# Ben K. Ellis
> Research Social Intelligence
Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts.
Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`).
## Pages
### About
URL: https://benkellis.com/about/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T18:23:32.000Z
I'm Ben Ellis, a freelance social intelligence strategist based in London. For close to twenty years I've worked every side of this field: brand-side, agency, a social listening vendor, and inside a social media platform itself. That route taught me that where you sit changes what you see; the same audience reads differently from a brand's seat than from a platform's, and the real work is reconciling those readings into something honest about the people underneath the data.
Here is the frame I work from. Social intelligence is not the mere extraction of insights from social media; it is the disciplined study of how human beings perform identity, negotiate meaning, seek status, form perception, and respond to systems of visibility under algorithmic conditions. The tooling is the easy part. The work is interpretation: treating data as constructed observation rather than neutral truth, reading quantitative signals to find where pressure exists and qualitative detail to understand what that pressure means. The job is doing both well, not choosing between them.
I arrived here sideways. Italian by nationality, Ghanaian by heritage, a linguistics student who left the degree but kept the questions. I write poetry and I take photographs, and I've stopped pretending either is separate from the analytical work; a dashboard is a frame, a query is a frame, and choosing what to look at is the same discipline in every case.
This site is where I think in the open: about social intelligence as a method, about the theory and culture underneath the metrics, and now and then about the events and conversations moving the field. If any of it is useful to you, great. If you'd like to talk, the door is open.
### Sample Page
URL: https://benkellis.com/sample-page/
Last updated: 2023-03-06T01:19:51.000Z
This is an example page. It's different from a blog post because it will stay in one place and will show up in your site navigation (in most themes). Most people start with an About page that introduces them to potential site visitors. It might say something like this:
> Hi there! I'm a bike messenger by day, aspiring actor by night, and this is my website. I live in Los Angeles, have a great dog named Jack, and I like piña coladas. (And gettin' caught in the rain.)
...or something like this:
> The XYZ Doohickey Company was founded in 1971, and has been providing quality doohickeys to the public ever since. Located in Gotham City, XYZ employs over 2,000 people and does all kinds of awesome things for the Gotham community.
As a new WordPress user, you should go to [your dashboard](https://benkellis.com/wp-admin/) to delete this page and create new pages for your content. Have fun!
### Coming Soon
URL: https://benkellis.com/coming-soon-2/
Last updated: 2023-03-06T14:11:27.000Z
```
I'm working on something amazing! But don't worry, I'll back soon.
```
### Contact Form
URL: https://benkellis.com/contact-form/
Last updated: 2018-06-25T12:27:53.000Z
### Contact Form 7 Integration
You may easily setup a contact form with the [Contact Form 7](https://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7/?ref=benkellis.com) integrated support.
For more information please refer to the [Getting Started](https://contactform7.com/getting-started-with-contact-form-7/?ref=benkellis.com) tutorial, that explains how to display a form on your page, and how to customize your forms and mail.
---
### Get in Touch
\[contact-form-7 id="5" title="Contact Us"\]
### Galleries
URL: https://benkellis.com/galleries/
Last updated: 2018-06-28T11:37:18.000Z
###### Please Note
You need to install and activate [Canvas](https://wordpress.org/plugins/canvas/?ref=benkellis.com) to make this feature work.
Quis tellus felis neque nulla tincidunt donec. Eleifend ut elit hendrerit vel imperdiet curabitur et eget. Semper lorem aliquam tellus imperdiet etiam sociis nec donec. Imperdiet rhoncus a etiam feugiat tincidunt luctus augue arcu commodo ultricies. Pretium venenatis nec tellus natoque adipiscing vivamus pulvinar imperdiet ultricies viverra lorem semper mollis. Vulputate et nam eget justo.
## Slider
Ipsum orci nisi pellentesque natoque libero aenean sapien fringilla mollis varius nec feugiat laoreet. Quis vitae dolor lorem imperdiet ante sit. Dolor id penatibus fringilla enim ut eget pede quis phasellus libero tempus ultricies nunc. Eu ligula vel dapibus eget. Nunc eget sit elit dictum cum nam. Libero phasellus nunc pede adipiscing dis imperdiet nec rhoncus eu sem pulvinar amet.
Cum tellus ipsum commodo et fringilla ligula augue integer dui a montes amet. Venenatis vitae aenean. Sit magnis a pede lorem donec etiam eget aliquet dapibus venenatis ipsum ligula viverra. Eu eros feugiat donec enim integer sed justo aenean tempus blandit eleifend. Ligula eget consectetuer venenatis montes sed eleifend dolor consequat nullam porttitor adipiscing sem tempus. Quis rhoncus dictum nisi ullamcorper.
## Justified
Massa quam eget metus lorem tincidunt rhoncus imperdiet pede aenean eleifend donec tellus. Nullam venenatis sit maecenas. Vulputate tincidunt eleifend. Amet quis vel justo. Leo ultricies vulputate rhoncus mus sit amet libero. In tellus nullam pellentesque justo amet dui.
Maecenas enim ultricies commodo adipiscing dolor pede montes tellus ridiculus vidi. Dapibus ipsum ante aenean. Ultricies orci quis eget augue sapien condimentum ante eros dolor ut lorem. Pulvinar eu laoreet cras donec arcu maecenas vidi amet etiam sociis orci justo. Imperdiet tellus felis etiam enim sem. Ante dolor vulputate dapibus ligula quis enim rutrum luctus eleifend nisi sem eget justo.
Adipiscing pede sit nisi ipsum tempus id eget. Tincidunt nec amet a libero metus elit consequat ridiculus. Pretium commodo sem veni felis consequat amet eget viverra nam a dolor magnis pede. Lorem aliquet feugiat. Vulputate sit faucibus. Rhoncus vitae dis nisi dolor.
## Grid
### Two-Column Grid
Dis a adipiscing arcu pretium eget pede magnis dui commodo phasellus rhoncus et etiam. Eu donec magnis venenatis lorem fringilla consequat. Donec massa eget blandit pellentesque laoreet parturient felis eleifend mus dapibus lorem. Nulla elit hendrerit rhoncus. Enim id tellus adipiscing justo vitae tincidunt eu vel quisque rhoncus sit. Sem lorem ipsum quam vidi fringilla vel vitae eget cras imperdiet mollis arcu.
Amet phasellus ante ligula. Nascetur donec porttitor. Quis ante nunc penatibus aliquam vitae parturient dis aenean. Viverra id eu commodo augue nisi. Vel varius tincidunt tellus. Pede maecenas vulputate nullam massa aenean.
### Three-Column Grid
Parturient eleifend rhoncus condimentum pellentesque tellus sem ultricies. Odio elementum eros consequat in pulvinar natoque aliquam donec. Semper quis donec id eget dolor quam vici sem. Vitae nisi pulvinar pretium nascetur. Justo quis dolor vel tellus neque nisi ridiculus consequat. Ultricies massa dis dolor nec vitae quam ligula aenean amet maecenas natoque.
Sem nec viverra leo maecenas dapibus. Sapien a consequat massa nam integer sociis dictum. Aenean felis blandit vitae etiam. Eget laoreet in maecenas. Ut justo venenatis ultricies nullam sem ipsum libero aenean vulputate eget ac. Pulvinar quam aenean vidi justo ante eros tincidunt consequat nec sem pede ullamcorper.
### Contact Me
URL: https://benkellis.com/contact/
Last updated: 2023-03-07T16:35:36.000Z
Have a question? Interested in social intelligence or consulting services? Do you want to book me for a meetup/conference/event? I want to hear from you! Feel free to use the form below.
### Guest Blogging
URL: https://benkellis.com/guest-posts/
Last updated: 2023-03-07T16:35:36.000Z
When I'm not blogging here, I'm either guest-blogging or being featured on other sites. Here's a list of all of my guest-blogs and features.
