If you hear someone say: “Fans & follower numbers don’t matter” on a social media blog, CLICK AWAY IMMEDIATELY. This is the exact type of social media guru platitudism (yes that’s a word) you don’t need. Fans & follower numbers MATTER.

Now that I’ve started by being contentious, let me explain.

Most of the time, if you ask a client / marketing director / CEO what the objective of the campaign is, the answer is almost universally

Sell More Stuff (SMS)

Of course it is. If you’re:

• an automotive company you want to… sell more cars
• a FMCG you want to… sell more toothpaste, food, etc…
• a politician you want to… sell more votes

The list goes on.

There are multiple reasons why this objective is not useful but fundamentally, it’s too big an objective and it’s not specific enough. For example, you can SMS by optimising your supply chain so that you can actually make enough units to meet demand. That has nothing to do with your social media campaign.

So whenever my guys tell me that the client says the objective is to SMS, I say to them, dig deeper.

And by digging deeper I want them to ask these questions:

1. Who’s product / issue targeted at?
2. What are the demographic / psychographic / personas who we are trying to motivate?
3. What is it we want them to DO? This one is important. Spell out the next physical action we want them to take.
4. What’s their current attitude?
5. How are the social elements going to be woven into the campaign?
6. Where do these people hang out? Physically, and online.

Once you know this information, setting an objective will be much easier and you will be able to see how your objectives for social media channels fit in to the overall picture and whether they can actually become the overall campaign objectives.

When I have this information I will often go away to do some additional desk research. I may use a listening tool to get an indication as to what’s happening out there. I may rely on research from a research house or tap my own networks for people who work in different parts of the company.

Once I have this information I take myself away from my desk and literally just stare into the distance for a bit and digest and distill the information. When the thinking is done, usually I come back with an objective that looks like this:

We will increase preference for Brand X amongst Young Women aged 18-24 by 15% in the next three months

By framing the objective this way, we can now set out to achieve it and ultimately serve the wider business/capitalist objective of SMS.

More importantly, you can measure it beyond the platitudes of “Generate buzz”, “starting a conversation” or heaven forbid “Engage our audience”.

This is the first in a series of posts regarding social media measurement and also appears on jonathannguyen.net

Highlights:

1. “Important Metrics”

a) Total Likes: self-explanatory – the total number of likes on the page
b) Friends of Fans: Facebook now shows you the total reach of your page when someone “Likes” it i.e. the cumulative number of friends of all your fans put togetger
c) People Talking About This: the number of unique people who have created content about your page on Facebook in the past week
d) Weekly Total Reach: the number of people who have seen all content about your page (from you + others) shared on Facebook, calculated by aggregating all the “friends” each shared post has reached.

What this means: We now have the “total reach” of your content – down to how far your initial content was seen, then got shared; the more content is viewed, the more awareness is spread, and thus the higher the chance of them clicking through to your page.

2. Overview of Activity

Facebook has upgraded their graph to show you how “individual posts influence the number of people talking about you, as well as the impact it has on the overall reach”. The size of each circle (at the bottom) shows you how much you published on that day, and also shows you the corresponding data of “people talking about this” and your “Weekly total reach”.

Why we should care:  This data will inform our conversation calendars and content strategy. HubSpot’s graph above shows you that the number of times they’ve posted does not correlate with total shares or reach. Other brand pages may reveal other nuggets of insight – great for monthly reporting.

3. Understanding Your Posts

Facebook now reveals the:

a) Total reach for each individual post
b) The number of users engaged on that same post
c) The number of people talking about that post
d) The virality of that post

And we care because: It’s important to note that with the specific data at post-level, it’s easier than ever to note the kinds of content your fans actually want (whether in terms of content or media type). This can then inform other tactics like competitions, givewaways, content-curation and fan engagement.

4. Your Audience

Previously, Facebook allowed you to see the demographic information of the people who have liked your page. You can know also see the same information for ALL the people your content has reached (via fan sharing), and also the people who are talking about it. The data is still represented in the same easy-to-read way.

