Search and the Interplay of Consideration and Consumption tells us that……. we need to think of Social Media, not as a channel, by itself, but the fabric which connects all the other things we do – and amplifies them.   By having this level of communication Brands will have to improve their offerings and find out what people want, and respond, creating relevant conversations, but not doing so – means, missing the boat – and perhaps, cutting your sales by 200 of what they could be … and if that’s not a strong example of Social Media ROI, I don’t know what is.

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Social Media improves Paid Search Performance by up to 300%

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