Blog - Page 13 of 14 - BlitzMetrics

13 shocking things the NSA discovered from mining social data

June 27, 2013 By Dennis Yu Leave a Comment

With all of the talk of NSA and Prism lately, one has to wonder what exactly they discovered when mining your social data. Don’t ask us how we got this, but here’s what leaked:

1. The security of the nation’s tacos are at stake…

2. As is our precious mashed potato supply…

3. That we’re all bad drivers…

4. And after we crash, It’s a perfect time for a photo…

5. They shouldn’t bother investigating, we’ll admit to our crimes on our walls…

6. People have some strange dreams…

7. Autocorrect continues to create awkward situations…

8. Our fashion sense is cutting edge…

9. Dennis Yu knows where to get the best chicken wings ever…

10. Before most of us were internet rock stars, we liked to rock out in real life- like Paul Dunay from Maxymiser did in his TERRAPIN days…

11. Or that you should run for the hills, Jason Miller of Marketo is a metal fan.

12. That Heather Dopson of Infusionsoft’s dog is unimpressed by the moon…

13. That Matt Prater, Mari Smith Dennis Yu, Nathan Latka, Heather Dopson and Christina Kehoe need to be watched in some way… They’re definitely up to something!

So watch out, everyone! Your secrets are out! But it’s not like they can just read your wall or blog and figure these things out, anyways…

Social Media Analytics is not a software or technical problem

June 24, 2013 By Dennis Yu Leave a Comment

In the world of big data, vendors think the problem is about storage and processing.
So they write articles like this about the need for

If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Big data means big waste…. unless you have mapped the business goal back to the data elements needed to make a decision.

If you don’t know what problem you’re solving, does it really help you to collecting more data, then collecting it real-time?

The easiest way to spot a looming big data failure is when the IT executive is talking mainly about infrastructure. Cloud-related discussions in the marketing department are usually a dead giveaway.

If you’re a fresh IT or stats grad looking for a job, focus not on data mining techniques, but on your communication skills. Because how you define the problem is more important than how you solve it. Here’s how:

Assuming you have the basics that come with your degree, learning more tools (not even BlitzMetrics) shouldn’t be a priority. Most businesses don’t have viable goals for social media. They may want fans and engagement, but don’t know how to measure the cross-channel impact or ROI.

They need a strategy. And you need to be consultative– to tackle tough questions.

THE RISE OF THE MARKETING ENGINEER

Yes, the engineer must think like a marketer.
And the marketer must be able to comfortable looking at data sets.

Otherwise:

Your marketing department will just crank out a bunch of blue pens with your logo on them.
The IT department unionizes who hides behind his ticketing system so he can play video games all day.
Your SEO and social media consultants repackage PowerPoints sometimes forgetting to replace another client’s name with yours.

And then you have more data, tools, consultants, and cost to manage. But with what business impact made?

NIBBLED TO DEATH BY DUCKS

The analytics team for the longest time has been relegated to corporate report-making monkeys. I know, since I was one of them for a dozen years.

That monthly report soon becomes a weekly report, then a daily report. And soon your time is tied up grabbing a number here or making a chart there.

But to prevent this explosion of report-making nonsense, you have to be strategic. Go beyond the face value of the reporting request. Get to the heart of what your business partner or client is really asking for. Hint: most of the time, they don’t know, so you have to be consultative (have suggested answers in advance).

For example, a request to know how many conversions are coming from social seems innocuous enough. You can look in your Omniture or Google Analytics to see how many referrals from Facebook resulted in a last click conversion.

REFRAME THE QUESTION

But what the VP of marketing is really asking is what is the impact of social and what specific actions can we take to optimize for more?

If you give her exactly and literally what she asked for (which you should the first time), then you’ll end up making all variations of reports with different colored pie charts broken out by different products and time periods. There is no escape from the green slime pit.

But provide insight into how many conversions had at least one social touch along the way or how a Facebook impression (even without a click) increased email open/click rates, and you have a more powerful conversation.

All of a sudden, you’re the trusted business advisor making recommendations that help her increase net margins, as opposed to the report maker asking for money to buy the latest whiz-bang tools.

