For someone who isn’t a “classically trained marketer”, Chris Brogan is pretty savvy 🙂
Check out this great post here:
http://chrisbrogan.com/measuring-social-media-efforts/
For right now, Social Media (or whatever you want to call this thing of ours) is getting a big pass from the Clients when it comes to measurement/data/analytics. We “know” this stuff works. We know that relevant, authentic communication, in a human voice, on the user’s terms resonates. We can see a “density” in comment/trackback/link traffic. We know how many eyeballs hit a page, but what about the halo effect, the whisper-stream, the watercooler, etc.?
Chris’ idea of mapping is spot-on. In my mind, and with my clients the map is the start of everything – but it is a map that grows over time. It starts as a user-experience map. I evolves to include the content types (think overlay). On top of that we add the stories that create those experiences through those content types and channels. With this information in mind we can add the linking, feedback and syndication opportunities to the map. Will this change? Hell yes. Unless the program lives and dies within one week, there will be some new feature, some evolving API, some growing community we add to the stew. Making it better, growing it faster.
Nice work Chris.
Don’t make me want to kiss you. : ) Thanks for pointing to this. I’m really hoping to better understand the way we can explain this. I know that you’re looking at this, too. I hope that we can find some viable metrics, but also better understand the topography. Here’s hoping our work makes it make sense.
Thanks for the article on Social Bookmarking! Very informative… and timely! Keep them coming.