## 2018
- [Prague Diary: Social Zingers From Zynga, Science From We Are Social](http://www.dmnews.com/social-media/prague-diary-social-zingers-from-zynga-science-from-we-are-social/article/767302/?ref=benkellis.com) \- DMNews
## 2017
- [Demistifying the Misconceptions of Social (webinar)](https://www.brandwatch.com/webinars/misconceptions-of-social/view/?ref=benkellis.com) \- Brandwatch
- [Ben Donkor talks social analytics (podcast)](http://echojunction.com.au/podcast/ben-donkor-talks-social-analytics/?ref=benkellis.com) \- EchoJunction Podcast
- [Opinion: Ben Donkor on #NYKCONF, and the skills social analysts of the future will have](https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/opinion-ben-donkor-on-nykconf-and-the-skills-social-analysts-of-the-future-will-have/?ref=benkellis.com) \- Brandwatch
## 2016
- [Ask an Analyst: Five Ways You Can Make Brandwatch Audiences Yours](https://www.brandwatch.com/2016/10/ask-an-analyst-five-ways-make-brandwatch-audiences-yours/?ref=benkellis.com) \- Brandwatch
- [Ask an Analyst: Microsoft’s Ben Donkor on Supercharging Signals](https://www.brandwatch.com/2016/07/ask-an-analyst-microsofts-ben-donkor-on-how-to-supercharge-signals/?ref=benkellis.com) \- Brandwatch
- [#smlondon Tweetchat Round Up with Ben Donkor of Microsoft](https://www.facebook.com/socialmedialondon/videos/1261508813879370/) \- Facebook/Link Humans
- [A Kickstart Guide to Corporate Hashtags](http://linkhumans.com/blog/corporate-hashtags-guide?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [Ask an Analyst: Four Things Businesses Must Understand on Social Analytics](https://www.brandwatch.com/2016/04/ask-an-analyst-four-things-businesses-must-understand-on-social-analytics/?ref=benkellis.com) \- Brandwatch
- [The Ultimate Guide to Social Command Centres](http://linkhumans.com/blog/social-command-centres?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [A Guide to Finding the Best Influencers](http://linkhumans.com/blog/find-best-influencers?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [Ask an Expert: The 10 Step Guide to Championing Social Data in Your Business](https://www.brandwatch.com/2016/01/ask-an-expert-the-10-step-guide-to-championing-social-data-in-your-business/?ref=benkellis.com) \- Brandwatch
## 2015
- [Post-Topsy Survival Kit: The Best Replacements](http://linkhumans.com/blog/topsy-replacements?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [Why It’s Time to Take Social Listening Seriously](http://linkhumans.com/blog/social-listening-seriously?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [Ask an Analyst: How Do I Use Exclusions to Get the Most Relevant Data?](https://www.brandwatch.com/2015/08/ask-an-analyst-how-do-i-use-exclusions-to-get-the-most-relevant-data/?ref=benkellis.com) \- Brandwatch
- [A guide to brand advocacy and brand loyalty](http://linkhumans.com/blog/guide-brand-advocacy-loyalty?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [The Way You Measure Your Content Marketing Has Just Evolved](https://www.brandwatch.com/2015/07/commentary-the-way-you-measure-your-content-marketing-has-just-evolved/?ref=benkellis.com) \- Brandwatch
- [How to find out what your customers want through social listening](http://linkhumans.com/blog/customers-want-social-listening?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [Buffer vs. Hootsuite - which tool is right for your brand?](http://linkhumans.com/blog/buffer-vs-hootsuite?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [Should brands have a separate Twitter account for Customer Care](http://linkhumans.com/blog/twitter-customer-care?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [How to structure a social media team](http://linkhumans.com/blog/structure-social-media-team?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [Using Reports to Tell the Story of Your Social Media Performance](https://www.brandwatch.com/2015/03/marketing-using-reports-to-tell-the-story-of-your-social-media-performance/?ref=benkellis.com) \- Brandwatch
- [The Complete Guide to Social and Digital Marketing Tools ](http://linkhumans.com/blog/social-digital-marketing-tools?ref=benkellis.com)\- Link Humans
- [Why You Should Never Cross-Post on Social Media](http://linkhumans.com/blog/cross-post-social-media?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [Facebook insights: 8 metrics to review in your reports to impress your boss or clients](http://www.agorapulse.com/blog/facebook-insights-metrics-to-review?ref=benkellis.com) \- Agora Pulse
## 2014
- [Social and Digital Marketing in 2015: Predictions and Wishes](http://linkhumans.com/marketing/social-digital-2015-predictions?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [What Makes a Brand Socially Intelligent?](http://linkhumans.com/blog/socially-intelligent-brand?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [Hyperlapse: A Marketer’s View](http://linkhumans.com/marketing/hyperlapse?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [Ben Donkor: G2 Crowd Member Q&A #10](http://about.g2crowd.com/blog/ben-donkor-g2-crowd-member-qa/?ref=benkellis.com) \- G2 Crowd
- [What Twitter Hindsight Taught Me About Fantasy Football](http://www.brandwatch.com/2014/09/what-brandwatch-taught-me-about-fantasy-football/?ref=benkellis.com) \- Brandwatch
- [Social Media Analytics FAQ](http://www.digitaldoughnut.com/blog/blog/social-media-analytics-faq?ref=benkellis.com) \- Digital Doughnut
- [A Kickstart Guide to Employee Advocacy on Social Media](A%20Kickstart Guide to Employee Advocacy on Social Media) \- Link Humans
- [Google+: 3 Benefits for Marketing and Beyond](http://linkhumans.com/blog/google/3-benefits-marketing?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [Google+: Debunking the Top 5 Myths](http://linkhumans.com/blog/google/plus-debunking-myths?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [How to Actually Win at Real Time Twitter Marketing](http://linkhumans.com/blog/twitter/real-time-marketing?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [The Complete Guide to Analytics in Digital Marketing](http://linkhumans.com/blog/marketing-analytics?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [3 Steps to Influencer Marketing on Social Media](http://linkhumans.com/blog/influencer-marketing?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [Social Listening – How and Why?](http://www.squaresocial.co/social-listening/?ref=benkellis.com) \- Squaresocial
- [The Complete Guide to Strategic Community Management](http://linkhumans.com/blog/community-management-guide?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [How To Run A Weekly Social Health Check](http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2014/01/20/how-to-run-a-weekly-social-health-check/?ref=benkellis.com) \- Simply Measured
- [How to Actually Win at Real Time Twitter Marketing](http://linkhumans.com/blog/twitter/real-time-marketing?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
## 2013
- [How to Use @LinkedIn in a Content Marketing Strategy #smlondon](http://linkhumans.com/blog/social-media-london/linkedin?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [How to Use Social Media for B2B Content Marketing with @Salesforce #smlondon](http://linkhumans.com/blog/social-media-london/salesforce?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [Reach, Audience, and Impressions – on Twitter and Beyond](http://www.squaresocial.co/reach-audience-and-impressions-on-twitter-and-beyond/?ref=benkellis.com) \- Squaresocial
- [How to Use Social Listening to Drive Innovation with @Synthesio #smlondon](http://linkhumans.com/blog/social-media-london/synthesio?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [The Business Of Being Social with @Hootsuite #smlondon](http://linkhumans.com/blog/social-media-london/hootsuite?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [When Your KPIs Don’t Indicate Your Performance](http://www.squaresocial.co/when-your-kpis-dont-indicate-your-performance/?ref=benkellis.com) \- Squaresocial
- [How to Create a B2B Social Media Content Strategy #smlondon](http://linkhumans.com/blog/social-media-london/simplybusiness?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [Square Social on Facebook’s Edgerank Is Dead – Now What?](http://www.squaresocial.co/square-social-on-facebooks-edgerank-is-dead-now-what/?ref=benkellis.com) \- Squaresocial
- [Why Data and Fans are Important for Brands on Social Media with Adobe #smlondon](http://linkhumans.com/blog/social-media-london/adobe?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [How to Master Social Media by the Numbers \[VIDEO + SLIDES\] #smlondon](http://linkhumans.com/blog/social-media-london/socialbakers?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [How to Use Facebook for Social Inbound Marketing #smlondon](http://socialmedialondon.co.uk/matt%5Fhodkinson/?ref=benkellis.com) \- Social Media London
- [Social Media Influence #PeerEvening with @PeerIndex #smlondon](http://linkhumans.com/blog/social-media-london/social-media-influence-peerindex?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
## 2012
- [How to Use Twitter for Searching, Engagement and Stalking with @BillBoorman #smlondon](http://linkhumans.com/blog/searching-engagement-stalking-twitter?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [How to Create Engagement on Social Media \[Tips + Video\]](http://linkhumans.com/blog/engagement-social-media?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [How Nokia Turns Employees Into Brand Ambassadors #smlondon](http://linkhumans.com/blog/how-nokia-employees-brand-ambassadors?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [How To Master Online Video Marketing \[TIPS + VIDEO\] #smlondon](http://linkhumans.com/blog/how-to-master-online-video-marketing-tips-video-smlondon?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [How to Write for Social Media \[TIPS + VIDEO\] #smlondon](http://linkhumans.com/blog/sweet-retweets-how-write-social-media-sookio-tips-video-smlondon?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [How To Boost Your Social Media Influence \[TIPS + VIDEO\] #smlondon](http://linkhumans.com/blog/social-media-london/how-to-boost-your-social-media-influence-tips-video-smlondon?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
- [The 4 Keys to Successful Blogging \[Tips & Video\] #smlondon](http://linkhumans.com/blog/social-media-london/the-4-keys-to-successful-blogging-tips-video-smlondon?ref=benkellis.com) \- Link Humans
### Inline Posts
URL: https://benkellis.com/inline-posts/
Last updated: 2018-06-28T15:31:46.000Z
###### Please Note
You need to install and activate [Canvas](https://wordpress.org/plugins/canvas/?ref=benkellis.com) to make this feature work.
Tempus ante condimentum sem hendrerit eu phasellus vidi et quis orci arcu quam augue. Hendrerit amet id a condimentum semper felis. Donec sed lorem feugiat aenean ante cras elementum pede. Quis eget blandit felis et.
## List
Vici ac felis tellus in pretium. Etiam dui pretium eget vel laoreet cras rhoncus aenean imperdiet.
Vitae integer tempus eget sem aenean amet leo pretium nam enim dui nulla sed. Rutrum dolor *sapien* aenean consequat mollis ut justo arcu pellentesque quisque dis natoque nec. Pretium vitae blandit vel elit faucibus vici amet ridiculus. Aenean natoque ipsum eget. Sem varius justo pede veni feugiat. Maecenas vitae feugiat pellentesque.
## Side Widget
Maecenas ridiculus lorem sit vitae eu. Justo sit vulputate etiam vel pede natoque enim consequat metus tellus massa feugiat hendrerit.
Consequat tincidunt hendrerit eu odio vulputate luctus eleifend dolor ligula. Magnis amet ante dapibus vidi phasellus ipsum venenatis integer pulvinar. Felis curabitur eu ipsum dapibus nisi hendrerit. Nec adipiscing feugiat quam et dui libero nullam rhoncus.
Nullam penatibus ut. Nam elit natoque **imperdiet** fringilla vidi quis. Eu venenatis eleifend natoque orci ultricies sit eros ac nullam quam. Massa pede ridiculus tellus.
Vel nam massa mus eget ligula porttitor et. Maecenas imperdiet dolor.Tempus ante condimentum sem hendrerit eu phasellus vidi et quis orci arcu quam augue. Hendrerit amet id a condimentum semper felis. Donec sed lorem feugiat aenean ante cras elementum pede. Quis eget blandit felis et.
Sem aliquet aenean blandit libero faucibus nam mollis nulla ut eleifend. Vel vivamus rhoncus tempus ante nec amet imperdiet venenatis vitae.
Massa a eleifend quis nunc mus justo nisi aenean penatibus nulla. Tempus pulvinar amet eget. In varius orci eget. Enim nulla etiam et nam id mollis nullam sit consectetuer magnis eu. Tempus ante lorem pede imperdiet nam etiam felis viverra. Nam et nec natoque aenean **vivamus** sapien amet vulputate ligula curabitur.
## Grid
Leo nec enim eget pulvinar sem ridiculus etiam elementum vitae. Ridiculus integer id pretium sit justo etiam curabitur orci pulvinar adipiscing vel.
Enim tellus quam vici phasellus nam elit. Donec libero leo nam ante sem eget condimentum nec veni felis enim quisque vitae. Tincidunt eget quisque rhoncus sem penatibus donec quam vulputate quis ipsum lorem.
Eu nunc donec. Orci etiam lorem nisi eu fringilla eget vel dis dapibus ultricies justo. Curabitur *tincidunt cras* porttitor. Enim vidi dapibus aenean pretium quis et nullam etiam.
