Net-times: My Perspective

I just went through my Google Buzz stream to see when I first posted there.  It looks like my first post was the same day as my first comment – February 11, 2010.  Most of my early posts weren’t getting many comments early in the game.  It seemed like there was already a community that knew each other and they were all interacting within their group.  I also remember thinking that there was a significant connection between the early adopters of Buzz and FriendFeed.  But I posted anyway and began commenting on other posts.  Soon enough people were doing the same with my posts and the “Buzz” was really drawing me in.

At some point early in the game, there was at least one bad egg that was being abusive to people.  Pretty soon verbal fights were breaking out all over the place and I can remember thinking that the place was filled with a bunch of kids with bad attitudes and too much time on their hands.  I was ready to just drop it and walk away, which would have disappointed me since I wanted to see Buzz succeed.  But I decided to stop following all the people who were involved and/or posting on topics I deemed too personal (my interests in Buzz were to primarily post professional topics).  Cleaning up my Buzz stream worked and I was once again fully active in the community, and a great one at that!

My desire to see Buzz succeed was driven by a feeling that the existing social platforms were either too personal (Facebook) or based on broadcasting and headline blasting (Twitter).  I felt that Facebook was fine for sharing photos with the family and Twitter was good for posting headlines for news I can relate to professionally.  However, Buzz seemed to be the engagement platform all the so called social media gurus/ninjas talked about.  They’ve been boasting about how businesses need to seek out and engage with their communities.  What better way to do this that within a platform that truly facilitates thorough conversations?  Buzz was perfect!  Well, maybe not.

So now months were going by and Buzz is starting to grow, while Google tries to fix some bugs (and a privacy issue here and there).  By the summer Buzz seems to be the perfect platform to discuss topics that are relevant to me, primarily industry related topics.  I’m finding as my posts become more popular, the amount of time needed to respond is growing tremendously.  Not only are the number of responses time consuming, but since we’re not limited to SMS size posts (i.e. Tweets), Buzz users tend to be extremely thorough in their comments.  Thorough comments usually require equally thorough comments if you are trying to explain a point.

But, I got into the groove with Buzz and really started to enjoy it.  Their small, but dedicated team was doing a great job jumping on little bugs and getting them fixed.  Hats off to the crew responsible for making Buzz happen.

But that wasn’t enough.  From my perspective (which will be argued by those active on Buzz now), Buzz lost momentum and started to deteriorate a few months ago.

Here’s why from my perpective:

1.  IMO, one of Buzz’s weaknesses is the community itself. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed engaging with most people there on most topics….except the topic of GOOGLE.  You had better duck and stay down if you ever say a bad word about Google on Buzz.  The community over defends Google, sometimes to extremes that seem ridiculous.  Now, Google is lucky to have such a strong following as any company would.  However, in a social environment, too much pro anything is a big turnoff for many (including myself).

2.  Integration with gmail is a negative to enough people.  Yes, logically, it’s just another account and people don’t have to use gmail itself.  However, perception ruled on this one and Buzz needed it’s own home, separated from gmail…never happened.

3. The mobile (Android) app is confusing at best.  It’s a bit tricky to explain if you’ve never used it (good odds on that), but you have to bounce back and forth between the app and the mobile web UI in order to be fully using Buzz on your mobile.  It’s also virtually unusable when posting links.  This app progressed quickly early on, then just stopped getting better quite a few months ago.

4.  Complete disconnect between the popular tech media and Buzz users.  Motivations aside for a moment, the tech folks would knock the service for usability, privacy issues and the Buzz community would be dumbfounded by their lack of complete acceptance.  Buzz users started telling the naysayers they weren’t using Buzz the right way…that they were “doing it wrong”.  Well, from my experience, telling people they are doing something wrong is surely going to turn them away.  The service better be easy to use and understand, particularly for early adopter, tech media types…or you as the service provider are the one doing it wrong.

5.  Poor cross-service distribution (push) functionality. Sure, it was easy to import Twitter headline blasts, but sloppy to export buzz to Twitter.  The best solution is to go through FeedBurner, which can take hours to chron and also truncates posts way too early in the character count.  So, basically, most Buzz -> Twitter posts were incomplete headlines.

