Overview of Blog Analytics

Most of my friends ask me about blog analytics – what exactly is blog analytics and how we do it?

Well, blog analytics is quite an interesting field, if you like reading blogs or are a blogger yourself. It’s quite simple, yet intriguing as one needs to be creative and capture insights from the blogs.

Off late, most of the US corporations are getting involved in blog analytics or as some people name it as brand reputation management. I cannot highlight the importance of listening to the “voice of customers” and acting upon it.

One of the best ways to gauge customers opinions is via Social Media (especially blogs), whereas other mediums of Social Media, such as podcasts are mostly used while promoting the brand.

How we get started on blog analytics?

· Identify keywords on which you need to run your search on

· Define the time frame

· Identify blog search engines

· OR alternatively run a search with specific keywords within a defined time frame on a web crawler

Metrics used in Blog analytics:

· Tonal analysis

· Thematical analysis

· Ascertaining the sentiments of the consumers

· Identifying connectors/Influencers

o Number of comments

o Trackbacks

o Profile of the author

o Frequency of occurrence

· Top URL’s and domains

· Recommendations on changing sentiments of consumers or/and online promotion of
products on top occurring domains/blogs

These are the metrics that I’ve used in blog analytics. If anyone is aware of any other metrics that are being widely used, please feel free to drop a note and we can discuss.

Blogsophere talked about in HT

I was reading an article in paper today about lift of ban on cheerleaders during IPL matches being played in Mumbai.

Before closing the article, the author talked about this topic being talked about in blogosphere; that caught my attention. I was amazed to read that a topic like this is being discussed in blogs – great!!...means Social Media has finally made a mark in India.

I’m not saying that people weren’t really blogging about these topics/issues earlier; however, this is a new phenomenon that newspapers are validating their stories and adding details by giving it a people’s perspective.

Ban on cheerleaders for vulgarity issues is a decision to be taken by the government, however who can define vulgarity? It’s the people (us) who can add more to it.

There was an amazing quote in that newspaper, taken from some blog - “There are a million problems in Maharashtra for the deputy chief minister (RR Patil) to attend to, and the man chooses to get worked up over cheerleaders”

It’s great to see that tracking blogs and forums is just not a western concept anymore. In the US, most companies are indulging in brand reputation management (via blogs) and acting on the suggestions of the consumers. Let alone, corporations, the US elections and Oscar’s were heavily talked about in the blogosphere Neilson also published a report on “What's the Buzz on the Oscars?” that tracked the discussions in the blogs.

More on Blog Analytics in subsequent posts.

Coming Soon

Next post - Social Media and India

Love - Do we actually know the meaning of this word?

I spent this weekend watching movies….saw four movies - "50 First Dates", "Ratatouille", "Cruel Intentions", and "City of Angels".

Somehow this time I wanted to watch romantic movies, unlike my craving for horror movies all the time. I guess it’s that time of my life when one wants to feel that mush and have that craving to fall in love…..anyhow, nothing of this sort is happening in my life, and I have no love life!

Ratatouille isn’t a romantic movie nor Cruel Intentions (to some extent) – however someone recommended Cruel Intentions, so I saw it. I didn’t like it that much. Still, there’s one thing to ponder upon, that love – “true love” can even melt a womanizer, and he can genuinely fall in love with someone, to the extent he can lay his life for that special someone! Amazing, but how true in real context?! I haven’t met anyone in my lifetime who can lay his life for the one he loves. It looks good in just movies and books, however its far away from reality.

Ratatouille is a story of a chef rat – animated movie and a really nice story. I somehow have a liking for animated movies – thanks to someone! However we haven’t seen an animated movie together :-) The movie highlights the fact that “if you have a will to do something, you can achieve it”, a beautifully scripted movie, that made even the disgusting rats look adorable.

