Tag: Google Analytics

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Community Management

Community Management – Let’s Get this Party Started

Community Management Tidbits – Let’s Get this Party Started

Let’s Get this Party Started! You’ve made the decision to have a forum on your website. Great!

"Party

It can be for any number of reasons, such as to cut the number of lower level technical support calls, to generate buzz for various advertising campaigns, to generate sales leads, or maybe to bring together people interested in a common cause. And you have a site with forums, done up in Drupal, or maybe using a PHP application out of the box. Or it might exist on Facebook exclusively. Or perhaps you’ve conjured up your own proprietary software.

And … nothing.

You’ve got no users, no content, no conversations. The community should be a hubbub of activity, a virtual village. Instead, you’re stuck with a ghost town.

Whaddaya do now?

Don’t panic.

Recognize that no one wants to be first attendee at a party. So, you’ve got to get the party started. But how?

Success?

For any website to succeed, you need to be strong in four areas:

  • Design
  • Metrics/Measurement
  • Contentand
  • SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

So let us operate under the assumption that you’ve got the first two set (and, if you don’t, make sure you fix, perfect and beautify your design as much as possible). If you’re not already getting metrics, go get Google Analytics and Yahoo Site Explorer and get started on Compete (Compete takes a few months to gather data, so get cracking now). Add Alexa and Quantcast if you wish, as well.

Now with those two set, you can, fortunately, work on the other two together. First of all, let’s work on some elementary Search Engine Optimization. SEO divides into optimizing onsite and optimizing offsite. So start with a few basic offsite measures. It used to be that you had to submit your site to the DMOZ Directory. Yahoo runs this human-edited directory. At this point in time, that advice is out of date. Don’t worry about it. You can do just fine with social media and indexing on social bookmarking sites instead.

Submit your site to the follow social bookmarking sites:

There are any number of others but these are the really big ones and give you the most bang for the buck (most readers) versus others out there. You don’t need to pay some service to do this. It will all take you less than half an hour, no lie.

Content

For onsite SEO, let’s move onto Content. Because the two are intimately intertwined. Furthermore, your future users are going to want to see topics. And they are going to want to see them started by a number of different people. You’ll need to pull in some friends for this, and divide the new topics up as much as possible. Be sure to start with topics like this:

  • Welcome to the New Members/Getting to Know You
  • Basic News from outside your company, about you (if you’ve got a company blog or press page already, link to them here and
  • A few (say, half a dozen) topics showcasing your best keywords but are written for humans to read

Keywords

That brings us to keyword research. Go to your competitors’ sites, right-click and select “View Source”. Which keywords are they using? Consider using similar if not the same ones. So if your site is about, say, infant and child care, your main keywords and key phrases are probably going to be words and phrases like infant, child, child care, childcare, children, baby, babies, pregnancy. Do Google searches using these keywords and key phrases, with and without the words forum or community added. Look at those sites’ keywords and key phrases as well. Because you want to keep thinking of terms that your target audience will use for their own searches. Incorporate these words into your site and into the titles of some of your first topics.

Look at synonyms! If baby works better than infant, then use baby in the title but you can still put infant within the body of the post. Think like someone searching. What are they really looking for?

Specifics

Don’t be afraid to be specific, for the child care site, try topics on such subjects as teething, sibling rivalry and readiness for kindergarten. Keep the keywords in the titles if you can logically and grammatically put them there.

Consider some really niche topics, such as handling siblings who are acting out because one child has special needs or a terminal illness. Because searchers are looking for those answers as well.

Now, you’ve got some content, and you’re getting some SEO, even if you are still low in rankings (don’t worry, it’s percolating). But you still need users. Here’s where invitations come in. You, me, all of us – we have online networks. We’ve got friends on Facebook, followers on Twitter and a network on LinkedIn, and a whole host of other groups of online acquaintances. Plus we’ve got friend and family email addresses.

Invitations

So craft an invitation. Make it polite, pleasant, simple and short. Be definite about what your forums are about (e. g. write more than “Please check out my site.”). In particular, if you know people who like forums (perhaps you already regularly post on some other forums site, even if the main subject is radically different), invite those people. And do this in small doses, say, 30 people at a time. This will keep an influx of new members from overwhelming you. And you can greet everyone personally, at least to start. Furthermore, it will add to the feeling of exclusivity that a small site can engender. Don’t worry if people start inviting others to your site, even people you’ve never heard of before. Because this is a good thing. You want them to do this.

