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I have recently written about the WOMMA Guidebook on Measurement and Metrics for Word of Mouth Marketing (PDF) and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) guidelines on social media ad metrics (PDF).

The World Federation of Advertiser (WFA) also released a position paper on online audience measurement recently, which has some interesting overlaps with the other two documents.

The objective of the WFA position paper is to “help inform current and future efforts to advance online audience measurement by providing advertisers’ constructive input on this vital issue”. It uses the WFA Media Charter – an attempt by advertisers “to create and promote a framework and environment within which they can increase the effectiveness and efficiency of media as vehicles for marketing communication” — to identify what advertisers want from online metrics.

The WFA paper sees “online commercial communications” as a “component of a larger media mix”, most similar to direct marketing and online-database (CRM) communications. It sees the evolutionary messy nature of the internet as a challenge and its interactivity as an opportunity.  Read More

After the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) guidelines on social media ad metrics, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) has come out with a draft of its guidebook on measurement and metrics for word of mouth marketing (PDF).

The guidebook seeks to “offer a broad overview of the types of metrics available, key considerations for their use, and specific examples of their application.” WOMMA also cautions that “the guidebook is not intended to offer industry standards or a definitive statement on the one right way to measure word of mouth”.

The first draft of the guidebook looks at seven different types of metrics –

- Advocacy: Measures the intent and/ or behavior of making recommendations using approaches offline surveys or online network and content analysis.

- Conversation Share: Measures the volume and share of conversation using ongoing online buzz monitoring and offline syndicated research, and campaign specific custom research.

- Cost Per Conversion: Measures the cost of getting one person (prospect) to perform the desired action (purchase), after factoring in conversion value, conversion attribution and incremental conversions.

- Conversational Reach: Measures the cumulative penetration of a brand message within a given target audience through conversations, by using a multi-generational approach.  Read More

I have spent the morning comparing the results of two surveys of social media usage amongst Indian and international brands and some of the findings are fascinating.

The Deloitte/ SNCR/ Beeline Labs Tribalization of Business Study 2009 is based on responses from 430 international companies who have experimented with online communities.

The Exchange4Media/ Blogworks Indian Social Media Survey 2009 is based on responses from 267 Indian marketers, who may or may not have run social media programs.

Here are the highlights from the Tribalization of Business Study 2009 –

- The top five business objectives for online communities are: amplify word of mouth, increase customer loyalty, increase brand awareness, get market insight, generate new ideas, and improve customer support.

- The top five business measures to for online communities are: greater awareness, word of mouth, improved brand perception, buzz in mainstream media and blogosphere, and increased sales.

- The top five web analytics measures to for online communities are: number of active users, number of visitors, frequency of posts/ comments, number of registered users and number of repeat visitors.  Read More

The 20:20 Approach to Social Media Analytics is based on nuanced understanding of the multi-layered nature of social media.

We recognize that social media programs can operate at any of the four levels of Content, Collaboration, Community and Collective Intelligence, and each layer has a corresponding set of metrics, which need to be measured using a mix of onsite/ offsite web analytics, network/ influence analysis and semantic/ content analysis.

We also believe that social media analytics is at the core of all the five steps of a social media program: planning, listening, understanding, engaging and monitoring.

Step 1: Plan

- Start with shared understanding on strategic objectives.
- Identify metrics for each level in 4Cs Framework: Content, Collaboration, Community and Collective Intelligence.
- Select web analytics, network analysis and content analysis tools to measure identified metrics.

Step 2: Listen

- Set up keywords list and use tool(s) to crawl data.
- Use network analysis to identify relevant segments.
- Use machine content analysis to auto-tag data and identify related content clusters.
- Use human content analysis to deal with duplication, spam, slang, sarcasm and sentiment.

Step 3: Understand  Read More

Here’s a great presentation by Beth Harte on implementing and measuring public relationships –

Many of Beth’s views on social media measurement are informed by Katie Paine’s pioneering work on the subject.

Katie and I are part of a Society for New Communications Research/ Web Analytics Association committee that is working on best practices on social media analytics and I find myself agreeing with almost everything Katie says. In fact, the 20:20 Web Tech business model and the 20:20 Approach to Social Media Analytics are both very similar to what Katie does at KD Paine and Associates.

