March 16, 2015
This week’s topic of Social Analytics is one that’s always been of interest to me. As a business professional that has launched both social networks for businesses, as well as social campaigns, I’ve tried to take the approach of ROI not only for the cost and resources of tools and monitoring services, but also how to determine effectiveness as compared to our standard return on ad spend (ROAS).
The article/study from the UK was definitely of interest, as I’d not seen this type of analysis on a country before, especially as it pertained to sentiment and the overall national reaction to both annual (Christmas and Halloween) but also unplanned national events, like the budget cuts and riots referenced. However, I’m not sure classifying the posts as happy, sad, or fearful may be the right contexts, but I’m not a social scientist to know better.
Google’s recent inclusion of social tracking and performance is probably both a sign of the times and somewhat behind the times. It’s likely that Google’s effort in Google+ as a social platform to rival Facebook led to a delay in integrating the performance into GA.
1. What social performance numbers would you find of value for a business?
2. What metrics do you think are of value to a for-profit brand vs. a not-for-profit?