Here’s the four presentations from the Search Engine Strategies session I moderated and presented at on Social Media Analysis and Tracking last Wednesday, August 20th, 2008, in San Jose.

Track: Social Media
Social Media Analysis and Tracking
Social Search can be used to drive traffic, conversions, and increase ROI by monitoring conversations happening in cyberspace, often in real time. By using buzz monitoring tools such as Buzzlogic, search professions can be very effective in finding influencer’s within online conversations and reaching out to them. As one example of a few that will be presented, learn how Military.com leverages social media and buzz monitoring tools, together with a solid understanding of business goals, to increase profitability.

Moderator:

• Marshall Sponder, Senior Web Analyst, Monster.com

Speakers:

• Breanna Wigle, CRM Manager, Military Advantage
• Edmund Wong, Vice President, Strategy, iCrossing
• Todd Parsons, Co-founder & CPO, BuzzLogic.com
• Rob Key, CEO, Converseon

sessanjose08_social-media-analysis_msponder I felt that I had not really presented my ideas the previous day at the Audience 2.0 Measurement Panel with Avinash Kaushik, Jim Sterne and Matt Bailey – I was the only speaker without a presentation.  Felt bad about it but decided, better live and learn and put much of what I would have said, in this presentation, along with a binding to the rest of what was presented below (in the other 3 presentations).

In fact, I had “touched” the Military/Buzzlogic study, having also done analytics work for Military to find out how much Social Media traffic converted, and supplied the 6% improvement over non-social media referrers that was cited in the study.

In a real way, the Social Media Analysis and Tracking session was my idea, and I pitched it to Kevin Ryan and he took me up on it – I felt I had to deliver, and I did.

sessanjose08_social-media-analysis_tparsons When I brought Military.com and Buzzlogic together I wasn’t really sure what the outcome would be – wisely, Breanna Wigle, living in the Bay Area, was able to meet directly with Buzzlogic, and to her credit, come up with a 5K insertion order to test the concept of Social Media here.  I feel we broke new ground – really new ground – and I give Breanna Wigle a lot of credit for being able to even get Military.com to take a chance.

In this role, I saw myself as a connector – I brought the circumstances about, and they moved in their own direction – but I kept my hand in it – meaning, I touched this study, even if I was not directly involved in it’s actual creation.

sessanjose08_social-media-analysis _rkey -I’ve worked with Converseon for a good 5 years, and spoke at their Social Media Roundtable a few weeks ago in their Manhattan offices, along with K.D. Paine and Mike Moran.  Rob Key and the Converseon team are the one of the leaders in Social Media – the people you go to when you want to find out how to do it – the people who deliver results – from ground up – they know Social Media; Converseon probably has one of the best teams for Social Media in the World (and their new offices are pretty Ritzy, if I do say so, myself).

If I could wish for one more thing – it would be for some of my paintings to hang in Converseon’s offices – as I think they’d look great in that setting.

sessanjose08_social-media-analysis_ewong -The iCrossing case study was actually pretty darn good, and well researched and supported.  Also, Edward pointed out, and I noted, that he had to do a lot of url mapping to Social Media, just as I had, for some of my projects.

All of this brought home that it’s possible to do Social Media Analysis and Tracking with some degree of percision, even now, but in most cases, you’ll need a variety of tools and the ability to mash up the data.

Enjoy the presentations and I’d love to hear feedback from any of my readers on any of the presentations or ideas presented herein.