THE FUTURE OF MEASUREMENT

Colin Wheeler, Waggener Edstrom

PLUS…

WHAT ARE WE MEASURING?

140 million tweets per day

600 tweets per second

30 billion pieces of content shared each month(web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.)

100m+ professionals around the world

Total identified blogs: 158,360,910

13 million hours of video uploaded in 2010

? ? ?

175 million registered users

500 million users

2 billion views a day – 70% of traffic comes from outside USA

NO SURPRISES, BUT…

• With the prevalence of

social media activity, it is

hard to remember digital

isn’t ‘that’ mainstream

• The cost of providing

content for traditional

media is still higher than

online media

‘OLD’ MEDIA IS STILL HERE

LOTS OF TOOLS TO MEASURE ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA

Website/IT Corporate Comms Marketing Customer

Research Legal

We are flooded with

information, and are

under pressure to

deliver processed

information and

actions

BUT…

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wheatfields/4754350449/

NEED TO…PAUSE FOR BREATH

It’s about

• Understanding what’s working

• Spending more time thinking

about the impact

• Identifying more action as an

output

Perhaps this is all

just too hard?!

THE FUTURE OF MEASUREMENT

WHY SHOULD WE BE MEASURING?

COMMS MESSAGING

EFFECTIVENESS

REACTIVE BRAND PROTECTION

INFLUENCER IDENTIFICATION

CUSTOMER SERVICE CHANNEL

• It is important to be clear - what gets measured gets

done

• Align measurement with company goals and the goals of

the activity

• Measurement is a strategic decision – don’t measure

without purpose

• Defining the campaign objectives is the first task

How you measure the objectives is the second

GETTING IT RIGHT – BACK TO BASICS

• Benchmark! Similar campaigns, competitors, change over

time

• Customise your measurement goals to your needs

• Be flexible – pick the data and tools that match the

objectives

• Look for synergies with other data e.g. sales, web-traffic,

tracking research, traditional and online media

• Integrate across all activity – marketing communications,

PR, industry and competitor stories

BE CREATIVE IN YOUR MEASURES

It is easier to get the message

across if data is displayed

meaningfully.

e.g. Ripple effect

charts showing the

amplification of

messages and

which influencers

create the biggest

impact.

HAVE FUN WITH YOUR OUTPUTS

WE’s new

Social Graph

tool defines

who is

influencing the

influencer,

and through

which digital

media

channels.

Decide on your resource model:

• Is this an in-house task or an agency task?

• What do you want as outputs from the analysis team?

• How are you resourced to take action on the results?

THE HUMAN ELEMENT

Tell the story - digital data measures are often quantitative, hard numbers:

• Look across datasets, look for consistencies in the different viewpoints to confirm that the hypothesis of impact is valid

• Get opinionated, be action-orientated

GET OPINIONATED

• Whether this is an ongoing requirement or in response to

an adhoc project …

– Is/was the activity successful?

– What worked well vs other elements?

– What will you do next?

UNDERSTANDING SUCCESS

BIG CONSEQUENCES FOR GETTING IT RIGHT

Share across teams, keep everyone informed

Learn from each round of activity and monitoring – do it better next time

In a world of multi-media exposure, multi-tasking, where

we’re all creative – videos, blogs, photos – polymaths are

very much at home.

People who cast their nets widely, share thinking (not data)

widely throughout their business, are willing to experiment,

never stop learning and can work effectively in an inter-

disciplined way are really interesting to work with, to follow

on twitter, to interact and share with.

Recent trends: POLYMATHS

How would we do this again? What would or could it look like?• New Scientist has asked the question about Nuclear

Power and the connection between the military development of Nuclear and the non-military requirements

• Monocle magazine takes a wider look with it’s ‘Global Rethink’ issue, looking at businesses which re-invent themselves

• HBR discusses failure – understanding it and learning from it

Recent trends: A CLEAN SLATE?

Get in touchcwheeler@waggeneredstrom.com

@Colin_Wheeler