So look for sites to link to you, and be sure to get reciprocal links. Consider adding Google News Reader, and a blog to provide directed quality content if you don’t already have one. Furthermore, it will keep your users updated as to outages and new features as you add them. Add a Facebook fan page for your site, although I’d recommend waiting at least a little while after launching. After all, if no one likes you on Facebook, you’ll have the same issue. It’s trying to attract people who don’t want to be first. Furthermore, you’ll need at least 30 Facebook fans (that number may rise in the future) to get metrics. And then you can really get this party started.

But above all, have fun. And get this party started!

Next: Look at Me! Look at Me!

Categories
Community Management

Community Management Tidbits – Analytics

Your Call is Very Important to Us - analytics
Your Call is Very Important to Us

Community Management Tidbits – Analytics

So, the truth is, analytics are a term that scares a lot of people. But don’t panic.

You’ve got a community. And you’re working hard on it. It’s growing. But you have no idea whether what you’re doing is having any sort of an impact whatsoever. This is where analytics comes in.

Community Management Tidbits - Analytics
Google Analytics: How to Identify Top Content Posts (Photo credit: IvanWalsh.com)

Now, don’t panic if you don’t have a data analysis background. It’s not strictly necessary. What you do need, though, are (a) a means of measurement (preferably you should have a few of these) and (b) the willingness to measure. Really, it’s that easy. You do not need a degree in Advanced Statistics.

Google Analytics

First of all, the primary measurement stick you want is Google Analytics. And it is free and very easy to use. It’s also a rather robust measurement system, showing trends in Visitors, Absolute Unique Visitors, and more.

In addition, it shows, among other things, where your traffic is coming from, where your users land, and where they departed your site from. It also shows Bounce Rate, which is defined by Measurement Guru Avinash Kaushik as, “I came, I saw, I puked.” In other words, the visitor only visited one page of the site.

Keep in mind, it’s possible your visitor loved your site but got everything they needed in just one page. So, while they may have bounced right out of there, it might not have been due to any fault or failing on your part.

So, try not to take it personally, okay?

AHRefs

Thank God for AHRefs. While free website measurement tools have come and gone (apart from Google Analytics), AHRefs will review whatever is out there.

So, one thing to keep in mind is that as this post is updated, I keep finding new yardsticks. And then they go away after a while. At least AHRefs is still hanging in there. Whew.

Alexa

And another yardstick (albeit a far less useful one) is Alexa. Alexa really only works well for anyone using Alexa’s own toolbar for their search. Still, it is of some use, and it is free. Hence as an aside, ask your users if they will prepare a write-up about your site on Alexa.

Analytics From More Yardsticks

Furthermore, there are also measuring websites specifically designed to help you comprehend how you’re doing on Twitter and elsewhere, namely:

  • HootSuite – count the number of clicks you receive on shortened URLs, to supplement your Google Analytics click counts
  • HubSpot – measure how influential you are (with a hugely helpful diagnostic) and
  • Tweet Reach – measure how many people are receiving your tweets and any retweetings of your messages. Note: this one is no longer free!

Using Your Findings

So what do you do with all of this information once you’ve amassed it? Why, you act upon it! Does one page on your site have a far higher Bounce Rate than the others? Check it and see if the links on it are all leading users away from your site. If that’s not the culprit, perhaps its content isn’t compelling enough. Got a series of links you’ve tweeted that have consistently gotten you the most clicks? Then check to see what they all have in common, and offer similar links in the future. And maybe even build some onsite content around those subjects.

Has your HubSpot grade tanked in the past week? That might be due to external factors beyond your control, but check to see if any of it is within your purview. Perhaps your server was down.

Finally, small fluctuations over short time periods are perfectly normal and are no cause for concern. However, much larger hikes and drops, or trends over longer time periods, are more of an issue. But you’ll never know about any of these things unless you start to take measurements, and read and use them.

Categories
Twitter

Almost Everything But the Tweet – Conquering Twitter (metrics and timing)

Almost Everything But the Tweet – Conquering Twitter (metrics and timing)

Metrics and timing. When you tweet may not seem to matter too much. In particular, if you don’t tweet too terribly often, your tweets will still be out there, so why bother to even care about timing?

metrics and timing

Not so fast.

Patterns

According to The Science of Retweets, Twitter users tend to follow some recognizable patterns. First thing Monday morning is prime time for retweeting; so is five o’clock on a Friday afternoon. And that makes sense, as tweeters are either settling into the work week or are just about to start the weekend. Weekend tweeting is another animal as well. Noon is another good time for retweeting — people are at lunch or are about to go.

Plus there’s also the matter of accounts (often for job sites) that pump out a good dozen tweets, one right after another. These have little individual impact and seem only to be useful for later searching.