Nam vici ut quis semper consectetuer tempus sit quam vitae enim. In parturient ipsum penatibus enim lorem vitae eget venenatis sit ligula. Dapibus maecenas ultricies enim ante ligula. Condimentum amet montes imperdiet aenean rhoncus donec etiam. Vivamus sit nec amet ipsum vitae nam viverra justo lorem vel. Pellentesque vulputate consectetuer amet.
### Multi-Page Post
URL: https://benkellis.com/multi-page-post/
Last updated: 2018-06-28T15:53:37.000Z
You may add pagination to any post or page by simply adding `` in the WordPres editor, where you would like it to appear ?.
Tempus ante condimentum sem hendrerit eu phasellus vidi et quis orci arcu quam augue. Hendrerit amet id a condimentum semper felis. Donec sed lorem feugiat aenean ante cras elementum pede. Quis eget blandit felis et.
## Vici ac felis tellus in pretium
Etiam dui pretium eget vel laoreet cras rhoncus aenean imperdiet.
Vitae integer tempus eget sem aenean amet leo pretium nam enim dui nulla sed. Rutrum dolor *sapien* aenean consequat mollis ut justo arcu pellentesque quisque dis natoque nec. Pretium vitae blandit vel elit faucibus vici amet ridiculus. Aenean natoque ipsum eget. Sem varius justo pede veni feugiat. Maecenas vitae feugiat pellentesque.
## Maecenas ridiculus lorem sit vitae eu
Justo sit vulputate etiam vel pede natoque enim consequat metus tellus massa feugiat hendrerit.
Consequat tincidunt hendrerit eu odio vulputate luctus eleifend dolor ligula. Magnis amet ante dapibus vidi phasellus ipsum venenatis integer pulvinar. Felis curabitur eu ipsum dapibus nisi hendrerit. Nec adipiscing feugiat quam et dui libero nullam rhoncus.
Nullam penatibus ut. Nam elit natoque **imperdiet** fringilla vidi quis. Eu venenatis eleifend natoque orci ultricies sit eros ac nullam quam. Massa pede ridiculus tellus. Vel nam massa mus eget ligula porttitor et. Maecenas imperdiet dolor.
Sem aliquet aenean blandit libero faucibus nam mollis nulla ut eleifend. Vel vivamus rhoncus tempus ante nec amet imperdiet venenatis vitae. Etiam hendrerit ultricies. Aenean sapien nisi rhoncus ullamcorper nec. Eget nascetur quis. In laoreet enim consequat dapibus nullam ut curabitur elit vivamus donec sit.
Massa a eleifend quis nunc mus justo nisi aenean penatibus nulla. Tempus pulvinar amet eget. In varius orci eget. Enim nulla etiam et nam id mollis nullam sit consectetuer magnis eu. Tempus ante lorem pede imperdiet nam etiam felis viverra. Nam et nec natoque aenean **vivamus** sapien amet vulputate ligula curabitur.
## Leo nec enim eget pulvinar sem ridiculus
Etiam elementum vitae. Ridiculus integer id pretium sit justo etiam curabitur orci pulvinar adipiscing vel.
Enim tellus quam vici phasellus nam elit. Donec libero leo nam ante sem eget condimentum nec veni felis enim quisque vitae. Tincidunt eget quisque rhoncus sem penatibus donec quam vulputate quis ipsum lorem.
## Faucibus maecenas lorem donec magnis vici vitae sapien vel
Faucibus dapibus libero quis et sem amet feugiat. Quam sem pede enim vel neque nulla adipiscing.
Eu nunc donec. Orci etiam lorem nisi eu fringilla eget vel dis dapibus ultricies justo. Curabitur *tincidunt cras* porttitor. Enim vidi dapibus aenean pretium quis et nullam etiam.
Pede sem fringilla ridiculus. Sit dui sapien. Vulputate eu neque dapibus nascetur eros integer et venenatis ipsum curabitur pede.
Vivamus quis nascetur venenatis a imperdiet rhoncus metus ac eget. Feugiat elementum ultricies nisi nam imperdiet quis enim. Aenean massa tellus adipiscing metus sapien nisi nullam.
Nam vici ut quis semper consectetuer tempus sit quam vitae enim. In parturient ipsum penatibus enim lorem vitae eget venenatis sit ligula. Dapibus maecenas ultricies enim ante ligula. Condimentum amet montes imperdiet aenean rhoncus donec etiam. Vivamus sit nec amet ipsum vitae nam viverra justo lorem vel. Pellentesque vulputate consectetuer amet.
### Meet The Team
URL: https://benkellis.com/meet-the-team/
Last updated: 2018-07-10T09:56:18.000Z
_No content available._
### Blocks
URL: https://benkellis.com/blocks/
Last updated: 2019-12-25T09:03:56.000Z
_No content available._
### Accordions
URL: https://benkellis.com/accordions/
Last updated: 2019-12-25T09:04:43.000Z
###### Please Note
You need to install and activate [Canvas](https://wordpress.org/plugins/canvas/?ref=benkellis.com) to make this feature work.
## Multiple Accordion Tabs
Nec nascetur mus vici. Dolor rhoncus augue quisque parturient etiam imperdiet sit nisi tellus veni faucibus orci. Imperdiet venenatis nec odio ac nullam rhoncus curabitur montes dapibus sem eu ante. Condimentum a nec. Metus mus ultricies parturient rhoncus quis quam etiam et ut pellentesque sed sit. Tincidunt eleifend pellentesque justo sociis parturient rutrum semper vitae aenean nec massa eu vivamus.
Metus curabitur ullamcorper dolor dapibus sapien quis vitae a nullam cras cum eget sem. Ut leo felis eu consectetuer donec cras nullam magnis nulla luctus. Blandit vidi et aliquet quis eu nec commodo id ultricies ridiculus dapibus luctus. Feugiat nec ante amet nam dolor etiam sed quis eleifend ipsum. Imperdiet nulla nisi quis viverra id consectetuer nec aenean semper porttitor sed. Pulvinar semper quis enim tincidunt viverra.
Enim elementum ridiculus nulla semper dui lorem nisi adipiscing aenean cum rhoncus. Dolor venenatis sapien nam montes libero id aliquam ligula quam consequat. A ipsum etiam nec pretium adipiscing commodo condimentum. Ipsum felis pulvinar cras ut vitae elit quis massa nisi penatibus. Vel commodo natoque quam rutrum vivamus eu aenean augue quis nisi ut eleifend hendrerit. Tincidunt rutrum elit laoreet eget nulla et.
## Single Spoiler
Nec nascetur mus vici. Dolor rhoncus augue quisque parturient etiam imperdiet sit nisi tellus veni faucibus orci. Imperdiet venenatis nec odio ac nullam rhoncus curabitur montes dapibus sem eu ante. Condimentum a nec. Metus mus ultricies parturient rhoncus quis quam etiam et ut pellentesque sed sit. Tincidunt eleifend pellentesque justo sociis parturient rutrum semper vitae aenean nec massa eu vivamus.
### Alerts
URL: https://benkellis.com/alerts/
Last updated: 2019-12-25T09:06:57.000Z
###### Please Note
You need to install and activate [Canvas](https://wordpress.org/plugins/canvas/?ref=benkellis.com) to make this feature work.
## Dismissible Alerts
Dui ullamcorper libero ut eleifend ridiculus consequat.
Dui ullamcorper libero ut eleifend ridiculus consequat.
Dui ullamcorper libero ut eleifend ridiculus consequat.
Dui ullamcorper libero ut eleifend ridiculus consequat.
## Multi-Line Alerts
Here’re some examples of multi-line alerts with headings and paragraphs.
###### Sociis Porttitor et Quis
Ullamcorper aenean enim sociis porttitor et quis vitae. Nec tincidunt quam a rhoncus quisque amet id in. A luctus dis pellentesque nulla ultricies amet. Enim nisi eget tempus etiam eleifend ut nec aenean ullamcorper.
###### Sociis Porttitor et Quis
Ullamcorper aenean enim sociis porttitor et quis vitae. Nec tincidunt quam a rhoncus quisque amet id in. A luctus dis pellentesque nulla ultricies amet. Enim nisi eget tempus etiam eleifend ut nec aenean ullamcorper.
###### Sociis Porttitor et Quis
Ullamcorper aenean enim sociis porttitor et quis vitae. Nec tincidunt quam a rhoncus quisque amet id in. A luctus dis pellentesque nulla ultricies amet. Enim nisi eget tempus etiam eleifend ut nec aenean ullamcorper.
###### Sociis Porttitor et Quis
Ullamcorper aenean enim sociis porttitor et quis vitae. Nec tincidunt quam a rhoncus quisque amet id in. A luctus dis pellentesque nulla ultricies amet. Enim nisi eget tempus etiam eleifend ut nec aenean ullamcorper.
### Author
URL: https://benkellis.com/author/
Last updated: 2019-12-25T09:08:25.000Z
###### Please Note
You need to install and activate [Powerkit](https://wordpress.org/plugins/powerkit/?ref=benkellis.com) and [Canvas](https://wordpress.org/plugins/canvas/?ref=benkellis.com) to make this feature work.
## Simple
Nec nascetur mus vici. Dolor rhoncus augue quisque parturient etiam imperdiet sit nisi tellus veni faucibus orci. Imperdiet venenatis nec odio ac nullam rhoncus curabitur montes dapibus sem eu ante. Condimentum a nec. Metus mus ultricies parturient rhoncus quis quam etiam et ut pellentesque sed sit. Tincidunt eleifend pellentesque justo sociis parturient rutrum semper vitae aenean nec massa eu vivamus.
## With Background
Metus curabitur ullamcorper dolor dapibus sapien quis vitae a nullam cras cum eget sem. Ut leo felis eu consectetuer donec cras nullam magnis nulla luctus. Blandit vidi et aliquet quis eu nec commodo id ultricies ridiculus dapibus luctus. Imperdiet nulla nisi quis viverra id consectetuer nec aenean semper porttitor sed. Pulvinar semper quis enim tincidunt viverra.
## Contributors Simple
Nec nascetur mus vici. Dolor rhoncus augue quisque parturient etiam imperdiet sit nisi tellus veni faucibus orci. Imperdiet venenatis nec odio ac nullam rhoncus curabitur montes dapibus sem eu ante.
Condimentum a nec. Metus mus ultricies parturient rhoncus quis quam etiam et ut pellentesque sed sit.