SO, ARE YOU A REPORT MONKEY?

If you’re not sure, then watch this:

If that doesn’t make sense, then you probably are. Reading this should help.

So decide what level of the business you’d like to play in. Do you want to make a strategic impact on the business by analyzing data or do you want to be a report monkey? Eventually it will drive you bananas.

Facebook can predict if you’re gay and like ice cream

June 4, 2013 By Dennis Yu Leave a Comment

Networked Insights saw declining mentions of iPhones by teens as a signal for Apple’s depressed earnings forecast

What women most want is ice cream, while men want cars says social analytics firm NetBase.

Facebook can predict if you’re gay or exactly where you’ll be in one year from now within 50 meters with high accuracy (Hey, do you like Spongebob and work out on Wednesday mornings at the gym)?

Moneyball for social media? Not so fast.

After all, it sounds reasonable:

Grab all the mentions of a company across all social channels, categorize the sentiment using the latest LSA techniques– then correlate to their stock price.

Predict how your posts will do or even suggest content tweaks based on what will happen in the future. React to tomorrow’s news today, proclaims one social startup.

BUT REALITY IS MUCH LESS SEXY

A liquor company wants to know if they run Facebook ads, what the impact will be on incremental sales.
An entertainment company with the most popular TV shows wants to measure whether social engagement drives more TV tune-in, which yields more ad dollars.
A B2B marketing company wants to drive not just leads, but sales-qualified opportunities via Facebook.

Of these three cases, which do you believe has actually measured social ROI with hard dollars?

If you guessed the last one, you’re right. It’s Marketo and they’ve traced revenue all the way back.

But the entertainment company can’t definitively tell yet. Nielsen has a product called Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) that will show unique and total reach across different demos, broken out by digital vs TV. They’ll show efficiency in reaching your target– even performance by Facebook ad campaign (if you spend at least $100k a month).

Their Watch Effect product certainly measures correlations between activity in social and TV, and may start to demonstrate incremental lift within segments that we define.

The CPG company wants to know not just increased awareness of the product (it’s already well-known in the target market), but how much incremental trial comes from stronger promotion on Facebook against the right audiences.

There is the DataLogix and Facebook partnership where point of sale data is tied back to actual Facebook users. Where the audience is big enough, it shows correlation, but not causation.

The new partner category targets allow you to segment your existing audience by loyalty card and other POS/retail data.

BUT HERE’S THE BILLION DOLLAR QUESTION

What’s truly driving incremental sales?

Correlation is not causation:

We know that a popular TV show will drive more social activity– so these will trend together.
We know that your existing real-world customers are more likely to become fans– so we can’t say that a fan is worth X% more than non-fans. Yes, you’ll still see a ton of “research” on this.
And there are still plenty of folks trying to buy fans and grow engagement, often with puzzling results.

But you and I know that if anyone can truly answer this ROI question, they control how all marketing budgets flow. If you can demonstrate clear profits– that you can put in one dollar and get back 20 dollars– who wouldn’t go all-in?

WHAT THE FUTURE REALLY HOLDS

It’s not about predicting the future– that’s a gimmick for news coverage.

It’s about measuring the hidden impact of social on ROI in other channels. Yes, the ROI of social doesn’t happen in social:

When you build you presence on Facebook or wherever, you have greater awareness, which increase the CTR on your Google ads. The higher CTR, in turn, drives more brand searches (for your name) and increases your account’s Quality Score (influencing what you pay per click). Have you ever thought about what caused people to search for your company name on Google?
When you run a custom audience on Facebook (uploading your email addresses like so), some people will click on the Facebook message, but more importantly, your email open and click rates will increase for folks who saw your message on Facebook. Do you know how to measure this? It’s easy.
When you run Facebook ads targeting people by job title or even to get your messages into the newsfeed (60 minute tutorial here), people see it, but might not click on anything. You see a picture of ribeye steak from Texas Roadhouse in your newsfeed on your iphone, then decide to pull into the restaurant as you drive by. No last click, coupon, or trackable link to your sale.

The real meat of social ROI comes from tying together all your data sources and tracking back to revenue events.