Timed tweeting seems almost counterintuitive. But for a business to use Twitter effectively, the tweets should be planned anyway. Why not plan not only their content but also their timing?

Scheduling Software

Here’s where services like Tweet Deck, Social Oomph (formerly Tweet Later) and HootSuite can provide some assistance. By scheduling the most important tweets for the very start and end (and middle) of each business day, you can add to their impact. Separating out your tweets can also get them all out there while simultaneously preventing a flood of tweets which many users are generally just going to ignore.

Another positive upshot to spacing out your tweets is giving you content that can be used later. For Social Media platforms, it’s easy to initially attack them with an enormous amount of enthusiasm and then taper off or even fizzle out entirely. If you regularly spit out twenty tweets per day, you’ll be tweeting 100 times during any given work week. Even your most dedicated followers are probably not going to read every single one. Plus, you’re setting yourself up for burnout.

Time Zone Scheduling

Instead, how about scheduling only two tweets per day (say, at 9:00 and 5:00 PM in the time zone where you have the greatest market share)? That way, you’ll have more people reading and no one will feel overwhelmed. Plus your 100 tweets will work for a little over a month or even two, if you are judicious and don’t tweet on the weekends.

So long as your tweets aren’t intimately tied to a specific time (e. g. announcements of an upcoming event), it shouldn’t matter. And, if they are, you might want to consider splitting them over several Twitter accounts. Perhaps open up one for just events in Seattle, for example.

Now, what about metrics?

URLs

Unfortunately, Twitter itself doesn’t do much, so you’ll have to cobble things together yourself and use off-Twitter resources. One idea is to use a URL-shortening service that tracks basic metrics, such as Social Oomph or Idek. You may not get much more data from them than click count, but it’s still something. Hoot Suite provides .owly link metrics, with two free reports.

Another idea is to use a unique URL for the site URL in your profile, say, http://yoursite.com/twitter. If you’ve got Google Analytics set up, you can track when that page is used for landings to your site, and its bounce rate. For commercial ventures, you might even make up a coupon code and tweet about it, or use your Twitter landing page as a means of communicating certain special offers available only to Twitter users.

Follower/Following Ratio

Your number of followers, and the ratio of followers to who youfollow, is all well and good, but it’s hard to say what you’re measuring. On Twitter, as on much of the web, popularity tends to breed even more popularity. And, it doesn’t really mean much if you have a number of purely spammy sites following you. They aren’t reading your tweets, anyway, so what’s the point?

This dilutes any idea of what these numbers might provide regarding influence, but if for some reason you really want to be followed by a bunch of spammers, just place the term weight loss into your profile and never block the spammers. In fact, follow them back, and you can get even more of them.

It hardly seems a worthwhile trophy to be followed by the biggest-ever village of spammers, eh?

Some Metrics

Some sites, such as Audiense, show number of followers and their influence and activity. You can see which inactive people you follow (so you can drop them), which famous people follow you, etc. Some of these are admittedly vanity metrics, but they are helpful.

Tweet Stats demonstrates, among other things, a graph of daily aggregate tweets. And it also contains your most popular hours to tweet and who you retweet. Twitter Reach reveals exposure and reach. E. g. this means impressions and mentions of any topic, be it a word, a phrase, a userid or a hashtag.

In conclusion, keep up with Twitter, but don’t overwhelm your followers with floods of content, and measure your influence as well as you can, both using your own and external tools. If you can adjust your tweets to better serve your followers, your true influence will surely rise.

Categories
Facebook Social Media

… And Facebook for All – Offsite Sharing

Facebook Profile Page Part - home page - offsite sharing - best lengths
Facebook

… And Facebook for All — Offsite Sharing

Offsite sharing is a fascinating concept. Perhaps the most compelling feature of Facebook consists of the availability of the Like Button.

The Like Button and Offsite Sharing

Because the offsite Like Button dovetails beautifully with its presence on the site itself, i. e.,

“The Like button lets a user share your content with friends on Facebook. When the user clicks the Like button on your site, a story appears in the user’s friends’ News Feed with a link back to your website.”

Drag and Drop

Facebook Profile Page Part - home page
Facebook

Furthermore, the site tries to make it easy for even novice programmers (and people who can really only do drag and drop) to place a Like Button on their own sites for offsite sharing. The premise is irresistible. You add the Like Button, people “Like” your own site, and that information transmits back to Facebook and to the Likers’ friend lists. In addition, their friends, who may not have know about you at all, suddenly do, and the offsite sharing spreads even more. They, hopefully, check you out, Like you, and the process repeats on and on, ad infinitum, or at least in theory. And with enough intersecting friends with enough non-intersecting additional friendships, a few Likes could translate into dozens, if not hundreds, or even thousands, of new people who know about you.

