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- Social
Media
analyticS
EFFECTivE TooLS For BuiLDiNg,
iNTErprETiNg, aND uSiNg METriCS
Marshall sponder
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- c h ap t er 9
Going beyond Monitoring:
Content Creation and
Content Tracking
It is one thing to create social media and quite another thing to
measure it so as to optimize content creation. That’s almost a
requirement as platforms become more intelligent and people
become serious about using social media as a marketing tool.
Some of the case studies in this book, such as the one
on InfiniGraph (Chapter 4), discuss changes in online con-
tent that are detected by measurement and cycled back to
improving content. It’s best to think of the entire process as
an ecosystem similar to the SEO organic search ecosystems
I wrote about in late 2010,1 however, in that social media
(recent tweets, Facebook discussions, check-ins, etc.) become
search content with the Google Search Engine indexing that
often result in displaying the latest postings of an individual
in search results. What is good for social media also tends to
be good for search engine results.
According to John Battelle, founder and CEO of Federated
Media, social media provides “branded content,” while search
195
- 196 n Social Media Analytics
engines provide information. “Branded content, however, is far
more social [than content mills like Demand Media’s] because
branded content is written with a human voice and published
by a branded entity [you, a friend, campaign, cause, company,
brand, etc.]. Search drives a lot of traffic to branded content, of
course, but once there, people are more likely to share branded
content than content produced mainly for search results such
as ‘how to tie a tie.’ The former is socially shareable (‘hey, check
this out, it’s interesting’), and the latter is specific (‘I need an
answer, and I don’t think my friends have the same need right
now’),” according to Battelle.2
Arguably, “branded content” is measureable using social
media monitoring and Web analytics, and can be considered
to be “more social” than nonbranded content (in that people
will have more interest in sharing branded vs. unbranded con-
tent). But once social media content surfaces, it should fit into
a longer-term strategy, where valuable content becomes ever-
green. Setting up social media analytics with clear measure-
ment goals will assist in achieving that strategy.
Looking at search keywords typed into Web sites (find-
ing out what people are looking for using Web analytics site
search reports) and mashing up that information with social
media monitoring of content emerging from site search leads
to more and better content for the brand, based on case studies
tracking Old Spice and Delta Airlines.3 Imagine if the content
team could prioritize content based on not only this historical
demand from search query volume, but also real-time input
from social media monitoring.4
One way to harness social media in order to get your
message out: use Google to find bloggers (who are influencers
on a subject of the search query by appearing within the top
10 search results) while looking at relevant search queries.5
- Going beyond Monitoring n 197
In addition, by using Google Webmaster tools, Web analyt-
ics, or a social media monitoring platform such as Radian6
(Radian6 can integrate with Web analytics platforms such as
Adobe Omniture, WebTrends, and Google Analytics), a site
owner will have the means to identify and write about what is
engaging on its site.
Determining Your Social Media
Analytics Readiness
Social media is a emergent communications medium that is
considered to be free and available to everyone. Sometimes
this incorrectly leads to an assumption by many on the con-
tent creation or on the agency side that measurement of social
media can be set up as more of an afterthought. Tracking con-
tent can often require just as much enablement work as enter-
prise and large e-commerce sites have put in place to track
their users and content using site analytics for many years.
The usual data on the radar are easy to capture: hits, fol-
lowers, page views, and so on. Additional metrics, including
knowing the results of efforts in terms of which were the most
effective in bringing in sales, expanding the customer base,
and increasing exposure of the brand, are also required. Infor-
mation is available to show that social media outreach is effec-
tive in driving new business and revenue, although often those
supporting data are difficult to capture.
This elusive quality is what I referred to earlier as “ultra-
violet data,” we can’t see ultraviolet light, yet it’s present all
around us. The same holds true of much of the data a business
or organization should capture; the data exist, but they are
not being captured properly for use in site analytics or social
media analytics.