6.  Google itself let Buzz go. I’m convinced that they decided a long time ago to drop Buzz and distance the company from the service.  Why else would a company time after time ignore opportunities to use their new service as a PR medium and instead post directly to Twitter?  If Twitter was where they wanted the message, they still could have started with Buzz.  Why else would we not see Googlers flooding the service in mass?  Why else would the heads of the company not bother posting anything, including the guy running their social program??  Every company needs to put a little PR and marketing behind their products, including Google.

There are also numerous usability issues that should have been addressed along the way.  However, all would have been just fine if the company stood behind this product and gave it the time and resources it deserved.

BTW, I still go back to Buzz once and a while because I wish it would turn around.  I keep hoping Google has something up their sleeve that will incorporate Buzz.  It seems less and less likely as time goes on.

Before launching a new business, most entrepreneurs develop business models and projections.  They do this in order to estimate the types of returns their business is capable of producing.  One segment of those projections is represented in the marketing plan.  Stakeholders read this document to understand how the business will market their services and what they hope to achieve.  Marketing teams should treat their activities like a business by planning, measuring, optimizing…repeating.  They should also be held, and hold themselves, accountable for the success of those plans.

Ultimately, your online success is represented by quantifiable metrics like sales, leads generated, registrations, customer acquisition and/or a specific type of user behavior.  As an online marketer, in order to optimize your campaigns to achieve those metrics, it’s important to understand the equation for success.  For example, if you are trying to achieve a certain number of leads each month, you need to how you will convert those leads and how much it will cost.  You will need to make certain assumptions based on as much fact as possible.  If you know how well your inbound traffic converts today, or how effectively similar businesses convert, you can use this data to project your expected returns:  ”Based on historical data, we will have to spend X dollars to produce Y # of leads for our business, which will result in Z revenue”.

However, what happens when you don’t convert business in-line with your projections or assumptions?  Where do you look for answers to optimization?  Answer:  Your equation needs to be expanded.  This equation should be built as your business model and it is better to have more measurable points of conversion.  For example, each medium, geography, conversion method should have their own assumptions and points of optimization review.  The more precise you can be with a weakness in your campaigns, the more capable you will be to make an effective optimization.

In addition, each point of measurement in your model needs to be analyzed accurately.  Effective measurement builds confidence in optimization activities, model projections and assumptions development.  The analytics tools we have available to use are quite robust these days.  My suggestion is to build your model and wish list of conversions for measurement.  Then build your systems around measuring these metrics.

The more you measure, the better you can optimize.

After years of being a Blackberry user my jealousy of not having any “apps” to play with finally took over.  Actually, let me back up about a year first.  In my house I don’t get great reception with Verizon.  Outside in the front or back and I’m fine, but inside the house coverage stinks.  One too many business dropped calls later and I called Verizon to see what could be done.  After all, I’ve been with them since the mid-late 90′s, so it was worth having a discussion.

Well, the person on the phone recommended a “network extender” to enhance the signal in my house.  I said great, when can you send one out to me?  The answer was as soon as I could shell out $200+ for this little piece of hardware.  This did not make me happy at all and I eventually was so angry that I went over to AT&T wireless for the first time in my life.  Well, the relationship with AT&T was rocky from the start and ended with me saying some not so nice things to a CS person (sorry about that).

This altercation pushed me into the new world of smartphones and I ordered my first one…a Droid and went back to Verizon Wireless.  I wanted this phone because of the optional hard keyboard and the Google Android platform.  Not having this was my biggest fear at the time.  Anyway, I loved the phone.  It was amazing and I didn’t even use the hard keyboard.

At the time my Dad showed some interest in having one of these smartphones, so I made a deal with him.  I’d give him my Droid at a big discount and I could get a new Droid X.

Back to present day:  I’ve had the Droid X for about one month now and it’s pretty cool.  The size is nice…much bigger than the Droid and BB, but great for visuals on screen and clicking text links.  The camera is a HUGE improvement over the Droid.  If a good camera is important to you, don’t even bother with the Droid…it’s terrible.  Only in very specific lighting was I able to get good shots in.  The Droid X has 8 megapixels and you can really see the difference in quality.  I bought the car mount and a hard case for carrying also, which I highly recommend.

