so this is mass communication?

Everyone wants to know who is reading their site. Here are some resources for understanding some of the metrics.

In addition the other sites I’ll list, Google has some great videos on YouTube about how to understand & use Google Analytics. Tip: before you start diving into your analytics report,  take a few moments to watch the flash product  demo/tour first.

Conversation analysis
There are several ways to do a conversation analysis. Some people look at the comment-to-post ratio (are your readers interacting as much as much/more than you are posting). Other look at in-bound links under the logic that if someone is linking to your post/content then it is continuing the conversation on another site. A great site for checking out who is linking to your site is Technorati.

Bounce rate
When people come to your site - do they immediately leave? Bounce rate tells you that: it is the percentage of people who come to our site & immediately leave without getting any deeper. You want a low number for bounce rate - in general, a 40% rate is pretty good. Watch the video to learn more.

Understanding visitors
Who cares about averages — we should care about distribution. Who are your loyal visitors and what are they doing on your site? Learn about those people who repeatedly visit your site, when the last time the visitor came, how long that person stayed on the site. Go a step further - segment the data (twitter, for example): of those who came via twitter, how long do they stay and how many times have they visited? This will give a better indication as to how “successful” that particular referrer was (& for companies using ads it will help determine where you should keep buying ads & what you should drop). Watch the video to learn more.

Track feed subscriptions
Google Analytics doesn’t track how many people are subscribed to your RSS feed. But you still  want to know how many read the site through feeds - especially because many times the RSS reader might not ever click through to the site. Google suggests using feedburner to get this information. It will tell you: how many readers, what are feed tools are they using & all sorts of podcast metrics.  Tip: set up your feedburner feed before you start marketing your site because if you do it midstream on a blogspot blog then you’ll have to change your feed URL (& readers might not take the time to update their subscription to your feed).  Watch the video (jump to 11:32, end 15:38) to learn more.

Optimizing your content
Now this one is just really cool: After you’ve looked over your analytics & you have a good baseline of how your site is doing you might be ready to test ways to improve your site. What if I put a picture of a person with my product on the page? What if I use certain words? Heck, which layout for your site works the best? The Google Web Site Optimizer will let you set up experiments where people randomly get your page with one thing different on it each time - the data (very nicely laid out in a Google’y way btw) tells you what works the best on that page. This is the killer app made simple for usability design, if you ask me. You would use this when you’re trying to improve your visitors experience & reach whatever goal you set (like get to a certain page). Watch the video to learn more.

Thinking about search
There are some things that Google Analytics doesn’t do … check out the Google Webmaster Tools. Find out what mobile devices are accessing to your site, the last time Google crawled your site & a little about Google SEO.  Watch the video (jump to 7:50, end 11:32) to learn more.

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There are more videos, but they are more geared toward making money so I won’t go into them but you can view them all in the Conversion University section of the Google YouTube channel.

The key is that reporting is not analyzing — don’t just report numbers, interpret that data & tell people what it means about how people are using the site. Don’t just look at one number, understand as much as possible about what is going on in your site. A single metric will not give you what you need to make quality decisions from your analytics reports.

This post was cross-posted at my ADPR 5990 social media class blog.

Atlanta-based Arketi Group released the results of their recent Web watch survey where they looked at how business journalists are using social media tools like blogs.

We’re seeing the same trend in their data as we see in similar surveys:

• blogs make journalists’ jobs easier (25%), get story ideas from blogs (54%) & believe blogs are equally credible to activist sites (41%)

• if an org is in crisis & the journalist can’t reach you, he’s likely to turn to industry blogs as a secondary source

• only 2% said they would never report on stories starting from a blog but the rest either were using them with varying attributions (72%) or open to it in the future (21%)

An interesting finding is the use of instant messenger: 18% say it makes their job easier & 25% prefer it when working with known sources.

Request the full report of the national survey here.

