Blog - Page 13 of 13 - BlitzMetrics

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.

Social posting during a crisis– experts react

April 16, 2013 By Dennis Yu Leave a Comment

Jason Miller of Marketo said that he turned off his social media channels when he heard about what happened in Boston yesterday.

Koka Sexton agrees, noting, that Sprout Social, a community management tool, even put an alert at the top of the screen about Boston.

Peter Shankman caught some flak by posting the following comment:

Would it be insensitive to continue marketing during a national disaster?

Clearly, some posts are inappropriate. One firm posted about downloading their ebook for some reading before Hurricane Sandy.

There were 26 shootings this week in Chicago. Should we not be posting because of that?

If you have to try to come up with something to say about it, you shouldn’t be posting about it.

Jason Miller of Marketo notes that there are people on the other end of the line, so consider where humanity and your marketing needs intersect.

Raw notes drawn live at Marketo Summit by Imagethink.net

April 12, 2013 By Dennis Yu Leave a Comment

Sent to us by Jason Miller, drawn by Imagethink.net

Here’s a neat look at how some of us take notes: Through very creative, thought-stream doodles; Kind of reminds you of being in school, doesn’t it?

These were done live during Dennis Yu and Brian Carter’s session at Marketo Summit by Imagethink.net. Those of you in Internet marketing know that pictures are easier to digest than just raw text, and this is definitely something that sticks out that you can show your whole team. What do you think? Will you employ this technique at your next conference?

7 Habits of a highly effective modern marketer

April 10, 2013 By Dennis Yu Leave a Comment

1. Hustle – All Day Everyday

Marketing has shifted its focus to new media (social media, blogs, online forums etc.), the entire world is on the internet, there is no such thing as a 9-5 anymore for a lot of marketers, and sleep is the cousin of death. In order to be a successful marketer, you have to realize that the second you shift your focus, is the same second your competitors gain an edge on you. Can’t stop, won’t stop!

2. Develop a reading list

The amount of content you can learn from the internet is endless. In the days of “headline tweets,” newsletter sign-ups out the wazoo, and a blogoshpere bigger than the one we live in, it’s hard to find time to read it all. Every sticky headline isn’t worth your time, so how can you sift through all the madness to get to the goodness? Stick to trusted resources, use your network, and your sixth sense. Here is part of my current reading list that I recommend to everyone:

Copyblogger – absolutely in love. These guys have put millions into research and execution on content marketing and delivery. They are full of articles from making sticky headlines and copy writing, to landing page strategy and email marketing.
Chris Brogan – learn from the master. His emails are super personal, high quality, and he is the king of quick responses if you send him an email (yes, he replies to each one). He even warns you when he sends you an email containing any form of “selly sell” copy – how cool is that?
QuickSprout – Neil Patel (founder of KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg) is an absolute genius, so of course his blog is out of this world. Some of the topics covered are marketing, blogging, social media, SEO, and more. Oh, and pay attention to the placement, appearance, and call to action on all his forms. As the founder of KISSmetrics, you know they’re optimized to the max!

3. Care about the customer
It’s honestly that simple. Just be genuine, authentic, and empathetic.As the great poet Maya Angelou once said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you do, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” But you know what? If you’ve made someone feel positive and important, but they ever manage to forget what you do, they will search high and low to track you down again. As Dennis Yu told me recently, “I’ve discovered that marketing is simply showing people you care about them and their needs. How remarkable is that?” Tweetable

4. Give a crap about design

While the best marketers out there may not necessarily know HTML5 or CSS3, they understand that having a clean, aesthetic design is not only important to brand/company image, but also conversion rates and user experience. Using more images rather than more text (sorry SEOs), streamlining the on-boarding/purchasing process, and NOT using Comic Sans can all lead to a better presence online. And remember, web design is always changing, and so are our tastes as consumers. Never stop A/B testing your opt-in forms and landing pages to be as effective as possible.

5. Nature vs nurture

If you’re a marketer, selling is often in your nature. But be careful – don’t push the sale, nurture it. What if I told you that intentionally not being sales-ish would drive you more business? When solving problems and publicly sharing your expertise become a core focus of your brand, people will come to you. Now, you’re spending no money at all on lead acquisition and your cost of acquired customer (CAC) is virtually nothing. Keep providing answers to questions your target market is asking, and they will keep coming.

6. Comment regularly in every group you are a part of

Please don’t confuse this with me saying, “post a link to your blog in every group you are a part of.” Everyone wants to be a producer of content not a consumer. Be the consumer and watch what happens. You’ve probably heard about the huge opportunity with LinkedIn Groups, Google Communities and Quora. Without wasting money on some spammy “$97 to Learn Everything About Anything” course, I’ll let you in on a little secret for how to use these groups to your advantage… In my experience of joining, leaving and blasting blog posts through these groups, I learned one primary lesson – no one listens to random people who post links in groups! And they shouldn’t either.

Separate yourself by making it your mission to be the one who actually provides constructive feedback to those posts, and you will become a thought leader in that particular group/niche. Eventually, people will be looking for you to get the questions answered. Skim articles (time is money, right?) and voice your opinion.

7. Know Yourself

At the end of the day, never forget to take care of yourself – the big cheese, numero uno. Did you know dehydration is a leading cause of depression? So, make sure to stay hydrated. Find something that keeps you happy. The marketing space is fun, fresh and always evolving – you should be too. Go outside and play; get some fresh air. Not only will your waistline appreciate a break from the computer chair, your mind will too. If you devote your thoughts 100% to marketing, you will go utterly insane. So take a break, get a cup of coffee or tea, and come back with a new perspective (I’m currently drinking some Passion Fruit & Papaya Black Tea, and it is amazing)!

Your Turn

What do you think – will these habits help you be a better marketer? Are there any that you currently do or want to start doing? Let me know in the comments below, or tweet at me!

David A. George is the Chief Content Creator at Heyo. He’s passionate about marketing, Android, being at the beach, and breathing underwater. He’d love to connect with you on Twitter or Google+. Or email Him at dgeorge(at)heyo.com