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Friday, July 3, 2009


How to disagree online...

The web is turning writing into a conversation. Twenty years ago, writers wrote and readers read. The web lets readers respond, and increasingly they do—in comment threads, on forums, and in their own blog posts.

Many who respond to something disagree with it. That's to be expected. Agreeing tends to motivate people less than disagreeing. And when you agree there's less to say. You could expand on something the author said, but he has probably already explored the most interesting implications. When you disagree you're entering territory he may not have explored.

The result is there's a lot more disagreeing going on, especially measured by the word. That doesn't mean people are getting angrier. The structural change in the way we communicate is enough to account for it. But though it's not anger that's driving the increase in disagreement, there's a danger that the increase in disagreement will make people angrier. Particularly online, where it's easy to say things you'd never say face to face.

If we're all going to be disagreeing more, we should be careful to do it well. What does it mean to disagree well? Most readers can tell the difference between mere name-calling and a carefully reasoned refutation, but I think it would help to put names on the intermediate stages.

So here's an attempt at a disagreement hierarchy: How to Disagree

Source: How to disagree
Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia

Posted by Nick HaC @ 3:20 AM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Thursday, June 11, 2009


How Social Media has changed Corporate Communications

Corporate Communications 1.0

In the past we have had in had 2 narrow pipes to get information in and out of our organisations.

We have used PR, Advertising, Marketing and Events to get messages out of the Enterprise. We have used Customer Support & Market Research to get messages about our customers back into the organisation.



Corporate Communications 2.0

With the advent of the Web and Social Media, conversations that used to happen around water coolers and at the bus stop and at a mates BBQ and Industry Events are now happening online. They are archived, they are searchable and they are able to be datamined.

Back-office employee's are answering customer complaints and questions on websites, consumers are providing corporate information to each other without the organisation becoming involved.



Messages are bouncing in, out and around the organisation at a blistering pace, experts have coined this "The Permeable Enterprise".

This creates an enormous challenge for Corporate Communications and Media Relations departments. Tracking communications across all these channels requires way more time, skills and effort than even a team of skilled web experts could manage.

This is where companies turn to Online Media Monitoring companies to track, analyze and report these messages as they happen.

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Posted by Nick HaC @ 5:03 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Wednesday, May 27, 2009


BuzzNumbers CEO Awarded Hot 30 under 30 Entrepreneurs (SmartCompany)

BuzzNumbers CEO Nick Holmes a Court has been awarded SmartCompany Hot 30 under 30 Australian Entrepreneurs. Congrats Nick!

Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia

Posted by Nick HaC @ 1:06 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
Get Your BuzzNumbers Today!
BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Monday, May 25, 2009


Clare the Kings Cross Bogan generates more than $200K in equivalent advertising dollars in social media.

May 25th, 2009 (Sydney, Australia) – BuzzNumbers, Australia’s first social media intelligence service, has been tracking conversations about Clare Werberloff online and in social media since the video went viral on Monday last week.

BuzzNumbers found that more than 41,186 conversations have occurred online on Australian websites since Monday last week, which have generated more than $200,000AUD in equivalent advertising dollars on Australian websites and social media destinations alone.

BuzzNumbers reports that 41% of the available 41, 186 online conversations about Clare took place in social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter, whilst a further 27% of conversations occurred on blogs and forums, and 12% on News sites.

The top five Influential destinations online that contained conversations or mentioned Clare Weberloff were Facebook.com, Twitter.com, NineMSN.com.au, News.com.au, and InTheMix.com.au.

Founder and CEO of BuzzNumbers Nick Holmes a Court was impressed by the spread on conversations online, “It’s been great to track the spread of conversations online about Clare over the last week. She is this year’s Corey Worthington. It just shows how powerful a medium the social web is, particularly the amount of revenue it can generate for an individual or company through exposure.”

Sources: TechWiredAU, MuMbrella


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Posted by Nick HaC @ 2:54 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Monday, May 18, 2009


"It doesn't hurt to ask" - Seth Godin

Actually, it does hurt. It does hurt to ask the wrong way, to ask without preparation, to ask without permission. It hurts because you never get another chance to ask right.

If you run into Elton John at the diner and say, "Hey Elton, will you sing at my daughter's wedding?" it hurts any chance you have to get on Elton John's radar. You've just trained him to say no, you've taught him you're both selfish and unrealistic.

If a prospect walks into your dealership and you walk up and say, "Please pay me $200,000 right now for this Porsche," you might close the sale. But I doubt it. More likely than not you've just pushed this prospect away, turned the sliver of permission you had into a wall of self-protection.

Every once in a while, of course, asking out of the blue pays off. So what? That is dwarfed by the extraordinary odds of failing. Instead, invest some time and earn the right to ask. Do your homework. Build connections. Make a reasonable request, something easy and mutually beneficial. Yes leads to yes which just maybe leads to the engagement you were actually seeking.

Seth Godin: It doesn't hurt to ask

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Posted by Nick HaC @ 11:54 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Thursday, May 14, 2009


Actionable Business Intelligence From Online Conversations

Actionable Business Intelligence From Online Conversations is a presentation we have been presenting at a number of Media/Marketing/Technology/Digital events in sydney.

If you are interested in BuzzNumbers presenting at your event, contact info@buzznumbers.com.au

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Posted by Nick HaC @ 10:32 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Monday, May 11, 2009


Gartner Reveals Five Business Intelligence Predictions for 2009 and Beyond

A 2009 Gartner Group paper predicted these developments in business intelligence market .
  • Because of lack of information, processes, and tools, through 2012, more than 35 per cent of the top 5,000 global companies will regularly fail to make insightful decisions about significant changes in their business and markets.

  • By 2012, business units will control at least 40 per cent of the total budget for business intelligence.

  • By 2010, 20 per cent of organizations will have an industry-specific analytic application delivered via software as a service as a standard component of their business intelligence portfolio.

  • In 2009, collaborative decision making will emerge as a new product category that combines social software with business intelligence platform capabilities.

  • By 2012, one-third of analytic applications applied to business processes will be delivered through coarse-grained application mashups.
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=856714
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Posted by Nick HaC @ 12:07 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Thursday, May 7, 2009


Coming to Cebit? Get Free CeBIT.AU entry with WebCiety & BuzzNumbers


BuzzNumbers is excited to announce that we’ve been selected to exhibit at CeBIT in the showcase Webciety pavillion.

We’ll be joined in the Webciety area by other exciting Aussie web companies, such as HiiveSystems, SaaSu, Tjoos, Siteflex, Travellr (who won the wildcard spot) and many more - a dozen in total actually.

Since Webciety is a part of the broader CeBIT show, you’ll need to register for CeBIT to be able to get in and have a look around. The good news is though, we have a special promotional code, which you can use to get FREE entry to the show, saving you $65+GST on the normal ticket price.

To reserve your ticket and save the $65, simply go to https://www.mycebit.com.au/rego09/ and when prompted, enter our special rego code, webcietyca09.

Hope to see you there!

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Posted by Nick HaC @ 9:56 AM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Monday, May 4, 2009


Coming to Cebit? Come down and see BuzzNumbers @ Webciety Cebit



If your coming to Cebit, be sure to come see BuzzNumbers at the Webciety at Cebit.
"Webciety, a vibrant and informative multimedia display of the power and potential of the Internet for today's working and social worlds, will bring the Internet home to CeBIT Australia 2009 in Sydney next month after proving to be one of the smash hits at this year's CeBIT show in Hannover, Germany.

CeBIT Australia's Webciety pavilion put the spotlight on today's Web-based society, featuring mobile Internet, wikis, communities, blogs, microblogs and other interactive Internet services which are making our lives increasingly digital.

The concept behind the Webciety Area is to show the Internet at work by using the tools of the Internet itself - essentially creating a "walk-through" Internet."

