At PostRank, we’ve been incredibly fortunate over the years to receive a lot of feedback about our products and services. There have been many blog posts, tweets and emails from community members and we can’t thank each and every one of them enough for their support and insight. We think some of the stories they’ve shared with us are incredibly valuable and so, we’d like to share them with you.
We’ve been spending some serious time reaching out and connecting with our community members using analytics everyday to monitor the content that they and their clients publish online. We will be showcasing a few of these individuals in a 30 minute live webinar on May 11th, 2011 at 2pm EST. Our scheduled guests are:
Join us as we learn a little about who are guests are, what they do and how they’re using PostRank Analytics. There will be a portion at the end of the webinar so you can ask some questions and get some answers from our insightful and experienced guests. Registration is now open.
Numbers, numbers, numbers. Every election brings a tidal wave of numbers for consumption and consideration. Major research firms regularly post polls on leader approval rating, voter intentions and other questions meant to gauge the thoughts and emotions of the electorate. In Canada, a country that spends more time online than any other nation, we responded to the evolving political campaign with tweets, comments and social bookmarks as we consumed and shared content online.
In this year’s election, PostRank began looking at social engagement with content originating from the major party websites a week after the campaign kick-off. We shared that story in a blog post that featured an infographic illustrating the performance of content from party websites on the social web. We’ve updated that data and discovered that the Liberals and NDP continue to be leaders in utilizing their websites as content hubs that can effectively proliferate their messages across social networks. Both parties were able to create thousands of conversations in social media that included URL references to content on their site.
Of course, people discovered election stories, news and events from a variety of sources including: major news outlets, independent blogs and video. So we decided to broaden our search looking at stories and articles from these different sources online. This enabled the reconstruction of a timeline that plots out the development of the election using only data from social networks and hubs. We were able to find stories and events that generated major social engagement events and define the general trend of these interactions in order to make a non-trivial conclusion about the electorate’s behavior and its preferences in choosing election content online.
Analyzing this data revealed the following:
The general trend shows that the number of social engagement events increased as the election day approached. Up and down spikes got smoother and the density of events grew.
The overall character of the line is very relevant to the election’s development. All major events are reflected with spikes in the number of social engagement events a story or piece of news received.
The highest point on the line marks the announcement of the elections. Canadians shared and commented on this news widely. The news was circulated actively abroad as well, in UK and Australia primarily.
The lowest point, the end of April, was the Easter long weekend. Naturally the holiday distracted Canadians from election stories.
Sharp drops in social engagement events with stories about the election happened on weekends. Canadians didn’t want to waste their time-off reading about election stories and events. However, weekend drops got smaller as the election day approached and so, people became more inclined to spend their private time sharing and commenting on news and stories about the election.
Prominent spikes are located in the middle of the weekdays. On the one hand it is because this is normally when major news and events take place, on the other hand – it is also midweek when Canadians read their news in their workplaces, prompting them to share and comment on those stories in social media.
There is little correlation to be drawn here between the results we’ve come up with looking at social engagement with election content online and the results at the polls, let alone the ballot box. However, we have been able to demonstrate that there is a very clear connection between stories and events that unfold in the real world (for the most part) and the attention they get in the social web. This validates that social media is indeed social. We’re having conversations about the same things we do around the kitchen table as we do on laptops.
For a number of people upgrading to Firefox 4 meant that they could no longer use the Extension, but for those running older versions, it has still worked.
As of Thursday (May 5th), however, we are shutting down the API that powered those older versions of the Extension, so they will cease to work. To get your PostRank filtering fix, we do recommend the Extensions for Chrome and Safari. (We do not know when a new version may be available, since per the blog post referenced above, the upgrades needed are out of our hands.)
Well, kinda… Recently we rolled out some great updates to PostRank Analytics, and we’ve just finished adding even more polish to the site.
When you login, you’ll notice that things look a little different. A little more crisp, a little clearer, a little easier to read. Earth-shattering? Perhaps not. But we do think it’s just as important to look marvelous as to analyze marvelous(ly).
Web technologies change constantly, and savvy designers (like our own) can do some amazing things. We think it’s important to keep up with changes that can give our community a better user experience.
Guess it’s time to do a bit of a makeup touch-up on those team photos now…
Today it’s impossible to have a conversation about social media for business – regardless of one’s level of experience – where the topic of monitoring and measurement does not come up or become a focus of discussion. The business world is built on numbers: everything is measured. The energy and resources that a company devotes to utilizing social media is no exception to this rule. To be used successfully, it must be crafted, monitored, measured and analyzed.
As the need for social media analytics tools has become increasingly important, the industry has responded with a variety of solutions. Early developments included social media listening platforms that used searches to locate and track keyword mentions around the Web. These platforms have become the gold standard, and providers of these solutions count the world’s most recognizable brands among their customers.
But has something been overlooked in the race for a solution to the problem of social media monitoring? Where does content figure into the process? Businesses are spending more time and money than ever creating compelling content and marketing it online.
Monitoring the performance of that content across social networks and hubs is key to understanding that often elusive concept: return on investment. Do the messages your online content contains resonate with audiences on the social web? Where, when and who is interacting with the content your company has painstakingly crafted?
In our newest white paper – Listening Beyond Keywords – we hope to spark conversations with companies and organizations already actively using social media monitoring techniques, as well as those who have more recently begun to dip their toes in the waters of the social web.
PostRank Data Services offers a variety of solutions for brands, agencies and organizations of any size who are interested in discovering, monitoring and analyzing online content about them and their competitors. Using our advanced URL-based techniques and complementary keyword-based strategies, we can help you better understand your content’s performance across social networks, discover your audience, and facilitate relationships with your influencers. Check out data.postrank.com or contact our Data Services expert to learn more about raw data and customized reports.
Recently we rolled out some great updates to PostRank Analytics, and we’ve just finished adding even more polish to the site.