A huge part of social media measurement involves studying the Web analytics of your blog (or your company’s blog). There are numerous free and subscription-based services available that will tell you all kinds of things from how your traffic compares to the competition to what search terms people are using to find your blog. Compete.com is one such analytics service.
I think my issues with faulty metrics are fairly well documented. I know to take all data from these types of sites with a grain of salt. After all, samples can lead to educated guesses at best; terribly inaccurate data at worst. And I’ll give Compete some credit for getting at least some information (close to) correct about some of my sites — generally their unique visitor estimates aren’t too far off for me.
I take issue with other data the company is providing though — data that I consider to be a violation of my privacy, and data you might be unknowingly sharing as well. This post is about sharing something I recently discovered occurring on Compete.com, as well as my opinions on the ethics and defenses of it.
Unusual Referrals and What They Told Me
Periodically I run simple site comparisons through Compete’s free tool to see general trends — usually my primary blog and competitors / colleagues in the niche. It’s a good way to see if overall the niche is seeing increases in readership or how my blog is faring compared to others. And that’s fine. [click to continue…]
compete,
privacy,
referrals,
statistics
Do you know who's in your social network? - Credit: BigStockPhoto.com
There are a lot of people out there in the job market looking for work right now. And HR representatives have long since started looking to social networking profiles to learn more about job applicants. Can you blame them? With so many people available and applying for jobs, why wouldn’t they want to know as much as possible about applicants’ personalities before hiring someone?
Then again, a lot of folks aren’t all that cautious about what makes it to those public profiles. They don’t really think about anyone but their friends and existing networks looking at the information they post. So they post stupid things without thinking — things that could cost them their dream job. Already have a job? You’re not off the hook. You might find yourself back on the job market if you aren’t careful about what you post online.
[click to continue…]
human resources,
job search,
privacy,
social network profiles,
social networking
Credit: BigStockPhoto.com
You can’t escape from social media these days, at least not if you work heavily on the Web like I do. Social media is great for marketing, business networking, staying on top of personal connections, and finding new and interesting information. But with that information comes a serious slap to your productivity.
The problem? There can be too much information; too many people vying for your attention; too many messages bombarding you from all directions. Social media can be as much a distraction as a valuable tool. So let’s explore that today — social media noise.
What is Social Media Noise?
Social media noise is all of the social media information and interaction that distracts you from the information or connections you really want or need.
For example, let’s say you like to access Twitter through their Web platform. You follow 5000 people. You can’t possibly read every tweet from every person nonetheless respond and share your own. All of those tweets that you don’t really care about are just noise. Social media noise just means you’re getting hit with too much — more than you can realistically process and respond to in a way that would keep you actively involved in those conversations.
Credit: Intersection Consulting (via Flickr)
Staying Engaged While Eliminating Excess Noise
Weeding through the noise in social media doesn’t have to be difficult. Here are a few ideas:
-
You can't keep up with everything all the time. (Credit: BigStockPhoto.com)
Stop using every social media tool that comes along. Narrow it down to the best places to reach your target audience or market. That might not involve using the biggest social networks, but sticking to a niche focus where the conversations are more targeted.
- Decrease the size of your network. Bigger isn’t always better. If you can’t stay actively engaged with your network, it might be time to trim the fat. Sure, you can’t stop other people from following you, but if you can’t keep up with those you’re following, it might be time to get more selective.
- Set aside dedicated social networking time. Use that time to check your Twitter account, Facebook account, blog comments, or whatever you want. And then stop. That’s it. You’re finished until tomorrow (or at least until you complete whatever other tasks are on your plate for the day).
- Make the tools work for you. On Twitter for example, you can break your network up into lists. So you can focus the conversations you take part in throughout the day (perhaps following up with colleagues during work hours and personal contacts later on). Feed readers do a similar thing by helping you sort through noise in the blogosphere.
- Search. If you’re looking for something specific, search for it. Don’t manually dig through information cluttering your network.
Sorting through the social media noise is just that — sorting. You’ll sort through millions of profiles to decide who to friend or follow. You’ll sort through countless messages every day to decide what’s worth reading and responding to and what’s not. You’ll sort, you’ll aggregate, you’ll follow, you’ll unfollow. That’s just life in the social media space.
How do you stay on top of all of your social media connections without becoming lost in the noise all day long? Share some of your tips for more productive social media use in the comments.
noise,
social media noise
Credit: BigStockPhoto.com
For years I’ve been singing the praises of niche outreach and waiting to see niche social networking overtake general social networks (like Facebook) with the public. I’m sad to say it hasn’t happened as quickly as I would have liked. Too many people are still wasting too much time trying to be everything to everyone.
That said, niche social networking is here, and it’s been around much longer than some of you probably realize. Let’s explore niche social networking, what might be holding it back, and where things are going well for niche social networks.
Bigger Isn’t Always Better: The Benefit of Niche Targeting
The niche is where it’s at. That’s where you’ll find the people who care about the same things you care about, who share your hobbies or interests or industries, and who are looking for exactly what you’re offering. Are you reaching your niche? Or are you so preoccupied with numbers that you sometimes forget about relevancy? [click to continue…]
niche social networking,
niche social networks
Credit: BigStockPhoto.com
You probably come across many different kinds of social media creatures over the course of your week — through work, personal networking, or whatever draws you to social media. Some of these are little more than annoying. Others can be downright dangerous. And on the lighter side, some are occasionally amusing.
Here are a few of my “favorite” social media monsters:
The “Guru” Giants
You know the type. The gurus seem to be everywhere you turn. Sometimes they go by other names, like “expert.” I do think there are “gurus” in social media. I think anyone who says otherwise (the ones who pretend social media is only a few years old, because they completely neglect the social side of the Web that’s been around for well over a decade now) is a bit loopy. [click to continue…]
experts,
gurus,
spam,
tmi,
trolls
Credit: BigStockPhoto.com
A few days ago freelance writer Laura Spencer (@TXWriter) tweeted a link to a Mashable post. The hyped up headline read “Facebook Now Controls 41% of Social Media Traffic.” Before I even read the post my gut screamed “Bullshit!” It often does that. My gut is rather talented at sniffing out shady statistics. It must be that past life in PR where we all learn that statistics can say just about anything we want them to if we twist them enough (my disgust of that attitude makes me hypersensitive to them now).
Then I did read the article. What I found was baffling (okay, it wasn’t really — it was about what I expected):
- Charts with no reference points related to the supposed trends shown
- Assumptions about people jumping from one site to another without any real evidence to back that up (and data charts right in the post that contradicted the claim)
- Other statistical claims that didn’t jive with the “relative” charts shown in the post
- Big social media sites being completely left out of the comparison
- Whole niches of social media completely left out of the comparison
- Sites that probably shouldn’t have been included but were
- A huge social media site included in the first set of stats suddenly disappeared from later ones
Yikes. I bet you’re wondering why I haven’t linked you to the post yet. That’s because it seems to have gone “Poof!” Vanished into thin air it did. Because of that I won’t pull the actual charts to show you the problems (doesn’t seem right to publish their charts when they’ve pulled them — especially when it wasn’t even clear in the post if they belonged to Mashable or were Comscore charts taken somewhat out of context). However, I do want to highlight something from the cached version which illustrates my biggest problem of all: [click to continue…]
facebook,
mashable,
myspace,
statistics,
youtube