Visit: http://webciety.cebit.com.au/
Look forward to seeing you there! Cebit starts Tuesday, May 12-14th.

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Posted by Nick HaC @ 6:59 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

BuzzNumbers makes Top 100 Aussie Startup Index (TechNation)

BuzzNumbers was this month nominated to the Australian Top 100 Startup Index.



You can see the full list on TechNation.com.au

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Posted by Nick HaC @ 6:38 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
Get Your BuzzNumbers Today!
BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Thursday, April 30, 2009


Australia's favourite brands hated on the web (news.com.au)

News.com.au just put out an article today on Brands being hated online (featuring comments from BuzzNumbers CEO).

While this is really nothing new, hate sites have been around since the beginning of the internet, what is new is the depth & breadth of internet usage as a percentage of total media usage. A recent stat showed 21% of total Australian media consumption is now online (2008).

We recently posed the question at the Mumbrella event "What percentage of your Brand Reputation is controlled by online?".  I'm not sure we have an immediate answer, but we do know that is is changing...


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Posted by Nick HaC @ 9:43 AM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Wednesday, April 22, 2009


Monitoring your brand online (mumbrella)

BuzzNumbers presented at mumbrella today on monitoring your brand in a digital world.

Here is the slide deck...

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Posted by Nick HaC @ 9:59 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
Get Your BuzzNumbers Today!
BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Tuesday, April 21, 2009


McDonalds: From YouTube Video to PR Crisis in less than 5 days...

This YouTube Video, showing a disgracefully littered McDonalds in Adelaide Australia, appeared on April 4th 2009



Within 7 days it was front page news



McFilthy - You want Gastro with that? (Adelaide Now)


The Story then also made it to Australias most popular current affairs program, Today Tonight


(Watch Clip Here)


If McDonalds was using a Social Media Monitoring Service, they could have

1. Identified the video within hours of it going online.

2. Contacted the video owner, asking to work with them to take the video down

3. Proactively tidy any mess at the store, so that when any Mainstream News people arrived the place was clean, neat and presentable

4. Engaged their existing Crisis Comms strategy to manage and minimize the downside.

5. Actually Fix the Problem



I can imagine we are going to see this more and more over the next couple of years. Will your company be next?

Either way, i really dont feel like maccas right now :(

(Thanks to Michael Purse for the link/tip)

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Posted by Nick HaC @ 11:37 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Tuesday, April 14, 2009


Why Domino's Pizza should be tracking YouTube Videos

Found this gem of user generated content today, was curious if domino's monitors youtube and social media?



If i was a pr/comms/hr/marketing manager at Domino's, i would want to know about this kind of thing immediately as soon it is released on youtube.

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Posted by Nick HaC @ 9:38 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

More companies are understanding the importance of Twitter:

Companies like Starbucks, Whole Foods and Dell can see what their customers are thinking as they use a product, and the companies can adapt their marketing accordingly. 

Last week in Moldova, protesters used Twitter as a rallying tool while outsiders peered at their tweets to help them understand what was happening in that little-known country. 

And over the weekend, Amazon.com learned how important it was to respond to the Twitter audience. After one author noticed that Amazon had reclassified books with gay and lesbian themes as "adult" and removed them from the main search and sales rankings, a protest broke out on blogs and Twitter. The company felt compelled to respond despite the Easter holiday, initially saying the problem was due to a "glitch in our system" but later blaming a "ham-fisted cataloging error" that affected more than 57,000 books dealing with health and sex."

And stories about Twitter such as the one above are popular with the twitterati: "The New York Times , like many news outlets, has been writing a lot about Twitter lately. In part because it's an interesting, fast-growing company making a lot of news. And also, no doubt, because it has a built-in audience -- Twitter itself."

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Posted by Nick HaC @ 9:22 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
Get Your BuzzNumbers Today!
BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Wednesday, February 18, 2009


BuzzNumbers CEO in Digital Ministry Magazine

Nick Holmes a Court, BuzzNumbers CEO was profiled in Digital Ministry Magazine this week.

Digital People: Nick Holmes a Court  

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Posted by Nick HaC @ 1:13 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
Get Your BuzzNumbers Today!
BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Sunday, February 1, 2009


Few CMOs Think They're Effectively Tracking Social Media, Word-of-Mouth

Just stumbled across an interesting article on which is somewhat of a call to action for CMO's and other Marketing Executives.


BuzzNumbers directly addresses the questions raised by this article - and according to the CMO Council Survey, only 16% of companies have any form of Online Media, Word of Mouth and Social Media Monitoring solutions in place.

"For all the talk about listening to consumers, few marketers think their companies are doing so effectively and even fewer are monitoring what people say about their brands in social media, according to a new survey by the CMO Council.

Despite all the hype about social media, only 16% of survey respondents said their companies have any routine system in place for monitoring what people are saying about them or their brands online.

The survey comes, however, as big marketers are paying growing attention to monitoring and leveraging social media. Procter & Gamble Co. has a Social Media Lab that's about 18 months old, and Unilever last month hosted a word-of-mouth summit at its U.S. headquarters dedicated largely to understanding how social media affect its brands.

Another big marketer, Johnson & Johnson, became acutely aware of the trouble social media can cause when complaints on the microblogging site Twitter led it to pull the plug on an ad campaign for Motrin in November."

Source: AdAge: Few CMOs Think They're Effectively Tracking Social Media, Word-of-Mouth

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Posted by Nick HaC @ 7:21 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
Get Your BuzzNumbers Today!
BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Friday, January 30, 2009


Study finds social media equally influential to conventional outlets



"Tech decision makers give user-generated sites equal importance to traditional media sources when considering tech purchases, according to a new study by Hill &; Knowlton.

The “Tech Decision Maker” study found that decision makers consider their personal experience (58%) first when short-listing tech vendors, followed by word-of-mouth and industry analyst reports, tied at 51%.

But a nearly equal number of respondents cited user-generated media (28%) and traditional media (27%) as most influential in purchasing decisions. Advertising (17%) and direct marketing (21%) were listed as the least important information sources when short-listing vendors. "

Source: PrWeek
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Posted by Nick HaC @ 7:04 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
Get Your BuzzNumbers Today!
BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Saturday, January 24, 2009


BuzzNumbers opens Tokyo Office

We are excited to announce our expansion into Japan by opening a Tokyo Office! This is inline with our official release of our Asian Language version of BuzzNumbers.

Japanese Online Media Monitoring at BuzzNumbers.JP



You can contact us at:

P: +81.50.5532.9806
E: info@BuzzNumbers.jp

1-3-13 Azabu-Juban
Minato-ku 106-0045
Tokyo, Japan

Thanks for your support and we look forward to working with Japanese companies.

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Posted by Nick HaC @ 6:18 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
Get Your BuzzNumbers Today!
BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Tuesday, December 9, 2008


BuzzNumbers announces Australias first Social Media Intelligence platform

Today we have launched Australias first Social Media Intelligence platform.



BuzzNumbers, Australia’s first social media intelligence company, launches into the global market offering innovative technology and services that enable clients to harness the business value of the internet.

BuzzNumbers provides a full suite of Social Media Intelligence products that help companies track, report and measure the online media value and influence of their brand. By delivering a comprehensive analysis of online audiences, BuzzNumbers enables companies to make informed decisions across all departments of the enterprise from marketing, public relations and advertising through to sales and product development.

With the enormous growth of social media and online advertising, marketers demand tools that improve efficiency and provide monitoring, reporting and insight delivery to their brand, said Nick Holmes a Court, CEO of BuzzNumbers.

“The power shift from media institutions to online consumer communities means marketing and advertising agencies need tools to demonstrate the value of online campaigns to their clients. BuzzNumbers addresses this need by offering clients comprehensive insight into online conversations surrounding their brand. BuzzNumbers’ unique technology enables clients to measure the dollar value of online publicity against advertising rates.”