I’m thrilled beyond words that a grant proposal I submitted with Dr. Ruthann Weaver Lariscy (UGA), Dr. Elizabeth Johnson Avery (Tennessee) and doctoral student Polly Howes (UGA) was approved!

The PRSA Foundation approved our grant, titled “Monitoring public opinion in cyberspace: How corporate public relations is facing the challenge.”

Now that we have the funding, we’re going to move forward to examine:

• what/how Fortune 500 companies use social media tools

• what/how corporate reporters use social media tools

• make theoretical contributions to agenda-setting, diffusion of innovations & create a co-orientation model of social media use

• make practical contributions in PR by providing best practices for how major companies are using these tools & what smaller companies/non-profits can learn from them

In addition to this PRSA grant, which will provide the majority of funding for this project, I was also awarded a Faculty Support Grant from Grady College at UGA to assist in funding.

The work will begin immidiately & the final report will be complete in Sept. 2008.

Remember when people were still experimenting with how to integrate bloggers into a media relations program (… and still are!)? Well, in the summer of 2004 the 2 major American parties decided to credential bloggers - alongside traditional media - to cover the nominating conventions.

For the most part, the parties treated them just like the regular media. There were special availabilities with politicos planned for them, they were given embargo’ed information subsidies … it was the real deal.

And so I looked at this coverage - analyzing every single sentence the credentialed bloggers wrote in their “coverage” during the week of the convention - to see if they were “biased”:

Sweetser, K.D. (2007). “Blog bias: Reports, inferences, and judgements of credentialed bloggers at the 2004 nominating conventions.” Public Relations Review, 33 (4), 424-428.

Public relations practitioners awarded bloggers media credentials in 2004 to the summer presidential nomination conventions. Using the Hayakawa-Lowry bias categories, this quantitative content analysis reviewed sentences posted by credentialed bloggers during the convention to examine blogger reports (attributed, unattributed), inferences (labeled, unlabeled), and judgments (attributed and favorable, unattributed and favorable, attributed and unfavorable, unattributed and unfavorable) to analyze potential bias in “coverage.”

Key words: bias, blog, media relations, credential, political public relations, campaign

I’d like to thank Dr. Steve Banning for his help on this project. He was the one who suggested I look into the Hayakawa-Lowry news bias method & in the end that was the best way for me to quantitatively determine bias.

Note: When PRR updates the PDF (from in press to published), I’ll just switch out the files so you can have one with page numbers.

Updated: PRR released the final version so I updated this entry with page numbers & am now linking to the final PDF as published rather than the proof.

During this weekend’s social media conference, UGA Connect, there was a good discussion in the last session about how to incorporate social media into the PR curriculum. This was probably the most interactive session of dialogue, so I wish more folks didn’t have to run to the airport & miss it. (You can always catch the audio of it if you have time).

Constantin Basturea doesen’t think you need a class in social media. Well, I’m teaching one right now, but I agree with the sentiment. Not because there isn’t enough to cover (trust me, there is …) but because I think social media should be naturally put into every class.

So educators, here you go. Here are some ideas for making your traditional PR classes a little more social:

• Use a Google Doc or wiki for group assignments in any class - we all have assignments where we make students work in groups. Rather than have them fight about which version of the Microsoft Word doc is the most recent version of their work, encourage them to use a wiki or Google doc where they can all collaborate on the document & not get things all messed up. Expert resource: Kaye Sweetser (me!)