We want to know this so: we can tailor content, offers and information to the people who are most engaged with the page, as well as those who are earlier along in the “Like” funnel. Why? Because it allows us to see what our real and potential fans want, so you can target new customers/fans for better conversion rates.

And that’s the quick and easy breakdown. Hope it helps – what has your experience been with the updated Facebook insights?

[Image from carrotblog]

1. The name of the page
2. The agency managing the fan page
3. The number of fans on the page
4. The page’s “People Talking About” Statistic – showing page engagement
5. Percentage of fans engaged

They purpose of their report is to set engagement level benchmarks for each of the 6 industry verticals that they covered in their study:  Fashion, Tourism, Media, Sport, Politics and FMCG.

A statistic of note is their “Australian [Facebook Page] Engagement Average” – 1.96%
To provide some context:

• the population of Australia: 21,874,900 (Source)
• the number of internet users as a percentage of population in Australia:  72% (Source) or 15,749,928 internet users

You’ll find a snapshot of their original report below, but if you’re after the full report, you can download it here. There’s already been some criticism of the study for various reasons – and any attempt at ranking brand pages is sure to result in some controversy. Some thoughts and criticisms from the community management community include:

• There is no indication of whether a brand is in the middle of a huge campaign or not (which is sure to skew the study)
• The “People Talking About” statistic, while useful, is a dynamic figure that changes daily – and the study doesn’t state its methodology – so it’s not possible to tell is the numbers are an average over time or just a snapshot
• Lack of sentiment analysis

That said, it’s still a great point of reference and a valuable look into the world of Australian community management.

When the first display banners appeared in the 90’s, they were greeted with much fan fare and significantly higher Click Through Rate (CTR) as compared to today’s CTR.  Over the years, display advertising has been the fuel that turns the Internet’s content machine and allows publishers to provide free online content to consumers. However, as online advertising developed and grew in spending and also in sophistication, CTR declined.

What caused this decline in CTR in the first place? Evidence shows that the success of online advertising has paradoxically been the prime cause for the decline in CTR performance. As more budgets were poured into display, consumers were exposed to more and more ads. However, the number of ads that a user clicked on did not catch up with the number of ads that a user was exposed to, thus reducing the overall CTR.

The story is even worse on the top social networking site in the world – Facebook. An analysis by online analytics firm Webtrends of more than 11,000 Facebook campaigns shows that ads on the social networking site last year had click-through rates which on average were about half the click-through rate of your typical non-Facebook web banner ad. The average click-through rate (CTR) for Facebook ads in 2010 was 0.051%, or about one click-through for every 2,000 ad impressions. The industry standard CTR is 0.1 percent, or one CT for every 1,000 impressions. Facebook’s CTR last year also was down from 0.063% in 2009.

Our greatest strength has become our greatest weakness:

Clients and agencies have become so obsessed with data and measurability, that they have confused the measurable with the meaningful. Click-through rates, interaction rates, open rates, download rates.  Cost-per-acquisition, -per-lead, -per-action, -per-thousand.  Engagement metrics.  Real-time optimization.  Dynamic multi-variable testing…

The decade-long quantitative orgy has led to a process built up around how ads are bought and sold, based around a media plan, and RFPs. All the good, creative thoughts get boiled down into spreadsheets. In a world of over-produced impressions, even great work by marketers is ignored at best and more commonly not even seen.

Pure focus on measuring display ads is killing desire (and Big Brand spending).

We really should be able to create desire, and desire lives in the heart not the hard drive.  It’s called the “art” of persuasion for a reason.  Without desire, there’s little to measure.  Declining register receipts will tell you all you need to know.

A new standard is born:

The world is rapidly moving towards devices/screens which function on “touch” and “gestures”, there are  some quiet clear trends for us to see –

Smartphones with just touchscreen interfaces, rather than those with screen and keypad, will become the norm by 2016, according to a new study from Juniper Research. The analyst group says that by 2016, shipments of touchscreen-only smartphones will surpass 700 million per year, or 72% of total smartphone shipments, against half of all total shipments in 2010.