- 198 n Social Media Analytics
Another common challenge for social media measure-
ment is that most business processes are misaligned with the
business’s goals for measurement. The work I did with Ceci-
lia Pineda Feret and Havana Central, which led to my white
paper with Compete.com on spectrum analytics, mentioned
in an earlier chapter, provided two examples of misaligned
measurement processes.
1. Communications issues between marketing and com-
munity management leading to lost sales and analytics
tracking.
2. Missed opportunities to engage with Havana Central’s
enthusiasts, who check in using Foursquare while having
a meal.
The case of Havana Central involved individuals who
were communicating (or not) while interacting in ineffec-
tive ways using incompatible business processes. These indi-
viduals were also using out-of-the-box analytics that had not
been thoughtfully configured to track the results of their
specific business processes. This often happens when using
free platforms such as Google Analytics, and it often leads to
lackluster business performance measurement. The insights
analytics can deliver need careful setup, but it’s not just about
measurement; we also should consider tuning the business
process itself.
Through my work with Havana Central, I came to see
that business and measurement goals and tactics that are core
to a business need to inform one another, need to be coupled
and folded, so to speak, much as we fold our hands together.
When we fold our hands, there is no room for misalignment,
and that is true of any structure, such as a table, chair, or
- Going beyond Monitoring n 199
building. Misaligned table legs will cause the table to collapse.
Misalign a building foundation, and the foundation cracks.
This same level of alignment is needed in social media
measurement, yet I find it is hardly given any thought, and is
often treated incidentally by content creators, agencies, and
brands, which is one of the principal reasons I wrote this book.
To audit a business’s readiness for full-spectrum analytics
tracking, one should list all the sources of data the business
has and which campaigns and marketing initiatives the busi-
ness is running; the data sources should be listed vertically,
and the marketing campaigns and initiatives should be listed
horizontally. (I have written about how to merge these in my
white paper on the subject, which you can view or download
and read at http://www.scribd.com/doc/38176762/tracking
-social-media-roi-using-spectrum-analytics. The information in
the following section is based on that white paper.)
Enabling Data Collection
In some cases, enabling data collection in business is easy and
straightforward. But often it is awkward and difficult to patch
data holes, or blind spots, where needed information is miss-
ing, resulting in an inability to measure business effectiveness.
Enabling Ultraviolet Data
Taking a closer look at a specific campaign or marketing initia-
tive against the sources of data available is the best way to find
tracking solutions that address weaknesses in the campaign’s
current analytics. For example, an analytics enablement audit
was set up to track online reservations at Havana Central that
were made via its Facebook fan page using the OpenTable
- 200 n Social Media Analytics
application on it.6 Using additional codes suggested by the
audit process, Havana Central was able to capture impor-
tant reservation information within Google Analytics. This is
a built-in function of analytics packages, but often it is not
utilized. With that information, Havana Central was able to
evaluate the marketing effectiveness of Facebook to drive cus-
tomers to the restaurant.
Going through each campaign and finding ways to use
analytics tracking, a business moves toward a 360-degree view
of its data, where everything needed to show return on cam-
paign investment is present and accessible, ultimately in a
dashboard.
All that remains is to ensure that the collected data can
be overlaid, that a common key (such as an e-mail address,
Twitter handle, social security number, address, and so on)
identifies all transactions—no mean feat in itself.
In more advanced cases, a data cube or data warehouse
can be built to marshall a company’s business data into a pro-
gramming structure that allows deeper insights than conven-
tional analytics software allows for.
Employing a data cube or data warehouse allows a com-
pany to perform “what if ” and predictive analysis on a com-
bined dataset containing all company data, leading to insights
such as the number of times a customer visits a brick-and-mor-
tar store or outlet to make a purchase, or how many times that
same item was searched for online. Any information within
a data cube can be correlated and analyzed using predictive
analysis and regression statistics, leading businesses to save
money and resources by optimizing their products, services,
and offerings.