Now, talking about the romantic movies, well well….50 First Dates – lovely movie…it’s amazing to see how Adam Sandler makes this girl (Drew Barrymore) fall in love with him every day as the girl suffers from short memory, and her memory lasted for just one day. Every day is a “new” day for her – as if the previous day never existed. Quite a touchy movie, however I tend to question myself if any guy would have this much patience in real life? I doubt that!!! I don’t think anyone can love someone to this extent that he would leave everything aside, and just spend the rest of life to spend a “new” day with someone he loves madly. This love is bound to fade and the guy would have given up, had this been the case in real life- that’s why we say “real life is different from reel life”. I claim that I’ve loved someone too much in this lifetime, if I ask this question to myself – can I make someone fall in love with me everyday? ..hmm....Probably, I can do this!....I guess I can…

Talking about the best amongst the lot… City of Angels. The first half of the movie was okay, it didn’t grip me much, however in the second half my eyes were popping out and I was staring at the screen, trying to hear every word that was being said. An angel (Nicholas Cage) falls in love with a doctor (Meg Ryan), and he sacrifices everything for this girl, and becomes a human – just because he wanted to spend his life with that girl, he wanted to feel her. However, life’s never fair – neither to humans nor to angels; and Meg Ryan dies. This was tragic, as he foregoes his being an angel for a human, and that person was snatched away from him. At this point, another angel comes up to Nicholas Cage and asks him, “if u knew this was to happen, would you have done it?”…his answer was this, and these are the most beautiful words in the movie….

“I would rather have had...

...one breath of her hair...

...one kiss of her mouth...

...one touch of her hand...

...than an eternity without it"

This is what I call true love…. I hope when people say that they are in love, they should think twice, and ask themselves do they really know the meaning of love!

Strabucks ad for the Holiday Season

Just saw this Starbucks ad, designed by Wieden + Kennedy in December 2007 "The Holiday Season - Pass the Cheer BearHug"

Starbucks Social Media Initiative

Interesting news in Social Media: Starbucks also garnered a piece of this space with the launch of a new Social Media website

With the launch of the website, came the criticisms that generated lot of buzz in the blogosphere – as was expected and was wished for! Noise in blogosphere is always welcomed by the companies, but it should be positive buzz!

MyStarbucksIdea website is a copy of Dell’s Ideastorm. The look and feel of the two sites is similar, and there Starbucks gets its first negative point - Dell’s “Post, Promote, Discuss, See”……became “Share, Vote, Discuss, See” for Starbucks. Wow..!! How innovative a company can be!!! Duh...

It also seems Starbucks didn’t do their homework before venturing into Social Media space. Do they even know what are their customers talking about? Are they aware of the pain points of the customers? Do they even know what kind of buzz is in the blogsophere?

The first step before venturing into Social Media is to know what your customers are saying on the Internet, as they are your target audience and also your “brand ambassadors”. It’s important to know “who” is spreading a wrong word about your brand and it’s equally essential to identify your “happy customers” – as they can spread a word about you.

It’s important to identify “influencers” and strike a deal with them. Appreciate them for their work and collaborate with them to design your interactive website, as s/he exactly knows your customers and can help in design your campaign that would highlight the venture of the company in Social Media domain.

Suggestions for Starbucks:
· MyStarbucksIdea website doesn’t really hook me to the website. I found it quite lame as it was not interactive (the way I define it). It would have been better if they had a live CCR, who you could talk to; or have a chat portal where its customers could “connect”
· I forgot my password, as well as my username and I just don’t know how to recover that – how stupid of them to ask me for my username; just my email id should have been sufficient to retrieve my username as well as my password. Bottom line :Email id should be an alternate login id
· Nothing beats customer’s voice: The website should have a section on customer experience. This would generate more traffic to their website – ask your customers to share their stories/memorable moment/experience at Starbucks, and publish the post of one customer every week – reward that story! As easy as that…!!!
· Customers are asking for w-fi – most comments revolve around free wi-fi, give it to them, maybe at select stores to start with, but an action is needed at this hour – early the better
· There needs to marketing of the Social Media venture - not many people are aware of this initiative

Hopefully, Startbucks would get better over time, as bloggers are poring in information on the company, and if the company works towards implementing those ideas – they would be generating “happy and loyal” customers.

Leveraging Social Media to your advantage

There is so much hype around Social Media, and all companies are trying to use this medium to “sell” their products.

How far do we agree that this medium used for selling the product would prove to be beneficial?? If you ask me, if you are joining the “Social Media” paradigm just to sell your product – you are surely going to be doomed!!!

Imagine a marketer telling his customers about the product on the blog. It would merely look like as if he is “shouting” about the aspects of his product. How effective that would be??