According to an eMarketer.com report, User Generated Content (UGC) sites earned $1 billion in advertising revenue in 2007 and this figure is expected to grow four-fold to $4.3 billion by 2011.

You can watch a video demo below:



Download the Press Release (1 Page PDF)

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Posted by Nick HaC @ 3:25 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Thursday, December 4, 2008


Australian Social Media Usage Statistics

We keep getting asked about just how many Australian's use blogs, music, video, web2, and social sharing sites:

Here is our research - In 2008:

- 2.3M Australians have created a blog
- 7.1M Australians read one or more blogs
- 1.6M Australians ongoing update their blog since creating it
- 84% of Australian internet users use Web 2.0 for sharing content such as photos, links and video
- 83% consume Consumer Generated Media content
- 78% of Australians download and stream audio and video content
- 39% of Australians create online content in the form of uploading video and music

Its great to see such high levels of Australian internet usage, and especially great to see so many Australians creating blogs and user generated content.

We have aggregrated these numbers from Nielsen Online Consumer Generated Media Report, Nielson Netratings and Universal McCann 2008 reporting.

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Posted by Nick HaC @ 1:59 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Using social media for commercial gain

A great article from The Sydney Morning Herald today on the Business Benefits of Social Media.

The challenge we see for corporates entering this space is taking an informed and insights driven approach to social media. BuzzNumbers addresses this.

With the Prime Minister on Twitter, blogging his way to the next election, maybe business should get a little more serious about social media. All the evidence suggests it will.

Twitter, a micro-blogging venture in which users post views, or "tweets", to a maximum of 140 characters, is still tiny.

But numbers are up more than 500 per cent this year in Australia, says Hitwise. And the time Twitterites spend with the application is greater than MySpace, Facebook and any of the big five online publishers, including ninemsn and Yahoo!7.

Twitter is just one emerging social media application, but combined with others (and there are hundreds) it is creating a boom for the PR industry because someone's got to interpret what's being said about companies and brands online. Most critically, they've got to figure out the tone - and algorithms can't do that yet.

Technology may be helping media audiences swim in more ponds outside the mainstream - blogs, social networks, podcasting, vodcasting, video-sharing sites and the like - but it can't deliver what companies need: automated insight about consumers. Statistics, yes, but good thinking is a different beast.

Companies the world over are starting to dabble with social media - and they have to.
Universal McCann's latest global round of research on the media, derived from interviews with 17,000 active online users in 29 countries, hammers home the booming participation in this arena. Here are some of its statistics on online users gathered this year:

* Bloggers globally: 184 million;
* Those who watch video clips online: 82.9 per cent;
* Those who say they have joined a social network: 57 per cent;
* Those who have uploaded photos to a network: 55 per cent;
* Those who have uploaded videos to a network: 22 per cent;
* Those who have uploaded a video clip to a video sharing website: 8.5 per cent.

These are global figures, but UM breaks out some numbers for Australian users: 62 per cent say they have read a blog, up from 21 per cent in 2006 and 55 per cent last year.

But here's the critical point for companies: 34 per cent of bloggers say they post opinions about products or brands.

This underlines the rush by PR firms to figure out how to use social media for commercial gain, or at least damage control. The first step is usually monitoring online conversations, but the real action is how to participate in them.

There are pitfalls - just ask National Australia Bank and one of its PR outfits, Cox Inall, about the drama of overtly "seeding" commercial messages on Twitter without following the right protocols or tone.

In contrast, Launch Group quietly introduced clients such as Lovells Lager to pub gatherings of Twitter freaks with sponsorship deals so low-key many at the bar were not aware the beer was free.

"The demand is growing very, very fast for specialised services in social media," a Bendalls Group director, Fi Bendall, says. "We're looking not at influencers, which might be a blogger with a big following, but more the propensity of those influencers to actually advocate and spread the word with an independent passion.
"It is about very different engagement tactics ... To sense the emotion people are feeling online about brands, issues or whatever it may be you need to have human analysis attached to it."
Tricky stuff, but it is a grand irony that with all the latest online technology, humans are still needed to decode other humans. For the digerati, it must be so uncool.

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Posted by Nick HaC @ 12:06 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Sunday, September 14, 2008


Social Media Monitoring FAQ

More and more companies are taking interest in the business opportunities that social media monitoring and social media analytics has to offer. As a leading vendor in the social media intelligence space we thought it would make sense to post a blog with answers to the questions that our customers and partners ongoingly ask us.

What is Social Media Monitoring?

Social media monitoring is basically the process of tracking online conversations that occur about topics of interest within the social mediaspace. Social media monitoring addresses the challenge that there are hundreds of millions of pages and conversations on websites, forums, wikis, blogs, podcasts, videos, social networks etc and tracking relevant updates across all these channels is a really time consuming task.

Can't i use Google to monitor Social Media?

Well, yes and no. Google does provide great features to research what people are saying about a particular topic. But it has some limitations.
  • Google only has 1,000 displayable results for any given search phrase
  • Google doesn't allow you easily track changes (other than google alerts)
  • Google doesn't show you the context and influence of a given result.
  • Google only updates its results sporatically, and you cant be sure than something of interest will make it into the top 10 or even the top 1000
  • Google doesn't allow you to track activity on a time based chart
  • Google doesn't show any trends or deep insight into activity
We all love google and use it everyday to research conversations and issues. Social Media Monitoring tools provide a level of insight, tracking, notification, analytics and reporting features that google just doesn't cover.

What business value does Social Media Monitoring actually deliver?

Social media monitoring delivers value for many parts of an organisation. In particular Marketing & Advertising Departments, Communications Departments, Public Relations, Investor Relations, Internal Communications, Market Research, Consumer Insights, Innovation / R&D / Product Development etc will use Social Media Monitoring.

For example.
  • A marketing department may use social media monitoring to research consumer issues about a product, and use that insight to create marketing campaigns that address the concerns of their customers.
  • A market research / R&D team may use social media monitoring to research customers discussing shortfallings in their product or new features that they may be hoping for to drive product development.
  • PR departments may use social media monitoring to track bloggers and other influencers conversations so they can quickly manage any negative publicity
  • Communications departments may track their suppliers and distributors discussions about them to ensure they are addequately supplying them with the correct and up to date information they need
  • Advertisers and Digital Marketers may use social media monitoring to track the impact their online campaigns are having with consumers and to measure the effectiveness of their activities.
Who is using Social Media Monitoring?

Everyone. From SME's and Startups to Global FMCGs and Fortune 500 Companies.

Do you have a question about Social Media Monitoring?

Feel free to leave us a comment, or drop us a suggestion in the sidebar, or to contact us directly by phone or email. We would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

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Posted by Nick HaC @ 2:19 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

Enterprise Social Media Intelligence

Understanding and leveraging the wisdom of crowds in the enterprise.

Business is waking up to the transformative impacts that a hyper-empowered, hyper-connected and hyper-informed social mediascape is having on many aspects of the way they operate. This is exciting. This is an opportunity for every company to do things better than before. We as corporations can all be less evil and even be more profitable than before. But some things have to change, and some of those changes may cause pain and opposition from some inefficient parts of your company that are now under threat. This is a good thing.

As indiviguals - we are more connected than ever before, we have more access to more information than ever before and the information we have access to is unshackled from the time constraints of past mass media and information delivery systems. Combine an exponential growth in new information with powerful and easy to use search, archiving and sharing technologies - we are now in a world where every conversation ever had online is now easily accessible and distributable and will be available for all of the future for anyone to review and share. This means we need to care what people say about us online. 