However, when a common key (such as common record
locator for Google Analytics, OpenTable, SeamlessWeb, direct
- Going beyond Monitoring n 201
e-mail marketing, and so on, as was the case in many smaller
businesses like Havana Central) is lacking, the information
needed to populate the data cube will be spotty, noisy, or hard
to translate to the right structure for it to be effective. In fact,
most small and medium-sized business cannot afford to build
a data cube today, and even if they could, they would not
know how to use it. In the future this may change as businesses
become more measurement savvy and platforms evolve to sim-
plify and bundle data collection tasks in a way that makes it
easier for businesses to implement tracking.
According to Gary Angel, the CTO of Semphonic, “When
you integrate data into a data warehouse, you open up new
questions, targeting opportunities, and analysis methods that
otherwise don’t exist.”7 In fact, business intelligence tools (of
which a data warehouse is a part) allow business owners to see
relationships in the data that ordinarily would be impossible
to detect, and therefore open up new possibilities for analysis.
Enabling Business Goals, Strategy, and Tactics
Brian Solis, a well-known voice for PR 2.0, has stated that the
case for new metrics can’t be made until there is an intrinsic
understanding of how social media engagement affects us at
every level.8
In 2010 on the “MP Daily Fix” blog, Paul Williams shared
a very well visualized image of what business goals, strategies,
and tactics look like for a business campaign.9 Many times,
people fail to formulate their business goals in a clear way; this
complicates the measurement of their goals and tactics.
Once the diagram or map of instructions is created and
vetted, it should be used for enabling social media business
strategy along with social media metrics (and other metrics, as
- 202 n Social Media Analytics
needed). Filling in the gaps and correcting erroneous assump-
tions is much easier than trying to devise a program with no
idea of how it is to be structured or flowed.
Creating a Tagging Strategy
Once a program outline is approved, it is time to put goals,
strategies, and tactics into place, along with analytics track-
ing (such as Google Analytics, Adobe Site Catalyst, or
WebTrends). This provides a significant part of the analyt-
ics tracking needed and is not difficult to implement pro-
vided that analyst understands how to create, assign, and add
tagging to Web sites and URLs. Enabling social media mea-
surement by using Google Analytics,10 it is possible to cap-
ture key performance indicators such as traffic (quality and
quantity), engagement level, goal conversions, e-commerce
direct sales, and cost savings by comparing social media with
other marketing channels.
Google Analytics tracks campaigns, advanced segmen-
tation, goals, and custom reporting through structures built
into the platform and enriched by using custom URLs and
Google Analytics URL Builder.11
Creating Custom Tagging in Google Analytics
Generally speaking, a tagging strategy for analytics should
include the following traffic definitions12:
Source: Web site sending traffic
Medium: Traffic type, such as social media or cost per click
Campaign: A campaign name determined by user
Context/Term: Unique identifier used for split testing purposes
- Going beyond Monitoring n 203
The Econsultancy case study in Chapter 11 is an example
of campaign tracking with social media in mind.
Using URL Shorteners to Capture
Offsite Campaign Traffic
Bit.ly and similar URL shorteners provide another good way
to track social media using truncated URLs. These can be used
for campaigns that site analytics cannot track (such as market-
ing effort), but that do not register as a hit on the company’s
“landing page.” Much of the content created for consumption
does not result in direct visits to the brand Web sites; shortened
URLs are one way the site analytics could track this content as
it moves around the Web.
Setting Up Advanced Segmentation
Google Analytics has additional features, such as advanced
segmentation, used to create custom segments such as “social
media traffic” or “e-mail traffic” based on URL strings or
other parameters. These can be very useful in supercharging
reporting and insights by creating a custom segment within
site analytics around the tagging, and correlating it with mar-
keting efforts and social media mentions.
Setting Up Goals in Google Analytics
It is fairly easy to assign goals to campaigns in Google Analyt-
ics (although you need administrator privileges), which help
track such goals as successful completion, goal value, channel
value, and e-commerce transactions.