Social Media is about establishing relationships, and networking with people – knowing them and connecting with them. One needs to get that bonding or connect before s/he can actually hit the nail and make a sale. Gone are the days, when you can make a forced sale to your customers, and now it’s very difficult to sell them “what they actually don’t want”. It’s a tact to create a need for your product and sell it to the customers – and by this, you might end up getting a “happy and loyal customer”.

Marketers believe that making a blog and promoting their brand would actually prove fruitful for their business and would improve their marketing ROI. Well…No..! This doesn’t really happen. Even after making a blog, this cannot guarantee success. As a matter of fact, one can never be sure or estimate how successful the Social Media activity would be – as it is about making a connection, and one may or may not be able to impress the other individual.

Social Media is a medium of understanding your customers and giving them what they want and understanding the reasons of there disconnect with the product (if any). Just starting a blog or having a Facebook profile, and adding people there would not serve the purpose. One needs to understand the customer and market the product what is actually suited to them.

An incident...Lesson learnt

It was winters, and I was driving back from work. Around 9-9:30 pm….and I guess by mistake, the dipper of the car was left on.

I entered my home lane, and another car was coming from the front. As the lane was narrow, coz of the car's parked on either side, I had to stop and let the other car pass first. So, I stopped….and the person in the other started and stopped next to my car, and opened his window. He knocked on my car's window, and I was surprised as well as hesitant….but the guy looked decent. He was rather very cute to look at

I opened the window, and he said, "Can I request you something"….i was shocked ..!!!!! Hesitantly, I replied "what's the matter"….this guy very sweetly said…"Im sorry to say, but please don't use dipper on roads, it becomes very difficult to drive"… hmm…I replied, "I'm sorry, I just forgot to turn it off…I'll keep that in mind"...

This was such a funny, at the same time a learning experience. Since that day, I haven't used dipper on roads (and I don't drive on highways)…and I always make sure that it's not on..

All I want to say is that if a message is conveyed in a proper manner, it is bound to make a mark. Had that guy been rude, or had blasted me…I'm sure I would have fought with him, and forgotten the incident. But the entire incident was so nice, that I still remember each and every word spoken that night. I can't recall that guy's face…however I remember he was driving a Zen

Google Adsense

Quite a surprise…I made this blog as I wanted to use “Google Analytics” on it and understand the various metrics used in that software. However, I never made my blog public or optimized it; as such there were hardly any hits.

I added “Google AdSense”, again with the purpose of learning the functionality of the software, and also to make money if anyone clicks on the ads.

Whenever I login in my blog, I see different ads floating around, and I always end up clicking on them…they are quite interesting!! Some of which I’ve already clicked upon include:

• Ad promoting gmail
• Some pregnancy site
• Sunsilk’s new ad campaign – Live can’t wait
• Ibibo – Don’t be a balti
• And just now, I clicked on an ad posted by an Analytics company based in Mumbai – Cartesian

Cartesian happened to be a “blessing in disguise”. I wasn’t even aware of this company and it is hardcore into analytics and also “Customer analytics” – so worth a shot..!!!

Note to the readers: Do click on the ads and help that campaign to be effective, and maybe you end up finding something interesting.

State of mind - A poem

This is not exactly a poem, as it doesn't rhyme – but expresses my feelings just so right. This is how I was feeling last night….depressed and lonely. :(

When I write, I feel light

Ah, once again the world looks so bright

Feel like again giving a fight!

Life’s a battle, and no one wants to loose

Only one gets happy booze, and can go on a cruise

Life is full of choices, and surprises

Lucky people get what they want

Only unlucky ones are left behind

Struggling to find their shore, and a reason to rejoice

Life gives so many chances

And one has to dance on that chance

However, that dance may not be the best dance !

One Life - One Job??

How would you react if you get to know that you need to do a “particular” type of job for the rest of your life; and you need to make that choice of taking up a particular job or stay unemployed for the rest of your life..!

This was one of the underlying theme in “The Bee Movie” that forced Barry B. Benson (the maincharacter- the Bee) to explore other options beyond the defined scope of his job.

Is it possible for us to do ONE type of job over and over again? Imagine, how monotonous that would be – same thing everyday. It surely would hamper personal growth of the individual due to lack of motivation and also the person would become complacent with that job.