To this end, think of your customers, partners and suppliers as your new media outlets. They are your salespeople, your marketers, your researchers, your product developers, your spokespeople, your customer support and not suprisingly your biggest critics. They are watching you and your actions and talking about you online with their friends, collegues and strangers in this public, open, searchable, shareable and archived forum. You need to engage with them in an open conversation online. If you don't your competitors will.

Despite this ultimately being an enterprise wide transformation - specific business departments have a great opportunity for quick wins - including:
  • Marketing & Advertising Departments
  • Communications Departments
    • Public Relations
    • Investor Relations
    • Internal Communications
  • Market Research / Consumer Insights
  • Innovation / R&D / Product Development
Seizing the opporunity for these departments requires a bunch of new processes and systems that they have not had before. That is ok, there are companies, consultants, products and services who are here to help. So what should you be looking for?

Stay tuned for future blog posts with specific, relavant and actionable information to you to use within your company. You can subscribe by email in the sidebar.

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Understanding the Transformative Impact of Crowdsouring

You may or may not be familiar with CrowdSourcing - but i just stumbled upon a video by Jeff Howe, who coined the term “Crowdsourcing” in a Wired magazine article in 2006.



A great video to share with your collegues who may not be sold on the transformative effects of social media

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Listening to the loud people (Seth Godin)

Of course you should listen to your customers.
But which ones?

Should you listen to the loud ones, the ones who call the radio stations to complain about the pitching, the ones who post forums, websites about your lousy service, the ones who organize boycotts? Should you listen to the angry ones, the ones with a limited vocabulary (heavy on profanity, short on spelling) who know how to use email and social media and aren't afraid to use it?

Or, should you listen to the customers that are the most profitable, the most loyal or the most likely to spread word of mouth among the people you want to become your customers?

Here are three common listening mistakes:
  • Believing that your customers are monolithic, that they all want the same thing.
  • Believing that loud customers speak for all customers.
  • Worrying that if you don't satisfy short-term, loudly articulated needs, you will fail.
There's an art here, it's not a science. I'd focus on a few tactics:
  • When someone is in pain, recognize it and address it if you can.
  • You decide, not your customers, where you want to go. Lead, don't follow.
  • Amplify the voices of the people you care about, those with the most value to you in the long run. Give them a platform and make it easier for them to speak to you and the rest of the market.
And here's one thing I'd do on a regular basis: Get a video camera or perhaps a copy machine and collect comments and feedback from the people who matter most to your business. Then show those comments to the boss and to your staff and to other customers. Do it regularly. The feedback you expose is the feedback you'll take to heart.
 

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Wednesday, August 13, 2008


Reputation Economies in Cyberspace

Reputation, which plays a key role in almost any economic or social system, is a fundamental, but not well understood, aspect of online business transactions, peer production of information and knowledge, and exchanges within virtual social communities. Traditional modes of authentication, accreditation, reputation, and prior acquaintance with participants rely on the social norms of close-knit communities and the accountability of meeting face to face. Since these mechanisms usually do not apply to online environments, we have witnessed the development of alternative models for reputation management including third-party certificate authorities, peer-produced evaluations, ratings, stars, points, karma and others.

These new models, which apply to businesses, community-mediated information sources, people, goods, and services, challenge our accepted notions of identity, social capital, accreditation, expertise, and risk as they shift the reliance of reputation systems away from traditional business and social networks, educational backgrounds and institutional affiliations and towards the wisdom of the crowd. This shift, in turn, entails dramatic changes to information privacy, information quality, ownership and the ability of groups and individuals to affect these issues. Technology-mediated, cyber-reputation management is based on transactions in information that are often sensitive and always contextual. The data and information that are collected in online reputation systems are both valuable and powerful. The ability to control this information, store it, process it, access it, and transport it, are crucial to the maintenance of the reputation economy.

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Monday, July 21, 2008


Just how influential is Word of Mouth compared to other marketing mediums?

Here are just a few gems from FreshChat Blog:
 
  • Recommendations from family and friends trump all other consumer touchpoints when it comes to influencing purchases, according to new data from Publicis media network ZenithOptimedia. (AdAge, April, 2008)
  • According to a global Nielsen survey of 26,486 Internet users in 47 markets, consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising among 78% of the study's respondents. (Nielsen, "Word-of-Mouth the Most Powerful Selling Tool")
  • Most word of mouth is positive. Across all of Bazaarvoice US clients, 80% of product ratings are 4 or 5 stars out of 5. Across all of Bazaarvoice UK clients, 88% of product ratings are 4 or 5 stars out of 5. ("J Curve," Bazaarvoice and Keller Fay)
  • Online social network users were three times more likely to trust their peers' opinions over advertising when making purchase decisions. ("Social Networking Sites: Defining Advertising Opportunities in a Competitive Landscape," JupiterResearch, March 2007)
  • The two leading reasons people contribute content to social shopping sites are the need to feel part of a community (31%) and recognition from peers (28%). (IBM Institute for Business Value, August 2007)
  • Consumers trust friends above experts when it comes to product recommendations (65% trust friends, 27% trust experts, 8% trust celebrities). (Yankelovich)
  • 86.9% of respondents said they would trust a friend's recommendation over a review by a critic, while 83.8% said they would trust user reviews over a critic. (Marketing Sherpa, July 2007)
  •  
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    Tuesday, July 15, 2008


    Explaining BuzzValue and BuzzInfluence

    One of the core metrics within BuzzNumbers to measure social media are BuzzValue and BuzzInfluence - which are our proprietary metrics for ranking and valuing social media.We have had a few of our friends and customers recently ask us to explain these metrics so we decided to post some information to our blog.

    BuzzInfluence

    BuzzInfluence is a number which looks at a given social media conversation or web mention and measures the popularity of the that mentions domain on the web, the popularity of that page on the web and the influence of that page within the domain. BuzzInfluence is a relative value and is ranked out of 0 and 10.

    BuzzValue

    The BuzzValue for a web mention is the “Equivalent Media Value” of that online mention based on the montly cost of Banner Advertising on that web page and the cost of link purchasing for SEO from that page. BuzzValue is as accurate as can be estimated however due to market fluctuations in demand for SEO and Web Advertising this value is always open to interpretation.

    Any questions? Comments? Please leave a comment in the blog

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    Thursday, July 10, 2008


    Report: Most brands don’t track customer comments online

    However, the most interesting (and potentially shocking) statistic from the survey is that most brands don't track customer comments online. They are not watching what their customers say about their brand online and so fail to use this as input or to work with these comments to help build the brand.

    Almost 85% of wealthy customers claim to visit ratings and review sites, a figure higher than for consumers as a whole. Yet only 14% of the luxury brands in the survey monitor the comments these people leave, and less than 12% allow comments on their own site.

    We've found that companies who allow comments on their own site see a marked increase in conversion to sale. And when given the chance to rate a product or service online, customers are overwhelmingly more positive than negative. Brands miss out on the opportunities that these discussions offer, and with a particularly affluent and active customer-base, luxury brands could really benefit from entering the conversations that happen online.

    What is more, online is a perfect place to build brand image. You can control and increase your brand image in a medium that has been proven to be treated as more trust-worthy.

    The good news from the survey is that 40% of the brands plan to host their own online communities. 25% however don't. I'd expect to see a marked difference in performance here - those brands hosting their own communities reaping the benefits of Web 2.0 that the FreshMinds Research report wrote about almost two years ago.

    Source: FutureLab

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    How to protect your reputation online

    Whether unjust, spiteful, or just plain false, a disparaging post on the first page of a Google search can ruin a reputation regardless of redeeming information found on pages two, three and four.
     
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    Wednesday, July 2, 2008


    Online Reputation Management

    Many companies spend millions of dollars (or at least hours of sweat and tears) building their brand and their online reputation. The web makes it easy for anyone to ruin that.
     
    To protect your self - a solid online reputation management  plan will help protect your brand.
     
