Let’s be honest with ourselves here. Not everyone is good at math. Once we all accept this, the social media measurement world is going to be a hell-of-a-lot better off.

Watch this video. Ignore everything except the equations and how they progress. Yes, some of the metrics are complete nonsense. Yes, subscribers are just like followers. Yes, the video transition effects were nifty. I am asking you look past all of this.  Focus solely on the thought progression to the final equation.

You likely didn’t take notes while you watched that, did you?  If you didn’t, you missed all the messy bits. But, have no fear, because I am going to take you though the proposed equation step by step so you can see it for what it is- (mess x epicfail)/lack-o-judgment.

First, the host introduced you to three major metric categories (volume, engagement, & conversions). Under those three categories she listed several proposed metrics. Do you remember this? Or were you to focused on the super hero t-shirt? I know; it was a great t-shirt.

Now to make following the progression of this proposed equation easier, I broke each of those metrics into two groups. For example, I split the proposed Volume metrics into those that represent Reach & those that show Frequency. For Engagement I parsed the metrics into Time and Content engagement types. Lastly, I broke the metrics mentioned in the Conversion category into Responses & Revenue related metrics.  If you’re reading all this and are confused, the picture below should clear everything up.

In the next section the presenter outlined how you should divide these metrics, regardless of which category they were in within the previous section, into two groups: Hot & Cold metrics. Try to ignore that these groups make about as much sense as splitting the metrics by what which letter of the alphabet they start with. I know it’s hard, but just try.

The metrics the video host allocated to the Cold side are those that fall into the standard media buyers equation (reach x frequency) / timespent.  Additionally, revenue & responses are also fall under  Cold metrics. NOTE: it is not specified where in the equation these metrics belong, just that they belong there. Somewhere. The Warm side contains “harder to measure” Content Engagement metrics such as Sentiment & Ecosystem.  See below for the picture-fun version.

Now does anyone see some major possible issues yet? You should. If not, I am more than happy to point them out.

1. The actual metrics in the previous sections are replaced with less specific category titles. This begs the question why were those category groups originally defined? 
2. Responses & Revenue aren’t included in the Cold metrics equation & seem to be mentioned as an after thought?
3. Many of the data rich metrics in Content category of Engagement  are completely ignored, instead favoring to rely solely on Sentiment analysis
4. The host has introduced a new metric to the equation which was not included in the previous metric categorization: Ecosystem

So after all few more sultry glances and mirage of smoke, mirrors, and excessive metric organization, the video host presented the final equation:

You’ll likely note I added a little color to the above graphic. Here’s why. The yellow represents those metrics the host mentioned previously in each part of the discussion leading up to the grand reveal of the master equation. The plum section signifies metrics that were introduced in the second part of equation definition. Those red highlights those metrics which may have been alluded to, but were not brought out specifically during the previous discussions.

So now let’s play point out the possible problem points again (it’s a fun game isn’t it?).

1.  What are the Page Views & Visits in the Social Media world? Up until this point we have not see anything in this video that mentions these metrics or what defines what metrics would represent them.
2. Where did Frequency & Reach go? Are they supposed to be represented by Page Views & Visits? Are those two things really the same thing in social media measurement?
3. Why did the equation change from Timespent being in the denominator of the Cold metrics portion of the equation, to being an additive?
4. Why are Responses and Revenue removed, especially since they’re the only metrics which track possible financial return?
5. What exactly is the resulting metric meauring?

Now let’s combine everything together into a pretty picture. It’s a beautiful disaster.

Everyday on twitter, facebook, linkedin, etc I see posts on how to measure Social Media.  Usually while reading these posts I have to resist the urge to find a knife and go on a “people who cheapen my skill set in the social media space” killing spree.  For the most part the measurement solutions proposed in these articles lack context,  double count metrics, and fail to isolate an overall measurement goal. The result is equations (usually to measure ROI or some variant of ROI) that have enough holes in them to strain the pasta for my Sunday spaghetti dinner.

Yesterday I got into a nice discussion with  Olivier Blanchard about just how twisted many of the these measurement suggestions are and how they actually gain notary in the space. The conclusion was simple: people are making a quick buck off of people who don’t understand what measurement really is. Or in my candid and oh so witty manner of speech- people are getting played. In general, measurement is facing the same issue much of the social media world is facing- everybody’s “expert”.

So holding all this in the back of my head, I tried to understand how people get guided so off course by both these articles and their own better judgment. At around 5 o’clock last night it hit me. Adding qualitative aspect to a previously primarily quant based world has thrown some people so far for a loop that are willing to accept complete gibberish as a viable marketing solution as long as it has words like “tweets”, “likes”, and “posts” built into the equation. Additionally, you have an influx of tools to measure social media that don’t really MEASURE,  they MONITOR.  Did you see how I caps locked those words? It because we’re getting to my thesis: Social media monitoring is not social media measurement.