So if you can’t measure the ROI, even via indirect lift testing, then it doesn’t exist in our book. But at the same time, you might actually be hitting a home run in social, but don’t notice it, because you’re not measuring the impact in your other channels.

Some stuff just isn’t measurable yet or ever will be (although the NSA may beg to differ), but shouldn’t you at least be collecting unified reports across all your marketing channels to get full credit for your efforts?

Self-serving company announces 250% annual growth and industry accolades

May 4, 2013 By Dennis Yu Leave a Comment

So, Peter, what’s happening?

At OmniSocial Incorporated, the self-proclaimed industry leader in social media marketing, we recorded 250% annual growth and expanded our Seattle office by precisely 14.2%. “We’re extremely proud of our growth this quarter,” our CEO, William Lumbergh, told Forbes early this afternoon.

That 14.2% translates to a single new hire, making our total headcount 8 employees. 7 of them are in sales and the 8^th is in PR. With growth this spectacular, we expect to be valued at over a billion dollars very soon. When you double a portion of rice every day for 30 days, you get a lot of rice. When you double your revenue like our company does every 30 minutes, you become a Fortune 50 sensation on the cover of Time, and nobody at your 20-year high school reunion calls you a failure.

Even if you didn’t go to prom.

Pictured: Not you, loser. That’s me in the middle; everyone was my date.

But that hasn’t stopped the biggest names in venture capital from funding our business. It hasn’t stopped us from paying a silly – so very silly – sum of money to distribute this press release everywhere from Palo Alto to Westeros. After all, it’s not like we can generate this kind of buzz through word of mouth. And, hey, press releases make investors happy like opiates make Lou Reed write songs. It’s not our money.

9 out of 10 non-beheaded Sean Beans agree - We're awesome!

9 out of 10 Sean Beans agree – we’re awesome! The 10th lost his head for treason; I’m sure you can see why.

Still, it is very important that you believe we are big and successful, because we only have 200 active users on Facebook. Actually, make that 192; our social intern just argued with a customer on our wall. But we can proudly say that 7 of the top 10 brands on Facebook have used us. Which ones? The big ones of course. And, we lost them all.

What you can be sure of, though, is that our cold-callers are more aggressive than the cast of Jersey Shore. Oh, they’ll wake you up in the middle of the night. They’ll do it until you convert. We all have to make our numbers, right?!

And, please, allow us to scan your badge at the trade show. We need all the leads we can get. Also, didn’t anyone tell you the morning keynote was moved to our booth in the exhibit hall? Well, it was, and you better not miss it. You’ll also notice that the evening cocktail reception is only available to attendees who signed up for our free trial. The liquor is all top shelf, so I strongly recommend you give us a try.

After all, we currently deliver no fewer than 5 widgets in our TPS reports. It’s a much cleaner reporting experience. And in our next release? We’ll have 6 earthshattering widgets in every last one. We won’t forget the cover sheets, either.

Yes, I got the memo.

That’s right; 6 widgets. Can’t be done? Say that to my face. We’ll have pie charts in every variety – from apple to boysenberry – and our offshore team told us (in broken English) that our reports are built with HTML5, use responsive design, have a lot of big data and open graphs, and are WTF compatible. The last one’s important. Haven’t heard of it? It’s proprietary- Don’t ask about it. Forget I ever mentioned it.

Does all of this bold text make us more sound more official? Good! Have some more!

Using our advanced real-time technologies, we’ll measure the value of your social presence. Last year, we said Facebook fans were worth $123. This year, they’re worth $174. Don’t ask to see our math; we didn’t show our work. Just trust us, OK? We’re experts.

Pictured: Our expert. We pay him 100k / hour. That's how good he is, and why you should trust us.

Pictured: Our expert. We pay him 100k / hour. That’s how good he is, and that’s why you should trust us. See, it even says EXPERT with an arrow pointing at him, so you know it’s official.

Just know that if you use our platform, you’re instantly worth 41% more, even if you don’t have any fan growth, revenue spikes, or real business metrics to show for it. Forget about Web 1.0 metrics. We’re in Web 5.0, son. It’s all about reach, impressions, +1’s, and other stuff with vague business value.

