Polygraph Media Blog

SXSW Panel on OPD (Other Peoples' Data)

SXSW Interactive2013 approaches... it's the the fifth year in a row I'm attending and the sixth in the last eight for me.  The event continues to thrive and is the one "must-attend" event of the year in my book.

A few quick thoughts on the panel I was invited to join by Carter Rabasa of Twilio and Hung Truong of NewFoundry -- it's my first time speaking at SXSW.  I straddle marketing & technology professionally, and am speaking on the tech side in this session.

Discussion will center on mashups and/or "OPD" -- other peoples' data.  To me, the term "mashup" is a little antiquated in sense that today's developers are doing far more with data than when the term "mashup" originated.  I remember, for example, when plotting points on maps was relatively novel. We've come a long way in the last 5-7 years.

Take for example the developer marketing paradigm that was of most interest to us during my ~4 years at Microsoft, ending in 2008. We wanted developers to write apps for .NET and in some cases Microsoft software... to build custom applications and experiences on top of the Microsoft stack.  Interestingly, the next cycle of web/mobile innovation has come from not building apps on existing software produts but rather from building apps on top of the data that apps and the web platform has enabled.  The apps and web frameworks are reduced in that paradigm to an infrastructure role, and themselves are not where the action is once the infrastructure is in place and mature.  Data is the star, not the infrastructure.

Think of it in a more tangible context -- the interstate highway system is built in the USA in the 1950s and enables interstate commerce.  This creates a trucking industry, rest stops, Stuckey's restaurants, the need for more cars, faster travel, and so on.  Infrastructure was the enabler -- tons of businesses followed.

When I was at Microsoft, we incorrectly focused on the infrastructure as the "star".  We did not recognize that the data contained in the applications was much more exciting than the platforms upon which the data were entered.  For example, the world's most interesting repository of information is arguably Microsoft Outlook.  Liberating that data & creating new things from it was the play back in 2008 (and arguably may be the case today).

I think today's major tech players differ from yesterday's in the sense that they value data as much as the underlying infrastructure that allows its collection.  Developers and platform providers are currently engaged in a natural tension -- one wants innovation from modest to disruptive and the other wants to participate in the economic benefit of having its data used in new, compelling ways. Some, like Craigslist, choose to optimize for control. Twitter will let you do more or less whatever you want, if you pay them. I'd contend LinkedIn and Facebook are taking more of a "wait and see" approach, both allowing developers access but keeping a lot of goodies to themselves. There are no right/wrong answers in my opinion -- it's really up to each company's strategy.

But if the open source model has one lesson for us, it is that the increased velocity and use of data creates economic value -- typically for all the stakeholders. Developers play a key role in the ecosystem, bringing new use cases and creative ideas to bear.  Overall, I think that's a good thing.

What Lance Armstrong and Facebook Have in Common

Today's blog post comes to you from our Business Development Manager, Craig Carter, who had a little fun speculating about Lance Armstrong and Facebook. I thought it was pretty amusing, so here goes...

(Preface—Except for the Facts and Figures charted below, all statements are pure speculation and have not been confirmed by the World Anti-Doping Agency.)

What do Lance Armstrong and Facebook have in common?

The short answer is they have both given their teammates Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs).   Now before you go running off to the mountain top, screaming that Mark Zuckerberg is peddling concentration steroids to his coders, let me explain.  Large brand pages and Facebook are all on the same team.  In one way or the other, they are working together to improve marketing performance, brand image, and make a profit.   So WHEN, HOW, and WHY did Facebook, not only begin to give brands PEDs, but dare I say, try to get them addicted?

It all started around June 6 (conveniently after the FB stock price declined 30 percent in 20 days) when all engagement metrics on large brands and company pages started to track upwards faster than the Cliffhangers Game on “The Price is Right.” 

 

I am sure this is partly because of some great new content, more posts, insights from Facebook Ninjas/Gurus/Rock Stars, and increased ad spending on Facebook, but more so, Facebook hooked up the engagement IV to all its pages and started pumping them full of likes, comments, and shares. Just imagine Lance secretly giving his racing team wondrous enhancers, and then the team started winning!

Ahh the glory days!  Little did brands know Facebook was giving them a PED better than Michael Jordan’s Special Stuff in Space Jam. 

As Social Rock Stars became the one direction of the office, Facebook took the hit as their stock “plummeted.”  I even heard rumors that “Zuck” was selling his couches on Craigslist to pay for dinner.  But just as Lance was the genius behind the doping of his many Tour de France wins, Facebook had a plan—give away marketing, get brands hooked on engagement, and then slowly stop trickling the drug through the IV. 