    Online reputation management consists of 3 things.
    • Online Reputation Monitoring 
    • Online Reputation Defence
    • Online Reputation Engagment
    Basically - you need to track what people are saying about you online, then you need to make sure that you control as much of those places as possible, and you need to engage in online conversations with those who are speaking negatively about you.
     
    We offer Online Reputation Management services with Buzznumbers & Shifted Pixels - to track what people are saying about you - and to secure positive discussions across all major web channels (SEO, SEM, Social Media, Social Networks)
     
     
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    Tuesday, July 1, 2008


    Measurable Business Results of Social Media Engagement

    March of the Penguins
    Two suburban DC area moms run a podcast called Mommycast out of their homes to discuss common parenting topics. The two enjoyed seeing the movie "March of the Penguins" so much they promoted it to their audience. This generated so much positive word of mouth that Warner Bros now attributes 25% of the film's $100 million revenue this podcast. (CBS News)

    Mentos
    An attorney from Massachusetts and an entertainer from Maine started an internet sensation when they combined the candy Mentos with bottles of Diet Coke to create streaming fountains of Coke foam. Videos of their "artistry" were viewed by millions of people on YouTube spawning thousands of imitators. In the Wall Street Journal, Mentos VP of Marketing Pete Healy says he is "tickled pink" by the visibility this has generated for his brand. He should be. He estimates that the value of this online buzz is "over $10 million", about half of their entire advertising budget. This buzz turned into bucks as BusinessWeek reports that Mentos sales have jumped 15% from these videos. (BusinessWeek)

    Intuit
    Intuit uses a range of strategies including blogs and discussion boards, to tap its customers to solicit new ideas, prioritize features in development, and even test new advertising messages. To respond to customer questions about their Quickbooks product, Intuit created a community with discussion boards on their site so customers can help each other with questions. Intuit participates in these discussions to understand customer needs so they can respond with product enhancements faster. According to Business Week, this community now has over 100,000 members discussing topics across 50 subject areas. (BusinessWeek)
    In the company's 2005 annual report, CEO Steve Bennett's letter to shareholders states "...positive word of mouth creates a durable advantage for Intuit that translates into sustained revenue and profit growth." (Annual Report)
    Petco
    Petco's e-commerce website features customer reviews for all the products they sell. Analysis of their web traffic revealed that users that sort the list of products by customer ratings spend 41% more than users who search with other methods like popularity or price. This consumer-driven content is impacting their outbound marketing initiatives as well. Emails that feature customer review content receive 50% higher clickthrough rates(WOMMA Presentation)
    General Motors
    Bob Lutz, the vice chairman of General Motors, actively engages GM customers on his GM FastLane Blog. He recognizes that by communicating candidly and directly to car enthusiasts, he can get "pure and unvarnished" comments on the frustrations, thoughts and suggestions of car buyers today. Mr. Lutz says, "These people have a great deal of influence, not just on what we read, but on the cars their friends and family purchase."
    Boeing
    Boeing, struggling over the past several years due to scandals and increasing competition from Airbus, decided to engage their critics in an open dialogue. Marketing VP Randy Baseler's blog played an important role in explaining their new strategies while the blog "Flight Test Journal" written by engineers, managers, and test pilots showcased their new Worldliner 777 jet. Boeing's blogs now get upwards of 30,000 visitors per month, and James Albaugh, CEO of the Integrated Defense Systems unit, is championing a new application of blogs as an internal knowledge sharing tool.



    How is your company leveraging social media engagement? How are you measuring its benefits?
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    Tuesday, June 24, 2008


    How BuzzNumbers Works

    We have been asked by a couple of bloggers our there how BuzzNumbers works - so we thought we would put together a few screenshots of the BuzzNumbers Platform so you can see BuzzNumbers in Action!

    Here is one sample scenario of how to use BuzzNumbers

    1. Setup BuzzNumbers - Create your BuzzMonitor

    A BuzzMonitor is a cluster of keywords or keyphrases that relate to a topic that you want to track. You can also select at the BuzzMonitor level what kinds of web media you want to track.




    Once you have create a BuzzMonitor. BuzzNumbers will spend time indexing the web on your behalf. The more long-tail your keywords are, the faster buzznumbers works. Once your BuzzNumbers results are ready you will be sent an email.

    2. Explore your Online Buzz with the Conversation Explorer

    Once your BuzzMonitors is ready you can Explore and search online conversations relating to your keywords using the Conversation Explorer. The Conversation Explorer supports RSS and Excel exports of your data, aswell as powerful search capabilities. You can filter and sort your data anyway you like by Date, Country, Domain Type, Web Media Type and more.

    Each result in the Conversation Explorer show a thumbnail of the website, a brief summary of the online conversation, the Domain the webpage is from, ranking of the "BuzzInfluence" and "BuzzValue" as well as the date the webpage was published.



    3. Web Analytics - View Summary Reports by DomainName, Country, Date and Source for


    You can also view Graphs and charts to get a top down view on your online influence by Country, Domain, Commercial/Government/Educational, and by Source (Blogs, News, Podcasts, Video, Search Engines, Forums, Images etc etc)



    You can click on any Summary item and drill down to the underling conversations

    4. Web Intelligence as it happens with BuzzNotifications

    You can also setup BuzzNotifications to email you reports a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

    BuzzNotifications can be filtered and support business rules to ensure the right information goes to the right person in your organisation at the right time. This siginficantly reduces your data analysis requirements - you choose the information you want to see and when you want to see it. No need for data analysts or mining through thousands of web results.

    For example you may want to send all UK Government results to your UK PR firm on a weekly basis, and send all US Blogger Results to your Communications Manager daily.





    This is just a quick overview of BuzzNumbers. For a more indepth overview please feel free to contact us for a Demo. If you have any feedback please leave a comment

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    Friday, June 20, 2008


    Internet: Twice as Influential as TV; Eight Times as Print Media

    A new study, tracking and measuring the impact of the internet on consumer behaviour across three European countries (UK, France and Germany), suggests that the internet is twice as influential as television and eight times as influential as print media. These findings come from the Digital Influence Index study from PR firm Fleishman-Hillard and research firm Harris Interactive.

    The study found that consumers were more likely to seek, and then to trust, reviews of products and services online than on television or in print media. They go to social media and product rating sites to get information on products, even if they don't buy them online; trusting the opinions of others more than the push messaging of traditional advertising approaches. They go to the corporate sites when they want a more transactional experience, or are buying more commoditised items like utilities or airline-tickets.

    These findings are interesting and suggest that firms need to address these changing attitudes towards influence sooner rather than later.

    If online is eight times as influential as print media, then a significant push should be made towards getting your online presence right.

     
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    Monday, June 16, 2008


    Marketing ROI? Prove it.

    Proving return on investment for promotional activities isn't child's play. But with new Web-based analytics and lightweight business intelligence tools, it gets a lot easier.
     
     
    Published: 6/9/2008
    By Lauren Gibbons Paul

    Determining the return on investment (ROI) for one's marketing dollars has always been an elusive goal. For years, the television and print advertising markets banked on the fuzzy lines between sales results and marketing efforts, and to good effect. Few ad buyers questioned the need for good branding and marketing, or forced agencies and themselves to carefully analyze results at every step of a campaign. "How often does the marketing investment result in sales?" asks Richard Vancil, vice president at International Data Corp. (IDC) in Framingham, Mass. "Classically, this is very difficult to prove."

    Today, there's an easier way to quantify marketing ROI. Lightweight business intelligence (BI) tools are able to leverage Web data using rich analytics, providing a window into the previously unknown mind of the prospect.

    The cost of gathering and analyzing data and taking action as a result of using these tools once was high. But costs have come down and are now within reach of just about any organization. Today's lower-cost and easier-to-use BI tools enable a wider audience of marketing people to gain new insights about their customers' response to marketing efforts and make better investment decisions.

