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.

Got pretty good feedback from the 2 presentations I did at Search Engine Strategies San Jose - including this one from Lloyd Grafton of Liberate Media  titled SES social media measurement round up.

“…

As you may have seen, there are a whole host of informative posts on the measuring success in a web 2.0 world and social media and analysis sessions, which both took place earlier this week. My favourite posts can be found via the online marketing blog, which gives a step-by-step rundown of the sessions and valuable learnings.

Both sessions involved Marshall Sponder, senior web analyst for Monster.com. Marshall’s presentation can be seen here.

There are two things that I would like to pick up on specifically.

First a good point from the measuring success in a web 2.0 world session, where Marshall Sponder confirmed that as well as understanding that social media measurement is about conversations, we will only get to the next level of measurement if we treat visitors from Twitter for example, differently than visitors from forums, and then differently again from direct visitors. Without measuring the conversation, and the outcomes of that conversation, we are missing a huge chunk of useful data.

The online marketing blog listed the key takeaways from the social media and analysis session as:

1. There is no killer metric

2. Track anything possible to glean insight

3. Social media is not just about numbers

4. It’s all relative (focus on benchmarking and trends)

5. Measuring social media does not + ROI for social media

6. View monitoring social media as a Social Intelligence programme, involving the world’s biggest focus group….”

There’s more that I said, and the panel in the second session on Wednesday was hand picked by me, for the most part.   I’m hoping I get invited back to do more of these presentations - they’ll continue to get better.

One thing want to say, and then I’m off to check out of my room and head back into San Francisco, for a full day of meetings - is that people attend conferences like SES for a number of reasons, but the main one is to gain knowledge - and while, in many cases, there is new content, it’s a vary familar remark I’ve heard - that it’s mostly the same stuff, year after year - being presented by the mostly the same people.

To Kevin Ryan’s credit - he’s tried to mix it up a little, and focus more on content - and he gave me a chance to present what I believed to be real content - not that anyone was giving away any “secret sauce” … but we just want to give people what the came to this conference for.

And we delivered… at least, we did in any session I was connected with.   Anytime someone comes to a session I’m in - there’ll be something new, I’ll talk about some new insight or way of looking at Social Media, or life, or Art - it’s all part of the same thing, in my book - and how it applies to measurement - to metrics.

Ok, and now I really do have to get moving.

Time to move on to a new and much better opportunity - and starting 2008 off well, I'm leaving IBM for a new opportunity at Monster.com where, among other things, I'll be working closely with the Visual Sciences platform.  Should be fun!

I'm excited and grinning.

One of the first things I did, after making some calls yesterday, was have a drink with Ancient Shriner (Code4Software.com's Jared Freedman) in Second Life, at one of the houses he's built - that's wine I'm having - in case you can't tell.  I'm the avatar on the left, Jared is on the right.

I decided to start an additional blog - one that I can have more control over - a blog where I'll complete what I start here, in some cases. 

I posted there for the first time today - Thanksgiving - My first post to Eye Metrics - Marshall Sponder, Blogger.

The new Blog's name is www.eye-metrics.com and while I could also think of it as www.my-metrics.com (which I just registered).  I guess I'm like Frank Sinatra, and I want to do my own metrics, my way.  I'll find a unique slant, and a way to combine, fully, my Art with Web Analytics in a way, that perhaps, I hold myself back from doing here.

Gary Angel and I had dinner last night at the Restivo Restaurant in Chelsea, Manhattan and discussed Semphonic's upcoming XChange Conference, Avanish Kaushik's new book Web Analytics: An Hour A Day.   We also talked about Compete.com's new Search Analytics package that I just got access to as a Beta Tester.

It's always a pleasure meeting with Gary, who's one of the most knowledgeable, hands on people in Web Analytics and Search today - he's able to both discuss high end topics having the first hand knowledge of how to implement. Some people are better at speaking (but don't actually practice Web Analytics that much), others, like Gary, really can do both well. 