Engagement and Reach

However, engagement and reach are both going down. And Facebook actually has the gall to try to get people to pay for what it does! Quelle horreur!

But, seriously folks, how do you think Facebook pays its bills? They do it with advertising. If users won’t be charged (and Facebook would be mighty foolish to start charging all of those free sources of detailed consumer data), then advertisers will be. And of course that already happens. What gets a lot of people’s undershorts knotted is that the freebie advertising is harder and harder to implement. Facebook seems to push everyone with a page to start buying likes to get more offsite sharing.

Thumb on the Scale?

Whoa, Nelly! Because that would be kind of unethical, if the site was deliberately putting a thumb on an imaginary scale and making it harder for people to reach their fans without paying for reach and engagement.

So, are they doing that?

While the jury is still out, I’m inclined to say no. After all, the site grows by leaps and bounds on a minute by minute basis. And engagement and reach dilute without Facebook having to do a damned thing.

Finally, does the site benefit from making it harder for page and group administrators to connect for free? Absolutely. But do they have to work in order to create this condition?

Nope. Life does it for them.

Offsite Sharing: The Upshot

Beyond issues with Russian interference and how the Facebook algorithm can sometimes tamp down third parties, offsite sharing can work pretty well there. Political and other paid ads, though, are another story. They are a reminder that, every year, Facebook becomes more and more of a “pay to play” platform. Hence if you want to share something from off the site, your shared content might be lost amidst the paid stuff. So be it.

Categories
Facebook Social Media Twitter

Social Networking/Social Media Tips

Social Networking/Social Media Tips

Social Media Tips? Yes, please! A while back, Grassroots Giving Group published some great Social Networking tips. I agreed with their ideas but would like to expand upon them a bit.

English: A pie chart created in Excel 2007 sho... Social Media Tips
English: A pie chart created in Excel 2007 showing the content of tweets on Twitter, based on the data gathered by Pear Analytics in 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And they were essentially exploring when Facebook and Twitter are useful. Here are some of their ideas.

Ideas

  • Announcements – don’t just announce upcoming or new things but also add links in order to drive traffic. Agreed! However, I would add a targeted landing page. If you’ve got people coming in from Facebook, why not create a new landing page to personally welcome them (e. g. Welcome to our Facebook Friends!). The best part about that is that, since it’s a separate page, Google Analytics will track the clicks separately. You’ve got a fighting chance of getting good metrics, so you’ll know whether your announcement of the opening of a new branch of the Widget Factory played better on Facebook or on Twitter.
  • Sending shortened website addresses on Twitter – use an URL shortener. Of course! But why not use one (such as from HootSuite or Social Oomph) where you can get some click metrics? Using both a personalized landing page and an URL with click metrics can give you an even clearer idea of how traffic flows. Oh, and they don’t tell you why you should shorten an URL on Twitter (even if the URL fits), but I will: to make it easier for people to retweet.

Planning

  • Planning in Advance – nothing new here. You should keep up with things and plan in advance. Absolutely. And that means, when you’re hot and creative, write, write, write! Keep drafts and ideas going, and also think about how you can expand on your own blog entries or others’ (such as this blog entry). Get yourself a stable of other blogs/blog writers, news sources, etc. Who inspires you? Who interests you? And don’t repeat or steal, of course. Rather, expand and comment. These are perfectly legitimate ways to update your blog.
  • This Day in History – Commemorate occasions in your company! There must be something you’ve done that is good blog fodder. Of course, not every day is memorable, but it’s another way to keep the pipeline going. If July 12th is an important day in your organization, make sure that the July 12th blog post and Tweets are ready to rock and roll, and they are updated to the correct year. Heck, in HootSuite and SocialOomph (mentioned above), you can schedule Tweets. Why not schedule the Tweets for July 12th (or whatever your special day just so happens to be) and be done with them?

Quotes

  • Quote Collection – I like this idea, and I think it can be used for a lot of purposes. This is not only quotes about your specific organization or its work, but even more generalized quotations. Surely there is something from Shakespeare (My Kingdom for a horse!) or the Bible that could work for you in some capacity or another. It can be another jumping off point for creativity.
  • Ask Your Audience Questions – I think this is more useful if you have a somewhat large and actively commenting readership. While a rhetorical question is lovely, I think it’s just better if you can get at least a little feedback. Otherwise, it feels like you’re just shouting out to the wilderness.
  • Staff Introductions – this is another great idea. While your site might already have staff biographies, that’s another way to get the readership acquainted with who’s making the product.