Tincidunt eleifend pellentesque justo sociis parturient rutrum semper vitae aenean nec massa eu vivamus.
## Contributors With Posts
### Badges
URL: https://benkellis.com/badges/
Last updated: 2019-12-25T09:12:18.000Z
###### Please Note
You need to install and activate [Canvas](https://wordpress.org/plugins/powerkit/?ref=benkellis.com) to make this feature work.
## Variations
PRIMARY SECONDARY SUCCESS DANGER WARNING INFO DARK LIGHT
## Buttons
[Button new](https://benkellis.com/)
[Button new](https://benkellis.com/)
Button newbutton new[Button new](https://benkellis.com/)[Button new](https://benkellis.com/)
## Headings
Nec nascetur mus vici. Dolor rhoncus augue quisque parturient etiam imperdiet sit nisi tellus veni faucibus orci. Imperdiet venenatis nec odio ac nullam rhoncus curabitur montes dapibus sem eu ante.
# Example heading NEW
## Example heading NEW
### Example heading NEW
#### Example heading NEW
##### Example heading NEW
###### Example heading NEW
Sit nisi ridiculus elit a eget. Ipsum id eu faucibus. Pede condimentum etiam et cras lorem eget. Ligula ultricies quis. Varius nunc pulvinar vitae nam tellus. Ultricies penatibus eu vitae aenean parturient etiam massa vel tellus vivamus.
Aenean id ut. Ac condimentum tempus tellus blandit felis libero etiam vel maecenas feugiat quam eget pede. Cras commodo ut rutrum enim dolor. Felis consequat vitae mollis eros mus ut vel. Tellus ut penatibus id sed sapien viverra tincidunt enim vulputate pede blandit et integer. Imperdiet sit in eros semper.
### Drop Caps
URL: https://benkellis.com/drop-caps/
Last updated: 2019-12-25T09:15:44.000Z
###### Please Note
You need to install and activate [Canvas](https://wordpress.org/plugins/canvas/?ref=benkellis.com) to make this feature work.
## Simple
Aenean eget mus orci aliquet phasellus enim. Nullam felis dis viverra ridiculus blandit consectetuer. Nisi lorem enim amet ut viverra nascetur blandit justo tincidunt ante commodo vitae. Vitae ipsum leo justo libero mus aenean venenatis ut ante penatibus nisi vulputate tempus. Natoque quam dapibus sit ante. Lorem elit libero et integer vel nisi aenean eu sed id ut eget.
Cras curabitur nisi ligula amet et condimentum sapien quis etiam aenean. Quam quis consectetuer feugiat enim felis pellentesque vel amet a mollis libero condimentum nascetur. Tellus adipiscing dapibus amet sit pede ultricies ligula. Massa parturient faucibus vidi. Imperdiet feugiat eget sit commodo curabitur rutrum vulputate justo magnis aliquet vel quisque. Pulvinar arcu felis.
## Bordered
Quam venenatis. Eget aliquam nam parturient vulputate ante dui faucibus dolor et ullamcorper nisi. Etiam dapibus feugiat ante vidi. Tellus quam aenean ullamcorper vici a. Et ante sociis massa enim ut pellentesque eu nam. Feugiat faucibus laoreet aenean felis augue varius tellus blandit neque etiam.
Elementum et elit quis maecenas consequat felis sem etiam leo. Eleifend quis dolor hendrerit a dapibus ipsum feugiat. Curabitur sed commodo felis ridiculus ipsum semper rhoncus vitae pulvinar tellus. Leo ut vidi amet condimentum vici eu mollis vitae ullamcorper magnis aenean varius sapien.
## Border Right
Nte orci dapibus libero. A aenean vivamus vulputate magnis dolor felis. Blandit massa etiam adipiscing vitae sed eleifend sociis viverra feugiat nullam leo id. Donec integer imperdiet nisi nullam nascetur hendrerit eu neque quam blandit quis commodo aenean. Ligula eu dis quis tellus laoreet enim et. Sed pede a enim.
Dictum consequat natoque justo ante quam ligula hendrerit ut felis. Ligula nullam nisi blandit dui eros. Eget varius dolor sem eleifend semper ridiculus neque. Vidi quam imperdiet ac.
## Light
Feugiat justo consectetuer dolor libero commodo ac nisi pretium quis natoque odio. Ipsum ullamcorper aliquam tellus pede felis donec. Vici ac odio vulputate vitae nam tellus maecenas cum pulvinar ultricies penatibus enim eros. Nam vulputate integer. Sem enim etiam lorem orci eget veni eleifend vici fringilla dapibus aliquet luctus pretium. Pede eget donec pretium ante.
Dolor mus ut eu sit pretium tempus adipiscing vel maecenas quis. Felis aenean dis imperdiet tellus maecenas vitae rutrum eros. Eget ipsum libero vitae. Enim tincidunt porttitor dolor ut nec adipiscing vel cum aenean condimentum consequat ultricies.
## Inverse
Mec vulputate eget nulla aenean pede laoreet eleifend rutrum. Elementum nec tellus sem sit mollis etiam massa quam veni. Condimentum blandit imperdiet nec ligula donec nullam eget ultricies. Quisque sociis libero ipsum nunc montes quam a dis amet ligula natoque. Nascetur ante ridiculus ultricies eget eros orci etiam amet.
Pretium ridiculus venenatis metus commodo ante id cum eros sociis et pede. Eget nulla hendrerit enim. Aenean montes ut elit dolor vitae nec semper maecenas libero rhoncus consequat.
### Facebook Fanpage
URL: https://benkellis.com/facebook-fanpage/
Last updated: 2019-12-25T09:17:01.000Z
###### Please Note
You need to install and activate [Powerkit](https://wordpress.org/plugins/powerkit/?ref=benkellis.com) and [Canvas](https://wordpress.org/plugins/canvas/?ref=benkellis.com) to make this feature work.
## With Posts
Nec nascetur mus vici. Dolor rhoncus augue quisque parturient etiam imperdiet sit nisi tellus veni faucibus orci. Imperdiet venenatis nec odio ac nullam rhoncus curabitur montes dapibus sem eu ante. Condimentum a nec. Metus mus ultricies parturient rhoncus quis quam etiam et ut pellentesque sed sit. Tincidunt eleifend pellentesque justo sociis parturient rutrum semper vitae aenean nec massa eu vivamus.
Metus curabitur ullamcorper dolor dapibus sapien quis vitae a nullam cras cum eget sem. Ut leo felis eu consectetuer donec cras nullam magnis nulla luctus. Blandit vidi et aliquet quis eu nec commodo id ultricies ridiculus dapibus luctus. Feugiat nec ante amet nam dolor etiam sed quis eleifend ipsum. Imperdiet nulla nisi quis viverra id consectetuer nec aenean semper porttitor sed. Pulvinar semper quis enim tincidunt viverra.
Feugiat nec ante amet nam dolor etiam sed quis eleifend ipsum. Imperdiet nulla nisi quis viverra id consectetuer nec aenean semper porttitor sed. Pulvinar semper quis enim tincidunt viverra.
## Without Posts
Massa ac venenatis faucibus maecenas leo nunc eleifend a ultricies sem hendrerit nam. Vitae dis venenatis hendrerit vulputate eleifend dui ultricies rhoncus mus. Tincidunt vitae semper adipiscing quam eros lorem ut vel elementum pellentesque nec parturient.
Feugiat nec ante amet nam dolor etiam sed quis eleifend ipsum. Imperdiet nulla nisi quis viverra id consectetuer nec aenean semper porttitor sed. Pulvinar semper quis enim tincidunt viverra.
## Simple
Massa ac venenatis faucibus maecenas leo nunc eleifend a ultricies sem hendrerit nam. Vitae dis venenatis hendrerit vulputate eleifend dui ultricies rhoncus mus. Tincidunt vitae semper adipiscing quam eros lorem ut vel elementum pellentesque nec parturient.
### Instagram Feed
URL: https://benkellis.com/instagram-feed/
Last updated: 2019-12-25T09:17:39.000Z
###### Please Note
You need to install and activate [Powerkit](https://wordpress.org/plugins/powerkit/?ref=benkellis.com) and [Canvas](https://wordpress.org/plugins/canvas/?ref=benkellis.com) to make this feature work.
## 2 Columns
## 3 Columns
## 5 Columns
## Featured Style
### Numbered Headings
URL: https://benkellis.com/numbered-headings/
Last updated: 2019-12-25T09:18:40.000Z
###### Please Note
You need to install and activate [Canvas](https://wordpress.org/plugins/canvas/?ref=benkellis.com) to make this feature work.
Eu nascetur tempus quam eget veni lorem felis maecenas. Sem vivamus metus rhoncus. Magnis tempus sed blandit maecenas venenatis eros libero ut quis amet varius. Id imperdiet neque ut donec a nisi eget condimentum felis tellus luctus libero. Sed nisi ante maecenas nec etiam eget feugiat nunc donec metus. Mollis dolor donec leo etiam pellentesque nulla natoque ultricies et.
## Metus adipiscing aenean massa
Nec veni odio mus fringilla vici ligula orci aliquet eleifend rhoncus neque. Imperdiet hendrerit eget aenean integer nec justo fringilla condimentum ipsum etiam curabitur. Vitae eu sem. Vici vidi luctus. Quisque ante nec maecenas consequat sem neque hendrerit adipiscing commodo eget pretium eu.
Ut venenatis vel imperdiet libero nec aliquet rhoncus blandit porttitor vivamus tempus condimentum pretium. Consequat sit quam hendrerit vel libero sem ante. Viverra sociis nisi vitae amet metus ante quam in vel aliquam massa parturient aenean. Quam dui lorem. Adipiscing dis elementum leo viverra quis. Donec rhoncus nam.
## Eleifend sapien vulputate
Tellus etiam maecenas faucibus nulla ante. Nisi quis orci dolor. Ut pellentesque aenean pede venenatis rhoncus sit tempus sem. Aenean orci rutrum laoreet eget pede cras. Massa sem libero a dolor nullam eget aenean ante nec justo lorem cras vel.
### Aliquam enim arcu ut
Vulputate pede nisi arcu ut nullam. Ac elit ut ullamcorper aenean dolor pede nec aliquam. Cum enim a. Ut dui phasellus cras. Vivamus pulvinar justo faucibus nec semper lorem nullam.