We also discussed V-Tracker - the Second Life Web Analytics platform from www.Code4Software.com I came across recently via Jared Freedman, it's creator. Gary Angel and I discussed the capabilities of V-Tracker and what the future might hold for Web Analytics in Second Life - it seems we're at the turning point here - things can go one way or the other with Virtual Worlds - we get the metrics and, either we get the measurement processes established soon, and move forward, or we don't (and the Web Analytics Association Social Media Committee, which I direct, can help by working with the rest of the WAA to propose Social Media Standards, and this fact is discussed in the video I took at our dinner below):

Even as I'm on my way out the door to a Web Analytics Wednesday just now - I discovered that I've been mentioned by Valeria Maltoni about the Darren Rowse Problogger meetup that took place last Saturday.  There's a nice photo of me with Valeria (see below):

"..

He's talking about HitTail, because he sees it as

…an interesting intermediary project between graphic design and tangible social good. HitTail allows people around the world to pursue their dreams, and work towards becoming the best in the world at their niche specialty.

Mike wants to get things done and make a difference. Well, he's already had me pay attention to what he is doing at HitTail, and I must tell you, I'm not exactly a WebMetricsGuru here. Marshall Sponder is, and I found out he also knows Mike at the ProBlogger get together this past weekend in New York City. The recap of the evening is here. [that is me with Marshall at the Speakeasy]"

And the post is actually about Mike Levin, whose HitTail meetup I went to last night and video blogged from - small world.

Even as I complain about Google, they deliver me nice alerts, like the press release for Semphonic's XChange Conference in Napa Valley on Sept 20th and 21st, which I'm attending.

I'm usually at a conference to take in information but in this case, I'll be sharing information, mostly about Web Analytics and Second Life.   Should be interesting and you can count on me drinking a lot of Red Wine while I'm in Napa Valley and Videoblogging the whole thing.

"…NOVATO, CA–(Marketwire - June 12, 2007) - Semphonic, a leading web analytics consultancy today announced the XChange Conference. XChange is a highly focused web analytics conference for and by real world practitioners and web analytics managers, brought together into an intimate setting to share experiences and brainstorm new approaches. The Conference will be held on September 20th and 21st in Napa, California at COPIA — the Premier Wine, Culinary and Arts Center nestled in the very heart of Napa's Wine Country during the most beautiful and exciting time of year in the wine country.

Eric T. Peterson of Web Analytics Demystified, the noted web analytics author, consultant, and speaker, will marquee as Keynote Speaker and also serve as one of the expert facilitators.

At XChange, attendees will select from a wide variety of small group "huddles." These sessions will be facilitated by leading experts in web analytics — each picking the topics that they care most about. In addition to Mr. Peterson, expert facilitators will include leading authorities in web analytics: Gary Angel, Manoj Jasra, Marshall Sponder and many others. These practitioners will work peer-to-peer with attendees on subjects such as Engagement and Brand Measurement, Site Base lining with Functional Analysis, Social Network Analysis, and Managing Data Quality Issues. Participants will work through their unique problems, brainstorm solutions and help define new solutions and best practices in the most important areas of web analytics."

By the way, at the Semphonic XChange conference XChange attendees will be able to:

–  Air issues and concerns with fellow practitioners and co-experts;
–  Brainstorm new approaches to key analysis issues;
–  Bridge the gap between using web analytic tools and doing real
    analysis;
–  Hear the concerns, fears and wild ideas that are shaping our
    community, and be a part — not a target — of the conversation!

Here's the URL to find out more about the Semphonic XChange Conference http://www.semphonic.com/conf/

A long, long day that's finally ending with some well deserved sleep  - I filmed much of my first day in Paris but was unable to get the software working that would make larger movies so…. here's all the clips in case anyone would like to see what's happening in Paris, at least, for me.

But then, I figured it all out and decided to put most of my Paris Trip Movies all on one page, for easy reference - this page.

In fact, I decided to also add the link for more detail on each video - and most of these are on http://www.artnewyorkcity.com/ - you'll also find the same video there as here.

Trip to Paris on 5-30-07 - Getting There for Marsha Wooley's Painting Trip to Paris and Aix-en-Provence.

First Day in Paris - May 30th, 2007 - Went on a boat ride, viewed Effiel Tower and had a great dinner.  After dinner - went up to the large church, near our hotel and heard a lot of singing.

Au Lapin Agile Cabaret in Paris and other stuff on 5-31-07 - there's a whole story around "The Agile Rabbet".