When a person knows that there’s no scope for improvement or enhancement in personal growth, one tends to be demotivated and feels just lost.

It’s also a proven fact that any kind of imbalance in personal life affects professional life and vice-versa.

Another factor that is worth thinking is that Barry talks to humans – that was against the “Bee Law”. Had he not interacted with Vanessa (the human, who saved his life), the movie wouldn’t have been possible :-) The bee was enticed by that charming girl, and hence mustered the courage to talk to her. Everyone has a romantic side (even a bee!), however its just a matter of time, when a person showers their love on you. Everything has a time and place (place – may be not!)

However, on a serious note – “One should do what ones likes doing, and not what one is forced to do”!

Another random thought – isn’t it an amazing concept wherein movies promote themselves by affiliating with the restaurants? Take an example of McDonald….even before the launch of Bee Movie, its toys had flooded McD outlets, and all kids want to grab their toys. A very good strategy to reach their target audience.

Even PVR, was giving away Bee headbands (made of cardboard) as a promotion strategy of the movie.

For all Internet freaks, an website has been created solely for the movie - http://www.beemovie.com/, where one can watch trailers, download pictures.

A right mix of advertising can do wonders for a product!

Hoping aginst Hope !

Why does this happen that when you are with somebody special, the person you adore - you are elated about everything…the whole world looks so beautiful, rather the whole world is “him” for you at that point in time.

Why do we think about someone when we wake up? Why do I always look at my cell phone, just to start my day with a “good morning” message from him? I wait to read that message and start my day with a smile – a smile that I owe to him.

You always wait to talk to him over the phone, and tell him how much you miss him…how much you are missing him at that moment and how you desire to be in his arms. You always have an urge to express your “love” for him, but you hold back thinking that he might take it in a wrong sense.

When you meet that person – there’s a spark in your eyes, a glow on your face that surpasses even the stars….your love for him is evidently visible in your eyes.

I don’t understand, why people claim to be with you, when they actually cannot stand by you…why do they make themselves your “bad habit” when all they do is to leave you in middle of nowhere?

Is “hoping against hope” bad? Do we call it optimism or foolishness??? Had that not been the case, things would have been quite different today..!!!

Juno - A movie

Just saw a movie “Juno” … a story of a 16 year old girl, who gets pregnant with her friend, on their very first intercourse.

Movie was quite different, where this girl, a teeny weeny girl, gets pregnant and decides not to undergo an abortion. Instead, she decides to have the baby and give it to a deserving couple who could take care of the little one.

In the US, it’s quite common to have sex at the prom night…but it’s quite gutsy to actually give birth to a baby, especially when it’s coming from a 16 year old kid. The scene in which she tells her family that she’s pregnant gave me a shock.

Juno also searches for a couple who she decided to hand over the baby; and opts for closed adoption – where she would never come back or the couple would never send her updates about the baby.

Imagine this happening in India….if an Indian girl goes up to her folks and tells them that she’s pregnant, her parents would freak out. No one would allow their girl to give birth to a baby at that age (or maybe age is not a factor here, they would not allow her to be an unmarried mother).

Does that make us less daring? or makes us more conscious of society? Why do we care so much about what people would say if this happens?

It’s not that kids in India do not indulge into all these activities. They do….there are surveys that have proved that school going kids do have sex at an adolescent age. But they do it in closed doors – it’s hidden and private. Also it seems that they are more informed and take precautions while indulging in sex.

Back to Juno, some scenes in the movie were so touching….when they show the love a mother has for an unborn child. It captured the emotions so right!

When the baby kicked his mother in the womb, there was a dazzle in the eyes of the mother, and her emotions expressed that she just cant wait to hold the baby in her arms.

The movies show motherhood so well, and at times, it just gets tears in eyes.

Overall a good movie – and can be seen at least once, with no regrets.

iCrossing lost another account…Ouch!

Just read this news article that came up, that stated loss of a contract by icrossing.

The project included search engine optimization for HMV.com, which was won by OMD UK (Omnicom agency).

The company won this contract, while competing with specialists such as iCrossing, Latitude and HMV’s retained digital agency Code Computer Love

Click here to read the article

I believe this is a trend amongst clients not to renew their contracts with their earlier vendors, and try the new ones. HMV did not pick its old vendor – Code Computer Love, and decided to try another vendor. Similarly, couple of months back, Bank of America revoked its annual contract for 2008 with iCrossing for Neilson.