Ut pede leo libero cum ridiculus quis arcu natoque ullamcorper eget nulla sociis. Semper condimentum quam integer lorem. Amet ac dis semper eget a dictum ligula. Justo eu ut. Id ridiculus lorem ut amet dis orci tellus etiam aenean pellentesque. Ultricies dui vel ipsum eleifend dolor ante donec justo nullam.
### Ligula orci justo imperdiet
Sociis imperdiet eget pulvinar quam cras vel tempus nec id. Etiam ac nulla pulvinar aenean nec. Nullam amet curabitur nam vulputate imperdiet sapien. Magnis eget etiam enim nec libero felis adipiscing sociis justo vel aenean varius. Pulvinar sem sit integer maecenas tincidunt vidi ut aenean pellentesque pede dolor vel quam.
Nullam vidi imperdiet tincidunt ante. Ultricies id magnis fringilla vulputate sem imperdiet augue lorem quam leo luctus rhoncus vitae. Eu elementum nam natoque ligula nisi sit aenean pretium justo. Sapien eu viverra nec dolor. Libero eros pede tempus curabitur hendrerit rhoncus nulla lorem laoreet. Tincidunt cum a ac viverra penatibus.
## Ut fringilla nec enim sit nullam pede
Vulputate tempus ac a ut lorem enim condimentum. Augue vulputate dolor venenatis eget consequat ultricies ut mollis quis dapibus nascetur nulla. Eu justo dictum maecenas venenatis luctus imperdiet fringilla. Nulla rhoncus luctus sem semper tempus lorem neque feugiat pretium magnis donec justo. Ultricies sociis ullamcorper leo aenean tellus.
### Pinterest Board
URL: https://benkellis.com/pinterest-board/
Last updated: 2019-12-25T09:19:41.000Z
###### Please Note
You need to install and activate [Powerkit](https://wordpress.org/plugins/powerkit/?ref=benkellis.com) and [Canvas](https://wordpress.org/plugins/canvas/?ref=benkellis.com) to make this feature work.
Nec nascetur mus vici. Dolor rhoncus augue quisque parturient etiam imperdiet sit nisi tellus veni faucibus orci. Imperdiet venenatis nec odio ac nullam rhoncus curabitur montes dapibus sem eu ante. Condimentum a nec. Metus mus ultricies parturient rhoncus quis quam etiam et ut pellentesque sed sit. Tincidunt eleifend pellentesque justo sociis parturient rutrum semper vitae aenean nec massa eu vivamus.
Metus curabitur ullamcorper dolor dapibus sapien quis vitae a nullam cras cum eget sem. Ut leo felis eu consectetuer donec cras nullam magnis nulla luctus. Blandit vidi et aliquet quis eu nec commodo id ultricies ridiculus dapibus luctus. Feugiat nec ante amet nam dolor etiam sed quis eleifend ipsum. Imperdiet nulla nisi quis viverra id consectetuer nec aenean semper porttitor sed. Pulvinar semper quis enim tincidunt viverra.
## Posts
### Navigating Social Influence in 2023 - From Content Curation to Deinfluencing
URL: https://benkellis.com/navigating-social-influence-in-2023-from-content-curation-to-deinfluencing/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:44:39.000Z
The cover header in my LinkedIn profile is from a talk I gave five years ago about the science behind social influence. It was in sunny Prague, at the Socialbakers Engage conference, and later at Marketing Week in Athens, Greece. At both events, I was excited to talk about the science behind social influence, and a methodology I developed (using Brandwatch data and Tableau) to map influencers, and to better assess which talent and content creators to work with for successful campaigns.
That was 2018\. A lot has changed since then. TikTok happened, along with the speedy rise in short video creation and consumption. Social tools have changed too, including the very company whose event I spoke at (Socialbakers is now [Emplifi](https://www.linkedin.com/company/emplifi/?ref=benkellis.com)). Mergers, acquisitions, and changes have taken place in the social MarTech space. While much of what I discussed in my talk is still relevant today, there's a lot of new interesting behaviour that warrants a quick update.
### The Rise of Content Curators
Back in 2018, the main way to categorise influencers besides their subject matter was by the size of their audience (e.g., micro-influencers having an audience of 10K-100K followers). While that is still somewhat valid, there's now a more nuanced way to classify influencers: content creators vs content curators.
Content curation is the process of discovering, gathering, and presenting relevant and valuable content to your audience. It involves sifting through the vast sea of information and handpicking the best pieces that align with the interests and needs of their target audience. It takes great skill to take the best of your niche and curate content that you know will strike a chord with your audience -- be it with a like, a comment, a share, or even a screenshot to get back to later.
This trend of content curators exploded [on TikTok last year](https://www.billboard.com/pro/tiktok-curators-viral-songs/?ref=benkellis.com), and [it's still going strong in 2023](https://mashable.com/article/gift-guides-tiktok-shopping-taste?ref=benkellis.com), and I can see why -- it's an excellent way to stand out from the crowd.
**Why it Matters**
If you're researching an overly saturated topic, start with the communities around content curators. They offer valuable social intel on audience habits, brand preferences, and emerging trends. Tools like Buzzsumo, with its influencer database across Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok, can be a great starting point.
### The Emergence of De-Influencers
De-influencing, an antithesis to traditional influencer marketing, is still going strong after peaking in 2022 and early 2023\. This is partly linked to how social platforms like TikTok and Instagram are the new avenues for search and consumer consideration. De-influencers aim to promote conscious buying choices, limit overconsumption, and address the environmental impact of people's purchase choices. They provide honest reviews of overhyped products and advocate for transparency and accountability.
**Why it Matters**
The ramifications of this trend are outlined [in this excellent post](https://www.10yetis.co.uk/news/what-is-de-influence-marketing-explained?ref=benkellis.com) from [10 Yetis Digital](https://www.linkedin.com/company/10-yetis-pr-agency/?ref=benkellis.com).
As a researcher, I'll add this tip: if you have access to a social monitoring or social listening tool, I always recommend building a "crisis query" and segmentations with negative keywords and hashtags that may pop up eventually. For example, I recommend adding keywords like #*boycott\**, to stay ahead of future potential crises). While "boycott" is just one example, you should definitely add *\# deinfluenc\*,* today. As in, right now. Set an alert to make sure that if these mentions start appearing for your brand, you can be ahead of that curve to monitor what's going on and assess what needs to be done.
### Social Overlap and Multi-Platform Usage
Back in 2018, and the years before that, I would often overhear conversations between community managers and marketers about "hiring an Instagram influencer", or "collaborating with a Twitter influencer for an event that need to be live-tweeted". While I'm sure that some of those conversations still happen today, it's worth noting that the average social media user is active on [six](https://backlinko.com/social-media-users?ref=benkellis.com) or [seven](https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-statistics-for-social-media-managers/?ref=benkellis.com) different social media platforms, resulting in significant content overlap. It's common for consumers to follow the same influencers across multiple platforms, expanding their sphere of influence.
**Why it Matters**
The fact that we use multiple social media platforms isn't a new trend -- that number goes up year after year. The fact that we follow many of the same content creators across multiple platforms isn't a groundbreaking trend either -- we know it, we see it, and we experience it in the way we consume social media and in the ways we're influenced by it. This update is more of a reminder: if you have a social intelligence stack, it's time for a deep review. I covered part of this [in yesterday's post about setting up a social intelligence capability](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/benkellis%5Fsetting-up-social-intelligence-from-scratch-activity-7084118553397731329-SleH?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=member%5Fdesktop). Still, in a nutshell, it's time for a review based on today's social landscape and MarTech landscape:
- **Social landscape**: where do you have an organic presence, i.e., people mentioning you, even if you don't have an account there? How have recent new or changed social features changed the way people talk about you, e.g., are there [new Twitter Communities popping up](https://www.socialpilot.co/blog/twitter-communities?ref=benkellis.com), where people exclusively talk about your brand or your category? Is part of your audience migrating to alternative platforms -- and is part of your organic presence leaving with them?
- **Tech landscape**: with changes in API access from platforms like [Twitter](https://twitter.com/TwitterDev/status/1641222782594990080?ref=benkellis.com), [Reddit](https://www.redditinc.com/blog/apifacts?ref=benkellis.com), and [Facebook](https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2023/05/23/introducing-facebook-graph-and-marketing-api-v17/?ref=benkellis.com), how will your access to their data change (whether you collect data manually through an API or a social MarTech tool)? Will you get more or less data? Will you get different metrics, or will your data provider shut down some of these features because of these changes?
These are just a few examples of questions you should get some answers and clarity on, even if the answer is *"we don't know yet, but we're working on it"*. I invite you to have a conversation with your customer success managers for the Social MarTech tools you rely on, especially for social intelligence research.
*(Sidenote: while I focus a lot on research, I invite you to do the same for any social MarTech tool you use -- be it for influencer management or social media management, social publishing or content scheduling, etc.)*
Thankfully, many social MarTech providers keep their customers regularly updated with a changelog and product release notes, either on their site (e.g., [Hootsuite](https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-api/?ref=benkellis.com)), or through regular emails -- or sometimes both. Either way, there's no better time than now to figure out how the changing landscape of social media and social tools will affect how you report on social influence, and what that will mean for you.
---
Sure, the landscape of social influencer marketing is ever-evolving, but in a way, that's also what keeps it exciting. Lastly, if you're looking for more info and research on consumer behaviour, influencer marketing, and social media usage, I highly recommend checking out GWI's latest reports on those topics: [gwi.com/reports](https://www.gwi.com/reports?ref=benkellis.com)
### Setting up Social Intelligence from Scratch
URL: https://benkellis.com/setting-up-social-intelligence-from-scratch/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:44:39.000Z
Are you looking to set up a new social intelligence capability from scratch? Or perhaps you already have a team of social intelligence researchers, and it's time for a review? Either way, you're in the right place. With over 15 years of experience in this field, I'm here to guide you through the process of building a successful social intelligence team.
## 💡 Who is this for?
This guide is perfect for those who are setting up a new social intelligence capability. It's never too late to build a team whose role is to surface and deliver the insights you need to make or support data-driven decisions. This guide is also great if you already have a team of social intelligence researchers and it's time for a review.
## Starting the Social Intelligence Capability
Setting up a social intelligence capability involves five stages: **Scope**, **Setup**, **Showcase**, **Run**, and **Assess**. These stages are not linear but recursive, meaning they loop back on themselves as you refine and improve your capability over time.
