Social Media analyticS

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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.’

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Social Media analyticS EFFECTivE TooLS For BuiLDiNg, iNTErprETiNg, aND uSiNg METriCS Marshall sponder New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City Milan New Delhi San Juan Seoul Singapore Sydney Toronto
Copyright © 2012 by Marshall Sponder. All rights reserved. Printed in the Unit- ed States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a data base or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 DOC/DOC 1 6 5 4 3 2 1 ISBN: 978-0-07-176829-0 MHID: 0-07-176829-7 e-ISBN: 978-0-07-176862-7 e-MHID: 0-07-176862-9 This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that neither the author nor the publisher is engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. —From a Declaration of Principles Jointly Adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Association McGraw-Hill books are available at special quantity discounts to use as premi- ums and sales promotions, or for use in corporate training programs. To contact a representative, please visit the Contact Us pages at www.mhprofessional.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper.
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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