I worked on the analytics of a clients’ site most of today; we did a lot of Google Analytics enablement to track visitors to this popular restaurant site in New York.  We have most of what we want to track handled by virtual pageviews and an event tracking script – but one thing I can’t directly control is how the site is used, or not used; that’s true of any site/project.

For example, all the analytics enablement work won’t tell us much about current or future marketing campaigns if the campaigns bypass the website.   The only way Google Analytics (or any analytics knows about anything) is when people visit a site enabled with tracking code, etc.  Google Analytics can pick up Social Media traffic (I have a social media traffic filter set up I’ve used on a variety of profiles) – but if, in designing and executing campaigns, we don’t design them to so they interact with the website (where the tracking code is) at key points – I don’t see how Google Analytics will tell anyone much about the campaign – or anything about it.

So … when people say … “show me the ROI” – I invested “X” in this program – show me the “Y” of it  …..  and nothing much of what they did had anything to do with the website (say, we did a WOM campaign and got 100 more people to visit one of the restaurant locations and spend “Z” amount of money – nothing of that has anything to do with the Analytics  enablement of the website – unless we make it about that … that’s right – unless we design programs to use the analytics tracking we set up … we might as well forget about setting it up in the first place – because it’s not going to tell us much.

So, I’d suggest – figure our your goals – then outline your strategies – and write down the campaigns and tactics that fall under the strategies  … do any of them go through the website you just enabled?  If not – collect 0.   On the other hand, having a well enabled site for site analytics – it doesn’t take all that much to set up landing pages and design campaigns and tactics that make people use those pages.

Or maybe we just make the process “fun” – read Beth Kantor’s post on How To Make Social Media Experiments Fun!  There’s also a post on What Do We Really Mean By Art? that I need to read.

And while we’re at it – in this case I noticed one very interesting feature that Google Analytics provided.

Mobile traffic increased by 52% over the last 100 days or so compared to the previous 100 days; interesting because even if you can’t get everything to run through a website – you can probably get it to run though a mobile site since just about everyone has a mobile device and most are created to run some level of browsing activity.

Getting to my journal – read It’s Not About Influence, It’s About Trust by Jason Falls which I thought was quite a good post.  In it Jason makes a point that …

… The difference in influence and trust is the difference in quantity and quality. Perez Hilton can get you a lot of eyeballs, but are they the right eyeballs and will they do anything with your information? Louis Gray won’t get you a lot of eyeballs, in comparison, but the ones he gets are golden. He gets them because his audience trusts him.

I’m more interested in Trust than Influence, which you can’t put in a can.

But you can put a sandwich in a can and make it last a year, so I’m told – it’s called a Candwich.

Trying to wrap my head around the idea – can’t say I’m wild about it – it’s one thing to put a sandwich in a can, but would you really want to eat it after a year if you had a choice?   I suppose, if I’m desperate…..

Did you realize Social Media might help people with Social Anxieties – see Can Social Media Help with Social Anxiety Disorder?

….We could even speculate that perhaps, one of the many reasons Social Media has become so popular is due to the massive amount of people plagued by this disorder. Besides its convenience and global reach, Social Media can also play an important role to help heal those who suffer from the silence of this all too common turmoil.

There’s also a nice info-graphic here.