Notes From Your Day

  • Notes from Your Day – I don’t know about this one. Your day, maybe. Mine? I guess this is, in part, centered around the event reviews I’ve done. But otherwise, my days tend to be spent, well, here, blogging. Which may or may not be thrilling to others. But I can see where my coworkers could have some very interesting days. The process of invention is pretty fascinating.

So there you have it. Some pretty amazing ideas for getting and keeping things going. And, while the post wasn’t, specifically, about blogging, it rings very true for that very specific – and sometimes challenging and elusive – task.

Finally, many, many thanks to the Grassroots Giving Group.

For more information, see the December 16, 2010 edition of Grassroots Giving Group.com’s blog.

Categories
Facebook Social Media

… And Facebook for All — Company Pages

… And Facebook for All — Company Pages

Company pages have become spots you put together on Facebook to support a business (not the same as a fan page).

... And Facebook for All -- Company Pages
Neuron Robotics (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

However, like everything else on Facebook, these pages and their settings do evolve, and they’ve gotten simpler these days. Currently, the following features are available:

  • Change Background Image/Avatar
  • Edit Page
  • Promote with an Ad
  • Add to my Page’s Favorites
  • Suggest to Friends
  • Information
  • Insights
  • Friends Who Like the Page
  • People Who Like the Page
  • Favorite Pages
  • Photos
  • Links
  • Events
  • Wall
  • Info
  • Photos
  • This Week
  • Notes
  • Videos
  • Post Scheduling
  • Various Apps

Change Background Image/Avatar

This one is rather self-explanatory. Furthermore, a good, bright background image is good, as it shows up when you share the page. In addition, you might want to change these on occasion as that generates an update.

Edit Page

Manage permissions, add an address or business hours, etc. here.

Promote with an Ad

This is fairly self-explanatory. Note that Buffer has said that Facebook ads are a mixed bag.

Add to my Page’s Favorites

So here’s where another company you can link your page to your event pages.

Suggest to Friends

Fairly self-explanatory.

Information

This is basic information such as the company’s location.

Insights

First of all, this provides basic click information, including the number of Likes and Views. In addition, you can also see information on age and gender demographics and, most importantly, when people are online.

Friends Who Like the Page

Fairly self-explanatory.

People Who Like the Page

Fairly self-explanatory, except this includes people you are not, personally, friends with.

Favorite Pages

This goes back to adding a page as a favorite. And it shows which company pages your company has favorited.

Photos

Fairly self-explanatory.

Links

Fairly self-explanatory.

Events

I’ve found adding events to be hit or miss. First of all, not everyone RSVPs, and not everyone shows up even if they’ve said yes. However, it provides more exposure and it will bring your page up to people as the event date rolls around. Because even people who are clicking “No” are still looking, at least a little bit. So use with discretion and don’t overdo this. Because not every activity is an event, and not everyone should be invited to everything. Since that’s just plain annoying.

Wall

Fairly self-explanatory. In addtion, you can control who can add to your wall. However, keep in mind that if you are free and easy with this, you’ll get more posts but you might also get spam. Although if you shut this down, you end up with Posts to Page. And it’s easy to miss these!

Info

Here you add more detailed information. Hence this includes the company’s address and its business hours.

Photos

Fairly self-explanatory. Posts with images nearly always do better than those without, so upload an image if the link you’re sharing doesn’t have one. Make sure you have permission to use the image!

This Week

For administrators, you can see what’s going on at a glance. However, this no longer seems to exist on Facebook.

Notes

Fairly self-explanatory. Hence add notes like you would on your own personal page. E. g. these are almost discussions. However, the responses are relegated to subordinate comments versus the kind of back and forth that comes from the wall or the discussions page. And this is, admittedly, a nitpicky distinction without much of a real difference. I would, though, suggest that you not use the Notes section for blogging. Instead, get a blog through WordPress (yay!) or the like and do it that way. Because the Notes section ends up a rather poor substitute for that.

Videos

Fairly self-explanatory. Hence if you’ve got videos uploaded, they can show up here. However, this is not the same as linking to a video hosted online elsewhere.

Post Scheduling

Fairly self-explanatory. So just post to your wall but pull down on the post button and select Schedule Post. In addition, if you’ve been looking at your Insights, you should know when people are online. And of course you want to try to post when people will see your posts.

Various Apps

Finally, go to Edit Profile and there is an option for Applications. However, these days, the only ones are Notes and Events.

Next: Offsite Sharing

Categories
Facebook

Responding to Facebook’s Organic Reach Decline

Responding to Facebook’s Organic Reach Decline

Responding to Facebook’s Organic Reach Decline – Facebook’s organic reach is going down. That is, fewer people are seeing your posts (unless you cough up some dough). What to do?

