marginally subversive

EyeTrackShop's findings: What attracts people to your Facebook pages - and what keeps them there longer?

The wall on all brand pages attracts almost all respondents' gazes. What you post matters. If you consistently create and publish great content -- items that really matter to your fans and add value to their day or contain an appropriate call-to-action -- you're more likely to attract and retain those readers.

Walls also attract the viewer's attention for the longest amount of time. Again, this reinforces the need for compelling content that builds on itself. Working in reverse chronological order (because that's how posts appear), Wall posts should compel the user to scroll down the page, keeping their focus and attention on your Wall. You should cross-reference previous status updates as a way to get visitors to scroll down the page and consume more of your content.

via www.entrepreneur.com

These are quite interesting findings on the use of the Facebook wall for pages that are active.  One of my favorite pages, Magnolia Chicken Station from the Philippines on Facebook does this farely well.  And I like looking at their recipes.  A few celebrities are also doing this fairly well - I like Vin Diesel's page. 

Thanks to Entrepreneur.Com for the idea and the photo below. 

 

On Social Media #Analytics: ComScore’s 2011 Social Reports Facebook leading ...

You already know that social networking sites have been getting huge around the world, but an annual report out today from comScore shows what exactly is going at a wonderful new level of detail, with surprises for even long-time industry watchers like me

via techcrunch.com

Microblogging is growing and the world is connecting real-time.

You probably knew that already, but isn't it comforting to have your thoughts validated by data?

#analytics practitioners need personal integrity, too

I guess nobody's perfect: analytics professionals need to have a sense of integrity as they search for answers for their clients' businesses. after all, their results could lead to misspent dollars - or worse, lives and jobs of people.

Analytics professionals need to understand the responsibility that rests on their shoulders.

 

Created by: Clinical Psychology

on #analytics: data availability is no longer the problem

Data availability is no longer the problem.  Accessibility is no longer the issue.  The cost of acquiring data has gone down dramatically.

Neither is the technology behind data collation the problem.  There are a myriad of options that one can collect, store, discover, collate, systematize, analyze, and use data.

The real problem is people's apathy and/or antipathy to data and data analyses.

It's all about changing the mindsets of business managers - specifically of marketing managers who think that their jobs encompass merely looking after advertising and media technologies.

David Campbell, as interviewed by Alex Howard (at Oreilly Radar) has this advice to clients about using their data:

From the data side, we've lived in what we'd call a world of scarcity. We thought that data was expensive to store, so we had to get rid of it as soon as possible. You don't want it unless you have a good use for it. Now we think about data from a perspective of abundance.

Part of the challenge, 10 or 15 years years ago, was where do I go get the data? Where do I tap in? But in today's world, everything is so interconnected. It's just a matter of teeing into it. The phrase I've used instead of big data is "ambient data." It's just out there and available.

The recommendation would be to stop and think about the latent value in all that data that's there to be collected and that's fairly easy to store now. That's the challenge and the opportunity for all of us.

(Emphases mine; from http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/12/david-campbell.html)

Here's the video of the interview:

 

 

on #analytics: knowing the question

If you don't know the question, any answer will be good enough.

on #analytics: "anybody can fit a curve..."

Give a numbers-orientated person two sets of numbers - and she will be able to fit a curve to the two sets of numbers without really knowing what those numbers mean and stand for.

Have a look at the latest NASDAQ indices - and run them through some curve-fitting exercise, or if you're feeling a little too sophisticated, use a neural network and have it "learn" the ups and downs of the curves - and project the future.

Ask anybody to conduct a survey and with the plethora of free (or cheap) surveying tools and panels online, you'll have 300 respondents in a matter of days (if not hours).

Anybody can do these things - but not everyone can make sense of these numbers and ground them on real business issues.  

It takes a real analytically-minded person to find stories behind numbers.  Stories behind numbers are not just uncovered by equations or cross-tabs or statistical significance tests.

It all starts with an understanding of the business.

 

NUMERATI is now on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Numerati.Solutions

NUMERATI is now live on Facebook.  Click through to www.facebook.com/Numerati.Solutions for more information.

NUMERATI empowers marketeers make sound, fact-based decisions using bespoke marketing research and analytics particularly in these challenging, continuously-changing times. 

NUMERATI does this through

1. The use of advanced statistics (attitudinal-behavioral-demographic-based segmentation, econometrics-/regression-based modelling)

2. Providing advice in optimizing returns on existing marketing research and learning programs

3. Designing marketing learning and research programs which include bespoke metrics development, dashboard development, qualitative/quantitative research results "deep-dives" and integration, and what-if simulation

4. Providing strategic planning advice and consultancy

5. Training and marketing-skills development

For more information, visit us on www.facebook.com/Numerati.Solutions

what do consultants do, really?

via www.gapingvoidgallery.comall rights are reserved by Hugh McLeod (www.gapingvoid.com)

 

There are a lot of jokes about consultants, mostly identifying them (us?) as "people you pay to tell you what you already know".

