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This post from Marcel LeBrun, CEO of Radian6, has generated some buzz, and rightly so. That the leader of one of the more richly analytical social media monitoring technology companies out there is acknowledging the important qualitative dimensions of this problem is a refreshing surprise:
Social media measurement is like gourmet cooking. We now have plenty of high quality ingredients to work with. There would not be a gourmet chef profession if we only had bread and water to work with. Is there a “standard measure” in the gourmet food industry for how to make a good Fois Gras or Duck D’Orange? No. Of course, it isn’t hard to recognize gourmet cooking, nor is it hard to detect bad cooking. However, the experts will continue to innovate, experiment and advance the art… and, they will argue vehemently about the precise measure of good Fois Gras.
Social Media measurement is like gourmet cooking because the social web produces a vast and growing array of metrics that can be gathered and combined in various ways to extract meaning, insight, and measure the effectiveness of one’s investments & efforts. The list of ingredients is growing all the time: comments, inbound links, votes, views, likes, bookmarks, favorites, tweets, re-tweets, social graph connections, etc… countless social breadcrumbs that are directly measurable both on page (directly connected to your content) and off-page (located in other places, but related to your content) plus they can all be measured temporally adding that important perspective of time: velocity, transience, sustainability/stickiness, etc. Additionally, the types of business functions & endeavors that brands can pursue using the social web are as numerous and diverse as the metrics available – it isn’t just an advertising medium. Measuring the ROI of your investment in providing customer support using the social web is very different from measuring the ROI of your efforts in influencer outreach.
Would Neilsen CEO David Calhoun speak so openly about the underlying validity and shortcomings of CPM? I doubt it.
While recognizing the limitations of standardized metrics is an important first step in cracking the social media measurement problem, it leads to an unsatisfying conclusion: That every social media program is different, and that the results that matter need to be examined on a case-by-case basis.
I don’t think I buy this. Whatever the flaws in reach, frequency and CPM (and there are some fundamental ones,) they have enabled the development of a $1.5 trillion industry. To the extent that social media aspires to significance in that market, it needs to find a way to build a consensus on quantitive measures of its own value.
Notice I did not say “measure” here. Measuring is for engineers. We are simple marketing folk from the mountains. At some level, we need not concern ourselves with such things.
All we need is “consensus.” We need to discuss and agree on metrics which – whatever their shortcomings in the assessment of metaphysical truth – are at least consistent from program to program. That is the foundation of a “market,” as distinct from the “hobby” that most social media is today.
What do you think? Must we now accept the underlying variability of social media and the disparate marketing initiatives operating within it? Or is moving beyond that to consistent if flawed measures the next step in the development of this pre-adolescent medium?
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Not sure the cooking analogy works for me because in essence in social media all the ingredients are the same: communication. Personalized communication that is public. So what we’re looking for from a measurement point of view is meaning and source. Assuming that meaning is obvious, source, in this case, is the writer/speaker/contributor. Who are they, what are they saying, how influential are they, how do we reach them effectively, what do we say?
The answers to these questions are defining an entirely different type of marketing, one that traditional marketers are struggling with. We can’t work off of consensus anymore- consensus gave us Neilsen-type metrics that we could target with mass communications. There are no mass communications in social media. The minute a source becomes mass media, it is no longer connected to an individual POV, a critical element of user-generated content.
So if you want to move forward there is an opportunity to help build a new marketing paradigm driven by this new social reality.
Not sure the cooking analogy works for me because in essence in social media all the ingredients are the same: communication. Personalized communication that is public. So what we’re looking for from a measurement point of view is meaning and source. Assuming that meaning is obvious, source, in this case, is the writer/speaker/contributor. Who are they, what are they saying, how influential are they, how do we reach them effectively, what do we say?
The answers to these questions are defining an entirely different type of marketing, one that traditional marketers are struggling with. We can’t work off of consensus anymore- consensus gave us Neilsen-type metrics that we could target with mass communications. There are no mass communications in social media. The minute a source becomes mass media, it is no longer connected to an individual POV, a critical element of user-generated content.
So if you want to move forward there is an opportunity to help build a new marketing paradigm driven by this new social reality.
Hi Mike,
Thanks so much for discussing my post and adding to this conversation. You make some great points.
I quite agree with you that not every social media program is destined to be different. Things will undoubtedly converge toward best practices over time(i.e. as consensus forms on the best approaches).
My point on the “bread & water” concept is twofold: a) consensus is much easier to achieve when there is little to choose from in the first place and b) the quality of our measurement can be higher with more and better metrics.
With a greater abundance of metrics, programs, etc., comes a greater diversity of opinions from the experts and, therefore, a more difficult path to consensus. Some will even want to claim ownership of a certain approach all to themselves. The good news is that we have much more in the way of metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of our initiatives/efforts than we ever have.