Facebook logo Español: Logotipo de Facebook Fr...
Facebook logo Español: Logotipo de Facebook Français : Logo de Facebook Tiếng Việt: Logo Facebook (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Social Media Today’s Pam Dyer has the scoop on how to respond.

In 2012, Facebook restricted brand content reach to around 16%. In 2014, the figure plummeted to just about a dismal 6%.

According to Dyer, “No one really knows for sure how Facebook decides what appears in news feeds, but some elements are well known as weighting factors:

  • Post types that receive the most user interaction
  • Posts that users hide or report as spam
  • How a user interacts with Facebook ads
  • The device that is used to access Facebook and the speed of its connection”

EdgeRank has less importance than it had, but it’s not quite gone from the mix. It consists of –

  • “Affinity: The closeness of the relationship between the user and the content/source
  • Weight: The action that was taken on the content
  • Decay: The freshness of the content”

Dyer lays out four steps.

  1. Optimize Facebook content. Test what’s working, and what isn’t.  What are people clicking on? And are they clicking through to your site? Look at Google Analytics for your site, and determine which content is the source for your Facebook-generated traffic.
  2. Create incentives for sharing content. Whether that’s offers, contents, or just can-you-believe-this types of posts, create the kind of content that people want to spread to their peers.
  3. Work a multi-network campaign strategy. Use hashtags; they show up in all sorts of places, and not necessarily on Facebook.  Put your hashtag in all of your promotions, e. g. blogs, television commercials, literature, etc.
  4. Track data, and act on it accordingly! What’s happening with your links? Where is your audience coming from? Dovetailing with step #1, be the company that knows where your traffic is really coming from. Know where your audience is clicking.

Knowledge is power.

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Quinnipiac

Quinnipiac Assignment 01 – ICM501 – Ratings and Recommender Systems

Ratings and Recommender Systems

Unlike the offline world, the Internet is chock full of ratings and recommender systems. Why? Because metrics are everywhere. On YouTube, you know how many people watched a video, and who made it to the end. On WordPress, you know where your readers came from. On Facebook, you are constantly being served the likings, joinings, and friendings of your friends. Plus you have likely provided any number of cues about your preferences, your age, your gender, your marital status and/or sexual preference, and your location, among dozens if not hundreds of other data points. This includes everything from indicating you are a Red Sox fan to watching a cooking demonstration video to its end, to listing your college graduation year on LinkedIn, to joining a group devoted to German Shepherd Dog rescue, to reviewing a book on GoodReads about bi-curiosity. With all of this data, attempts are made to get a clear(er) picture of a person. With the picture comes an effort at predictability.

Amusingly, as I’ve been writing this blog post, to prove the point, the WordPress Zemanta plugin is currently serving me pictures of German Shepherd Dogs and a number of articles about them, allegedly related to this post. But, surprise! This post isn’t really about German Shepherds at all, this image notwithstanding.

Quinnipiac Assignment 01 – ICM501 – Ratings and Recommender Systems
German Shepherd Dog from 1915 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Close But No Cigar. Not Even a Kewpie Doll

Just as Zemanta screws up, so do plenty of other sites with recommender systems. Spotify, Pandora, and other music-matching sites seem to fairly routinely not get it. In September of 2013, Forbes reporter Amadou Diallo wrote about a search for a perfect playlist. In his article, Diallo compared iTunes Radio, Spotify, and Pandora, by using various seed artists to create playlists. The matching algorithms were given Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, and The Alabama Shakes. Diallo concluded that Pandora had the best matching algorithm, but there were definite flaws with all three.

To my mind, a pure computer-driven search is a misplaced notion. One of the issues is of categorization. For musical, film, book, and other recommendations, it’s all only as good as how it’s categorized, and often goods are poorly organized. Consider Johnny Cash. A country artist? Sure. Male artist? Of course. He came from a particular time period and his work was generally guitar-heavy. And then, late in his career, he threw a curve and recorded a cover of Nine Inch Nails’ Hurt. If recommender systems had existed when he released it, the song would have dented the algorithms, perhaps even fatally.

A further issue with recommender systems is that they seem to treat people’s preferences like computer problems. E. g. if you like, say, movies that involve the American South, history, and a strong male lead, you might be served, under a movie recommender system, both Gone With The Wind and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Yet one is a classic romance, whereas the other is a nonfiction work. Even if perfect granularity is achieved, and all of the seemingly relevant data points are hit, recommender systems still aren’t necessarily truly up to the task.

