Gauravonomics Blog

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Stephen Baker at BusinessWeek has a great cover story on how social networking companies and marketers are using network and influence analysis to map social media consumer behavior and target ads to cluster of friends who share similar interests.

While research has shown that friends tend to behave similarly online, it has also raised lots of questions about the nature of online friendships. Most researchers now agree that all friendships networks aren’t the same.

Microsoft Research sociologist dana boyd explains the difference between personal, behavioral and articulated networks –

Facebook researcher Cameron Marlow differentiates between maintained relationships, one-way communications and two-way communications.

Duncan Watts from Yahoo! Research studies the structure and evolution of social networks, the origins and consequences of social influence, and the nature of distributed social search.

Apart from citing cutting edge network analysis research at Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo!, the article also features the work of network analysis firms such as 33Across and Rapleaf.

33Across’s SocialDNA platform maps the social characteristics of tens of millions of people to enable its clients to target users who are most likely to respond to their marketing campaigns.  Read More

Introduction: The Problem With Social Media Analytics

The 20:20 Social Media Analytics Blog aims to become your preferred resource on the best practices in social media monitoring and measurement, by cutting through the confusion on what to measure and how to measure it.

Let me assure you that there is much confusion to cut through in the area of social media analytics.

The discussion on social media analytics is dominated by three different narratives.

According to the first business-as-usual narrative, the metrics we measure on social media should be the same business metrics we measure otherwise. The metrics might include lead conversions for the Sales function, brand loyalty for the Marketing function and customer satisfaction for the Customer Support function. The decision on whether to invest in social media programs should be taken based on the relative effectiveness of these programs to achieve business objectives.

According to the second ad-value-equivalence narrative, buzz is the single most important metric to track on social media. The decision on whether to invest in social media programs should be taken based on whether the value of the buzz created by these programs is higher than the visibility generated by spending the same money on advertising.  Read More