    Allocating the Dollars
    One big reason executives are interested in hard ROI data is so they know where to allocate their sales and marketing budgets. For example, the average high-tech vendor spends about 3 percent of revenue on marketing and 11 percent of revenue on sales, according to Vancil. "That means they spend 14 percent of revenue on customer creation. The job of management is to say, 'Where does marketing stop and sales begin?' The best thing that can happen is that sales and marketing see eye to eye on this, but it's not common."

    Increased competition and slower industry growth in high-tech and other industries will likely push those revenue percentages even higher as customer acquisition costs go up. "Every new dollar of revenue that an IT vendor creates costs more in terms of sales and marketing," says Vancil. And that makes managers even more interested in demonstrable ROI for their marketing spending.

    Keeping Score
    Here's an example of how the new ROI tools provide vital marketing support.

    With the help of its interactive marketing agency, McCann Worldgroup, Microsoft Corporation uses "scorecards" for its marketing campaigns based on Web analytical data. Similar to the statistical scorecards used at sporting events, each scorecard quantifies the sales success from a wide mix of marketing channels and events. Looking at the effectiveness of every communication venue Microsoft uses—including print and TV ads, radio commercials, and Web banners—is a best practice across each of the company's marketing channels.

    "The ability to learn from, and respond to, our marketing activities in as close to real time as possible is a huge competitive advantage for us," says Anne Groom, director of integrated marketing/communications measurement for Microsoft. If, for example, specific types of Web content are getting higher download rates, Groom says the marketing team might quickly adjust other Microsoft content to better reflect what visitors want.

    McCann builds sophisticated modeling capabilities into scorecards to help its clients better understand the synergies between Web and TV advertising. Say, for example, a company wants to understand what impact a 10 P.M. TV spot running in New York City has on its Web traffic. "We run TV in certain markets and we look at Web traffic from those same markets during windows of time that those spots have run," says Joe Giannantonio, vice president and director of analytics for McCann Worldgroup in San Francisco. "That allows us to assess the incremental impact that the TV ad had. Then we run the model and we can see how TV influences traffic to the site. It's all very measurable."

    What's more difficult to measure, he adds, is the influence of a particular medium on conversion rates. For example, it's nearly impossible to know with certainty that a consumer buying a product in a retail store was largely influenced beforehand by marketing messages on the Web. "We're getting close to being able to prove that but we're not there yet," says Giannantonio.

    The gold standard for measuring marketing ROI occurs when you can demonstrate a cold, hard sale as the result of viewing some marketing materials. This kind of hard data is few and far between, but progress is being made. The Microsoft marketing scorecards, for instance, contain data on how many customers spend time on a Web page about Windows Vista. They also reveal how many readers click through to a specific retail partner such as Best Buy to purchase a package.

    While tracking sales as a result of marketing is one way to demonstrate success with high-tech marketing, it's not the only one. Many high-tech marketing campaigns, for example, are more geared toward generating excitement among the user base, particularly the small, vocal group of influential power users. "There, we're looking for trials of the product," says Groom. "That is the kind of transaction we are trying to drive."

    Internet and analytical technology have forever changed the way marketers—and their CEOs—view marketing investments. It is now possible to gain a good understanding of what drives your customer's or prospect's behavior, whether that is to try or actually buy a product.

    Though setting up a system to track marketing ROI takes time, the exercise may pay dividends in terms of being able to respond to customer needs virtually in real time. Says Groom, "We use the data from the dashboard as a springboard for a discussion among marketing decision-makers to make better decisions."

    Source: Microsoft.com

     

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    Tuesday, June 10, 2008


    Do bloggers have political clout?

    Just came across an article on a high profile blogger from TechCrunch, Mike Arrington, who leveraged his online influence to have meetings with Obama and McCain and interview them on their policies on technology and the Internet.

    The Los Angeles Times on the political clout of tech blogger Michael Arrington: "Recently, Arrington decided to parlay his considerable clout into a different kind of currency. He thrust Silicon Valley onto the national political scene in December when he took the unusual step of mounting a campaign of his own: a "tech president" primary. His powerful base of plugged-in techies helped him land interviews with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and other presidential candidates. Then he pushed the contenders to articulate something they don't often discuss: their technology policies. As a result, Arrington, 38, claims the distinction of endorsing the presumptive nominees from both parties back in January when the outcome for each was uncertain."

    Would be interested to see what a group of influential Aussie bloggers could do with the AU political sphere? I'm looking to Cameron Reilly and Mark Pesce for action on this one :)
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    Thursday, June 5, 2008


    Using Online Conversations to Study Word-of-Mouth Communication (Harvard Business School)

    Managers are very interested in word-of-mouth communication because they believe that a product's success is related to the word of mouth that it generates. However, there are at least three significant challenges associated with measuring word of mouth. First, how does one gather the data? Because the information is exchanged in private conversations, direct observation traditionally has been difficult. Second, what aspect of these conversations should one measure? The third challenge comes from the fact that word of mouth is not exogenous. While the mapping from word of mouth to future sales is of great interest to the firm, we must also recognize that word of mouth is an outcome of past sales. Our primary objective is to address these challenges. As a context for our study, we have chosen new television (TV) shows during the 1999-2000 seasons. Our source of word-of-mouth conversations is Usenet, a collection of thousands of newsgroups with diverse topics. We find that online conversations may offer an easy and cost-effective opportunity to measure word of mouth. We show that a measure of the dispersion of conversations across communities has explanatory power in a dynamic model of TV ratings.

    Using Online Conversations to Study Word of Mouth Communication
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    Monday, June 2, 2008


    Beware the pr industry - online, people smell the fake

    Just reading a blog post by Nick Hodge from Microsoft called "The Role of New PR"

    "How do organisations communicate both internally and externally in a PR-spin weary world?

    Organisation can and must use social networks to engage stakeholders. Not using than use "fake names" or "brand names", No astroturfing nor sockpuppeting. Just as people use online networks to connect with their friends, organisations can use social networks to make connections.

    People connect with other people. One role of the new PR is to hire/foster real employees to act on behalf of the organisation online. Do not outsource this important role. My suggestion is to find a star in the internal sales team, customer service team. An individual who is already online out of hours, who also understands the foibles of your organisation.

    Empower your new ambassadors with the freedom to connect, act honestly, and tell the truth. Provide tools to permit them to right the wrongs that all organisations do.

    The role of the new PR is to manage the image these new digital diplomats. Be their internal champions and measure their work.

    Release your best ambassadors into the digital world.

    Sounds good Nick!


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    How to Fight Negative Consumer Generated Buzz

    Viral marketing, user-generated content, online buzz: over the past few years, these terms have been representative of a new way of marketing to consumers that takes advantage of the current popularity of the social web. This new technique involves companies encouraging its customers to create content of their own in order to generate interest in the company's brand. Unfortunately, one of the potential side effects of this strategy is the potential for negative buzz. Despite this fact, a surprisingly low percentage of marketers are monitoring for negative responses.

    Users Make User Generated Content, But Few Marketers Monitor It

    A Jupiter Research report on this subject analyzes the risks of negative buzz. The report is entitled "When Good Social Marketing Goes Bad," but it should be noted that most people use the term "social marketing" to apply to campaigns that mean to bring about social change. The Jupiter report, however, uses the term more casually to mean any marketing campaign that relies on user-generated content of a viral nature.

    What they discovered was that although marketers have been quick to embrace this new trend - 35% allow for user-generated content (UGC) on their own web site and 21% have a profile on a social network - they have not been as quick to monitor and combat the negative buzz that some of their consumers will create.

    In fact, only 29% of marketers using these techniques are monitoring the online discussions about their products on an ongoing basis and a shocking 17% don't monitor online discussions at all. Also, despite the availability of professional "buzz monitoring" services like Nielsen BuzzMetrics or MotiveQuest, only 8% of marketers used these services in 2007.