As J. Ellenberg says, in This psychologist might outsmart the math brains competing for the Netflix Prize. Wired (2008, February 25). [Link] “Of course, this system breaks down when applied to people who like both of those movies. You can address this problem by adding more dimensions — rating movies on a “chick flick” to “jock movie” scale or a “horror” to “romantic comedy” scale. You might imagine that if you kept track of enough of these coordinates, you could use them to profile users’ likes and dislikes pretty well. The problem is, how do you know the attributes you’ve selected are the right ones? Maybe you’re analyzing a lot of data that’s not really helping you make good predictions, and maybe there are variables that do drive people’s ratings that you’ve completely missed.” (Page 3)

There are any number of thoroughly out there reasons why people like or dislike something or other. Some are far from quantifiable, predictable, or replicable. They can’t be scaled to the entire population, or even one of its segments. Do we prefer a particular song because it reminds us of a point in our life that is no more? Do we avoid a film because it’s where we took our lost love on our first date?

Going Along to Get Along

Another issue with recommender systems is that people can often be persuaded one way or another. The Salganik and Watts study is rather interesting in this regard. These two researchers presented subjects with a number of unreleased songs and asked them to rate the songs and also download whatever they liked. Certain songs rose to the top of the charts (just like we normally see on Billboard, the Hot 100 and the like) whereas others were clunkers that fell swiftly. When the researchers switched the presented numbers, showing higher ratings for the stinkers and lower ratings for euphony, test subjects changed their minds. All Salganik and Watts had to do was convince their test subjects that this was the right outcome.

Salganik, M. J., & Watts, D. J. (2008). Leading the herd astray: An experimental study of self-fulfilling prophecies in an artificial cultural market.Social Psychology Quarterly, 71(4), 338–355. [PDF] “…over a wide range of scales and domains, the belief in a particular outcome may indeed cause that outcome to be realized, even if the belief itself was initially unfounded or even false.” (Page 2)

Are these instances of undue influence? Self-fulfilling prophecies? Test subjects wanting to appear ‘cool’ or go along with the majority in order to increase personal social capital? And where are ratings and recommender systems in all of this? Are they measuring data? Or is it, like is the case with the Observer Effect, that the very acts of observation and measurement are skewing the numbers and generating false outcomes?

Or is it, perhaps still the case, that there’s no accounting for taste?

Enjoy Johnny Cash (but only if you want to).

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Online Advertising: Facebook Ads vs. Google AdWords vs. LinkedIn

Online Advertising: Facebook Ads vs. Google AdWords vs. LinkedIn

Social Media Today recently compared these three types of online advertising, namely: Facebook Ads, Google AdWords, and LinkedIn.

Social Media Phobias
Social Media Phobias (Photo credit: Intersection Consulting)

Google

Google’s ads have gotten more expensive, and their success often seems to be hit or miss. Wide geographic ranges can give dramatic numbers but few results – narrowing things down geographically seems to accompany a commensurate rise in click quality.  According to the article, Google advertising, “… works if you have a unique and popular product or service. The interface feels professional, with excellent reporting tools, great usability and many various options.”

Facebook

The Facebook advertising experience seemed to be the most satisfying to the writer of the article.  With a demographic and geographic focus (and fast service by Facebook support), ads could be created with near-pinpoint accuracy.  When speaking of Facebook, which is much more of a leisure time site than LinkedIn or Google is, the article stated, “(t)he secret is not to become too serious in your ads and keep them simple.”

LinkedIn

LinkedIn was seen as being great for ads intended to reach strictly professional audiences. However, the LinkedIn admin team took significantly longer to approve advertisements than their counterparts at Facebook and Google took.  The reporting was also rather restricted, only offering a CSV file for download.

I agree with the conclusions drawn in the article – Facebook was overall the best, Google would be helpful for targeted ads for specific, unique or well-known products, and LinkedIn lagged, big time. To my mind, this also dovetails well with these sites’ overall purposes. Facebook is seen as for socializing and so it seems to work with ads in the same way that we are used to be served television commercials. Google and LinkedIn have other purposes and so there is less of an expected marriage of content and online advertising.

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Quinnipiac Assignment #10 ICM524 – Google’s Monopoly

This week in class, we prepared HTML code with semantic categories and we also wrote about Google’s monopoly.

My essay is reproduced below, in its entirety.

Google’s Monopoly

Introduction – Ma Bell and Her Demise

We in the United States have been down the monopoly road before.

I well recall the telephone company being a monopoly. We were told, back when I was studying economics in High School, that it was a “good” monopoly. The teacher said that it was just the way that communications ran, and that it all made sense. The technology all went together. Installation, repairs, number assignment and indexing, and recordkeeping all went together perfectly.