- 204 n Social Media Analytics
Custom Reporting
Using Google Analytics custom report generator, it is possi-
ble to build exactly the report you want, showing only which
information is needed, presented directly to stakeholders and
clients in a neat package.
Analytics Tracking Results for Enablement
With enablement in place, much of the information needed to
track social media via Google Analytics will be evident, along
with charts needed to demonstrate return on investment.
Compete.com Audience
When a site owner adds a Compete.com audience tag to its
Web site or blog, Compete.com can collect audience profiles,
and map demographic and psychographic information that
may be of value to the business.
Alexa
Another free platform, Alexa provides audience data and can
be useful when other sources of more reliable information
about viewers are unavailable. Alexa data and Quantcast are
similar as far as audience profiling goes, but the results are not
an exact match.
Alterian SM2, Sysomos MAP, and Radian6 Insights
Alterian, Sysomos, and Radian6 Insights provide demographic
information in monitoring profiles, although it is not particu-
- Going beyond Monitoring n 205
larly reliable and is based on a subset of online mentions of age
and gender; in Sysomos Map, industry data are also available.
These platforms, while providing some useful information on
audiences, are not really designed as robust market research
platforms. However, as social media analytics matures, and as
more of the Web is tagged with metadata, the utility of social
media analytics platforms for market research will increase.
Forrester Technographics Profiles
Forrester’s Technographics profile13 categorizes traffic based
on participation in social media. Its focus is on behavior, and
it could be a useful addition to other audience-profiling tools
presented in this section as an overlay based on age, gender,
and location.14
There are many other ways to slice and dice audiences,
and this book does not aim to examine them all.
Finding Content to Map to Your Audience
Using Forrester’s Technographics profile is one way to create
content that is in alignment with the users of a Web site or a
sales or marketing initiative. Once content is created, it is easy
to track using any number of methods including site analytics
and RSS metrics such as Feedburner.
There is another aspect to identifying audiences that needs
consideration, however: members that move from one segmenta-
tion to another. Typically, movements of this nature are from new
customer to regular customer to brand advocate, and so on.
As online audience members shift from one segment to
another, the content they consume is also likely to change; this
should be tracked using automated dashboards or, if that’s too
- 206 n Social Media Analytics
difficult, a spreadsheet (similar to the advanced dashboards we
examined in Chapter 8).
Tracking Content across Multiple Channels
Newer analytics platforms such as LinksAlpha and Tynt pro-
vide a way to track content across marketing channels and tie
it back to authors. But these tools are as yet not widely used.
At the time of this writing there are few platforms available to
track content as it is consumed across marketing channels, but
that is likely to change as social media analytics matures as a
marketing discipline.
Tracking Social Media Outreach
Using Social CRM
With all the work going into creating and measuring the right
content for the right audiences comes the need to engage
viewers directly, when it makes sense. This engagement could
be to build customer loyalty, address issues or concerns, or
simply to build market share beyond the audiences you have
now, including analytics tracking of audience-building efforts.
While there are an abundance of Twitter tools that claim to
facilitate contacts between individual Twitter accounts and
aggregation of information and responses in any number
of platforms, there is no point in going over them all here,
because this is social media analytics book. Yet it’s also true
that very few of the typical platforms are enabled for social
CRM, where both tracking and the possibilities of social
media ROI lie.