    Who's Talking Trash?

    The Jupiter report was also able to build a profile of the typical creator of negative user-generated content. This person is usually a heavy user of social networks, predominantly male (60% are male) and into technology (40% are influential in this area and 23% are considered "early adopters"). They are also a potential valuable audience for marketers as 49% tend to act as brand advocates - which means they tend to be vocal influencers who spread the word online.

    How to Fight the Negative Buzz

    Before trying to combat the negative buzz, the first thought needs to be whether or not it's worth the effort. Often, marketers will attempt to offer these negative UGC creators special treatment or invite them to be beta testers in order to keep the feedback private and productive. However, these tactics are not always practical and they don't always work, either.

    A marketer must be aware of how far and fast their company will go to fix a legitimate complaint and also how likely the complainer is to adjust their response. Keeping in mind that research shows that only 12% of online adults think UGC like those posted on social networks or message boards is "trustworthy," going to great lengths to quiet the naysayers is not always worth the effort.

    Of course, sometimes it is worth the effort, which is why the most important thing for a marketer to determine is whether or not the negative content is created by someone who just wants to take a cheap shot at the company, or whether it actually offers genuine insight into a product or service's failure. If so, then addressing those persons that created the negative UGC makes sense. Then, it can actually be helpful to engage those people openly in the public forum to show the company is listening to valid complaints and responding. That is a difficult choice to make for a company, as it only takes one loud negative voice to affect an influence on the larger group of the company's customers. However, when done well, this type of response can be a benefit to all.


    Source: ReadWriteWeb
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    Wednesday, March 5, 2008


    Social Media driving TV Series popularity

    Just got an email from my friend at GPYR, Ben Phillips, who sent me some really interesting ideas on the effect of Social Media on TV Series success.

    "David Godes is a Harvard Academic who empirically demonstrated a correlation between online conversation with the future success of a television show. Frequency and breadth of conversation were identified as primary predictors of successful ratings. http://www.people.hbs.edu/dgodes/womfinal.pdf
     
    Whether the same can be said for brands is questionable, particularly mundane bits and pieces like cleaning products etc. Despite this, his research shows how important digital social interaction and word of mouth are in determining demand and interest.
     
    Soooo how do our campaigns promote conversation? How do our initiatives fit into existing conversation centers online and foster interaction? and on a slightly different note, how can we create environments that will house these exchanges?"

    Thanks Ben, to answer some of your questions, Social Media Marketing and Consumer Engagement!. We have writted some posts recently on What is Social Media is and how to engage social media and how to stimulate the consumer discussions around your brand.

    Interesting stuff.

    If your interested in Social Media Marketing and extracting value from Influencer Engagement, Give us a buzz. We would be happy to kick around a few ideas with you :)
    Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia

    Posted by Nick HaC @ 6:07 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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    Monday, January 7, 2008


    How to Engage Marketing-Weary Consumers with the Power of Community, Dialogue, and Partnership

    Throughout the history of advertising and marketing, communicating with consumers has been a one-way street. Marketers produced and disseminated messages and customers consumed them whether they liked them or not. Today, every person sees thousands of advertisements a day—and totally ignores the vast majority of them. Yet, companies still spend billions of dollars each year yelling at customers who don't want to hear it.

    I've just read this fantastic book, Join the Conversation  -  it questions and answers how marketers can adapt to the brave new world of the Internet, social media and networking, consumer-generated content, blogs, and podcasts by joining the rich, deep, and meaningful customer conversations already in progress.

    Consumers today are active participants in the advertising process, not silent targets and sitting ducks for one-way communication. Forget about the medium being the message; today, consumers are both the medium and the message. The future is bright for organizations that can join the ongoing dialog and leverage their customer relationships to build win-win situations for businesses, brands, and individuals. Through the power of community, dialog, and partnership, marketers finally have the power to talk with consumers rather than at them.

    Traditional marketing is a red flag smart consumers can see from a mile away; an outdated idea lurching toward them with the same predictable exhortations and tired come-ons. They've had enough, and it's time to change the dynamic. When marketing is a conversation, marketers can get to know their consumers as individuals, not as silent members of a faceless demographic subsection. Join the Conversation uses real-world brands and companies, real case studies, and real conversations to reveal how to talk to customers—and how to get them talking about you.

    It's time for marketing and marketers to become more meaningful and authentic, or they will both become obsolete.

    Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia

    Posted by Nick HaC @ 12:49 AM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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    Get Web 1.0 Right First

    Jakob Nielsen's newest alertbox on the web 2.0's dangers to site profitability...

    "Instead of adding Facebook-like features that let users "bite" other users and turn them into zombies, B2B websites would get more sales by offering clear prices, good product photos, detailed specs, convincing whitepapers, an easily navigable information architecture, and an email newsletter."

    Couldn't agree more :)

    Source: Advertising Lab
    Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia

    Posted by Nick HaC @ 12:45 AM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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    Monday, December 10, 2007


    Why marketing and sales can be measured againt police shooting accuracy

    Why Marketing and sales can be measured againt police shooting accuracy... Thanks seth

    In a new study released in today's Times, it turns out that the typical NY police officer only hits 34% of the time she fires a gun. Even from a distance of six feet or less, it's 43%. Obviously, Bruce Willis is the exception.

    I wonder how it changes your decision making when you discover that you're only going to be successful one out of three times. Never mind blasting a weapon out of an assailant's hand, we're talking about hitting the target at all... How does a cop have the guts to even pull a weapon knowing that most of the time, it's not going to have its desired effect (my guess is that the threat and the noise and chaos is as positive an outcome as an actual hit...). I know I would never have the guts to do that job.

    Salespeople have a harder time with this than marketers. Marketers have lots of 'bullets' and they don't notice the ones they miss (I usually miss 99.5% of the time online, and more than 99.999% of the time selling books). We just reload and blithely continue on. But salespeople have to deal both with personal rejection and the expectation of the boss.

    The poor hit rate of selling explains call resistance. Non-professional salespeople almost aways wash out because they can't keep at it, day after day, once they realize that most of the time, they fail. I guess my point is that if a policeman can risk his life doing it, we can probably find the nerve to go on one more sales call.

    Source: Seths Blog


    Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia

    Posted by Nick HaC @ 11:23 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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    Monday, December 3, 2007


    Web Metrics: So much data, so little information

    Imagine you are an advertiser, you want to place your banners on the most popular website, and you want to know how much to pay.



    Globally, the leading site is Google, which has the most "page views". Or is it Microsoft, whose various sites have, in the jargon, the most "time spent"?

    Or should you go by unique users, duration, hits, click-through, impressions, queries, sessions, streams, or engagement?

    Whether or not there is truth in advertising, there is certainly none for online advertisers, at least none that is immediately obvious and simple.

    The web produces data as "a fire-hose shoots water", and that working out what those data mean is rather like "putting a straw into the fire hose to take a sip". Get the angle even slightly wrong, and you are blown away.

    Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia

    Posted by Nick HaC @ 12:13 AM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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    Tuesday, November 27, 2007


    The Art of the start

    Source: http://www.garage.com/resources/building.shtml

    The following materials are from "The Art of the Start" conference, book, and speeches.