Why do people group these two very different things it one haphazard mess? A) because they can B) because people are dumb enough to listen to them c) because there’s a confusing mass of a no mans land in the middle that I like to call “reporting”.

So what really constitutes measurement and what types of analysis are simply monitoring? Well it just so happens I created the chart below to help clear up the misconceptions. Note you won’t see the words “engagement” or “volume” in this chart. This  focuses solely on the outputs and ignore the inputs ( ie: variations of metrics & types of  content).  Why are we ignoring the inputs? Because any good data nerd knows that the inputs should be guided by your companies internal goals and not by some one with a white board and a video on youtube. I could jabber on and on  about what each of these is and why they fall where they do, but this post is already too long. I’m going to let the image speak for itself.  In entries to come I will be analyzing various proposed measurement methodologies, pointing out the potholes, and giving credit where credit’s due. Thoughts? Comments? Bitter rage? Let me have it!

Special thanks to @devintrix &  @norcross for  listening to me babble last night about this.

I know this video is old, but I remembered today how angery it made me. This is me calling it out.

I’m a data nerd and as much as I hate to admit it the first thing that happens when I see a video like this I get pulled into the numbers. I immediately begin to back track and comprehend how they came upon the random slew of statistics.

Then inevitably I get angry and begin to realize that these statistics are either immeasurable of completely ridiculous. Take from the piece above. “India has more honors kids than America has kids.” How can you measure that? Does the US or India have a way to measure honors kids? And if they do does there definition of an honors student equal the same thing? And as my mind begins to spin off into a tizzy of possible measurement scenarios, I realize the slow drip quicksand has caught me-out of context data vomit.

It’s hard not to fall into the trap; our society routinely practices data bulimia. We choke down stakes of facts and figures and just regurgitate them out often with little planning. It hard not to with all the new ways to collect data; even the most useless facts seem alluring. Did you know that Mosquito’s are attracted to the color blue twice as much as to any other color?

But numbers are useless without a well framed purposed and without context statistics are not actionable. For example, let’s say Fred’s Fish Bar does a survey of customers and finds delivery to be the least satisfactory service in the restaurant. They spend a large portion of their next quarters budget revamping the delivery service only to see no change in results.

This is the set up for the classic contextual faux pas. Digging deeper into the data find that while delivery WAS the lowest scoring service, it was only marginally lower. Also, the survey was only administered to people who visited the restaurant for a sit down dinner-those who may not find as much value in delivery. Also, they find that while family dinning wasn’t the least satisfactory service, it was significantly lower among women. Perhaps the investment would have been wiser spent creating a family friendly perception of the restaurant targeted at women. But, who knows because this is all hypothetical- ie I made it all up.

But the issues addressed in the fantasy example all too easily plague real world businesses. How do you get data that isn’t just compelling, but actionable? It’s simple ,build a frame work. Take time to invest thought into the following 3 questions:

1. What are you looking to measure, and why?
2. What do you plan to do with results of your research?
3. Can this metric be backed up by any additional data?

I quite enjoy when good debate leads to new thought. Just so happens that was the result of this evening’s Social Media Club NYC event. Midway through the meeting, the room was a buzz with conversation about major corporations’ success with social media or lack there of. Soon, what started out as a conversation recognizing the common pitfalls larger companies find themselves stuck in, became an all out bashing session. People were gnashing their teeth and jumping on tables shaking their fists at each other. One person even brought out a bow staff just in case his fist waving failed to get his point across.

Okay, I exaggerated. A little. But there was some yelling and some harsh words being said. In the thick of it, it hit me. I felt bad for these large corporations.Never have I felt more left of center than in that moment. I’ve always be a perpetual advocate of the underdog, a product of what I like to call”picked last for every team in high school” syndrome. Now my brain was overflowing with thoughts that led to sympathy for these companies and more importantly the people in charge of their Social Media. I feel that if the walls of America’s fortune 500 companies could speak openly about their social media programs, this is along the lines of what they would say:

“Courtney Treebird from Muskingum, AL I understand your pots arrived broken. I saw your tweet about. I also saw that you wrote a blog about it. I know your friend Sherri also wrote about your pots and about a similar problem she had with our brand. I know you then both joined a group on facebook called “I hate brand X.” I want you to know I saw ALL of this. I even told my boss Sam, who forwarded me to Mike who’s in charge of customer satisfaction. Mike referred my to Allison who manages shipping, who told me this was out of her hands and referred me back to Mike. Mike then sent me to Alex who’s the head of digital marketing. She said that she thought our company had someone in charge of requests like yours. A week later she wrote me an email referring me to reach out to myself for help. As you can see, Courtney, I’ve tried to resolve your issues. I’ve tried to reach out to people and make you feel more satisfied with our product. I have. We want you to be satisfied. The problem is, my company is just not quite sure who’s in charge of meeting your needs.”

