In one week – Monitoring Social Media London #MSM10

Speaking in London a week from today (actually I’ll be in London from this Saturday till the following Sunday, November 28th, with a short trip to Oslo, Norway and another to Brussels).  As I’m a speaker at this event, anyone who wishes to attend can get a 10% discount by applying the code SPKR10.

I’ll be speaking about Social Media ROI, but in my thinking, it’s really more like Reverse ROI, and that was the insight I had when I attended Monitoring Social Media 2010 NYC on November 4th and 5th.  While in London I’ll be speaking at two private events, one for Integrasco on November 23rd and another for Glide Technology on November 26th.

Meanwhile, I’m busy writing my book which is coming together nicely.  I thought my readers, who may not have seen the executive summary, might want to read it here – so here goes:

Social Media Analytics, the Book (or the Social Media Analytics Book)

This book will cover much of what is currently known about Social Media Monitoring and Social Media ROI.  It will breakdown what businesses need to track on the web in Social Media based on verticals and applications.   Best practices for effective social media analytics will also be put forward.

Analytics refers to the behind the scenes data relating to web sites, visits and visitors: the source or referral that got them to a page (where were they before they clicked on the site or the specific page), what sort of computer or operating system they use (Mac or PC), how long they spent on a page, how many different pages on the site do they visit, how often do they return to the site (provided cookies can track their information) and many other statistics of interest to owners of web sites.

In an endeavor of this size and scope I’ll reach out to a variety of experts with exposure to different areas of social media and monitoring to contribute thoughts and ideas, and will welcome their suggestions to help round out the book.

Section 1 of Social Media Analytics will cover how to setup up Social Media Monitoring for effective analytics tracking.   This section will contain  definitions of the terms  used for social media monitoring, a history of Social Media return on investment tracking, as well as tracking Word Of Mouth .  Some areas present difficulties for accurate tracking, such as international listening projects.   The book will explain what’s needed to set up effective monitoring for different industry segments, including Branding, Marketing, Public Relations, Sales and Advertising.

The second section will offer several case studies over a diverse arena of online business activity.  Among the business categories currently proposed for inclusion: Real Estate, Restaurants, Hotels/Hospitality, Personal Grooming, Soft Drinks, Public Relations, Politics, Banking and International Brand Monitoring.   Case studies will be looked at in relation to how many more customers did we get? Or how many more products did we get? Or how often was content viewed or updated and finally how many more Sales margins are we able to complete and how many more referrals were gained.   The author will show how limiting or limited a platform can be.  This can depend on the types of tools available, the types of industries where monitoring is used and matters of scale in projects that encompass multinational reporting and analysis.

Section 3 includes chapters on planning and executing Social Media Analytics.  The core questions of Analytics will be addressed.  How to determine what information is required?   This section will review how to ask the right questions, how to check the needs of the organization, how to assemble the right team of tools and people.

Further to these points, the book will deal with how to conduct a cost/benefit analysis. It will offer tips on evaluating service providers as well as new entrants in the social media monitoring space, and how to determine which vendor or the right platform in order to acquire useful data.

Section 4 includes several reviews of existing Social Analytics platforms such as Radian6, Sysomos, Cision Social Media, etc.  Once the platform is chosen, and then comes the need to configure it properly to capture the types of information to be analyzed.  This may include Geolocation, the social graph, crisis monitoring and alerts, identity profiling and reputation management. This section will also cover how to establish the right governance of social media listening platforms within an organization for effective, accurate monitoring of the social web.

Section 5 covers what to look for capturing data.  Add to this “gotchas” and insider tips. Plus overall good information to know related to each of the many analytics platforms covered in the book.

Section 6 covers the Future of Social Media Monitoring.  Questions abound as this field matures:  what’s coming up over the next few years, what new data or types of available social media information will emerge?    A summary of this and an overview of the field will round out the  book.

Now the book site which will be linked to from Webmetricsguru.com is almost ready, but it does need a few more tweaks before going live, so I won’t release the link just yet (unless you can guess it).

I’m also getting an appreciation of how hard it is to pull all the pieces together this book requires and it’s no easy task but I’m learning fast.  As far as my book site goes, my web designer, Charlie Oliver from ServedFreshMedia.NET is doing a great job and the finished site will probably differ in some ways from the image above, though it’s mostly there.

My trip to London will fill out many of the remaining case studies and interviews book will contain.  I see myself almost as a museum curator, picking the very best paintings, or the best bottles of wine, and putting them in a exclusive wine shop.   The premise of the book, from my perspective, which I’ll speak to in London is the technological choices we make have a profound influence on the success or failure of our efforts in Social Media (or for that matter, almost any enterprise effort).

I see so many people think the made the best choices when in fact, they choose horrible ones, that impacted their workflow and ability to succeed, perhaps for years to come.

And … I’m thinking about standing, metaphorically, at the top of a pyramid,  seeing all the different products / platforms come together and  how they contact (or don’t) and that experience enables to know what really is the best thing a business enterprise or individual should engage in (after asking them a bunch of questions to find out what they really need).

In fact, the technology one chooses to employ and the skills used to leverage it have profound implications for pipeline workflow and profitability and I have seen it firsthand, over and over.

Choose wrong and find yourself under the 8 ball, choose right and you work can almost “do itself“.

Needless to say (but I’ll say it, anyway) I’m working on the book that points to how to make the right choices, so that everything else falls into place (almost like a waterfall, following the path of least resistance).

Uncover The Closely Guarded Secrets To Creating More Traffic, Leads, and Sales By Riding On the Coat Tails Of The High Traffic Social Media Websites.

Check it out!