A report by Gartner, the technology consultancy, forecasts that tablet sales will more than double in 2011 from an expected 19.5m units this year, and surpass 208m units in 2014.

Similarly, TV’s and gaming console’s will increasingly use “gesture recognition” to drive consumer involvement with content.

But, all this techtonic shift is guaranteed to have an impact on the current display advertising evaluation metrics. For starters we should rechristen the “click”.  I foresee the new definition of the “click” to be “touch”. “Pay per touch” how does that sound? By including the aspect of “touch”, digital creative directors will have a lot more freedom to think explosive banner units.  A crude example is to allow consumers to draw out the perfect Swoosh for Nike on a banner property.

I see “gestures” impacting the way we evaluate engagement, interaction and views. Call it the “Cost per gesture” model, augmented advertising through display ads could be a reality.

Hence, I see a future where we shift our focus from mindless measurement to desire creation, we should look forward to creating work with, literally, unimaginable creativity with the right kind of measurement model. In other words, work that works like magic for our clients’ brands, media commissions included.

This week we decipher a series of terms from China’s bureau of riddles: financial spin masters describe the current internet bloated IPO valuations as a “good bubble”; cryptic shenanigans with China’s three mobile operators under scrutiny in an affair over RMB350m of “illegal” money; Xinhua hits back at Google’s “chimerical complaints” of cyberattacks emanating from Jinan, China.

China

China embraces its inner tech bubble

http://blogs.forbes.com/ericjackson/2011/05/31/china-embraces-its-inner-tech-bubble/

Tech industry leaders in China seem to agree that a “bubble” is currently underway in their country. Rather than dread the inevitable fall, however, the executives are focused on the golden age of development that they are currently in. As one leader said, “We’re in the midst of a bubble but a good bubble.  It’s going to create a flight to quality.  The bad companies will lose momentum or die. The market will shrink to a small base of companies.” Soon investors will stop and companies will go under, but the industry as a whole (in China) is focused on the positive.

Western view: Chinese hackers use fake Gmail site to steal activist data

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/01/google-hacking-chinese-attack-gmail

Google has revealed that it had been the target of a phishing campaign seemingly originating in Jinan, a mid-sized Chinese city (six million) known mostly for exports, [72 fresh springs, its muslim population and its status as the IT capital of China twinned with Bangalore, India]. It was aimed at gaining access to the accounts of senior officials in the U.S., Korea and other governments, as well as those of Chinese activists.

China view: “Google’s Chimerical Complaints”… against local chefs making cider-snacks cyberattacks

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-06/02/c_13907875.htm

It was the second time that Google arbitrarily pointed its finger at China. Last year, Google groundlessly accused the Chinese government of supporting hacker attack against it and pushed China to abandon legal regulations on the Internet by threatening to withdraw from the Chinese market. The chimerical complaints by Google have become obstacles for enhancing global trust between stakeholders in cyberspace. However, it was too imprudent for the online giant to lash out at others without solid proof to support its accusation. Last year, Google invited the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), a spy agency, to help with its inquiry into cyberattacks against it… they traced the attackers to computers at Chinese Shanghai Jiaotong University and Lanxiang Vocational School.. The report amused many Chinese at that time since Lanxiang Vocational School enjoys a good fame at training chefs for local restaurants. It is really hard for people with common sense to understand.

Ma might bite Yahoo – Alibaba Group CEO Jack Ma on the Alipay affair, Yahoo and loving employees (video and transcript)

http://allthingsd.com/20110601/alibaba-group-ceo-jack-ma-live-at-d9/

Jack Ma reveals several insights in this interview, including his thoughts on employee training (which he feels should all be done internally), cultural trends in China (customs, people, and government) and business trends in China (mobile, gaming, and search), and Yahoo (which he’d love to buy some day).

New Sina Weibo profiles leak reveals vitual goods, eCommerce integration

http://thenextweb.com/asia/2011/06/02/new-sina-weibo-profiles-leak-reveals-virtual-goods-ecommerce-integration

A leaked screenshot caught reveals more details on what seems to be Sina’s new “QWeibo” profiles, which feature virtual goods and eCommerce integration. Sina has been adding features to the Weibo platform in an attempt to turn it into a complete social network experience instead of simply being a microblogging platform.

