A few days ago I read Dave Fleet‘s post REACH MATTERS – EVEN IN SOCIAL MEDIA …

Note: I’ve combined 2 different themes in this post – the first – amplitude of social media messaging takes time to build up and money (also, expertise) – the other – that deep dive analysis of Social Media and Web Analytics  takes focused time – but that time, which doesn’t sit well in fast paced organizations where a lot of reports are needed with little notice -  read on if you want to know more about both topics.

It’s a harsh truth. It’s comforting to pat ourselves on the back and tell ourselves that we’re influential. Think about it, though – would TechCrunch be influential without its audience? Would Brogan? Of course, their success didn’t come overnight and they didn’t always have those audiences.  It’s not easy to admit but for most communicators, reach (or audience size) does matter.

1. In order to get the attention of influencers, you often need a critical mass behind you;
2. Separate and in parallel to that, the law of averages implies that, over time, the more people you reach the more influential people you will reach.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at your average web traffic then compare it to the last time you got a big mainstream media hit. It’s why I, despite being a social media convert, still argue strongly that mainstream media matters.

By the way, Dave Fleet is alluding to a familiar concept (I think it’s called “Power Laws”, above)- and it reminded me of an analysis I did a few months ago, using Word Clouds, to track the launch of product (I had to take that post down – long story) and concluded – Social Media required “amplitude“.  Here’s part of that post that plays into this theme – that Size Matters – Reach Matters – in Social Media.   I covered the volume of messaging that happened before the launch of a product and right after.

The volume of posts (covering the full spectrum of what Radian6 can collect) were 500% after the launch from pre-launch state:

So, one way to evaluate the effectiveness of this campaign – akin to what www.BrandTags.Net (but not the same exact approach, or limitations that site has) is observe the clarity and volume of the message.

And I concluded that if you can’t spend the money and dedicate (or hire) resources to produce “amplitude” to the right audience – you’ll have to spend a lot of sweat equity (your own time) to make up the difference – if you can make up the difference, and I said as much in my original post:

It might be that you need enough “saturation” of the message – to get that “word cloud” to show clear messaging – but that’s going to be hard to do – it your not going to be able to really work at it – realistically – a couple of tweets here and there – are not going to do much. Ironically, as Social Media adverse as many big brands have been, till now, they’re also in the ideal situation to take advantage of it, when they’re ready, as they have “deep pockets”.

But, it’s also true  “saturation” of the message in online media depends on who the audience is ... if your trying to reach a couple of million people – it’s going to be really hard to do it on a shoestring (despite the Web being the “Great Equalizer” – maybe it was, – but no longer) -but,  if your trying to reach a small group of local people – or a certain community – maybe all you need, is “You”.

The idea of doing Social Media on a shoestring – came up recently when Jacob Morgan let drop, out of his lips, the real cost of implementing a social media program (see his presentation on Social Media ROI – see slide 18 – copied, below),

If the business is not an enterprise, the cost will be less, but at the end of the day, if your not spending money, your spending time, your time and other people’s time, and time, as we know, is money (in one form or another) – so it might be the value of what you spend might end up costing more than you think (which is why business is often taking a conservative approach with Social, even now).   See the 200K – at least Jacob Morgan comes right out and says it …. but if you think about  it – it makes sense.

In the case of my chart, above, increasing the amplitude, the size of the signal, by 500% overnight – and keeping it up there – that cost money – a lot of money – and it was done for a client by Public Relations – who set it all up (I’m not saying if that’s good or bad – it just “is).

I’m of the opinion it’s neither the chicken or the egg, but both – it’s the evolution of influence, which leads to a wider audience, that matters, while just talking influencer or mass audience size, by themselves, doesn’t lead anywhere.

Take a few practical examples

1) Successful/Famous Artists -  I often go to art openings via my ArtNewYorkCity.com blog, and have spent time thinking about why Picasso or Matisse or David Hockney, or Kandinsky, or anyone you can think of …. became known and influential in the Art World.

If Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Modigliani, etc – had not almost starved in Paris, in the early part of the last century – painting when almost no one knew who they were …. would we have the successes that came later – would they have connected with influentials that would later?  If Paul Cezanne had not spent the better part of 20 years in isolation, in his beloved Aix, painting still lives no one wanted… would Vollard (and Influential) have seen and shown Cezanne’s work in 1895? (see Cezanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde)  NO.  By the way, Vollard bought low and sold high … he recognized value and stored it till it appreciated in value, then he often sold his collections of art at a very handsome profit.

We think the right Influencers (a small audience of 3, as Dave Fleet mentioned ““if you have three readers and they’re Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and Donald Trump, you don’t need anyone else” is all that mattered …  though the influencer, in this case, Vollard, the art dealer, or Gertrude Stein, 20 years later, a much wider audience comes into play.   Yet that audience is a EVOLUTIONARY development – you can not  have the Chicken without the Yoke – so isolating one from the other is simply … not possible.

2) Gary Vaynerchuk -Crush IT! – I’ve seen Gary several times in NYC, and the last time, about a month ago, he waxed on about how much work he did, research he did, hustling he did, before anything much happened, for him – in the way it’s happened now.

True, Gary Started with a 5 Million dollar business – and amplified that to a 50 Million dollar business (he didn’t start from 0) and what Gary did would not work for everyone, and i don’t even think it would work for me … but my point is ….. he put a lot of work, day in and day out – for a few years before anything happened much.

You can not isolate is large following now ….. from the work he did before … it’s an EVOLUTION.

The implications for Social Media are profound.  You can’t get the “amplitude” needed to “move the dial” (if your message rings true with our audience in the first place – that’s an assumption I’m making here – if not, forget it with Social Media, it won’t work without a certain amount of authenticity) unless your willing to do one of two things (which I mentioned above).

1. You have to spend money to get the “amplitude” up – you can hope for free viral spread, but you can’t depend on it.

2. If you don’t have money, you can make up for it, somewhat, with time, your own sweet equity, but it’s going to end up costing you a lot of energy, which translates, eventually, into money.

Finally, I want to end this post with another thought – somewhat related, about doing analysis vs. reporting in Social Media and Web Analytics -listen to a podcast on Beyond Web Analytics-Episode 2 - 13 minutes in where Gary Angel talks “focused time” -  how analysts need space to do real analysis - it can’t be fit in between meetings - and that organizations (particularly Public Relations – enough said) that are used to producing reports quickly, but also are preventing their analysts from being productive on a “deeper level”.   In order to get meaningful analysis – we need focused time - sometimes a day or two – without too many interruptions – listen to the whole podcast, it’s pretty interesting.

But let’s take that and apply it to what I’ve been talking about, above.   Why does Social Media cost 200K per engagement and take a year?   Probably, because consultants are being hired to envision the strategy and execute on it – along with inhouse teams – and they’re focused on results.    In the podcast, the solution was to identify individuals in an organization that could do deep analysis and give them the space and tools to allow it – but in the Social Media world, that take on a similar but slightly different dimention.

In the Social Media world – you need need to have several hours of “focused” tweeting, for example – where one or two hours, sandwiched in between several other tasks – simply won’t move the dial.  In Social Media, your analytics data, pulled out of Radian6, Visible Measures, Sysomos, Alterian, Crimson Hexagon – takes a bit of time to set up well, for each profile – and more time to eliminate noise … and that costs money and it’s focused work … you can’t get to results that are meaningful, or even, believable, with out that.