A Brief History of Social Media Measurement, and a Prescription for Web Analytics

Posted by Scot Wheeler on September 5, 2011 0 comments

The Challenge
Common sense asserts a wealth of marketing opportunity residing in the correct analysis of consumers’ publicly shared (and digitally documented) interests and interactions. However, there are significant challenges in separating valid information from noise, then structuring that valid data to draw actionable insights with the same level of confidence that businesses expect from their market research, web analytics insights, and other Business Intelligence functions.

The first generations of social media measurement and analysis have addressed these challenges as best they could. To advance beyond pseudo-science into the realm of truly actionable business analytics, the next generation of analysis will need to draw from the established standards and best-practices of organizations’ existing analytics functions such as web analytics, with established competency in building data-driven management practices from digital analytics. » Read more…

Social Media and Marketing: Evolution Not Revolution… Part I

Posted by Scot Wheeler on September 1, 2011 1 comment

Markets and the businesses that serve them are being required to respond to the perpetual state of advance in digital information technologies, particularly social media and mobile. The question that everyone working in any part of digital communications is now facing (explicitly or not) is whether the change to business is more revolutionary or evolutionary.

As the currently pervasive online and offline discussions of topics such as “social media ROI” reveal, organizations are currently struggling to understand and manage these transformations through the established language (and mathematics) of business management. » Read more…

New Direction

Posted by Scot Wheeler on August 9, 2011 0 comments

I am very pleased to share the news that I’ve started a new position as Marketing Science Director with the digital agency Critical Mass here in Chicago.

I am extremely privileged and excited to be working with Shaina Boone (who brings a unique and impressive blend of left and right brained intelligence to the marketing sciences) and with everyone on the extraordinary marketing sciences team Shaina has built. And of course, it will be incredible fun to work in collaboration with the wealth of talent across all of Critical Mass’ capabilities in digital experience delivery for its very impressive roster of clients.

In my role as Marketing Science Director, I will be working with clients to document their business objectives for digital marketing, and will be leading teams to design, implement and maintain digital marketing measurement metrics, systems and processes which will drive and support those objectives. » Read more…

Social Media for Enterprise – Value-adding Practices

Posted by Scot Wheeler on June 22, 2011 0 comments

Even the best general models don’t solve specific problems of practice, but they should be useful in guiding thinking around specific problems. This particular model proposes a standard path for building value from social media practices within organizations.

Each of the practices has inherent value for particular organizational problems of practice, and each additional practice draws value from the successful presence of preceding practices. The specific value of each of these practices to a particular organization will depend on many factors including organizational readiness & adaptability, product offerings and market environment, all of which must be considered when building solutions in each area.

» Read more…

The Elements of Influence

Posted by Scot Wheeler on May 27, 2011 0 comments

Many current discussions of online or social influence are focused on the “how” of measuring influence, exploring how the ever expanding wealth of digital data sources can be mashed-up to provide accurate estimates of a person’s ability to persuade others. These are valuable discussions for our current position on the social intelligence technology curve, and large investments are being placed behind efforts to program a better influence calculation.

The smart money in this race (or more likely slow climb) to accurately measure influence in order to better drive business results surely recognizes that “influence” cannot be measured on a single, universal scale. » Read more…