I like your last two questions. The underlying variability of initiatives using social media is a current reality. Must we accept it? My sense is yes and no. On the one hand, I think and hope that we will see a growing consensus in some areas in terms of the adoption of certain consistent measures. On the other hand, we will also continue to see variability because we will continue to have innovation, experimentation, and the medium itself is constantly changing (giving us new metrics & tools), which is very different from traditional media.
I’d be interested in your thoughts on this – what do you think it will take to instigate such a consensus?
It seems to me in the past that the problem started because something could not be measured at all and then an answer appeared, albeit imperfect, that turned darkness into light. So we all ran with it as the “best answer at the moment” – consensus. Our current situation, however, is not the absence of metrics, but rather the abundance (and diversity) of metrics. Also, with traditional media, there was a center stage, a central owner – institutions that owned the medium. You had to work with them and that also had a standard setting influence. The social web, however, has no center stage and the medium is not under institutional management, but operates as a community with no sheriff.
All that said, I do think you are right on where we will end up. I’d be interested in how you think such a consensus can or will form?
Cheers,
Marcel
Hi Mike,
Thanks so much for discussing my post and adding to this conversation. You make some great points.
I quite agree with you that not every social media program is destined to be different. Things will undoubtedly converge toward best practices over time(i.e. as consensus forms on the best approaches).
My point on the “bread & water” concept is twofold: a) consensus is much easier to achieve when there is little to choose from in the first place and b) the quality of our measurement can be higher with more and better metrics.
With a greater abundance of metrics, programs, etc., comes a greater diversity of opinions from the experts and, therefore, a more difficult path to consensus. Some will even want to claim ownership of a certain approach all to themselves. The good news is that we have much more in the way of metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of our initiatives/efforts than we ever have.
I like your last two questions. The underlying variability of initiatives using social media is a current reality. Must we accept it? My sense is yes and no. On the one hand, I think and hope that we will see a growing consensus in some areas in terms of the adoption of certain consistent measures. On the other hand, we will also continue to see variability because we will continue to have innovation, experimentation, and the medium itself is constantly changing (giving us new metrics & tools), which is very different from traditional media.
I’d be interested in your thoughts on this – what do you think it will take to instigate such a consensus?
It seems to me in the past that the problem started because something could not be measured at all and then an answer appeared, albeit imperfect, that turned darkness into light. So we all ran with it as the “best answer at the moment” – consensus. Our current situation, however, is not the absence of metrics, but rather the abundance (and diversity) of metrics. Also, with traditional media, there was a center stage, a central owner – institutions that owned the medium. You had to work with them and that also had a standard setting influence. The social web, however, has no center stage and the medium is not under institutional management, but operates as a community with no sheriff.
All that said, I do think you are right on where we will end up. I’d be interested in how you think such a consensus can or will form?
Cheers,
Marcel
Well said. Key point here is that – unlike our predecessors in broadcast 50 years ago – ours is a crisis of abundance. You are spot on there. Building the mountain of data was step one. Gleaning *information* from it turns out to be the tricky bit, followed closely by enabling productive action on that information.
I think the only way to achieve a consensus is to quantifiably demonstrate the link between some set of metrics and the tangible business results that brands really care about. In the end all marketing boils down to changing what a target group of real people think, feel, or do in the “real” world.
The team that can find a way to look through what’s observable on-network and establish a statistical correlation between social indicators and off-network sales will have the high ground in the inevitable battle over standards. You have as good a shot at that as anyone, I’d be happy to help if I can.
Well said. Key point here is that – unlike our predecessors in broadcast 50 years ago – ours is a crisis of abundance. You are spot on there. Building the mountain of data was step one. Gleaning *information* from it turns out to be the tricky bit, followed closely by enabling productive action on that information.
I think the only way to achieve a consensus is to quantifiably demonstrate the link between some set of metrics and the tangible business results that brands really care about. In the end all marketing boils down to changing what a target group of real people think, feel, or do in the “real” world.
The team that can find a way to look through what’s observable on-network and establish a statistical correlation between social indicators and off-network sales will have the high ground in the inevitable battle over standards. You have as good a shot at that as anyone, I’d be happy to help if I can.
Trap, to your last post, then I’d suggest you need to become MORE like engineers than less. Establishing ‘statistical correlations between indicators’ is what engineers do. It’s all about measurement. I’d suggest you look to the tools that engineers have been using for decades such as network analysis and simulation, queuing theory, digital logic, statistics, etc. for some methods of cutting through the data. I thought you were straying from your mantra about “the pesky accountability” thing for a minute there. Whew.
Consensus is for politicians. We need measurement.
Trap, to your last post, then I’d suggest you need to become MORE like engineers than less. Establishing ‘statistical correlations between indicators’ is what engineers do. It’s all about measurement. I’d suggest you look to the tools that engineers have been using for decades such as network analysis and simulation, queuing theory, digital logic, statistics, etc. for some methods of cutting through the data. I thought you were straying from your mantra about “the pesky accountability” thing for a minute there. Whew.
Consensus is for politicians. We need measurement.
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