Monday, August 31, 2009

Pre- Industrial Revolution Communication

Whether it’s crowdsourcing, user generated content, community building, or “collaborative competition” there’s a movement going on here. It seems we’re evolving in a sense, but at the same time reverting back to before the Industrial Revolution when we didn’t depend on “the firm” to spoon feed us our news, our products, our thinking. This evolution can be seen in the many ways we’re “thinking outside of the box” (oh, the irony of using corporate-speak) to innovate and change the way we communicate and do business. The reason we change is because there’s something more to be desired from what we’re getting now. What is it that we want that is driving this movement?

Passion and Spirit. In Touch, Real People. Authenticity. Transparency. Innovation.

In Crowdsourcing, Jeff Howe describes how Jack Hughes came up with the idea for TopCoder:

“He started it because he had a bone to pick with the software industry. “It’s soft,” he says. “Software development has this reputation that nothing ever comes in on time, that it’s always over budget and that it’s always full of bugs. There’s a reason for that: it’s true.” Hughes wanted to inject the field with some of the discipline and quality control more common in the manufacturing of traditional, tangible goods. During downtime at Tallan his programmers had competed against one another in informal contests. Hughes had noticed that the resulting code was better than what he was paying them to write. Why not make them compete against on another all the time?”

Hughes has built a community of developers that create innovative solutions with better code in terms of quality and time, but why? Because there’s passion and spirit behind the work that’s brought out by the competitive environment, the freedom and autonomy, and the desire to contribute their talent.

People are turning to hyperlocal blogs (WestSeattleBlog.com, CapitolHillSeattle.com, MyBallard.com) to get their community and neighborhood news versus relying on their local newspapers for this information. The audiences of sites like these continue to grow across the country because of the people “behind the scenes.” The audience connects with the writers because the writers are their neighbors. They can relate. They are more in touch with the community than “the firm” who is only “in touch” with the community when the bigger news stories hit. The stories coming from the hyperlocal blogs are more authentic because the people writing and reading them are connected, there’s a conversation happening allowing for transparency.

Another example of audiences relating to “real people” is The Sartorialist blog, but this time with an eye on fashion. When I worked in the fashion industry (15 years), I always felt that there was a disconnect between what I was selling in the showroom and what I was seeing real people (really cool people) wearing in real life.” Scott Schuman photographs real people on the street that he deems “stylish.” This form of fashion magazine is a real turn from the models with stylists and personal shoppers we see in Vogue and InStyle. These are people that got out of bed and dressed themselves. Not only does he show the authentic style, he has created a community around fashion by “articulating his point of view.”

Zooppa really epitomizes all that’s driving this movement by creating a community of passionate people producing truly innovative media that tells the story of each brand through the authentic perceptions of the audience. There’s no formula; there’s no corporate messaging; there’s no spin; it’s real people making real stories for each client.

Although we could go on and on describing the many ways people are using community building, user generated content, and crowdsourcing to create a new product, a new community, a new business model, etc. one thing is clear, we are thirsty (better yet, parched) for something more than force fed, corporate fluff.

So maybe it’s time for “the firm” whether it’s a software firm, media firm or a PR firm to take heed and listen a little to the crowd instead of continuing to be bureaucratic cogs, spinmasters, handlers of diva execs and start becoming a part of the community, joining the conversation, listening and interacting to produce products that we want, transparent and authentic messages, and innovation that moves us out of the Industrial Revolution firm mindset and into the new counterculture.

Monday, August 24, 2009

I'm now Google Analytics Qualified!





Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Quick Start Guide to Online Analytics

The tide is starting to shift from the days of “Mad Men” to the days of Madison Avenue meets Wall Street. We’re seeing more reliance on data when it comes to advertising, marketing, and communications. We have more and more tools at our disposal to help us with the metrics, whether they’re free like, Google Manager, Ad Sense, Analytics or whether you pay for them like, Omniture, WebTrends, Radian6, and Coremetrics. We now have so many ways to track and measure that we get lost in the numbers, ROI, CTR, CPM, CPC, CPO, ROAS, Bonjour, Adios, Guten-Tag, Buongiorno,… what? I got lost, what language are we speaking? Big corporations and small businesses alike need to show ROI, but with so many things to track your ability to do so can quickly turn into garbage in, garbage out.

Another challenge is analysis paralysis. Where to even start? Whether you’re a big company or a small company, there are two things you need to do immediately….1) think about how to match your goals with your metrics, ok stop thinking…. 2) start doing. Once you’ve thought through your goals and determined metrics to match the goals, then get out there, you can tweak the report later, but do something!

The important thing is to have solid goals and to be able to show metrics that tie back to those goals. The experience of presenting to the execs will be much more positive if you can correlate goals with numbers than if you dump a whole bunch of numbers and data in their laps without any meaning. The data, numbers, and algorithms might make you look like you can do differential equations in your sleep, but if you can’t tie the metrics back to the goals and explain it, you’re report is worth the paper it was printed on.