### Scope & Setup
The first stage is to lay the foundation for a successful and innovative social intelligence team. This involves getting the right **people**, the right **tech**, and the right **data**, and tying these three together with the right processes.
#### The Data: The What
*What data will you need to track? What data is already available? What data should this team cover?*
These are a few questions you'll need to consider as you embark on this journey. If you're not sure where to start, start with your business objectives:
- What are you trying to achieve?
- Who is your target audience?
- What platforms do they use?
- What kind of content do they engage with?
The answers to these questions will guide you in determining which platforms and what data to track.
Start by tracking basic metrics such as reach, engagement, and [sentiment and emotion analysis](https://benkellis.com/sentiment-analysis-never-accurate/) on the platforms your target audience uses. As you become more comfortable with data collection and analysis, you can start to delve deeper into more complex metrics such as influence (e.g., network analysis), demographics, and psychographics.
When it comes to data collection and analysis, **start small and scale up**. [Market research and social intelligence provider Nichefire](https://nichefire.com/?ref=benkellis.com) says it best: *more data does *not* equal better decisions*. Begin with a few key metrics and gradually add more as your team gains experience and your tools become more sophisticated. Use tools that can automate data collection and provide easy-to-understand analytics dashboards. This will allow your team to spend less time on data collection and more time on analysis and insight generation.
#### The People: The Who
Start thinking about *the who* after you've identified *the what* and while you're evaluating the technology. If you're not sure about the best ways to set this team up, start with a social intelligence lead, who can take care of this process.
There are two things to bear in mind as part of this step:
1. There are mainly four roles you'll need as part of your capability. **These four roles don't have to be four separate people**–they can be disciplines and skills shared across the team, and they can also be skills leveraged from other teams internally (e.g. if you already have a team of data scientists or a team of designers who are skilled with data stories);
2. Secondly, **these roles don't have to be one of one**: having worked in data analytics and social intelligence for over 15 years, I know too well of teams with a singular person carrying multiple social intelligence hats. I was one myself in many of my past roles. The size of your social intelligence capability should reflect the needs and demands of your business, so it should be directly proportional.
The roles are:
- **Social Intelligence Lead**: this can be a director, a manager, or an interim consultant. This person's initial responsibility is to set up, lead, and develop your new social intelligence capability. They're responsible for integrating social intelligence across the business, thus taking requirements from various departments to best assess how social intelligence can support and elevate what these teams do.
- **Social Analyst**: this analyst and researcher is responsible for managing and analysing data, and executing research projects. As part of their progression into a senior social analyst, their role will evolve to a consultative one, with the responsibility to provide advice and support to social intelligence stakeholders, keeping the research threads going.
- **Data Scientist**: this role is responsible for the analysis and interpretation of complex data. Ideally, they'll be familiar with Python, R, and SQL, depending on the depth of analysis required. This is a clear example of a role that can also be a shared discipline in this team: the social analyst may already have experience with practices like using SQL to clean vast amounts of data–that can definitely come in handy for your team.
- **Research Visualisation Designer**: this isn't a vanity role, but rather a role that understands that how you tell a story is just as important as what's in a story, and a data story poorly designed can often distract a stakeholder from understanding the *"so what?"*–what's in it for them, what does this mean for them, what should they do with this. This person will carefully craft and use the right visualisation and right medium to connect a curious stakeholder to the complex datasets that this team will be working with.
Here's an ideal team structure: a social intelligence lead, and two analysts–one who has competency in data science (ideally with knowledge of Python, R, SQL, and how to use APIs), and one who has competency in visualisation design (ideally with tools like Tableau, Power BI, or Looker Studio).
#### The Technology: The Where
In this phase, you need to answer these questions:
- What technology infrastructure is needed to support the kinds of reporting you want to do?
- What’s already in use that can be leveraged? For instance, if you already have a tool like Hootsuite or Sprinklr for community management, you can start using it for social monitoring and, eventually, social listening.
- What do we have access to, that you could make more use of? Ideally, these tools need to be able to integrate with each other, to be able to tell richer and more comprehensive data stories.
- Based on what we know about our customers and leads (i.e., the answers to the questions in "*The Data - The What*"), what’s missing?
For a social intelligence capability, you need solutions that cover four main aspects:
- **Social analytics**, looking at the performance of social accounts; it can add valuable context to social intelligence research;
- **Social audience intelligence**, to answer questions like, "*who are the people behind the conversations? What networks do they belong to, and how do these networks (communities/subcommunities) communicate and influence each other? How do these networks react to media and content differently?*";
- **Social listening**, to answer questions like, "*what are these people sharing? What can we tell from their opinions, their habits, the content of their discussions?*";
- **Search and content research**: a lot of what we share isn't text or media, but behaviour; not just engagement, which morphs social algorithms to offer more of what we like, but search. Search data gives necessary context to what's going on, especially for sensitive topics that we're less likely to discuss openly online unless anonymous.
#### The Processes: The How and The Why
You have people at the foundation of the team, the data you need for social intelligence, and the tech needed to make that happen. What ties these three together is the right set of processes, i.e., how should the **people** use **technology** to make the most of the **data** we have? All processes lead to the primary business mission and vision — so instead of social intelligence being an additional service, it needs to be seen as a complimentary research unit that integrates with other units.
These are a few key processes that are essential to the team’s effectiveness and efficiency:
- **Goal and objective setting**, aligned with the overall business objectives. This will provide clarity on how the team’s achievements contribute to the success of your business;
- **Project intake and prioritisation**, evaluating project requests and prioritising them based on strategic importance, potential impact, and available resources;
- **Data collection and management**, establishing a systematic approach to collecting data from various social media platforms and tools. This could involves using social listening tools, APIs, or manual data collection methods, while complying with data protection regulations (e.g., GDPR);
- **Social intelligence methodologies**, including frameworks that outline best practices to follow in conducting data analysis and generating insights (e.g., data cleaning, visualisation approaches);
- **Continuous learning and skill development**, providing opportunities for training ([**The Social Intelligence Lab**](https://thesilab.com/?ref=benkellis.com) is the perfect place to start, if you're looking to develop further as a social intelligence researcher);
- **Team collaboration**, establishing channels for access and effective collaboration;
- **Performance measurement and evaluation**, defining KPIs for team performance, and monitoring progress towards goals.
### Showcasing Social Intelligence - Inside and Out
Once the scope is sorted, and setup is complete, social intelligence research can be showcased internally (and externally too, if you have external clients that may benefit from social intelligence). This is not only to signal the availability of this capability, but also to show “*the art of the possible*” – what can be researched with social intelligence, and the possible results.
As part of your showcase (or "social intelligence roadshow", or however you want to call it), think about how you're going to elevate the profile of social intelligence, giving everyone at your business **proof of value**, while helping your team become familiar with the types of projects they will encounter, becoming familiar with tools, methodologies, types of research, and what data and analysis is needed based on the nature of the question.
Where can you start? You can use social intelligence to aid your internal efforts around sales, product development, training and development, strategy, marketing and advertising, brand monitoring, content strategy, event planning, etc. Having worked with so many types of teams and departments, B2B and B2C, let me assure you of this: every department in a business could benefit from insights from social intelligence and social listening data, so long as you can show that tangible proof of value that social intelligence can give them.
Here are a few examples:
- **Marketing**: marketers can use social intelligence to understand what content resonates with their audience, track the performance of their campaigns, monitor brand sentiment in reaction to their posts, and identify influencers in their industry;
- **Sales**: sales teams can use social intelligence to identify leads, monitor competitors, and understand customer pain points to make sure that you can truly empathise with your prospect's worries, concerns, and needs;
- **Product Development**: product teams can use social intelligence to gather feedback on their products, identify potential new features, and understand customer needs and preferences.
- **Customer Service**: customer service teams can use social intelligence to proactively identify and resolve customer issues, monitor customer sentiment, and improve their service based on unsolicited customer feedback;
- **Human Resources**: HR can use social intelligence to monitor employee sentiment, identify potential issues, and improve their employer brand.
### Running your Social Intelligence Capability
Now that you've scoped your needs, set up your team and tools, and showcased the potential of social intelligence, it's time to run your capability. This is where the rubber meets the road, and your planning and preparation start to pay off.
Running a social intelligence capability is about continually seeking opportunities to innovate, improve, and add value to your business. It's about staying ahead of the curve in a rapidly changing digital landscape, and ensuring your team has the skills, tools, and support they need to deliver insightful, impactful research.
Running a social intelligence capability also involves managing relationships with stakeholders across your business. It's about ensuring that the insights your team generates are not just interesting, but actionable – that they're tied to business objectives, and that they're delivered in a way (visually and strategically) that enables decision-makers to use them effectively.
Here are a few steps to guide you:
- **Start small**: begin with a few key metrics and a limited number of platforms. As you gain experience and confidence, you can gradually expand your scope;
- **Set clear goals**: having clear goals will help you stay focused and measure your progress. These goals should be aligned with your overall business objectives;
- **Communicate regularly with stakeholders**: regular communication with stakeholders will help you understand their needs and expectations, and ensure that your social intelligence capability is delivering value;
- **Invest in training**: social intelligence is a rapidly evolving field. Regular training will ensure that your team stays up-to-date with the latest tools and techniques;
- **Celebrate successes**: celebrating successes, no matter how small, will help keep your team motivated and committed to the success of your social intelligence capability.
### Assessing your Social Intelligence Capability
Just like any tool you rely on, you'll need to regularly review and optimise your social intelligence capability for maintenance. This is because three things may evolve over time:
1. the **social landscape**: new platforms coming up, sources you'll need access to, changes in your access to these platforms and their data, consumer behaviour shifting on these platforms),
2. the **tech landscape**: tools and solutions available, what they can offer, what offerings are being taken away, what new offerings are available,
3. your **business landscape**: what new demands are coming up, what new teams are needing social insights, how will you scale your team and tools to meet that demand, what changes is your business going through that social intelligence can support.
This process should be ongoing, but a formal review should take place at least every 3-6 months. Here's how to approach it:
1. **Review of goals and objectives**: revisit the goals and objectives you set when you first established your social intelligence capability. Are you meeting these goals? If not, why not? This can help you identify any gaps or areas for improvement;
2. **Metrics evaluation**: look at the key metrics (KPIs) you've been tracking. These could include metrics like the number of reports produced, the number of insights generated, the impact of these insights on decision-making, and the satisfaction of internal stakeholders. Are these metrics showing positive results? If not, you may need to adjust your approach. Are you having difficulties answering these questions? If so, you may need to set up a formal process to monitor how your social insights are impacting your stakeholders;
3. **Feedback**: feedback from the users of your social intelligence - whether they're internal stakeholders or external clients - is invaluable. Conduct surveys or interviews to understand their perspective. Are they finding the insights useful? What could you do better?