But our beautiful real-time charts, optimized for your iPad viewing pleasure, will distract your bosses long enough for you to get a promotion and speak at industry conferences. You’ll meet other people like yourself, and you can reaffirm one another. You’re just fine! You’re just fine, too!

Don’t worry, no analytics vendors were harmed in the production of this press release … We promise to release them later!*

*promise not guaranteed.

Adobe Social predicts the future with Social Predictive Publishing

May 2, 2013 By Dennis Yu 2 Comments

Marty McFly has a silver DeLorean that can go 88 miles per hour.

And Adobe announced predictive publishing on Facebook. Integrated into the Adobe Social publishing tool, it will increase your newsfeed exposure by:

Suggesting when to post.
Identifying low-ranking words to replace, including synonyms to use.
Predicting how many likes, comments, and shares you’ll get.
Show you historical posts with similar engagement.
Warn you when you have proximity to another post, so you can space out your content.
Take into account time zones.
Allowing you to manage your content from your phone, iPad, and desktop.

Adobe’s text mining algorithm drives these suggestions based on historical data. So if you have a new page, there’s not much data to go on. It also isn’t able to take into account current events. So if your community manager were to post something about Boston last week, the alogorithm isn’t aware enough to make recommendations. The paid integration with Adobe Audience Manager is coming.

However, Lawrence Mak, product manager at Adobe Social, says that they’re going to include other data types in the future. Certainly, it would make sense to time your social content with when people are visiting your website, wouldn’t it?

Predictive analytics will boost your newsfeed exposure

Because Facebook takes into account your historical post performance, you can use social predictive publishing to build up momentum on your page. As more people are liking, commenting, and sharing, your posts will live longer in the newsfeed. This gives you an increasingly wider window of engagement. If you post something that doesn’t get engagement, it falls off the bottom of the newsfeed quickly.

So this new feature will get you more mileage out of your content– especially in the new newsfeed, which is increasingly competitive.

Great Scott! 1.22 gigawatts

There are a number of other tools in the market that promise to predict the future, but fall short on specifics. Adobe Analytics (formerly Omniture) has the street cred to probably pull this off. Adobe is integrating the former Context Optional toolset, which came from the Efficient Frontier acquisition. So they have an already strong feature set to build upon.

It’s in beta now, but will be included in this summer’s Adobe 3.0 release. It’s baked into Adobe Social, so no extra charge for these features.

Why ROR is becoming more important than ROI

May 1, 2013 By Chris Riegger 1 Comment

“A Brand is what a business does, a Reputation is what people Remember.”
Ted Rubin, author Return on Relationship

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard the question – “what is our ROI on that?” – in relation to social media.

With the introduction of social media platforms, businesses have long struggled to figure out what their ROI is from the money spent on time, thought, energy, new employees, etc. put into social media.

Of course that’s an important metric to track from a strategic management perspective – but here’s the typical problem: it’s all about the money!

And that’s not always the most important thing…

ROR, or “return-on-relationship,” is what you should really be paying attention to.

[Read more…]

Why our software is AWFUL

April 27, 2013 By Dennis Yu 1 Comment

Somebody told me this afternoon that he saw no value in our social analytics tool.
And you know what? I completely agreed.

We messed up because we didn’t care to ask him what his goals were. So the fact that we have a couple hundred metrics across Facebook, twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and other sources– it meant nothing to him.

We could have continued to parade every variety of bar chart and pie chart in whatever color, sliced by date, his own page, his competitors’ pages, whatever.

It would be a meaningless exercise.

You see, people buy solutions to their problems, not software per se.

I happen to own about 2,500 books. It’s not because I love books– it’s that I am interested in learning about a variety of subjects.

You buy a hammer and nail because you’re trying to solve a problem, not because you like nails.

So when you’re building software, demoing your services, or trying to get a customer to use your product, always consider their goals, not yours.

And that’s why our software sucks.
It’s an enhanced map to help you get where you want to go.
But if you don’t know where you want to go, any direction is as good as any other.

DON’T BE A TOOL
For the rest of us, there is no substitute for thinking.
Don’t worry, the machines aren’t about to replace us any time soon.