10 reasons why China is different

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/roach5/English

This report singles out strategy, commitment, delivery, saving, rural-urban migration 316 million Chinese are expected to move from rural to urban China over the next 20 years), consumption, services, foreign direct investment (China is a magnet for the investment of multinational technology companies), education (1.5 million engineers and scientists graduate in China every year), and innovation (China’s aggressive pursuit of patents and new technologies is what sets it apart) as the main differentiator between China and other nations.

China’s seizure of China Mobile leads to wider corruption probe

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-01/china-s-seizure-of-china-mobile-executive-leads-to-wider-corruption-probe.html

All three of China’s major mobile carriers (China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom) are now under investigation following the arrest of a China Mobile executive in March. The investigation is a probe of more than 60 people that may involve 350 million yuan of “illegal money”.

Other Asia

Indonesian president responds to defamation in social media

http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/06/01/indonesian-president-defamation-social-media/

The Indonesian government has been facing criticism on social media platforms like Twitter, blogs, in text messages recently. Last week the political world in Indonesia was turned upside-down by the emergence of a specific SMS text containing allegations of corruption against the nation’s government. The SMS spread far enough for the president to comment on it, saying, “I think with the development of information technologies — such as SMS, Twitter, websites, and Blackberry — as well as all types of online media can improve our lives in this nation. But, for those who are not knights, those who use (these media) for character assassination or verbal abuse. That is freedom of speech, [but] when it comes to defamation then it must be accounted for.”

Malaysian to tweet apology 100 times in Twitter defamation case

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/02/malaysian-tweet-apology-defamation

A Malaysian social activist will apologise 100 times on Twitter in an unusual settlement with a magazine publisher in a defamation case. The penalty has sparked debate among internet users about the pitfalls of social media in Malaysia, where authorities have warned people to be more cautious about what they write on blogs, Facebook and Twitter.Fahmi Fadzil, an opposition politician’s aide and respected commentator on social issues, claimed on Twitter in January that his pregnant friend had been poorly treated by her employers at a magazine run by BluInc Media.

Vodafone India sues customer for defamatory Facebook statuses

http://thenextweb.com/in/2011/06/01/vodafone-india-sues-customer-for-posting-defamatory-facebook-statuses/

Vodafone India has sent in a legal notice to a man who has complained about its services on Facebook, asking him to take down the ‘defamatory’ posts. This case is interesting because if the court gives an injunction, it could become a precedent for other popular brands to start sending legal notices against other microbloggers.

Playstation Network coming back online everywhere except Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/31/us-sony-network-idUSTRE74U07A20110531

Following the closure of the service after information was stolen from 77 million accounts, Sony has announced that it will re-launch the service in every market except for Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea. Sony has declined to comment as to why they are excluding these countries. Around 10% of the affected PSN users are in these countries. Sony has hinted, however, that services will return to these Asian nations only a few days after the others.

The Social Web

Zynga to launch new game – “Empires and Allies” in Indonesian, Chinese, Malay, and Korean

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/zynga-launch-new-game-empires-193468

Social gaming developer Zynga has announced the global launch of Empires & Allies, its first strategy combat game – a release “that includes more social features than any of its other games.” It is debuting in 12 languages, including Indonesian, Traditional Chinese and, for the first time, Malay and Korean. Zynga has more than 250 million monthly active users and is the developer of games such as CityVille, FarmVille, FrontierVille, Mafia Wars and Cafe World.

Facebook close to 700 million users

http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/171-facebook-is-globally-closing-in-to-700-million-users/

The top country (in terms of growth) in the last month was Brazil, which added 1.9 million new users. The rest of the top ten included Indonesia (up 1.5 million), the Philippines (up 1.3 million), and India (up 0.9 million).