4. **Assessment of tools and processes**: review the tools and processes you're using. Are they still the best fit for your needs? With the rapid pace of technological advancement, there may be new tools available that could improve your efficiency or effectiveness;
5. **Team's skills and training**: as social intelligence evolves, so too should the skills of your team. Regularly assess whether your team has the necessary skills to effectively use the tools and analyse the data. This could involve conducting skills assessments or providing opportunities for feedback;
6. **Benchmark against industry standards**: compare your social intelligence capability against industry standards or competitors. This can provide a useful external perspective and may highlight areas where you're ahead or behind. You can leverage platforms like [**G2**](https://www.g2.com/?ref=benkellis.com) or [**TrustRadius**](https://www.trustradius.com/?ref=benkellis.com) for these benchmarks;
7. **Future planning**: based on your assessment, make a plan for the future. This could involve setting new goals, investing in new tools, providing further training for your team, or adjusting your processes.
The goal of this assessment is to identify opportunities for improvement. It's about ensuring that your social intelligence capability continues to add value to your business and stays aligned with your business goals.
Regular assessment allows you to stay agile and responsive to these changes. It helps you to ensure that your social intelligence capability remains relevant, effective, and aligned with your business needs. It also provides an opportunity to celebrate successes, learn from challenges, and continually improve your processes and practices.
Setting up a social intelligence capability from scratch might seem like a daunting task, but with the right approach, it's entirely achievable. By following the stages of **Scope**, **Setup**, **Showcase**, **Run**, and **Assess**, you can build a team that not only delivers valuable insights but also contributes to the strategic goals of your business. It's never too late to start, and the benefits of having a social intelligence capability can be significant.
As always, if you have any questions on any of this, don't hesitate to [reach out](https://benkellis.com/contact/)!
### MarTech List 200
URL: https://benkellis.com/2018-1-8-martech-list-200/
Last updated: 2018-01-09T23:10:00.000Z
*You’re probably on the lookout for a new social tool to add to your toolkit this year. Perhaps you’re evaluating a few tools but you’re not sure who they’re competing against, or if there’s anything cheaper on the market, and you really need to know for your procurement process. Or perhaps you’re just curious to see what the landscape of marketing tools looks like. If you can relate to any of this, read on.*
You may be familiar with [Scott Brinker](https://twitter.com/chiefmartec?ref=benkellis.com)’s [Martech](http://chiefmartec.com/?ref=benkellis.com) analysis that he puts out every year like clockwork. I’m sure you’ve seen his graphics in at least 2 or 3 presentations last year ([here’s the link to it](http://chiefmartec.com/2017/05/marketing-techniology-landscape-supergraphic-2017/?ref=benkellis.com)).
> Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic (2017): Martech 5000 [https://t.co/47BhKr0XWK](https://t.co/47BhKr0XWK?ref=benkellis.com) released here at [#MarTech](https://twitter.com/hashtag/MarTech?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=benkellis.com) with [@AnandThaker](https://twitter.com/AnandThaker?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=benkellis.com) [pic.twitter.com/EYLMfEpm53](https://t.co/EYLMfEpm53?ref=benkellis.com)
>
> — Scott Brinker (@chiefmartec) [May 10, 2017](https://twitter.com/chiefmartec/status/862395918250762240?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=benkellis.com)
It’s a great view of the big landscape of marketing tools, a landscape that keeps getting bigger and bigger every year. His landscape grew by 40% from 2016 to 2017, which means that he had to add almost 5,000 new tools to this graphic that covers data tools, content tools, advertising tools, and more. These are all MarTech (Marketing Technology) tools that you may have heard of, encountered in a presentation or seminar or webinar, or perhaps you’re using a few of these, so some of the logos in Scott’s graphic will look familiar to you.
I particularly love the MarTech landscape and Scott’s in-depth analysis of it, and it made me realise one thing: social analysts (and in general social marketers) are spoilt for choice, but a lot of those choices just aren’t adequate. [After being asked at a recent event to recommend a few tools for social analytics](https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/nykconf-europe-day-one-liveblog/?ref=benkellis.com), it dawned on me that there doesn’t seem to be a handy resource where marketers can go, put in their budget or the tools they’d like to cover or what type of social/marketing tool they’re looking for (e.g. social listening, social CRM solution, social management platform), to then get a list of tools they can choose from.
Thankfully, Scott Brinker and [Anand Thaker](https://twitter.com/anandthaker?ref=benkellis.com) have made their data publicly available so that we can make our research off the back of it…which I did. I downloaded the Excel export of all the tools included in the MarTech 5000, and focused only on the social tools (about 260 of them), went through each one, and “categorised” them based on a number of factors, like the type of tool, price, social networks covered, whether they offer a free trial or not etc.
As part of my research, I noticed a few things. The first thing I noticed was that quite a few of these tools were either defunct or just not fit for purpose. That is a testament to today’s landscape: MarTech is moving at such a fast rate, and while there are hundreds of social tools out there:
- so many are defunct, like Instagress (included in MarTech 5000), which died in 2016, or ViralMint, which died in 2015, or BuzzDeck, which has been inactive since 2013;
- other tools have been acquired and shut down soon after, like [Attensity, which sold its IP to InContact back in 2016](http://odintext.com/blog/attensity-sells-ip-to-incontact-what-does-it-mean/?ref=benkellis.com);
- other tools have changed their pricing methods, like [TweetBinder, which went from being a freemium tool to a more expensive paid tool, to reflect the improved platform and quality of data going into it](https://www.tweetbinder.com/blog/planstweetbinder/?ref=benkellis.com);
- other tools just can’t keep up with new features appearing on social platforms (e.g. Facebook Reactions) and/or changes in the APIs (the plugs that connect social networks to tools) and are therefore left behind;
- others get shut down, directly or indirectly, from social networks, like Archie and [Mass Planner](https://fstoppers.com/social-media/mass-planner-shut-down-instagram-end-bot-era-176654?ref=benkellis.com), both of which got shut down by Instagram.
This inevitably creates a long tail of tools that eventually gets left behind, a long tail of tools that just aren’t fit for purpose for marketers anymore. That’s just how fast MarTech is moving.
I took it upon myself to create a resource for marketers, where they can find a list of social tools based on their budget, social networks they want to cover, paid vs free options and other parameters that matter to them.
This resource is based on the tools that were part of the MarTech 5000, it removes the tools that are part of the long tail (defunct tools, tools that don’t work anymore, or tools that just aren’t fit for purpose), and adds other tools that have popped up in the meantime. Through that process, I came up with 200 tools, which I’ve categorised by a few parameters (like social networks covered and pricing options), and created this: the [**MarTech List**](https://martechlist.net/list?ref=benkellis.com).
The MarTech landscape will still come out on a yearly basis, but tools move so fast these days, so I’m going to update this list on a monthly basis. That’s for four reasons:
1. it’s to make sure that if tools “fall off” the long tail, they fall off this list too;
2. if any of these tools change any of their parameters (e.g. pricing, or whether they start covering more or less social networks), I’ll update that in the list;
3. if any new tools pop up, I’ll add them to the list (which means, if any vendors want to be added, they can be added);
4. I’ll be making improvements to the list, adding more categories, and adding notes as new things happen in MarTech, like new acquisitions (e.g. [Simply Measured being acquired by Sprout Social](https://simplymeasured.com/blog/next-chapter-simply-measured-acquired-sprout-social/?ref=benkellis.com)).
That’s to make sure that the list remains up-to-date and, most importantly, useful at any time of the year.
## Methodology
I used Scott Brinker’s MarTech Landscape 5000 as a basis. I took the 260 marketing tools from it. I then went through each one of them and removed tools that belonged to the “long tail”, i.e. tools that are defunct (Archie, Attensity, Awareness Hub, Tiempy, Instagress, MassPlanner, GeoFeedia, Social Quant, SocialWally, Viralmint… the list goes on).
I also deleted tools that have been abandoned: if the vendor hasn’t been active in more than a year, I’ll classify them as abandoned. An example of that is [BuzzDeck](https://buzzdeck.com/?ref=benkellis.com#/frame%5Fintro): their site hasn’t been updated in years, and their social accounts haven’t been updated since 2013\. A social tool that promises its clients to help them be the best active brands cannot in turn show signs of being defunct (clear signs include the website going without any updates for years), so I’ve added them to the long tail. A quick way to identify that is to check the copyright year at the end of the website: if the site has not been updated in over 18 months, I’ll consider that as abandoned, like WeLink, whose copyright year hasn’t been updated since 2014.
There’s another category that I removed from the list, and that is fan/follower automation tools. You may know them as the tools that use the APIs of social networks to mass-follow and mass-unfollow people as a way to gain more followers, social tools that let you buy fans and followers to increase your audience, or automation tools that fake cheap engagement or cheap traffic. These include tools like Tweet Favy or InstaHead (now Combin). These tools profess to “skyrocket your marketing”, but that’s not really what marketing is about in 2018\. As such, I’ve removed them too from the list.
After removing all of these tools, I ended up with less than half of the tools I started with. That was enough, as I confidently knew that the tools I had were trustworthy.
I then grouped the tools together based on their functions, and in the process I identified these six main categories:
- social listening and monitoring
- social management
- social advertising
- social analytics
- social audience analytics
- social CRM
(I’ll delve into each category in the next section.)
From that, I added a few more tools that weren’t in the original MarTech 5000, including SocialWeaver and StoryHeap.
After that, I added the following parameters and columns:
- **Quick Review**: this explains what the tool is and what it does in 140 characters.
- **Sources covered**: a dropdown list of online sources each tool covers. This was initially going to be just social platforms, namely: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr, VK, Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat, Telegram, YouTube, Viber. However, as I’ve also included social listening and social monitoring, I’ve added forums and news sites as sources covered. I’ll eventually add more sources to the list.
- **Pricing method**: this classifies tools as *free* (the tool is completely free to use), *freemium* (while parts of the tool are free to use, you’ll have to pay to access premium features of the tool), or *paid* (the tool needs to be paid for).