The time of social CRM and integration is here, according
to the Altimeter Group.15 While just about every social media
- Going beyond Monitoring n 207
listening platform can “monitor” the basis of social CRM—the
conversation—it takes an entirely different approach to mea-
sure communications effectively. This brings into view a series
of platforms not previously discussed: Cognos, Hyperion, SAP,
and SAS. Social CRM, as an outgrowth of conversations now
being tracked, is moving into the realm of the call center, with
analytics and tracking more related to enterprise tracking and
business intelligence than they are to social media. Platforms
such as Bantam Live (acquired by e-mail subscription list plat-
form Constant Contact in February 2011)16 have approached
social CRM in one way (as a single point of contact), while oth-
ers, such as Lithium, have approached it in another, snapping
up Scout Labs earlier in 2010, integrating social listening into
social CRM. Salesforce.com’s acquisition of Radian6 in March
2011 is a good indication of how crucial CRM is becoming in
social media analytics. I discuss this in Chapter 12.
By the time this book is published, most of the early mov-
ers in social CRM will be available on the market, according
to the Altimeter Group,17 including social marketing insights,
social sales insights, rapid response, and enterprise collabo-
ration, while others, such as social campaign tracking, will
become available in late 2011 or early 2012.
It would be premature to discuss social CRM metrics
along with social CRM return on investment. Yet some plat-
forms, such as Radian6 (Engagement Console), Alterian SM2
(Engagement Console), and Synthesio (Unity), are already
providing a framework for engagement, suggesting that social
CRM is needed to foster and track intimacy and influence
through interactions with customers.
These are best followed through a customer relationship
manager, in this case, social CRM. And engagement metrics
suggest social CRM is needed.18
- 208 n Social Media Analytics
Case Study: The University of Texas M.D.
Anderson Cancer Center
The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is a top
authority on cancer treatment. As one of the larger cancer hospitals
in North America, the center treats more than 90,000 patients a
year. Having grown into one of the leading authorities in its field
during the past 60 years, the hospital aims to become the world’s
premier cancer center, through programs that integrate patient care,
research, and prevention. There is also an extensive education facil-
ity for students, trainees, professionals, employees, and the public.
Recognizing the Value of Listening
An early adopter of social media in the medical world, the hos-
pital’s external communications department had started using
it back in 2007. Twitter, Facebook, and the blogosphere were
the initial focus, as an increasing number of people were writing
about their cancer experiences and treatment online. The hospital
even set up a specific role to monitor what was being said about
both the brand and cancer-related topics, in addition to the com-
munications being created by the institution itself.
“About three years ago, we realized there were patients and
prospective patients using social media to discuss their concerns
or ask questions about treatment or find out about the hospital,”
explains Jennifer Texada, the center’s communications program
manager of digital and new media. “We were using free monitor-
ing tools from Twitter and Google, plus Technorati and a few RSS
feeds, and we could see some interesting conversations going on.
But it took a lot of time to look at these manually.”
The hospital also recognized that there had to be many more
conversations that it wasn’t aware of, and it was also about to
- Going beyond Monitoring n 209
expand its own social media programs. So it began looking for a
better method of listening to the social media world.
“Our desire to get closer to patients and the general pub-
lic online, and engage with those who were socially connected,
meant we had to be able to monitor a much larger number of
sources,” Texada adds.
Aims and Objectives
Here are the objectives of the project:
1. Proper structuring for the social media monitoring process
2. Better method for listening to (and engaging with) the
social media world; reduce time spent on monitoring
3. More comprehensive look at social media conversations;
ability to dig deeper to identify key influencers and tar-
get audience
4. Measurement of the benefit of social media campaigns;
ability to link ROI to social media efforts
“We decided to start using Alterian SM2 just over two years
ago, as it gave us a proper structure to our whole monitoring pro-
cess and let us measure the benefit of our campaigns,” Texada
says. “It’s a lot more comprehensive than isolated tools, and we
can now see everything in one place, dramatically reducing the
time spent on monitoring. Even using the free evaluation version
I could see the power and value it could bring to the hospital.”
About Alterian
Alterian helps organizations to create relevant, effective, and
engaging experiences with their customers and prospects through
social, digital, and traditional marketing channels. Alterian’s
- 210 n Social Media Analytics
customer engagement solutions are focused in four main areas:
social media, Web content management, e-mail and campaign
management, and analytics.