But I think this is what - at its core - what consultants do: to empower and inspire you to do what to do.

In my job, I can only use numbers and gathered data, analyzed and scrutinized against a specific problem that both clients and I have uncovered as the "root problem". I use these numbers and data in order to create potential options for clients, identifying the opportunities and the risks associated with each option.

The decision remains with the client - in terms of which action to take and whether to implement the decision with the required rigor.

We can claim to be experts of your business - but at the end of the day, it is your business. You are the stakeholder. We can help you make decisions - and implement those decisions. But we can't make those decisions for you.

At the end of the day, you as the client will have to take the leap.

on business objectives and returns on investments: QUANTIFY IT!

If business objectives are not quantified - it's nothing but a set of big, hairy audacious goals.

If RoI is not quantified - it's nothing but useless chest-thumping, "I-saved-the-company/world-all-by-myself" denial of what's real.

And oh - you can't set business objectives unless you know where you currently are - if your business sucks now, it doesn't help if you deny that it sucks or 'beautify' it with "yes, we suck but...".  No "but's" about sucking, dude.  

If you suck, you suck.  Period.  Admit it.  Move on.  Set new directions - real, realistic directions.

 

And yet another strategic planning framework...

I think that if we boiled down the mission of any media/communications planner in to one chart, it would probably be summarized in the above chart.

It's a rather simplistic, conceptual process - but I think it speaks a lot.

First, whatever media/communications planner do is essentially facilitating a shift in business results.  Without any well-defined business goals, I believe that a planner can't do much really.  Surely, there are other components of the marketing mix that are beyond the control of the planner.  But the goals are there to make sure that whatever plans are designed are aligned with the ultimate, measurable business goal of the brand.

Second, whatever state a business is in is a result of current behaviors of consumers towards the brand.  Similarly, a necessary shift in business will also necessitate a shift in behaviors of consumers towards the brand.  (I should add, ceteris paribus.)

Third, the behaviors of consumers are driven by or are founded on beliefs, perceptions, or attitudes that they have of the brand.  Beliefs, perceptions, attitudes, expectations - all these drive the behaviors of the brand.

Fourth, the goal of the planner is to identify what the current beliefs are - and how strong these beliefs are influencing their current action.  And then identify what should the new beliefs be that would result to new behaviors and new businesses.

This is highly debatable, I admit: In psychology, the gap between attitudes and action is not entirely clear-cut and direct.  Someone might say "I am definitely for eco-friendly products" and could vehemently describe themselves as ardent anti-climate-change.  It doesn't necessarily mean though that they would get out of their way to choose, say, eco-friendly cars over non-eco-friendly cars.

And some shampoo users might say "This is the only brand I will buy" - but may not necessarily be open to going out of their way (say, their shampoo brand is out of stock in their favorite neighborhood store) to look for that brand "I will only buy". 

In these cases, my view is that the attitudes or the beliefs therefore are not the real attitudes or beliefs that people have.  They may have other, stronger, underlying beliefs that supplant and supersede these "stated beliefs" (e.g., in the case of the car example, the belief of "I need a car with a higher resale value" may be far stronger than the belief of being eco-friendly; in the case of the shampoo buyer, "convenience is key" is stronger than the belief in the brand).

It is therefore very critical to identify and understand the real underlying beliefs amongst consumers that support their behaviors.  These can only be uncovered through a thorough questioning of research studies and data, and of consumers - something that will necessitate deep research into the minds and hearts of consumers.

 And  this is also where the fifth step comes in: identifying the barriers.  One can think of barriers as dimensions of the current beliefs.  "I am not really open to eco-friendly cars" could be an amalgam of different sub-beliefs - "Eco-friendly cars are expensive", "I don't know much about them", "My electricity bill is going to shoot up", "What if I lose power in the middle of nowhere?", and "My friends will tease me". 

By identifying the barriers, one just might be able to dissect further the current beliefs into manageable 'chunks', that when addressed will lead to a shift in beliefs.

It sounds simple and simplistic - but it is not.

Getting down to the real beliefs and the sub-beliefs supporting the behaviors can be a very taxing exercise.  It takes significant effort of integrating results from quantitative and qualitative research (tonnes of them!), from observations of the audiences, and from change influencers to determine these beliefs underneath behaviors.

Well, no one said that media/communications planning is easy.

It could, however, be rewarding - intellectually and financially (for the client, at the very least) - to know exactly what beliefs prop up current behaviors and what new beliefs can lead to new behaviors that will lead to profits.