February 10th, 2010
A node is a point where many points meet. While this may seem like a linchpin, a supernode connects seemingly disparate topics and brings those groups together in a new group.
Supernodes can be found in many different areas – people, places and things. One place that’s a supernode is Rice.
Rice is a small chain restaurant in NYC known for their varied dishes. All of the dishes center on – you guessed it – rice. What makes this important is that instead of focusing on the traditional way of dining based on a culture (Italian) or a food (cupcakes) they unify multiple cultures around a single ingredient.
What comes from this is a new and unique experience. Your taste buds are allowed to intermingle many different flavors at once that they may have not been privvy to before. The conversation that’s created around the supernode is priceless. That’s what a supernode does.
A supernode is a trailblazer more often than not. A supernode also may take center stage because of the sheer fact that it is center and a point of congregation. What the supernode does best naturally is act as a conduit for many different streams to converge. It allows the different nodes to be on center stage and come together because it is by nature the center.
So what does all this mean to you? These supernodes are changing reality. We’re all more enriched and emboldened because of them. They turn the impossible into I’m possible.
Tags: flavors, linchpin, sheer fact, supernode, taste buds
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January 31st, 2010
Why do people gather? For that matter why does anything gather? To be around like minds?
To not be alone. As much as someone says they want to be alone they don’t. We all need others to define ourselves.
Online and offline you’ll see people gathering naturally:
Chat rooms
Discussion boards
Social networks
Microblogging platforms
Special events
Clubs
Concerts
Museums
These are places where people naturally come together around one centralized topic. If you look closer there are overlapping subtopics that look like many Venn Diagrams overlaid at once. They may have differing opinions and views on what they’re consuming but the one thing that remains constant is what they are there for.
Some ways people gather are apparent while others are more subtle. One thing is for sure – we gather and we gather often.
Tags: clubs concerts, social networks, subtle one, subtopics, venn diagrams
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October 16th, 2009
Recent reports have shown social media sites to be female concentrated. What about the rest of the internet? Women may be using social networks more but that still doesn’t account for all the other types of websites.
While social networks may be big with females, internet usage in the United States seems to be split about 50/50 with men and women:
- News outlets are the primary focus with males.
- CNet, Reuters, IGN, Time, Drudgereport are all predominantly male.
- Shopping destinations are the primary focus with females.
- JCPenney, CBS, Pronto, Pogo, Overstock are all predominantly female.
*All stats from Quantcast except for MTV, BBC.co.uk, Simplyhired, Pronto, Newsweek and Fancast which come from Google Ad Planner.
Tags: analysis, analytics, bbc, cbs, demographics, drudgereport, fancast, females, gender demographics, Google, ign, internet women, jcpenney, meatsurement, men and women, mtv, newsweek, quantcast, reuters, shopping, simplyhired, statistical analysis, statistics, stats, using social networks
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October 14th, 2009
It’s quite interesting that while Google gives in depth information about many other websites around the world with Google Ad Planner yet it gives no information on its own site. That’s not exactly the case below as we can see Quantcast gives full data on Google.com:
Why doesn’t Google want you to know about their data? Is it because their traffic is flat and has been flat for the last 6 months?:
As you can see below in depth demographics data IS available, just not from Google:
Some quick demographics from Google:
- 67% of users are between 18-49 and is above the Internet average.
- 78% are Caucasian but this is below the Internet average.
- 15% are Asian, Hispanic and Other. This may seem small but their usage of Google is higher than normal.
- 58% make $60K+, so Google’s usage amongst monetary classes is split pretty evenly.
- 58% have attended College and Grad School. What’s interesting here is that as education goes up the concentration of users in the more educated groups goes up as well.
Whatever Google’s reasoning is, the fact of the matter is that their data is out there yet they don’t want you to have it via their tools.