Alterian uses its technology either to address a specific mar-
keting challenge or as part of an integrated marketing platform,
with analytics and customer engagement at the heart of every-
thing. Working within a rich ecosystem of partners, Alterian deliv-
ers its software as an off-site service or on premise.
Approach, Challenges, Outcomes
A critical issue for M.D. Anderson was being able to search mes-
sage boards, such as Planet Cancer, set up by patients and survi-
vors of more than 100 cancers. “A lot of tools couldn’t see deep
enough into message boards, but we were able to with SM2, which
helped identify which ones we should watch or join,” Texada con-
tinues. “The number one reason we selected Alterian, however,
was its amazing level of customer service, right from my first deal-
ings with the company. Every time I tweet them with a question, I
receive a call within minutes. Being a small department, this level
of support is invaluable to us.”
M.D. Anderson began using Alterian SM2 to monitor its
brand and then moved to include awareness of its campaigns and
particular topics, such as the results of one of its clinical trials or
a new cancer drug that comes on the market.
Example 1: Electronic Medical Records
An initial business driver for using Alterian SM2 was to see how
the center could link ROI to its social media efforts.
One such project was the hospital’s monitoring of a set of
keywords from a PR and social media campaign and then track-
ing clicks back into its site. The campaign had been designed
- Going beyond Monitoring n 211
to increase the number of physicians registered with the hospi-
tal’s online electronic medical records (EMR) system, increasing
the number of patients referred to the hospital. Using Alterian
SM2 to track the campaign’s spread, in addition to Web analytics,
revealed that patients’ social activity was responsible for a 9.5
percent increase in referrals in a three-month period.
“This was a real eye-opener, to see how social media could
benefit the business,” Texada says. “We could see which activity
made most impact and which had spread fastest.”
Example 2: Evaluating Public Education
M.D. Anderson’s public education department, on the other hand,
used Alterian SM2 to monitor mentions of topics not necessarily
relating to the hospital, but to wider cancer-related issues, to mea-
sure if its own messaging was on track. The department’s goal is
to satisfy the public need for information rather than drive patients
to the hospital. Monitoring has become core to its operations; its
success is measured by how many individuals it is able to reach.
While planning its program for the year ahead, the team ran
searches on keywords and topics to help inform its strategy. An
example of the tactical outcome was the decision not to run the
same Prostate Cancer Awareness month as the year before. With
Alterian SM2 now in place, the team members could search his-
torically and saw that social media traffic around the initiative
had been low. As a result, the public education department ran a
more straightforward communications program, focusing on men’s
health. It saw a significant increase in traffic.
“Comprehensive monitoring really helped us understand
what type of content drives more conversations,” Texada says.
“In addition to some messaging on cancer prevention, the recent
campaign centered on announcements and alerts about healthy
- 212 n Social Media Analytics
eating, eating on a budget, and exercise—so more content of ben-
efit to a broader audience.”
Conclusion
The hospital now uses Alterian SM2 for general listening, social
media campaigns, public relations, marketing, customer service
improvements, and search engine optimization.
M.D. Anderson uses Alterian SM2 in a host of other ways,
including:
1. Monitoring its blog to engage with individuals who react
to posts and build new relationships with key influencers
2. Improving patient relations and customer service by
identifying patients with an issue, or resolving com-
plaints about concerns such as waiting times
3. Refining the hospital’s SEO strategy by examining key-
word performance and gaining ideas on what to change
or expand to improve traffic
“By applying the output of SM2, we’re able to respond
to patients and those talking about the brand a lot more often
and much faster than before,” Texada says. “Over the past year,
we’ve witnessed an increase in the number of mentions of M.D.
Anderson, and word is spreading that we’re listening via Twit-
ter, Facebook, cancer blogs, and message boards, and that we’re
responding to our various audiences.”
Overall, here are the results of the campaign:
1. More efficient and comprehensive monitoring of social
media channels.
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