 

What happened next … just ask any local drug dealer. 
Give away the drug, get ’em addicted, then start charging for it.  Low and behold, right around the time when massive free engagement stopped, Facebook’s stock value started going up!  I feel this really started happening around mid-November—actually after the Facebook pundits started yelling from the rooftops about EdgeRank changes.  

As we are now over a month into 2013, it will be interesting to see what happens with these two pieces of data.  All I can say is ask Lance Armstrong or Barry Bonds if PEDs are just like Pringles, “Once you pop, you can’t stop.”  Meaning these brands are going to be pulling out their pocketbooks to get back to their former glory. 

Data Note: All data presented came from Polygraph Media’s Facebook Data Analytics Engine. The 62,682 posts analyzed were from 125 large brand and company pages from Jan 1, 2012, to Jan 28, 2013.  In order to remove outliers and smooth the data, I removed 599 posts for being 3-standard deviations greater than average and opted to use a 7-day rolling average of the total likes received on all the pages. Give me a shout if you want to see some of this data and analysis first hand!

Polygraph: Solving & more importantly Explaining Big Social Data, Facebook

Howdy everyone -- it's been awhile since I've posted here.  Lots of work on Polygraph and a new addition to my family in the form of a baby.  Margot Ellen Treadaway was born on December 14th and is our first child.  Lots of life changes -- all good.  But the blog has taken a bit of a back seat recently.

That's a-changin'.  Regular blogging is back for us as we bring Polygraph v2 to market.  I'll tell you more about that later.

But for now, I thought I'd better explain how our business has evolved and where it is going.  For those of you who have followed the Notice Technologies ride, you know that we've had quite the journey.

We started in 2009 with a couponing platform for local businesses.  We hit the streets and talked with as many local businesses as possible -- in an effort to build something perhaps a little less one-sided than Groupon in terms of who benefits from the transaction.  Local businesses were tough to work with because they demanded immediate results -- and didn't have the time or energy for anything that failed to generate immediate, incremental revenue.  Hence Groupon.  Groupon built tremendous value for itself, at least early... but much of it was at the *expense* instead of the *benefit* of the local business.  That's why Groupon remains a largely unsustainable business model -- and why we didn't (right or wrong) pursue group purchasing aggressively.  It's also why local businesses haven't gotten a revolutionary marketing platform yet.  It takes iteration, which local businesses simply aren't willing/able to do unlike other classes of customers.

We tried salvaging those couponing assets by offering them to newspaper groups.  But that became its own set of problems as you can imagine, and local media didn't prove to be much of a gainful opportunity for us.

All the while, we'd been hearing from people in agencies, brands, and other larger companies that measurement of social media was a huge pain point.  Facebook Insights didn't do the job well and still doesn't.  We saw an opportunity with our v1 of Polygraph to jump into the analytics fray.  And that's been a very positive move for us.

But we see a bigger trend and a bigger pain point in a lot of companies.  Businesses large and small are trying to better understand what value they're driving from social media.  It isn't enough for the world's leading companies to conduct best practices, adopt a social media management system, hire a consultant, or outsource social media to an agency.  The C-Suite really wants to know a few things:

• What business metrics are being affected by good social media execution?
• Is there a statistical relationship between social data and revenue or other mission-critical business outcomes?
• Do Facebook Ads and the like really work?
• How are competitors grappling with Facebook for customer outreach, customer service, and other marketing purposes?
• Is the social channel truly worthwhile?
• Should social earn a greater or lesser investment moving forward?

Who do CEOs and CMOs turn to for clear, data-driven answers to these questions?  They certainly can't turn to existing agencies of record -- they're too invested in a positive answer.  C-suite execs need a BS detector to tell them what the data says, and we're increasingly that BS detector.

Polygraph does an inventory of available data and collects it from Facebook for a company, its brands, its competitors, and its portfolio of Facebook assets.  We cache it, analyze it, and find relationships in the data.  Companies will sometimes give us other data sets that we'll add to our analysis -- such as web metrics, e-commerce results, or other mission-critical data.  We look at it all holistically to understand the customer engagement system -- how people discover the brand and make decisions to engage, interact, and make purchases (where applicable).  We seek understanding of the customer walk and conflict resolution -- are people using the brand's social assets as a customer service vehicle.

Ultimately, all of this data tells us a compelling story that can drive next steps.  Should you keep your existing agency or find a new one?  Does your portfolio of assets provide a return on investment?  Does social data correlate to real-world business metrics that matter to you?  Can we find evidence of causation?  Does social data move the needle or vice versa?

Understanding is what the C-suite craves today.  But the C-suite doesn't have it today. Agencies aren't independent arbiters aligned with the interests of a C-suite exec responsible for driving revenue and profit.  Unfortunately, very few marketers are equipped with the analysis chops necessary to make the case effectively also.  Sometimes, a marketer is equipped but isn't viewed as an independent, disinterested judge.