If iCrossing keeps on losing accounts like this, it’s going be really bad for me…! :(

Words or Actions??

In any relation, what constitutes to be of more importance – Words or actions???

If someone says that “you are not the one for him” – by this I mean “not the one to spend the entire life with and he has no plans of being with you for a lifetime”

and on the other hand, he longs to meet you, spend time with you, wants to spend an entire day with you…..wants to be romantic with you, treats you well, showers his love on you, cares for you, waits for you for hours, and makes you feel wanted and so special….

In this situation, what should one look at – his words (too crude) or his action (so much in love)?

Few words

Few lines that I wrote couple of months back:

On the shore

By the wind

Cant u hear

My heart sing?

Let the thunder roar

And the breeze blow

All I need is

A sweet surrender!

Valentines Day - 2008

This valentine’s, cupid had actually struck me and I did something really funny…or should I say “cute”.

I have a friend, working in Times of India, and he was designing the Valentine’s day page for Delhi Times. Out of blues, he pinged me on gtalk and asked if I have a message for anyone…and obviously I said No. However, he insisted that I should write something and send it across.

So I drafted a message for someone special….and the friend of mine in TOI got it published…that was the longest message in the entire page….and he got that published in all city editions of TOI.

My message read as:

Dear Teddy Bear

Thanks for the lovely one year. We've seen so many ups and downs; however we've managed to sail through this together. Looks like, time has come to say goodbye and move in different directions…but I'm surely gona miss you…will miss you in chilly winters; will miss the long walks in December, gazing at the sky – looking for constellations; will miss our innocent fights and the warmth of your hands; will miss the look in your eyes, that send shivers down my spine; will miss you when I listen to "Doorie" of Aatif or "Six feet from the edge"…

"Something's are just destined to happen…wish I could change destiny"

Love you buddy..!

Also uploaded the post of Delhi Times…

WOM - How it affected my decision to purchase

Just recalled something that substantiates my above post… “power of recommendation”

I had been planning to buy the book of Avinash Kaushik- Web Analytics: An Hour a Day, but wasn’t very sure about if it’s a good buy.

However, just 2 days back, I asked someone about that book and if he has read it – and if he would recommend anyone buying that book.

This person said Yes – he has read the book and it’s a great buy for beginners. The person who recommended this book to me is working as a “Senior Analyst – Web Analytics division” and quite a blogger. I’ve read few posts of his, and somehow can trust his advice.

I finally decided to buy the book, and I believe that it should be a good buy for me. Will blog about that as and when I start reading that book.

WOM

WOM refers to Word of Mouth Marketing technique.

As Wiki defines it: “Word-of-mouth marketing, also known as buzz marketing and viral advertising, can be highly valued by product marketers. Because of the personal nature of the communications between individuals, it is believed that product information communicated in this way has an added layer of credibility. Research points to individuals being more inclined to believe WOMM than more formal forms of promotion methods; the receiver of word-of-mouth referrals tends to believe that the communicator is speaking honestly and is unlikely to have an ulterior motive (i.e. they are not receiving an incentive for their referrals)”

This again boils down to topic – why is WOM so important? When marketers have already allocated their ad spend on print and TV advertisements, why should they worry about anything now? If their product is good, its gona sell…!!!phew

Now, I have very interesting facts to share:

• Only 18% of TV ads generate positive ROI
• 84% of B2B campaigns resulted in lower sales
• 100% increase in ad spend results in only 1-2% increase in sales
• Only 14% people trust ads
• 69% interested in ad blocking technologies

Source: Napa Consulting

With the above facts, it’s very difficult for marketers to generate positive ROI for their companies. Resorting to WOM can generate business for them….”recommendations” do work – be it product or otherwise.

