Simple communication strategies for a complicated world.
October 14th, 2009

Google traffic is flat and they dont want you to have their data

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Google

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:

Google.com Google Ad Planner Demographics

Google Quantcast Demographics

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.


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October 13th, 2009

Social Media ROI: no different than traditional measurement

This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series smROI

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.


For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.


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