Do check out Katie’s PR Measurement blog, her Measurement Standard newsletter, and her book on Measuring Public Relationships. If you want to understand social media measurement, you can’t do much better then that.

Cross-posted at The 20:20 Social Media analytics Blog.

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

Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has recently released guidelines on social media ad metrics “in an effort to stimulate growth by making the reporting of metrics for agencies and advertisers across multiple media partners more consistent.”

We must say that we were somewhat disappointed with the document, as it gives a laundry list of metrics, categorized under the random headings of social media sites, blogs, and widgets and social apps, without any context on the interconnections between these metrics.

Part of the problem lies in IAB’s approach in looking at social media as an advertising channel (it has also released guidelines on social advertising best practices), which is a really limited view of social media. In effect, IAB seeks to apply existing advertising models to social media, instead of outlining new ways of thinking about social media analytics.

Another problem with the guidelines is that IAB doesn’t offer marketers any guidelines on how to measure these metrics, and how to make sense of them, contextualize them.

IAB’s understanding of influence is also rather limited as it equates it with reach. IAB, therefore, doesn’t really highlight the role of network analysis in social media measurement.  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

It’s my great pleasure to introduce the 20:20 Social Media Analytics Blog to you.

This 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.

The blog will not only showcase the unique 20:20 approach to social media analytics, but also curate the best thinking on social media analytics from around the world.

20:20 Web Tech is a social media analytics company based in India, serving international clients. We add value by adding a layer of human analysis on top of the technology. I had announced the launch of 20:20 Web Tech some time back.

You can read more about the company and the team behind it here and subscribe to the blog in a feed reader, or by email.

Cross-posted at the 20:20 Social Media Analytics Blog.

I have written before that one way to ensure that your predictions come true is to do yourself what you predicted others would do.

After saying for more than a year that social media outsourcing will be the next big business opportunity for India, and lead the third wave of Indian outsourcing, I’m setting up a business to exploit this opportunity.

I’m setting up a social media company called 20:20 Web Tech with Sunil Agarwal, the founder of 20:20 Media. We’ll be based in Delhi, but focus on providing social media analysis and brand monitoring services for international clients.

There are more than 50 social media analysis tools, but no tool is more than 50-60% accurate, due to the difficulties in decoding spam, slang, sarcasm and sentiment. We will add value by adding a layer of human intelligence on top of the technology, and increasing the accuracy of the results to as much as 90-95%. As we will be based in India, where manpower costs are really low, we’ll be able to do it at a really competitive cost.  Read More

Shiv Singh of Razorfish writes about its patent to measure social media influence –

The Incrementing Action Tag is thus able to identify (via a cookie and unique identifier and not through personally identifiable information) and track social media, identify how far removed (generation) cookies are from the original source of the social media, and identify key influencers (again no PII- see note above) of users of social media. In essence, this technology enables our agency to create a system that allows us to value and reach key influencers across the Internet, regardless of property.

Incrementing Action Tag sounds interesting but it’s very similar to the ForwardTrack tool used in Duncan Watts’s Big Seed Advertising method –

ForwardTrack is a new system created by Eyebeam R&D designed to promote on-line activism. The system tracks and maps the diffusion of email forwards, political calls-to-action, and online petitions. It can trace email forwards, map the impact of blogs, and facilitate web-based sign-ups and social networking.

Social media analytics is going to be an extremely exciting area in the next few years and it’s great to see intersting new ways of approaching it.

Quick Summary: Read about how we have moved from corporate communications to the communications marketplace and, therefore, need to measure share of credibility instead of share of voice.

I was recently tagged by Connie Bensen on the social media measurement meme started by Geoff Livingston.

I have uploaded my response to the meme in the form of a presentation.

My presentation answers the question of how to measure returns on social media through three key insights –

- We have moved from corporate communications to the communications marketplace.
- Credibility is the currency of the communications marketplace.
- Therefore we need to measure share of credibility instead of share of voice.

The meme has resulted in some excellent posts and I would strongly urge you to spend an evening reading them — Geoff Livingston, Kami Huyse, Connie Bensen (2), Clay Newton, David Jones, Beth Kanter, Valeria Maltoni, Peter Imbres, Kelli Matthews, Bill Sledzik and Greg Cangiolosi.

Instead of tagging five people, I’m sending out an open invite to all my readers this time — do pitch in with your own insights on measuring social media ROI.