• SMPR for PR Writing - have students write a social media press release. They can use free tools like PRXBuilder to format the content & you can grade them on their selection of quotes & integration of multimedia. Expert resources: SHIFT Communication, Todd Defren, Brian Solis, Google group on SMPR
  

• Engage (pitch to) bloggers for PR Writing, Campaigns - have students research a blogger to engage (you/they pick the client). Students should find an influential blogger who blogs about the industry related to the client or someone who might be otherwise interested. Have the students write YOU (obviously not the blogger since it is an assignment!) an e-mail to start a conversation with the blogger — this isn’t the old world pitch, but it is the closest thing we have to it in social media PR. Be careful not to try to push content on the blogger & do show that blogger that the company spokesperson is familiar with the blog & content. There are lots of do’s and don’ts for this so read up on them before you introduce the assignment. Consider integrating ethical codes of social media engagement into the learning as well. Expert resources: Kevin Dugan, Josh Hallett
  

• Twitter for Intro, Campaigns, PR Writing - have students all Twitter together (for Intro it could be for fun, for Campaigns it could be during the event the team planned, for Writing it could be for a class client) for 48 hours. I did this in my social media class & my students twittered in the normal personal fashion for 2 days - at least once every 12-hour period. They had to “follow” (in the official Twitter fashion) the rest of the classmates. By the end of the assignment they were tweeting from mobile devices & replying to each other’s tweets. Expert resources: Todd Defren, Paull Young
  

• Analyze social media conversation for Research Methods, Campaigns: have your class identify a number of social media content producers (bloggers, podcasts, Flickr’ed tags of your product/company) & do old fashioned media analysis. What are people saying? On the organization’s blog, what is the post-to-comment ratio? Expert resources: Constantin Basturea, KD Paine
  

• Podcast for PR Writing, Campaigns - have students record a podcast episode that the client might post on the org site. Some of us make them write radio spots or broadcast copy anyway, so this assignment isn’t too far flung. Lots of tips: be conversational, provide information focusing on the industry & not just your org (heck, why not even just leave your company out of the whole conversation & not mention your company at all?!), give a human voice to the org (interview staff & have a fun convo). The best lesson to learn from this is that podcasting is cheap & easy — but only if you give a little thought about what you can provide your potential publics. Expert resources: Shel Holtz, Neville Hobson
  

• Write an company blog post for PR Writing, Intro, Campaigns - have students compose a short, human-face-giving blog post that a company might have on the official blog. Don’t focus on the company unless you’re soliciting feedback. There are a lot of tips out there for doing it RIGHT, so read up on it before you go into class. Expert resources: Shel Israel, Robert Scoble
  

• Social bookmarking analysis in PR Writing, Campaigns, Research Methods - show off social bookmarking tools like del.icio.us. Why use this rather than normal bookmarks? Because you can share them with friends (no more having to send links!) or have access to them anywhere - not just the computer you physically bookmarked the page on. For higher level classes you could analyze the “play” or bounce of a press release or news story. Expert resource: Constantin Basturea
  

• Social media spotlight of the day/week in any class - at the beginning of any class (Intro would even be the best) showcase one particular social media tool to the class. In my social media class we started Skype’ing in experts to answer a few questions for about 10 minutes, but you don’t need to do anything fancy. If you’re nervous about coming up with or explaining the tech - then make it an assignment where a different student has to research & present the tool to the class.

There are tons more things you can do with social media in the traditional PR curriculum by playing with YouTube, Flickr & getting more in-depth with podcasting … but these are easy little steps that really are simple extensions of assignments you probably already give. I tried to keep the technology needs (use of video or audio recording equipment) minimal for the most part. Also, don’t miss Christine Goodman’s post about learning social media in small steps.

Constantin promised to create some wiki space where educators could share lesson plans, assignments & even get the Society for New Communications Research fellows involved by posting “instructional videos” profs could show in their classes.

Now for my soapbox: The excuse that “we don’t have enough time” to learn about social media technology or to keep up with it isn’t good enough. Here is a reason:

It. Is. Our. Job.

Your turn. Any other ideas? Please share in the comment section.

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that for some of these assignments I actually have assignment handouts (write org blog post, engage blogger, write SMPR) that I am more than willing to share with anyone. [7:18 p.m.]

Don’t look for me to live blog (go here for that!). I’d rather sit back & enjoy this conversation.

But I did make a few notes …. so why not share?