    • The Art of the Start - How do you get going from just an idea? Learn the simple but critical steps necessary to quickly and effectively jump start your company.
      Video: Guy Kawasaki presents The Art of the Start at TiECon 2006

    • The Art of Raising Capital - You've got to know the rules to get funded. First you have to decide if you are venture fundable. Then you have to figure out which investors are right for your company. Then you have to convince them — or find alternative funding options.
      Audio (mp3): The Art of Raising Capital

    • The Art of Selling - The three most important words: revenue, revenue and revenue. Ten proven sales strategies and techniques for making the cash register ring. Let it Rain!
      Audio (mp3): The Art of Rain Making

    • The Art of Pitching - To be effective presenting your company to investors, partners, or customers, you have to know what to say and how best to say it.
      Article (pdf): Perfecting Your Pitch

    • The Art of Bootstrapping - What do you do if you are not (yet?) venture fundable? You do what lots of wildly successful companies did — you bootstrap! It worked for HP, Microsoft, Apple, Dell and eBay. Learn the tricks and traps of bootstrapping, including some recent variations on the technique.
      Audio (mp3): The Art of Bootstrapping


    Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia

    Posted by Nick HaC @ 9:35 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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    BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

    Monday, November 26, 2007


    Guide to Social Media Analysis

    Social Target's Guide to Social Media Analysis is the worldwide reference to the companies who monitor, measure and analyze online social media. We've gathered the information you need to find services from basic blog monitoring and measurement to innovative market research and social media marketing strategies.

    If you are

    • a marketing or communications executive with a need to track social media in your market,
    • an agency executive looking for a research partner to power your own services, or
    • an investor interested in this emerging market,

    Social Target's Guide to Social Media Analysis will accelerate your selection process with the most complete reference worldwide. (Not sure what this is? See the introduction to social media analysis.)

    We conducted extensive interviews with 31 vendors from all over the world to put together an objective look at the state of the market, with a focus on three questions:

    1. Who offers social media analysis services?
    2. What do they really offer?
    3. What makes one vendor different from the others?

    From an overview of market trends and practices to detailed vendor profiles, the Guide will save you weeks of effort in finding and understanding the companies in the market.

    Want to know more? Click here for more details, including the list of companies, contents of the profiles and a sample profile

    http://www.socialtarget.com/research/
    Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia

    Posted by Nick HaC @ 3:12 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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    BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

    Sunday, November 25, 2007


    Evaluating web visitor demographics

    Ever wonder if more men or more women look at a given website?

    Ever curious the average age of a websites visitors?

    Check out Microsoft AdCenter Demographics Prediction tool

    Very cool

    Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia

    Posted by Nick HaC @ 11:12 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
    Get Your BuzzNumbers Today!
    BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

    Thursday, November 15, 2007


    The power of online communities for connecting with friends and customers (podcast)

    "Don't just talk at consumers, engage in a conversation with them" - Stan Relihan

    "One of the themes that has emerged from conversations with my guests over the past few weeks has been about how Social Networks offer marketers the opportunity of engaging with consumers in a way that is not intrusive, but relevant  - sometimes even welcome."

    A fantastic show with Stan Relihan and Ian Lyons from PureProfile

    Download the Podcast here at The Conversations Show on The Podcast Network
    Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia

    Posted by Nick HaC @ 12:38 AM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
    Get Your BuzzNumbers Today!
    BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

    Wednesday, November 14, 2007


    Engaging Bloggers in your PR Strategy

    Some great tips for working with Bloggers as part of your PR / Communications strategy from Brian Solis

    Thanks Brian



    Building relationships with bloggers has been the hot topic of the last year .

    PR & Communications Agencies are more and more interested in working with Bloggers as part of their Communications Strategy

    Conversations are taking place right now about your company and your competitors. What are you going to do about it?


    1. Why does Blogger Relations matter to your company

    - Blogger relations is about interacting with people who are talking about your business, many of whom might be customers and peers.
    - They matter because their opinions are seen online when people search google about your business
    - They matter because negative opinions about your business will spread from blogger to blogger
    - More and more mainstream journalists are influcened by bloggers, and bloggers opinions filter into mass media


    2. Engaging Bloggers - The Art of Relationships

    - Be knowledgeable, transparent, honest, and trustworthy. Add value or don't bother.
    - You don't have the "right" to pitch bloggers, so really think about it before you approach anyone.
    - Conversation seems to be the "it" word, but it all comes down to respect, articulation, and relevance. Personality helps.
    - No one likes to sold "to" or marketed "at" - each person needs to hear things differently, so think about that.
    - There is no market for messages.
    - You are empowered and expected, as a PR person, to know what you're talking about, it's benefits, and why it matters to the markets you're trying to reach. Become an expert.
    - Less is more. This isn't about numbers, this is about doing PR in the Long Tail so that you can develop more meaningful relationships that have a more significant impact on the brand, business, and customers service. Quality vs. Quantity.
    - Stop thinking about PR in terms of pitches and audience. The pitch is dead. The audience is dead.
    - It's all about trust and respect
    - Determine their preferred method of contact - note it might not be email, but rather various social tools.

    NOTE TO BLOGGERS:
    Please help PR help you. Create a page or update your "about" section with tips and recommendations for developing relationships with PR people.


    3. Promote and build relationships with Bloggers on the own turf - through Social Media

    - Submit their posts/articles to social networks and news aggregators such as digg and reddit.
    - Link to them.
    - Comment before reaching out with meaningful content - participation is marketing.
    - Leverage personal networks.

    4. Utilize Social Tools

    - There are alternative contact channels to email and forms (
    No spam or invasive tactics allowed)
    - Social networks such as Facebook, Yahoo Mash, LinkedIn, Plaxo Pulse.
    - Micromedia such as Twitter, jaiku, Tumblr, Utterz, Pownce.

    5. Be Creative

    - The traditional press release has no business in blogger relations. You're going to have to put things together as building blocks in order to help someone tell a story.

    - Video, create short video demos, intros, events, greetings, or skits, that are specific to markets you're trying to reach.

    - Podcasts, invite them to co-host a podcast or to be a guest on something like BlogTalkradio. Or create pre-recorded interviews or discussions that matter to bloggers. Think about creating custom content for different people. One shoe doesn't fit all just like one message or one tool doesn't matter to everyone.

    - Social bookmarks, Bookmark content that matters to bloggers through services such as StumbleUpon, ma.gnolia, and delicious. Also, create purpose built pages dedicated to providing unbiased market background and perspective to help bloggers gain expertise and context through one link.

    - Tagging, Tag items within social networks for specific people.

    6. Find the People Who Can Help You

    - Google Alerts allow you to be notified if anyone is talking about your company, competition, you, or other important topics.
    - Blogpulse reveals blogs and bloggers that have strong authority around relevant memes.
    - Technorati allows you to discover blogs that cover certain key words.
    - BuzzNumbers ... shameless plug... Our blog monitoring, analysis and reporting tool...

    7. The Art of Listening

    - Read lot of blogs, and explore your target bloggers blog history.
    - Explore their blogroll and find common topic of interest
    - Use an RSS aggregator or feed reader to simplify the process of reading the important blogs and their coverage.
    - Read the comments (and participate). Sometimes the greatest insight is unveiled outside of the post.

    8. The "C"s of Blogger Relations

    - Concept: what's the compelling plan.
    - Context: why is it relevant to them.
    - Consumption: create a package that makes it easy for bloggers to write their story.
    - Credibility: what makes you credible? Become the expert.
    - Community: join it, participate without expectations.
    - Conversation: you are not invited to the conversation as a marketer. This is about people, so be articulate, responsive, honest, smart, and resourceful.

    9. Expand the scope,

    - Don't get caught up in the A-list bloggers.
    - Focus on the magic middle, bloggers with 20-1000 blogs that link back to them.



    Hope this helps, again, for more information have a read of http://www.briansolis.com/

    If you are looking for a Sydney Agency to help you manage Online PR and Blogger Relations, contact ShiftedPixels
    Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia

    Posted by Nick HaC @ 10:04 PM Social Media Monitoring Social Media Monitoring Australia
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    BuzzNumbers is a Social Media Intelligence platform enabling your organisation to monitor, analyse and report social media. We want to talk to you. Find out more about BuzzNumbers

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