Companies continue to struggle with social media measurement: report
Companies are still grappling with the issue of measuring social media, though fewer are reporting that they are unable to measure ROI (37%) compared with 47% last year.
For our State of Social 2011 report, produced in partnership with LBi and bigmouthmedia, we asked more than 1,000 online businesses about the challenges of social media measurement.
Here's a few highlights from the report...
PRINT launches context-driven social media measurement
Two ex-Hill & Knowlton executives have launched PRINT, a new measurement system that aims to show significant correlation between social media footprint and value & growth.
Similar to the likes of Klout, PeerIndex and Kred from PeopleBrowsr, the PRINT methodology measures five key attributes of social media ‘performance’: popularity, receptiveness, interaction, network reach and trust.
Has social gaming's popularity been overstated?
If you've followed the rise of social gaming over the past several years, you might have drawn the conclusion that social gaming companies like Zynga, which is gearing up to go public, and Playfish, which was acquired by EA, represent the future of gaming.
After all, while there's no doubt that hardcore gamers aren't disappearing, the tens of millions of users playing casual games like Farmville on social networks, namely Facebook, vastly outnumber the number who are buying the latest and greatest consoles and gaming rigs.
Twitter for business: the experts' view
Earlier this year, Twitter celebrated its 5th anniversary. The social platform now has 200m users, generates over 200m tweets and handles over 1.6bn search queries per day.
Twitter is now undoubtedly popular and many businesses use the site as a tool for marketing, PR, branding, engagement, customer service, and much more.
Despite this, companies still face barriers to getting the most value from the microblogging site, which is why Econsultancy has produced its first guide to Twitter for Business.
If your business isn't using Twitter yet, it's worth considering the value it offers for your organisation. I've been talking to a number of experts about best practice on the platform, including business benefits, tips and pitfalls, and how to measure success.
11 ways to measure the value of social media
This article is the third in a series of ongoing extracts from Econsultancy's new Internet Marketing Strategy Briefing. The free-to-download report covers the most important online trends in digital marketing that currently occurring.
Topics covered within the document include customer centricity, channel diversification, data, social media and content strategy.
This extract, written by Econsultancy's US Vice President of Research, Stefan Tornquist, focuses on the ins and outs of measuring social media.
Firms struggle with mobile measurement: report
Though the vast majority of companies see the importance of mobile trends, measurement is an issue, with just 24% measuring the value of mobile traffic.
This finding comes from our Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing, sponsored by Adobe, which looks at key trends affecting digital marketers.
900 businesses were surveyed for the report, and one key trend that emerged was measuring the value of the mobile channel.
Brands buy 'influence', but do they really get it?
Forget 'audience', 'unique visitors' and 'page views.' Thanks to social media, more and more brands are looking to base media buys on new metrics like 'influence.'
Take, for instance, the brands that are turning to the Influencer Network put together by Condé Nast's Vogue.
AdWeek describes the Influencer Network as "a panel of some 1,000 women deemed to have sway over other women, based on how active they are on social networks like Facebook and Polyvore, a fashion site where people create collages of outfits and share them with other members."
The IAB's guiding principles of digital measurement
As wonderful as the internet is for marketers, the digital media landscape is still very challenging.
From a lack of standards to metrics that don't really seem to provide much in the way of insight, marketers often have to balance the power of the internet with the flaws present in marketing.
But the IAB doesn't think it has to be that way. It recently collaborated with Bain & Company and MediaLink LLC to develop Making Measurement Make Sense, "an ecosystem-wide initiative" that seeks to improve digital media measurement.
The trouble with measuring influence via social media
Yesterday we wrote about a new app called The Social List, which has been launched by The Sunday Times and is boxing in a similar area as Klout and PeerIndex.
Here's how it is being positioned: "The Sunday Times Social List is set to become the definitive measure of the most influential people within the social space."
Tricky. The trouble with measuring 'influence' is that it is incredibly difficult to do so in an automated way. I think it's virtually impossible to make any real statements about who is and isn't influential without some form of human analysis.
These tools are of course works in progress, and as they stand they are certainly indicators of something, but I'm not sure they're indicators of true influence.
The Sunday Times launches "The Social List"
With services like Klout and PeerIndex continuing to attract investment
and users, there’s some serious money and traffic to be had from social
media measurement, which explains why a corporation like News
International would be interested in acquiring a slice of the pie chart.
This week the NI-owned Sunday Times launched its own ‘Social list’, and based on initial use it could be set to attract a wider audience.