The Louvre, Monet and various Paris sights on June 1st, 2007 - I was late and the group I was with went to the Louvre ahead of me … I had to find them but could not - so I gave up and enjoyed the view.  Finally, around lunchtime I hooked up with some of my party and found out where the rest were.

Trip to Eugene Delacroix’s Studio on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007 - I want to say that I had a sense of the most profound peace while sitting in the garden of Delacroix’s studio; perhaps, I have only felt such peace once or twice in my entire life.

Visiting Paul Cezanne’s Studio and my first day in Aix-en-Provence  - I made my way to Paul Cezanne’s last studio and managed to touch his robe, cap and cane.

At the base of Mont Sainte Victoire at dusk with my friends - We went right up to the base of Mont Sainte Victoire at dusk, and that led me to cancel my trip to Nice the following day and accompany Christine Boulet on a tour of Bibemus plateau which I have a lot of footage I just published.

My trip up rocky plateau of Bibémus, Paul Cezanne's motifs - My guide, Christine Boulet, was wonderful company - but little of that is really translated in this movie and yet, I hope all of that comes though, past the limitations of the medium of Online Streaming Video - via YouTube.

My trip up rocky plateau of Bibémus, Paul Cezanne - Part 2 -

After the first hour, or so, of our walk, we had the sandwiches and Pepsi Light (we brought no water - or sunglasses) - the heat got to be almost unbearable and when we reached a midway point there was a water fountain - near a dam - and I got my shirt all wet, just to deal with the the intense heat/sun.   But then, as the afternoon progressed, it cooled down and rained and that was magical.

Rocky plateau of Bibémus & tree breast & Restaurant later -

Video Part 3 (the longest segment) - also note the Tree Breast at 1 minute into this clip - it’s special and way off the path (you have to climb down to it and it’s not seen from the road). Also, there’s some footage of the best and most expensive restaurant in Aix-en-Provence, Le Clos De La Violette, at the end of the file (but the URL link does not seem to work).

Don't know what "redrum" actually stands for but I was there last night at the
Lolita Lounge in the East Village..along with Rebecca Lieb, Dana Todd,
Sebastian of webanalyticsbook.com and Liz Camps of Green Media.  Kevin Heisler of Jupiter Media also dropped by.  Here's the info that was provided by ClickZ blog.

Hey, New Yorkers — Rrrredrum Rrrreturns!

Y'all have been asking for it, but it just didn't seem right to throw another Redrum Tuesday with co-foundress Dana Todd in Left Coast exile.

Problem solved. Dana's back in New York (if only for a visit), so we're doing it again. Our next Redrum is on Tuesday, March 6 from 6-8 at the usual place, Nolita House ( 47 E. Houston, between Mulberry & Mott).

It was bitterly cold last night and I had my share of red wine to warm me up…maybe 3 glasses (a lot for me).  When I got home I was in no position to post anything…I just collapsed.

Funny…on my way home…Sebastian, Liz Camps and I actually live within a mile or so from each other…and it just underlines how much web analytic power we have in Brooklyn (Future Now being located in Red Hook) nearby..not to forget Manhattan!

Think we had about 15 attending last night.  Whenever I see Rebecca I tend to ask her about a column in ClickZ…now that would be something..wouldn't it?

I also reminded everyone to vote for me next month for a seat on the web analytics association board…those that are members of the WAA, that is.  

Thankfully webanalyticsbook just joinded the WAA, yesterday..and Liz Camps will join the WAA this month.

Anyone else want to join the WAA?  If you need some convincing ….just contact me or comment to this post and I'll reply.

I found a pre-release version of my podcast for the WAA on Measuring New Media, thanks to Google Alerts; actually, I was emailed on Friday that the podcast is almost ready to publish (looks like the Podcast Transcript notes need to be added).

Here's a link to the Podcast and I also tried embedding the MP3 player here.

Interview with Marshall Sponder, IBM and Kelly Makimaa, WAA on February 19, 2007

MP3 File

One comment - my Podcast is LONG - 42 minutes…. I haven't really done much public speaking (readers might know that I tend to avoid speaking publicly - but actually want to more) and maybe the next time I do a podcast I'll condense my thoughts first. This time, I just worked to get all my thoughts into one podcast - so maybe that's why it's 42 minutes.