Who can recommend?
Average Customers
Clients
Consumers

How – Natural route?
Peer to peer talking
Social Media tools
SMSing
E-mail
IM
Blogging
Vblog

How – asking the influential people to recommend their brands.
Connectors
Connectors are key people who have the power to influence others in a particular direction
They normally blog about one particular topic and are experts in that field
For example: Brandon Mcgee is a known name for Mobile Banking – He’s termed as the “Mobile Banking Guru”

Key Opinion Leaders
Individuals to who most people refer to for advice and recommendations.
If we look at the diagram below, it has various nodes that refer to how various people are connected via Social Media; and finding the “most influential” person of all.
048 is the KOL as most people look up to him for opinions and advice

Connecting through Social Media

I never knew how easy and interesting it is to “connect” with people via Social Media. I’ve lately started downloading podcasts and pdfs on SEO, Social Media and Web Analytics.

Most of the podcasts that I listen to are on “The SEO Advisor – Search Engine Marketing” by Paul Stanton….basic 10 minutes lesson on SEO.

The podcasts starts as “Every one wants it, everyone can afford it, and anyone can do it…end of story….PERIOD”…I find this start as too catchy and was tempted to visit the website ww.seoadvisor.com….ever wonder, how much traffic would this website generate, thanks to its advertising in the podcasts.

Back to the topic, while surfing I came across the blog of Avinash Kaushik, the author of the famous blog – Occam’s Razor. Out of curiosity, I looked for this guy on Facebook and found someone with that name who was based in Seattle. I just dropped in a note asking if he is the same Avinash who I had been looking for.

He replied back in affirmation, and we exchanged a few messages on Facebook…and now he’s also on my friend’s list! :-)

I also met a few other interesting people in Web Analytics group, and all are so courteous and dedicated to their work….the one thing I learnt that people in the field of Web Analytics love “connecting”

I met Manoj Jasra online, and he even offered me to be a blogger representing India on his blog. Another interesting person I met was Anil, who is working in Web Analytics division in a company in Bangalore.

Hope to learn a lot from all these people here.

Lovely rose

How important is the Voice of Customer?

My experience on digital marketing started while working with iCrossing, which is ranked as Number 1 digital marketing company in the US by Adage Survey 2007.

Digital marketing goes beyond Internet marketing, as few of the readers might be thinking, as Digital marketing encompassed Internet marketing, and also includes other elements such as mobile phones, SMS/MMS, display/banner ads and digital outdoor.

After working on blog analytics for almost more than a year, I’ve realized the power of voice, or the way we term it “Voice of customer”.

We had a long term contract with the client to prepare reports for Bank of America (BOA), in which we had to study blogs and websites to understand the psyche of the consumer and identify the pain points – and provide recommendations for the same.

After tracking blogs of BOA customers for a year, we identified there were just few concerns that the customers had with BOA, and surprisingly those concerns were occurring week after week - means BOA either never knew about those concerns or they were least bothered. However, the second case doesn’t seem to be true as no bank or for that matter, any company would like to loose its customers.

We had been informing the bank about the pain points of the customers on a weekly basis for one full year – and the bank even worked on our recommendations.

For instance, customers had been complaining about various fees that the bank was posing on its customers, and this concern was quite repetitive in nature. Our recommendation to the bank was to educate its customers about their fee structure. The bank acted upon our recommendation and launched a program called “Little knowledge is a powerful thing” in July 2007 – a very good move by BOA!

However, the bloggers still criticized the bank for this program, as the bank had lost fait of its customers by its various activities over the past 6 months – when we had been monitoring.

It’s amazing to know how news spreads across via the Social Media network. Just one person needs to initiate, and the topic becomes the “talk of the town”. An interesting research – a pleased customer would tell 2 people about his positive experience, whereas a displeased customer would spread it around to not less than 5 people....quite amazing and how true!

That said, BOA should focus more on its customers transacting online – make them happy, and if they happen to be bloggers (quite possible as blogging is the “in thing” in the US), they can act as the brand ambassadors of the bank, and spread positive word about the bank in the blogosphere.

There were few other insights of the report, however would share them in some other blog posts.

Hello

The time I thought of writing something, I was sure that the theme of my blog would be digital marketing. However, knowing myself that I don’t stick to one topic for long, I decided to rename my blog as abstract thoughts – because I’m sure I’ve tons of other things to write about as my blog would be a platform for me to vent out my thoughts and feelings :-)

How much I decide now to write about the “feelings” aspect…but I’m 100% sure, it would come out in my posts. I may or may not blog it – but surely would pen it down.

Thanks for dropping in, and hope you visit my blog often to read the latest from me.

Cheers!