We're doing some fascinating projects right now in several major consumer industries that I wish we could talk more about -- but we're under NDA.  It's admittedly a little frustrating in that regard.  But you should know that the data unlocks fascinating insights that leading brands are beginning to uncover today. Truth lies in the social data. That's what we do -- collect, analyze, and drive insights from social data.

Social, the Salesforce acquisition of Buddy Media, and Real Value

Tonight, this blog post summarizing year 1 of the Salesforce acquisition of Buddy Media.  The numbers, if taken on face value, are brutal as the endeavor is a big money loser so far.

The picture painted is probably a tad on the pessimistic side.  If your Salesforce, you don't buy a Buddy Media to harvest but rather capture market share.  I'm sure a conscious decision was made to spend whatever necessary to win share asap -- so costs are going to be higher in the short-term than revenue.  This is why people invest in Salesforce.com, for the prospect of future cash flows and the benefit of capturing share now at the expense of optimizing short-term financial results.

Remember also that this particular business is super competitive with Salesforce, Adobe, Google, and Oracle all competing in the SMMS space against a few independents (Sprinklr, Spredfast).  Keep in mind also that a lot of SMMS work is still being done manually by service businesses from IBM to digital agencies to traditional agencies now competing aggressively in social marketing.

But I do think there is a lesson lurking in here -- that social is still an unproven commodity in the short-term.  Folks like us and others are doing what we can to find value in social media.  Investors who get into social media plays, whether through publicly traded companies or those selling privately held stock, do so on the belief that their picks will help the marketing ecosystem in some way.  But it's still the wild west when it comes to delivering real value.

Whether it's Buddy Media struggling or Facebook ads struggling or folks like Mark Cuban questioning whether or not he should pay for Facebook News Feed visibility, it all comes down to one critical and unanswered question -- what is the value of social marketing for marketers?

When the answer to this question is as simple as it is for search... i.e. Google Adwords... billions of dollars of new shareholder value will be unlocked.  Now where exactly will that be, and when?

Big Social Data -- Explaining Offline Behavior

Over the past six months or more, you've probably heard the term "big data" floating around as if it is supposed to solve all your problems in business, marketing, operations, etc.  Just "access the data" and you'll be smarter than your competition.  You'll react to customer feedback.  You'll be a visionary.  Blah blah blah

All of this creates a situation where they hype is through the roof, but few people can really speak to real-world scenarios and useful applications of big data.  That's probably why "Big Data" is high on Gartner's Hype Cycle 2012 Chart.  Lots of possibilities, but not a lot of answers just yet.

We work primarily in the social data realm at the moment, although we have been getting more & more requests to integrate offline data with social data to understand patterns.  Alongside first-cousin ROI (return on investment), the big question today is whether or not social media is a scorecard for how you're doing or if it can influence offline behaviors, purchase patterns, etc.

The takeaway for us so far is that different businesses certainly have different dynamics.  Only with full access to the data can you really draw any firm conclusions.

Contact us to learn more about how we can help harness big data for your company or brand.

How Facebook can inform a Presidential Race

Today, we thought we'd use Facebook data to tackle one of the most anticipated decisions of 2012. Who will Mitt Romney choose as his running mate?  And can Facebook data be used to help make the decision?

Data is great and all, but what good is data if you can't make decisions with it?

First, a little context.  A number of studies have already shown that social media data is helpful to gauge voter sentiment:

• Crimson Hexagon analyzed Twitter data in 2010 to accurately predict a victory for Harry Reid.
• Social data (Twitter, Facebook, Google+) was also used to accurately predict Boris Johnson's victory in the London mayoral race last month (June 2012)
• Facebook themselves pointed out some correlations in the data as well following the 2010 US mid-term election.  Candidates with more fans won Congressional races 74% of the time and Senate races 81% of the time.  Not bad!

Now this field is not without detractors -- some academics have focused on the flaws in using social data to predict the future.  We agree that Twitter data is dirty relative to Facebook data, as it's easier to create dummy accounts for Twitter and many people use Twitter primarily for marketing purposes and not to share what they're really doing/saying/thinking.

But it's also sour grapes in our opinion.  Anything short of asking every single man, woman, and child is in essence a shortcut.  There are going to be flaws in using data to make assumptions about the behavior of a large audience.  There are flaws in traditional market research, statistical analysis, etc.  This is no different -- in fact, it may be better.

With social data, we have the largest self-contributed data sets the world has ever seen... on par with the financial and personal data owned by major credit card companies (Visa, MasterCard, AmEx, etc.) and marketing companies (Acxiom, Dun & Bradstreet, and Harte Hanks). Additionally, people don't really have the motivation to falsify information here as they would perhaps when talking with a market research professional.  Facebook is capturing the unvarnished truth of who everyone is.