Mobile

Intel Ultrabooks are front and center at Taiwan IT expo (Computex 2011)

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/computers/computex-2011-intel-unveils-ultrabook-talks-medfield-tablets/6004

The first ultrabooks, which will be available later this year, will be based on Intel’s second-generation Core processors, measure less than 0.8 inches thick and cost less than $1,000 US. The size, performance and features of these ultrabooks will evolve over the next two to three years as Intel introduces new processor technology.

Location-based marketing hits Colombo

http://www.asiadigitalmap.com/2011/06/location-based-marketing-hits-colombo/

Marketers are beginning to use location-based marketing in the Sri-Lankan capital. They are mainly targeting the “New Urban Middle Class” – a new, small social category. Smartphones aren’t nearly as prevalent as feature phones in Sri Lanka, so ambitions are still tempered.

(Thanks to Asia Digital Map)

Long Reads

Bigerati: May’s most explosive stats

http://www.slideshare.net/OgilvyAsia/bigerati-ogilvy-asia-pacific/

Digital Life: today and tomorrow 7mins state of the world overview

http://youtu.be/iG8KaWxr2gs

Creative

Turkcell Twitter campaign

http://www.simplyzesty.com/twitter/brilliant-twitter-campaign-case-study/

(Thanks to Supavadee Tantiyanon for the link)

LG Loves Indonesia

https://www.facebook.com/LGLovesIndonesia

(Thanks to Dhanushree Sant for the link)

Kitty and Lala: Chinese bloggers take center stage as Intel unveils global campaign

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFbUbAWbB-s & http://www.campaignbrief.com/asia/2011/06/chinese-bloggers-take-centre-s.html

& Finally…

Take a minute to focus on yourself with these social media visualization tools…

Intel’s Museum of Me

http://www.intel.com/museumofme/r/index.htm

Link this to your Facebook account and embark on a tour of your Facebook world, complete with exhibits showcasing your photos, friends, and statuses.

(Thanks to Alexandra Mecklenburg for the link)

The Social List

http://www.the-social-list.com/

See your “worth” on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Foursquare

Exploring the social media with three telcos on Twitter from JamiQ on Vimeo.

In a market where even the undisputed heavyweight champion of SNS, Facebook, has struggled to gain traction, a little bird named Twitter now rules the roost in Japan.

According to ratings agency Nielsen Online, 16.3% of Japanese Internet users tweet, or “mumble” as it is translated in Japanese. This is compared to less than 10% of Americans. Perhaps the most stunning aspect of this story is the blazing speed which this little bird has added to its flock. Twitter Japan launched a Japanese language service in 2008, but it wasn’t until a mobile version was introduced in October 2009 that things really took off.

Having left Facebook and MySpace in the dust long ago in the Japan market, Twitter users finally surpassed the long-time king of Japanese SNS, Mixi. Following the example of Masayoshi Son, a Twitter evangelist who also happens to be CEO of Japanese mobile phone and data provider Softbank, Japanese businesses are waking up to the necessity of having an effective social media and more often than not, it is Twitter they are most interested in.

Opportunity no longer knocks in Japan. These days, it tweets.

Fast facts:

• 16.3 – Percentage of Japanese on Twitter
• 9.8 – Percentage of Americans on Twitter
• 3 – Percentage of Japanese on Facebook
• 8,000,000 – Number of tweets per day from Japanese users
• 12 – Percentage of global tweets that come from Japan
• Japan recently set the world record for tweets per second following a recent world cup game

Note: This blog entry was based on an Associated Press article by Yuri Kageyama.

What do hydrants, voicemails and denial have in common?  They’re all now closely associated with the Tiger Woods brand, according to new research from Nielsen Online.

Today, Nielsen Online provided me with a Brand Association Map demonstrating the impact of the controversy on the Tiger Woods brand – based on analysis of online discussion about Tiger Woods both before and after the controversy.

Not surprisingly, as a result of the recent controversy the Tiger Woods brand has gone from being closely associated with video games, golf and other sports to other, well, less wholesome topics.

While the jury’s still out on how long it will take for the Tiger Woods brand to recover, one thing’s for certain – these less wholesome associations will take far longer to fade away.