Tags: analysis, business, consumer, consumer demographics, consumers, data, data traffic, demographic data, demographics, depth demographics, gender demographics, Google, google ad planner, internet average, knowledge, marketing, measurement, selling, Value
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October 13th, 2009
Most brands in the social media space want to be able to define Social Media Return On Investment (smROI) and for good reason. They’re putting in money to the medium so they should be getting more money out of it ideally. In this respect there is NO difference between traditional and social media measurement. Here’s why:
In both mediums there are intangibles such as word of mouth and message internalization. These two factors are the strongest influencers that your customer will encounter. Generally speaking brands don’t measure the effects of these factors with the exception of the NetPromoter Score .
So why are people freaking out about measuring social media’s effectiveness? One word: money.
Let’s relate smROI back to traditional ROI in advertising. Companies advertise in magazines, newspapers, commercials and all other sorts of media outlets yet there isn’t a particular outlet that will tell them that someone bought their product or service based on advertising. Sure there’s a targeted audience there based on subscribers and media consumer demographics but unless you’re polling people at point of purchase on exactly why they bought your product then you can’t actively tie outreach to purchases. So why do companies invest money into these channels? Because there’s an audience there.
The problem with social media is that the audience isn’t built in like traditional media. You have to build up a following all on your own. Your message is competing for attention along with tons of others. That’s no different than traditional where there are many channels, magazines, newspapers and ads.
What HAS changed are the channels of communication. Instead of big media corporations dictating what the consumer consumes now the power is in the hands of the consumer. Whereas before consumers were able to choose anything within a limited confines now they have almost an unlimited pool to choose from online.
For you as a brand nothing has changed except the venue. Think of your customers as the new big media corporation. They’re deciding the programming, they’re cancelling shows, they’re greenlighting the content and syndicating your show into perpetual prosperity.
In part 2 I’ll go into the different types of measurement you can do in social media to further define smROI for your brand.
Tags: advertising companies, advice, audience, business, channels of communication, commercials, communicating, confines, consumer, consumer demographics, consumers, core values, good reason, influencers, intangibles, interactions, knowledge, marketing, media corporations, media measurement, media outlets, media space, mediums, message internalization, mindshare, NetPromoter, NetPromoter Score, outreach, point of purchase, return on investment, selling, smROI, social media, social media return on investment, social media ROI, Value, venue, word of mouth
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October 12th, 2009
Upon pulling demographics for a general analysis overview of the internet I realized that Google’s information in Google Ad Planner is very much different than Quantcast’s information. I tend to believe Quantcast a bit more because of the simple fact that certain sites can be “quantified”. What that entails is a website adds some code to their site so Quantcast can track all of their traffic and demographic data.
To test my theory that Google isn’t giving proper stats I took the gender demographics of the top 100 sites in traffic that were quantified and compared them with Google Ad Planner stats. The problem with Google vs. Quantcast is that there are limited stats that both agree on. Gender and children in household are the only two that sync up as there are ONLY two options, male & female and yes & no respectively. Other stats like household income, age range, and even college attended don’t quite match up, as both sites have chosen different division points for stats.
As you can see below Quantcast’s directly measured stats for males are in blue while the Google Ad Planner comparison stats are in red:
In the following table you can see the difference in percentages between Quantcast and Google Ad Planner. In almost all instances Google Ad Planner is shy of the actual target. Google is only equal with Quantcast once and is off as much as 13 percent:
The bottom line is this: don’t rely on just one source for your analytics and statistics. Google may be a reliable name to many but unless they’re actually measuring data on the company’s behalf then they’re just guessing at best. If ever in doubt use the wisdom of the crowd. Choose many sources and take the average of all of them. It may not be the best solution (the best would be direct measurement) but when you have no other option finding out the hidden wisdom of the crowd may be your best bet.
Tags: actualities, actuality, analysis, analysis overview, analytics, demographic data, demographics, gender demographics, Google, google ad planner, measurement, quantcast, quantified, statistical analysis, statistics, stats, sync, traffic
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