As such, we think that Facebook data is the most accurate data set in the world.  And it's relatively unmined at present.

-- 

Anyhow, we wanted to show an example of how reactions on Facebook can give decision-makers in politics a clear sense of who is "known", what they've done, and how they've managed to keep their supporters engaged.  In that sense, politics is not that unlike what social marketers do all the time -- keep the brand front & center and something worth rallying around.

In this admittedly simplistic example, we looked at a number of factors in an attempt to narrow down the Field from a large number (8) to a top-priority running mate.  We collected data on the following:

• Current Facebook Fan count
• Percentage of “Likes” over 5 quarters of posts
• Pro or negative “Romney” in page posts
• Pace of new Facebook fan acquisitions predicted between now and election day based on previous pace (how many new Friends per day)
• Polarization – the activity of each candidate on “pro” or “against” 3^rd party Fan pages

Each of these things was selected in order to test something relevant for a national election.  Is a candidate a national or regional candidate?  Is a candidate doing a good job of keeping the base engaged?  Is the candidate extending his/her reach to a broader base of enthusiastic supporters? Does the candidate create controversy or negative passion in other voters that might improve the prospects of the other political party?

The infographic is below.  We'd love to know what you think.  Also check out our YouTube video where we walk through the findings and explain the numbers in more detail.

Video - walkthrough of our Romney Veepstakes Infographic - Facebook Data

In this quick video below, we review the recent infographic that we released about how Facebook data can be used to inform political campaigns.

 

 

Social Marketing & The Quantified Self

The "Quantified Self" movement is something you've probably heard of over the last few years -- the idea that you can quantify previously mundane activities that you've otherwise ignored to attach a number to the things that you do.  There's plenty of reading about it on Wikipedia if you'd like to dig deeper.

In real life, the movement has manifested itself in successful consumer products in/around the fitness industry, such as the FitBit, numberous nutrition apps on the iPad, Garmin products, and the Nike+ line of products.  

In fact, Nike is releasing a product specifically for basketball so you can quantify your vital stats on the basketball court.  Allow me to let the expert, LeBron James, explain it.  

 

Sidebar -- but as a 38 year old, aging weekend warrior, I just don't want to know how bad my numbers are and especially as they compare to friends... but I digress.

Others have added a social element to tap into how we respond to peer pressure and/or social humiliation -- such as Strava and the Withings Scale that tweets out your weight.  Yikes!  

Why do people quantify themselves?

• People quantify themselves when something is wrong and they want to fix it.
• People quantify themselves when they're doing something right, and want to make sure they continue to do things right.  
• People quantify themselves when they want discipline to do the right thing, even though their natural inclination is to not do the right thing.
• People quantify themselves when they want an objective measurement of how they are performing at something, relative to peers or competitors.
• People quantify others when they want to use data & milestones to understand things they cannot understand, or as a proxy for heavy-handed, micro-management.

Numbers have a way of cutting through the clutter and capturing only what really matters... outcomes.  Combining numbers from different sources can give you a quick, objective look at everything that really matters to you.

If you take numbers the next step to analysis, you can begin to draw conclusions based on the data but also including human judgment where it's appropriate.  Leave analysis to others, and you're getting their interpretation of the data.

We found it interesting that Jeff Ma, formerly of the famed MIT Blackjack team, recently ventured into this space to quantify what people are doing in the workplace with his new startup, TenXer.  Right place, right time -- like Facebook, this would've never flown even a decade ago.  But times change and now it's a brilliant idea.

We're seeing it in social marketing and we're seeing it move into other areas of marketing that were thought to be a "black hole" previously.

We're at the beginning of a bigger trend where the "Quantified Self" moves into areas beyond personal improvement, fitness, etc.  People are learning the value of numbers, metrics, and how to apply them to make better decisions.  We're happy to be here at this critical time.

Interview in Texas Tech Pulse

Here's a recently published interview in Texas Tech Pulse about Polygraph and its origins.  

http://www.texastechpulse.com/interview_with_chris_treadaway_polygraph/s-0043095.html

The Next Phase of Social Software -- Measurement

A few quotes from Deloitte's recent study, Social Business: What are Companies Really Doing?

"To capture this value, however, companies will need to more systematically assess the operating metrics that have the greatest potential to move the needle and then strategically deploy social software to ensure near-term performance impact with modest investment."

"Social business depends on leadership.  Metrics may not be critical when companies are experimenting with social software, but as it becomes more important to an organization, having metrics in place can help managers assess and reward related behaviors."

We agree!

Social business is increasing in popularity -- but as it does, executives will want to know just how they are performing in both absolute terms and contextually against competitors and within an industry.

The best managers will need to get beyond what they're told and use a "left-brained", numbers-driven approach to augment the "right-brained" work necessary to creatively engage with new and existing customers.