The first session at UGA Connect social media conference has all the social media PR rock stars. Who am I kidding? This whole conference is full of rock stars. I have Kevin Dugan sitting in front of me & Paull Young next to me.

Like I said, I don’t live blog - too complicated - but here are some points from the session that stuck out for me:

• Katie Paine says in measurement we need to move beyond counting eye balls. Her point is that we need to measure the impact on our publics & customers. What are people doing with the information?
• Josh Hallett says it is egotistical for organizations to say “if we post it on our site, people will come to it.” This isn’t field of dreams! Be aware of the entire picture of content - YouTube, blogs, everything that comes up with your company on the first few items in a google search.
• Josh’s advice to college students — don’t rely on your institution to get you up to speed. And people don’t look so much at your university credentials - they look at your online resume. How are you using blogs? How are you using FaceBook to promote campus events for your extracurricular groups?

The UGA social media conference Connect kicked off tonight with a delish dinner & great keynote from Kevin Dugan. My ADPR5990 social media students are providing live coverage of the conference over at the conference blog. They are blogging, podcasting the sessions, doing short podcast interviews, flickr’ing (tag UGAconnect07) & Twittering. Oh my! Check them out.

Yet another company experimenting in social media marketing has forgotten that ethical practice still applies.

One of my students, Rosie, came up to me before class to tell me this crazy story, which she has allowed me to repeat here. The bottom line is that even if it doesn’t blow up in their faces, they have now been used as a case study of “cavalier social media marketing” in at least two classes at UGA & have left a bad taste in the mouth of everyone who hears this story.

Rosie is a member of Target (yes, as in the Target) Rounders — one of those many groups online you sign up for & you get points for marketing a product. They come up with new products & then everyone on their list finds fun ways to promote it for “points.” She connects with them via Facebook, where they have a group.

Last week she got a newsletter (issue #107) from Target Rounders saying:

Your mission: try not to let on in the Facebook group that you are a Rounder. We love your enthusiasm for the Rounders, and I know it can be hard not to want to sing it from the mountaintops (and the shower, and on the bus…). However, we want to get other members of the Facebook group excited about Target, too! And we don’t want the Rounders program to steal the show from the real star here: Target and Target’s rockin’ Facebook group! So keep it like a secret!

Wow. What ever happened to never ask someone to lie for you?

She, being pretty up on ethics & social media, was taken aback. So she left a wall/discussion comment calling this request out as being unethical.

Exactly 18 minutes later she gets a “friendly” message from someone asking her for more details on what happened. Rosie, ever the inquisitive PR student, did some searching on that person’s networks & affiliations.

The message came from someone who works for an agency that has — guess who! — Target as a client. The message to Rosie never revealed this affiliation. Strike two.

Damage control begins.

Rosie even got a phone call from the VP of that agency trying to clear it up. Even though everyone agreed it wasn’t right, they still maintained it was a “miscommunication” of some sort. Another e-mail communication from the lead Rounder, “Laura Rounder,” claims that the newsletter

“was not endorsed by Target.”

Hmm. Funny.

I thought when a company hired an agency to do work & market them, that work kinda WAS on the company’s behalf. Not to mention the link to Target.com in the footer of the newsletter. Silly me.

But wait. There’s more.

Rosie’s original wall/discussion posting that started this whole conversation?

Gone.

Deleted.

Poof!

No joke.

Strike three. Target, you’re out.

Rosie says the discussion archive is still there (I haven’t looked for it, but did look on the TR’s FB wall) - but it took her forever to find. And she said they did update the originally unethical text on the Web site to read:

Thank you for your enthusiasm for the Rounders! We love it! If you want to spread the word about how to be a part of the Rounders program please let your friends know that they can visit www.targetrounders.com to get information and fill out a quick application to get accepted. Also remember that we do not want others to feel excluded from the Rounders program, so keep that in mind when chatting about it with your friends online.

But really. Someone please make the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s ethical guidelines the home page for all the computers at this agency.