Then came the 1980s and a court order to break up the Bell System. Apparently this “good” monopoly wasn’t so good after all. I had moderately high telephone bills then. Also, I was living in a dorm but we were still responsible for our local and long distance bills. I even recall standing on a line to get a landline telephone and sign a contract.

In 1984, Bell was broken up into a few regional holding companies and I had moved to an apartment in Delaware. My telephone bills, particularly for long distance, had climbed. Then later in the 1980s and into the 1990s, there would be all of these commercials for long distance carriers. But the prices remained high.

Fast forward to today. My bill is pretty close to what it was when I attended school in Delaware. But I don’t just get local and long distance service; I also get Internet and cable. For nearly what I was paying when the phone system was in the regional holding company stage thirty years ago, I get considerably more for my dollar. Breaking up Ma Bell ended up, after some initial chaos, saving me money and getting me, the typical consumer, much better services.

Google and Analytics

Let’s look at Google.

As Steve Ballmer of Microsoft puts it, “This [search] is a scale game because the market for advertising is auction-based economics. If we have exactly the same quality of algorithms but less scale in search advertising we get less revenue per search than Google which means they have more money to pay for distribution on Samsung or Apple.Rumor is they pay each $1 to $3 billion a year for distributing their search products. We have to generate volume to step up.”

It’s pretty bad when even Microsoft says you might be a monopoly.

Is Google’s attitude toward analytics driving some of this? After all, they offer it for free, and they strongly encourage website owners (commercial and noncommercial) to make use of it. But much like a man in an unmarked van offering candy, it seems to come at a price. A great analytics system definitely makes more online businesses successful. And what do successful and/or ambitious online businesses do? They buy search. And they buy apps. They click on ads and convert more, and then those ads can be sold for more. And that’s where Google makes its billions – Google websites and Google member websites. The analytics program seems to be yet another great advertisement for Google.

Furthermore, a great, free analytics package definitely inclines one to think more favorably about Google. Microsoft, on the other hand, feels like it is bribing Bing users by offering rewards. Yet when Google offers better search placement in exchange for using Google+, it doesn’t seem so disingenuous. After all, what’s Google’s slogan? Don’t be evil. What’s Microsoft’s? Where do you want to go today? It is still positive, yes. But it’s not specifically assuring a customer that no harm is intended. Is that a requirement? It might very well be, given today’s skeptical consumer culture.

Google lulls the website owner into a comfortable sense of security, that a small business can be better analyzed and make more money, if only you could rank higher in searches! Except they’re selling the same bill of goods to that website owner’s competition. What happens when everyone is perfect at search? Then it’s more money for Google, as website owners buy more paid search to try to get back on top of the heap. The analytics package rather neatly tells website owners where they’re failing. The subtle hint is – buy search and you could improve again.

It’s Not a Monopoly If you’re Really That Good

There is one corollary in all of this. A superior product or service should always rise to the top, given the free market. Consumers naturally are going to seek out better products and, when price is no longer a factor, then quality is going to be the main driving force behind usage, with convenience being important as well. Is Google a better service than Bing or Yahoo? Maybe. It’s bigger, yes. But is its size defining its superiority? As Ballmer stated above, it’s a scale game. Search Engine Watch says that Google has just over 2/3 of all searches. Bing held the second spot with 18.7%. Yahoo had 10%. The remaining 3.7% was divided between Ask.com and AOL.

A site that enormous is going to, by definition, have considerably more money to throw around. This will result in the hiring of better engineers, more development, more frequent updates, and more innovations. Right now, it just seems like Google has the best product. It does not seem to be actively trying to require usage of its services (unlike Microsoft, which bundled Internet Explorer with its PCs and was court ordered to stop doing that). An active attempt to require usage of goods or services would be a violation of the Clayton Antitrust Act. Google has been careful to not stray into Clayton Act territory. Yet if it continues to crush its competition, it may end up there anyway.

Conclusion

Google is offering the best search experience. It’s also offering the best free analytics package, which strongly encourages businesses to put their advertising eggs into the Google basket. Being better is not a Clayton Act violation. But I think Ballmer’s got a point (although of course he’s also got an agenda). The scale is so wildly out of proportion that almost anything Google does essentially promotes it as a monopoly. Much like Facebook, Google is the category killer.

Monopoly
Theodore Roosevelt

Perhaps the United States government needs to step into both areas, and put on the brakes a little on this kind of wild growth. It’s not your father’s monopoly anymore, but it sure seems to be a monopoly all the same. And the last time one that was this big was broken up, it resulted in an eventual win for consumers. Maybe it’s time the heirs of Teddy Roosevelt took an axe to Google.

References