Like with most marcom plans, you start with determining your goals and defining your audience. Once this is thought through, consider which metrics match each goal. You need to define what success looks like, your metrics need to be able to tell you if you’re hitting that mark. When it comes to metrics you want to be able to see the overall picture; therefore, you need to know the what, the why, the where, and the how. In other words you need quantitative, qualitative, listening, and engagement metrics. You can’t rely only on clickstream data (page views, unique visitors, visits). Relying on clicks data won’t give you the full insight. By choosing metrics that measure quantitative aspects, you begin to see what your customers click on. By choosing metrics that measure qualitative aspects, you begin to see why your customers do what they do on your site. By choosing metrics that measure listening aspects, you begin to see where your customers are talking and where your reach is actually reaching. By choosing metrics that measure engagement aspects, you begin to see how you are joining the conversation. Each type of the four metrics described then feeds into your outcomes metrics (the so what? Metrics), and this is the Holy Grail. This is what your execs drool about. Outcome metrics consist of conversion rates, ROI, revenue….bottom line, which in turn equals money. (In the Quick Start Guide below, example metrics for each type are listed, this is not by any means an extensive list, just a sampling.)

Next, choose which media channels best suits your goals, but strongly consider what vehicles your audience uses currently and what tools that they are willing to try out. Most people want to jump to the vehicle selection because it’s the sexiest, from Facebook to Twitter to Wetpaint and it just keeps going. But if you don’t consider your audience and “where” they are or what they’re willing to try, you could find yourself using a tool all by yourself with the crickets chirping. If you have an audience that happens to still be using the mimeograph copier and you’d like to try to gently “push” them into the 21st century, try the crawl, walk, run approach before jumping head first.

When it comes to choosing your web analytics tool, Stop! Instead of going out there and buying some whiz-bang-boom product that is going to cost you an arm and a leg, start with Google Analytics. Get a feel for what you need and what your reports should look like. Understand the data. Then once you have gotten the basics down and have started producing reports that show numbers that you can tie back to your goals, if you still need more data then consider buying a more robust, customized tool. You may find out that a free tool gives you exactly what you need.

So now you have your metrics lined up with your goals and strategy, your final deliverable is your story. Yes, story. You need to understand what your data is telling you, and better yet, you need to be able to put it into words that a group of execs are going to understand. People relate better to stories, so if you can tell a story with your data, if you can explain it in terms that people can understand then you’ve accomplished two things 1) it means you, yourself, understand the numbers and they aren’t just numbers that were spit out by the tool 2) you’ve taught the execs a little about online analytics, why they are important, and how they are helping the company and the bottom line.

Finally, rinse and repeat. Or it’s more like, rinse, tweak, and repeat. As your numbers tell you the story, review and revise your goals, as needed. As you revamp your goals, don’t forget to continue to revisit your metrics!

Below is a Quick Start Guide to get you going…

Quick Start Guide to Online Analytics

· Determine Your Goals

o What does success look like?

o Are you trying to build a community?

o Are you trying to convert?

o Are you selling a product?

o Are you creating buzz?

o Are you wanting more readership?

o Are you selling more advertising on your site?

· Determine Your Audience

o Who are your customers?

o What is their motivation?

· What Metrics Measure Your Goals (you need to answer the What, Why, Where, and How questions)

o Quantitative (the what)

· ClickStream

· Site Overlays/Heatmaps

· Bounce Rate

· Referring URLs

· Keywords

o Qualitative (the why)

· Customer Satisfaction

· A/B Testing

· Surveys

· Usability Testing

o Listening (the where)

· Sentiment type

· Positive and negative attitudes consumers express

· Demographic

· Location, gender, age

· Competitive analysis

· Share of voice

· Crisis management

· Conversation volume

· Topic frequency

· Campaign Analysis

· Level of influence (# blog comments, # Twitter followers)

· Message reach (# of sources covering topics and # potential page views)

· Virality (# of different entries around same topic within time period)

· Conversation buzz: (# of responses to blog posts)

o Engagement (the how)

· Adoption

· Bookmarking

· Tagging

· Collaborative Filtering

· Rating

· Voting

· Commenting

· Content Creation

· Uploading

· Blogging

o Outcomes (so what?)

· Orders/leads

· Revenue

· Conversation rates

· Problem resolution

· Disruption

· What Media Vehicles Are you Using

o Choose your vehicles that your audience uses.

· What Web Analytic Tools

o Start with a free tool to get perspective and insight.

o Tune and tweak.

o When you are more familiar, if you feel you need a more robust tool pick one that serves your needs.

o If you don’t need all the bells and whistles, there’s no need to spend the money on tools that aren’t providing you the numbers to meet your needs and tell your story.

· Let the Numbers Tell the Story

o Fully understand what the numbers are telling you

o Use the data to teach through storytelling

· Rinse and Repeat

o Actually rinse, tweak, and repeat


References

(n.d.). Retrieved from Engagementdb: http://www.engagementdb.com/

Clifford, S. (2009, May 31). Put Ad on Web. Count Clicks. Revise. New York Times .

Ghuneim, M. (2008, March 28). Terms of Engagement: Measuring the Active Consumer. Retrieved from Wiredset: http://wiredset.com/root/archives/008589.html

Kaushik, A. (2007). Web Analytics An Hour a Day. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing.

Vittal, S. (2009). Listening Metrics That Matter. Forrester.