Classic social media success stories like Jetblue & Zappos have it easy. They’re newer companies and have been able to build customer centrality into their sales model from the get go. Older companies do not have the same advantage and they struggle to bring the same level of service to their customers because of it. To compete they must retrofit a modern customer centric model onto internal working system that just doesn’t cooperate with that way of thinking. So what you are left with is a bunch of people who think service and communication with consumers is important, but no clear leader or process to ensure actual customer needs are met. Even when there is a defined leader in charge of meeting customer needs, that person is not likely to have the power necessary to demand the change needed to meet disgruntled customers needs’. So, what you’re left with is a whole lot of mess.

The only way these companies will be able to overcome this mountain of an issue is to build internal communication that mirrors their outward goal. How do they do this? There’s no simple or easy answer. I suppose it’s what makes their situation even more difficult.

Never did I expect I would find the urge to stand up and fight for the big dogs, but today I did. I ask you to give the big corporations a little bit of a break when is comes to social media. They’re still figuring out how to make it work. They want to catch up. They’re going to make mistakes. The important thing is they are trying and that deserves some credit.

Unless you live under a rock (AKA not on twitter) or a 65+ grandparent who lives by the beach while spending any possible inheritance they might have on chotskies made of seashells, you’ve heard the announcement about Facebook introducing “@replies” to their site in the next several weeks. This has caused panic. No, I’m not kidding. No, I’m not making it up.  Mashable’s article on it over had 3,000s tweets on the subject and twitter power users are calling Facebook a “copycat”, “cluttered”, and the “great blue devil” ( I quite like the last one).

Taking all this into account i really think everybody just needs to calm down.  Literally I feel like today might have been the Twitter communities “Chicken Little” moment. OMG Twitter is crashing. Our whole universe is fading away. We’re all going to die!!! Really people, you just got hit in the eye with a pebble and freaked out over nothing.

And why am I so sure I am right on this? Well we’re in business, we all love executive summaries. I’ll give you three reasons:

1. Twitter didn’t invent @replies. Really credit for this  came from forums users and bloggers, who carried it over with them when they started using twitter. That means facebook isn’t copying twitter. It’s copying some guy who thought he’d be nerd chic and pull out some awesome by slapping down an @ sign on a blog to call someone out.  Who he is? I don’t know. That’s why they invented google.

2. Just because something has a cup holder doesn’t make it a car. Facebook adding @replies does not automatically make it a twitter substitute.  It’s adding one feature guys. And yeah you can reply to peoples wall comment on FB now, but you can also do that on all sort of other sites…So who cares?  If facebook were to strip down and focus solely on status updates, limit the number of characters, and make it possible to have one way relations (IE follow/follower paradox) then maybe I’d be a bit worried. Right now. I just don’t see where the fear is coming from.

3. @replies are going to make Facebook an even bigger Hot Mess. Here’s a point we probably can agree on:  facebook is a hunka hunka burning mess. There’s an excessive amount of crap and it’s like an information overload just visiting the site.  Facebook’s  that girl in seventh grade who let make-up explode all over her face before coming to school. Key insight she never learned–> less is more kids.

At the end of the day, I think this is a really good thing. Facebook adding @replies is creating a consistent form of communication. The social world is beginning to create some standard etiquette across sites. You should be excited, the internet is growing up.

Below is a list of the top 10 geek love songs. The focus of the list is original content, so you won’t find any parodies below (even though there are some great ones). If you feel I missed something incredible please leave a comment. I want to see it just as much as you wish I had already seen it

Geeks of the world- Enjoy!

1. Coder Girl- A love song devoted to all the female programmer in the world.

“It’ more than just technolust”.

2. Even Hitler had a Girlfriend- Understanding just how hard it is to find some geek lovin’

“The odds are pretty good, but the goods are pretty odd”

3. She Blinded Me With Science- Because lets be honest, all you need is some good chemistry

“Science!”

4. Computer Camp Love- The Band’s name is DataRock need I say any more? I think not.

“Zedulus lepedus you must know she’s a genius”

5. Code Monkey- This is a music video about the life of the common  code monkey and his love for the receptionist

“Code monkey like you”

6. Geek Love- What’s it’s like to love a geek.

“The first boy I’ve known to get all a’s and appear in all my highschool plays”

7. U+Me=Us (calculus)- This might be the best use of calculus today.

” When it comes to cosigns I know a thing or two”

8. Hail to the Geek- The ultimate song about loving yourself as a geek

“when you end up pumping gas, fill ‘er up and kiss my….”

9. Geeks in Love- A nice animation paired wish a catchy beat about being geeks in love

“when they see us holding hands they wish they were geeks in love”

10. Always and forever- Kip proclaims shis love for technology and lafawnduh with this little ditty from Napoleon Dynamite

“I love technology, always and forever”