Web Site Performance Reporting: Speedy Delivery is Not Job One
Spend Time on Analysis Before Sending Reports to Clients
Speed alone kills in website traffic analysis just like it does in an Arena Football stadium. Just like Bobby Sippio’s pursuers here, you, the well-intentioned marketer, could end up as the defender who misses the tackle; in this case a key analysis opportunity. Smart marketers can combine both speed and analysis to create reports that are meaningful for their clients. It’s important to build in time during your reporting process to analyze your data and write down specific action steps your clients can take.
First of all pumping out a report with nice graphs and colors doesn’t help the customer. In fact you may end up doing more explaining when you present the report if you speedily go into Google Analytics and find some screenshots that make the report ‘look good.’ Web analysis includes listening to your customer throughout your relationship to find out what s(he) wants in a report (i.e., what data matters the most and over what time periods). Be open to change as well; our reporting here at Intrapromote has evolved every month and will continue to be customized to our clients’ unique needs.
Creating actionable reports comes down to three main things:
1. Ask questions and listen for the answers every time you speak with the client. The client is constantly telling you what data is needed for decision making.
2. Write a list of action steps next to your charts, or at the very least, in an executive summary that accompanies the report, so the client will know what to do with the data.
3. Remember that speed kills — In your rush to provide your report on time, don’t forget to analyze first. Your customer is paying for more than the delivery of the report every month. Even if you are reviewing the report on the telephone with the client, write down your expert recommendations and point out what to do next, based on your data.
And of course Avinash Kaushik (my hero) has the greatest explanation I have seen yet of the difference between web reporting and web analysis. If there ever was a must read for marketers who want to please their customers; this is it.
Social Media In The College Classroom
I recently had the honor of being invited to participate on a panel of professionals that would help evaluate the final projects of a graduate level history course at John Carroll University. Throughout the semester, the students had been learning about the topic of women and gender in modern Africa. In particular they had been learning about female-led movements for peace, social justice and human rights on the continent. For their final project, student groups were charged with devising and implementing a public awareness campaign on a topic related to the course.
As a marketing professional who works in social media, I brought that experience to the table when considering my evaluations of the projects. For more information on the projects and how they would use social media to get out the word about each of their causes, watch the video below:
This particular class took great advantage of social media and it fits well with their semester long project of creating and implementing a public awareness campaign. Let’s be clear, I’m not advocating using Social Media in higher education as a gimmick or way to jump on the latest bandwagon, but actually using it to enhance the classroom experience and promote experiential learning.
After a few informal interviews with current students and recent grads, I was very surprised to find that most professors are not integrating social media into their classrooms. After all, aren’t most college students on social media? According to this demographics study discussed on AllTwitter in March 2012, the social media network of choice is overwhelmingly Facebook. Only 13% of online users are on Twitter.
JCU Student Wall Display
So how is social media being used in the classroom? In my example above at John Carroll University, the final class project involved creating a public awareness campaign around a social activism project. Part of that awareness was utilizing social media to get the word out. As an example, one of the projects wanted to create awareness around female leaders in Africa and created a physical wall display at the school to catch the attention of students attending class. They then posted photos of the display on Facebook and Twitter to help further spread the word about the campaign.
In what other ways can/is social media being used in the classroom? Dave Copeland’s insightful article on Read Write Web (For Social Media In The Classroom To Work, Instructors Need Best Practices) discusses a lot of good points. Social media in the classroom should be a tool, not a distraction, the instructor should be 100% comfortable with the platform and the usage of social media should be relevant to the class material. Is it helping create further discussion around the class topic outside of class? Connecting the class with a wider audience?
Provided that an instructor is familiar with the platform in question, there are a few ways I would recommend using social media in the classroom:
1. Create a closed Facebook group for the class.
By creating a closed Facebook group, the instructor is removing the “ick” factor of having to friend their students. Groups also provide numerous features such as creating events (exams, project due dates), ability to upload files up to 25MB, ask poll questions and upload photos & video.
2. Create a hashtag on Twitter for the class.
Twitter is not as widely used as Facebook, however, this is still very much an option and a chance to teach students about different social media platforms while reaching a wider audience outside of the classroom. I see Twitter as mainly a way for an instructor to help promote supplemental discussion outside of the classroom. Also, with 140 characters per tweet, this will also help students learn to be more concise with their thoughts/ideas. For more information on social media in education on Twitter, follow the #SMCEDU and #SMEDU hashtags.
3. Create a YouTube playlist for final project presentations.
Media is being used more and more in the business world and by having final presentations due in the form of a YouTube video, this would help students learn to navigate simple video editing. The instructor could then easily organize the presentation videos within one YouTube playlist that could easily be shared.
Honestly, the ways to integrate social media within the classroom are as endless as the constantly evolving platforms that are available (Tumblr, Google+, Flickr, Pinterest, etc.). Are you a recent graduate or current student? How has social media been integrated into your classes? Or do you find that instructors shy away from social media use? Let us know in the comments below!
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Translating Facebook Insights
Facebook Insights are an online marketer’s best friend. With the ability to quantify every action that occurs on Facebook involving your Page, administrators are empowered to make necessary adjustments to their Facebook strategies based on incredibly granular user behavior analysis. Unfortunately, most Page admins rely on the limited Facebook Insights data as displayed above, and never dig deeper into the data for analytic data.
Not to be all “Tony Stark” about it, but the Intrapromote social team really is the best when it comes to detailing the implications that Insights data can offer your marketing team. Often times, digging through the minutia to uncover the broad picture can become very overwhelming. This is especially so when your VP of Marketing is knocking on your door asking why you need a creative budget for your iFrame application on your next big product push over Facebook.
I am IP Man.
We’ve come to the conclusion that some guidance for using and interpreting Facebook data is needed, so we will be publishing a blog series to that effect. Here’s an outline of what we intend to cover:
- Basic Insights “Rules” – What does this mean? Why are there so many different tabs? What’s the difference between Weekly and Daily numbers?
- Insights You Should be Reviewing Regularly – There are certain items that every Page owner should be aware of to build and adjust their strategy on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. We’ll illustrate these items and explain their usefulness.
- Insights You Never Knew Were There – Some of the data deep in the tabs can reveal a lot about your Page and Content’s reception among Facebook users. We’ll go spelunking and bring some rare gems to the surface!
- Post-Level Insights – Is your content performing well? Is it engaging users? Is it a vehicle for conversions? Are your fans seeing value in your posts? Insights holds the answers, so buckle up…you might not like what you see!
- Creating the Forest from the Trees – How should we be digesting the massive amount of data that we download? What can we learn about our business, our fans, and our efforts from it all?
S0 download your Excel files, brush up on your Excel formulas, and meet us back here at the Intrapromote blog as we kick off the Facebook Insights blog series!
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