However, there are a few issues that have been bugging me about the phone.  For one, I have not been able to upgrade to Android 2.2.  There are some great enhancements there and I’ve  been waiting for a while (with no end in site).  If it’s coming soon I’d never know since I have no information about the release date.  The second thing that bugs me is the HDMI capabilities that are promoted so much.  I actually went out and bought the multimedia station and extra HDMI cable thinking I would be downloading HD movies to my phone and watching them on the TV.  That’s not going to happen anytime soon since there are no good apps/providers for HD content for download and display via the HDMI/TV.  Netflix doesn’t have an Android app yet and Blockbuster…well, stinks.  I could download a movie from Blockbuster, but I could only play it on the phone, not transfer it to the TV for viewing…weak.

One other thing I think needs a major upgrade is the “Car” mode and music management.  The Car mode is a great c0ncept, but listening to media in that mode is too basic.  There’s very little functionality, which is probably good for car mode but needs something more.  Music management for me on the phone is to use Itunes then drag and drop the media onto my phone.  This is ok, but will only work for so long.

Well, let me just wrap up by saying I love the phone…Droid X.  However, I’m also looking forward to some enhancements (oh, did I forget about the upgrade to gmail mobile, which is desperately needed?).  I highly recommend it from an old Blackberry user’s perspective!

Kevin

It seems like developing good corporate blogs is in high demand these days.  Just yesterday I helped my client Sparta Systems (makers of quality management software) launch their first corporate blog.  Here’s a screenshot of the homepage:

It’s always exciting when launching new products.  But it’s particularly exciting to see companies really start to understand the power of this social web.  This blog, if administered properly, will help promote the company’s authoritative position in their industry by giving their internal talent (which is significant) a channel to discuss topics and events that are important to them.  I am consulting with the marketing group which will start seeing positive returns in SEO and PR.

Having done this various times in the past, and knowing how beneficial a properly developed and operated company blog can be, I am constantly amazed at how often it is not included in a company’s marketing effort or implemented poorly.

Sparta is now off to a great start.  Now they need to make sure the company adheres to the operating guidelines we have put in place.

Kevin

Before I get to the importance of web analytics today and in the future, first let me tell you a little story about an 800 lb gorilla.

Google recently announced that it was going to provide a browser plugin that allowed anyone to opt out of being tracked by their metrics reporting product, Google Analytics.  From a normal user’s perspective, it sounds great that they are providing this type of flexibility.  However, Google has been pushing this (free) web reporting product for years as an enterprise-level solution for tracking web visitor activity.  And now, after gaining significant market share, they tell their customers people will have the option of easily opting out.  While adoption rates are projected to be low, this is not a friendly gesture to users of Google Analytics.

This move by Google has generated several discussions on the importance of web analytics in the world of web KPI reporting.  I have heard people say lately that “eyeballs” and “pageviews” are becoming less relevant and the impact of Google’s move is lessened by this change in the way we look at web analytics.  My answer to this discussion is that “eyeballs” and “pageviews” have never really been the metrics to watch on their own.  However, both can represent achieved objectives in the eyes of many businesses, and this can’t be ignored.

For example, due to the powerful downturn in the global economy, in late 2008 and 2009 many businesses were expanding into new areas of opportunity or contracting to focus on specific areas of business.  In either case, their messaging needed to be modified in order to properly communicate with existing and new customers.  Without properly communicating the change in messaging, these businesses would have a hard time generating leads, sales or other types of conversions.  People read content in many ways online, but many still do it the old fashioned way…they visit the company’s website.  So, in order to tell if people are effectively browsing your new content/messaging, a proper view of your website activity (analytics) is necessary.  It may not be eyeballs or pageviews, but your analytics application should give you the ability to view the equivalent.

Businesses that seek B2B lead conversions as their primary object also need to watch web activity.  Many businesses with long lead, or long sales cycles need to understand web user behavior better than fast converting products or services. Various important questions should be answered by your web analytics operation, including the following: What content are visitors looking at prior to conversion?  What content are they viewing and not converting?  Where are the breaks in my conversion funnel?

Once these and other questions are answered, the right reporting structure will give you the tools to optimize your web assets that will ultimately increase conversions.  So, don’t dismiss the importance of analyzing web activity.  It is likely more critical than you may think.

Kevin