- **Price**: minimum price per month, based on the cheapest paid tier that the tool offers. All prices are converted into USD. Some tools do not list pricing on their site (or anywhere online), as they prefer building custom pricing plans for their users, so only then this field will be left empty.
- **Free trial available**: this shows you whether a tool offers a trial that you can use before you choose to pay for it. The options are *yes*, *no*, and *not applicable*, for tools that are already free.
- **FYI**: the last column serves as an FYI, giving you recent news for the tool, like a recent acquisition, or other news you need to be aware of, like whether they’re about to add a new social network to the list of networks they already cover.
## How the List Works
As of January 2018, [the list](https://martechlist.net/list?ref=benkellis.com) has 200 tools that range between six categories. A category of tools is defined by the collective minimum viable features of its tools. For instance, no two social listening tools are the same, but they can be both called social listening tools due to the minimum viable features they have that makes them social listening tools. In turn, these are the definitions I’m using for each of the six categories:
- **social listening and monitoring**: a social monitoring tool lets you search for instances of a topic (keyword, hashtag, person etc.) on a platform, while a social listening tool lets you analyse those instances. Normally, a social listening tool will let you save those instances for further analysis, while a social monitoring tool doesn’t have to. I’ve put monitoring and listening in the same bucket, as they do have quite a few similarities: social monitoring involves the search of a topic, and the tool will give you the instances found as a result, and basic associated stats (e.g. number of instances, reach). Social listening does the same, but on top of social monitoring it lets you run advanced analysis on the results.
- **social management**: a social management tool lets you manage your social accounts by posting content and/or letting you engage with your fans and followers. Other features like scheduling or letting you follow/unfollow fans and followers are optional, but they’re still representative of most social management tools today.
- **social advertising**: a social advertising tool lets you advertise social content and/or lets you manage the content you’ve advertised on social media.
- **social analytics**: a social analytics tool lets you analyse the performance of your social account and/or its content. This may include analysis of follower growth and decline, and the analysis of content performance.
- **social audience analytics**: a social audience analytics tool covers either demographics, psychographics, or influencer analysis for a social audience. Demographics cover age, gender and location of an audience. Psychographics cover the attitudes and interests of an audience. Influencer analysis measures the social influence of an audience measured by arbitrary metrics.
- **social CRM**: a social CRM tool lets you save user information of accounts on social media, with the optional ability to merge them with accounts you already have from other sources (e.g. linking somebody’s Twitter profile to a customer record you already have on file).
## How Can I Use This List?
This is entirely up to you. I’ve made this list flexible on purpose, so you can use it in multiple ways. For instance,
- you can use it to find your next MarTech tool
- you can use it to compare tools within a category
- you can use it if you’re cash-strapped and you urgently need a free or cheap(ish) tool for a specific project or for short-term purposes
- you can use it during the RFI/RFP/ITT process of procurement of a tool, so you can see who your preferred tools are competing against
- you can use it to find a list of tools that can help you if you decide to venture on a new social platform (e.g. if you choose to venture on Snapchat or LinkedIn, make sure the tools you have cover those new platforms too).
There are so many scenarios you can use this list for. You can also use this as an addendum to the yearly MarTech report (make sure you follow [Scott Brinker](https://twitter.com/chiefmartec?ref=benkellis.com) so you don’t miss out on the report).
## What’s Next for the List
Here’s what you can expect from [MarTech List](https://martechlist.net/list?ref=benkellis.com):
- Monthly updates (starting February) with a changelog, so you can see what’s been added, what’s been removed, and any other notable changes;
- A buyer’s guide for each of the categories in the MarTech List, so you know what to expect in your ideal tool. Now, bear in mind that the perfect tool doesn’t exist, but what does exist is a tool or a set of tools that fits perfect within your budget requirement, business requirements, and social vision (where do you see yourself 6-12 months from now and beyond?);
- Adding more categories as time goes: I’m planning to add employee advocacy tools in the first half of this year (I recommend [this book](http://amzn.eu/g08FzDl?ref=benkellis.com) I wrote with [Jörgen Sundberg](https://linkhumans.com/about?ref=benkellis.com) on everything you need to know about employee advocacy); with that, I’ll also add social visualisation tools, and other MarTech categories;
- One of my plans for MarTech List is for it to be less Western-centric: at the moment, this list doesn’t really cover Asian Pacific social platforms. I’m planning to add them this first half of the year, so you should be able to use options for LINE, WeChat, Sina Weibo and other major social platforms that are more prevalent in the APAC region.
If any tools should be added, please get in touch ([Twitter](https://twitter.com/fr314?ref=benkellis.com), my DMs are open, or via the contact form on this site.)
Please feel free to share the [MarTech List](https://martechlist.net/list?ref=benkellis.com) ([martechlist.net](https://martechlist.net/?ref=benkellis.com)) with whoever you think may find this useful. Make sure you bookmark it, as you may need it when it’s time to review your existing tool, or embark on a social procurement process for a MarTech tool. As always, if you have any questions or feedback, [reach out to me](https://twitter.com/fr314?ref=benkellis.com).
### Let’s Talk About Social Analytics - 2017 Edition
URL: https://benkellis.com/lets-talk-social-analytics-2017/
Last updated: 2017-03-12T22:18:41.000Z
I gave a talk [at Social Media Week Copenhagen](https://www.conferize.com/smwicph-lets-talk-about-social-analytics/people?filter=everybody&order=importance&page=1&ref=benkellis.com) ([#SMWCPH / #SMWDK](https://twitter.com/smwcph?ref=benkellis.com)) a couple weeks ago, and it was a much needed update to my “[Let’s Talk About Social Analytics](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/lets-talk-social-analytics)” post from last year. While not much has changed, the urgency of what I talked about is the reason why I had the session.
What’s changed then? Here’s what.
## Too much data, not enough analysts
I did the usual thing of asking the attendees to raise their hands if they were (1) community managers (lots of them), (2) social media managers (not as many, but still lots), and (3) analysts in any capacity - social media analysts, digital analyst, web analysts, marketing analysts etc. These were in the minority: in a room of roughly 90 professionals attending a session I listed as “*by analysts, for analysts*”, there were no more than 8 analysts in attendance.
Everyone agreed that data analysis is an increasingly important demand that needs to be fulfilled, yet not a lot of these companies are doing much (if anything) to fill that gap. There’s an exponential increase in data being generated, in data that needs to be measured, in data-driven decisions that need to be made, decisions that are still, somehow, being made by gut, feeling, tradition (“*this is how we’ve always done it, so this is how we’re always going to do it*”), or by the opinion of the highest earning person at the table (this seems to be the norm in bigger companies).
Get yourself an analyst. Whether you want to have this role in-house or outsource it via an agency, whether you want to hire someone new or you want to find someone who already works in your team/department/company with that analytical inclination, whether you want to call this person a social analyst or digital analyst or online analyst or whatever other title you think fits best - how you want to have this role is up to you, but the need for an analyst shouldn’t really be up for debate. Not in 2017.
## Get the right tools
I’ll reserve a separate post specifically on tools, especially on the new tools that have popped up in the last 12 months, *but* there is one thing you need to bear in mind: whether you choose to hire a social analyst or you already have one (or, why not, more than one), the analyst needs tools to do the job. Not just any tool - the right tools. Sure, there are so many social tools available today, but not all of them are worth your time. The one thing that does *not* exist is the perfect social analytics tool, despite what a few social vendors may tell you. What *does* exist, however, is a set of tools that fits perfectly within your social analytics requirements, thus your business requirements.
Business Intelligence (BI) tools will be especially important this year onwards, as more social analysts start coding to get their data - more on this later.
## Democratise social analytics
One of the traits of being a social brand ([slides 9 to 12 of my presentation](https://www.dropbox.com/s/v5wswhsiy3t6880/Let%27s%20Talk%20About%20Social%20Analytics%20SMWi%20CPH.pptx?dl=0&ref=benkellis.com)) is a change in perception of social analytics: (1) elevating it from *just* social analytics to social intelligence, and (2) democratising social analytics. While I covered the first bit during my session, the second portion does need some clarification.
Gone are the days of analysts reporting one-to-one, i.e. having one stakeholder request a report, the analyst compiling the report solely for this stakeholder, then moving on to the next request. This workflow, although common, reinforces the perception that analysts are just “report churners”. Like I said in my session, we’re much more than exporters of Excel spreadsheets and creators of PowerPoint reports. In other words, we’re much more than what advanced tools can do on their own. One of the things that sets us apart from analytics tools is the ability to layer social analysis from multiple sources (including sources that aren’t tied to one tool, e.g. sales from the last quarter, NPS from the last financial year, results from an opinion panel), and being able to supply intelligence from knowledge, experience and hindsight - something that a super-intelligent tool like [IBM Watson](https://www.ibm.com/watson/?ref=benkellis.com) wouldn’t be able to give you, for example.
So, what do I mean by “*democratise social analytics*”? Every time you get asked to run a report or supply some analysis, stop and ask yourself - **who else could benefit from this? What are the implications from my findings? Who’s likely to be responsible for the actions and recommendations I supply as part of this analysis?** Most reports you run should be one-to-many, rather that one-to-one: find the “many” beyond the one person who asked you for the report. Make your reports accessible to everyone in the company. Use privacy settings and your judgment for any sensitive reports that not everyone should be able to access (most file repositories, like SharePoint, Dropbox, and G Suite will let you tweak privacy settings accordingly, so you don’t have to worry about unauthorised eyes seeing sensitive reports). Make sure that social isn’t a trade of the few but a responsibility of the many (this is where [social advocacy](http://linkhumans.com/blog/employee-advocacy-guide?ref=benkellis.com) comes into place). That way, everyone knows how social media can impact pretty much every part of the business - sales, marketing, the team developing your web assets (including your website and apps), HR, PR, your C-Suite, and beyond.
## Time to code
Let’s be honest - good tools are becoming scarce nowadays. Correction: good tools *at a reasonable price* are becoming scarce nowadays. While “reasonable price” is very subjective, we do have too many tools charging extortionate amounts for a mediocre platform, and [this is especially the case for social suites](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-analytics-tools-that-dont-suck). Social suites are great for joining multiple social responsibilities in one single platform that everyone has access to, but when it comes to analytics, solely relying on a tool that doesn’t focus on social analysis is an awful decision.
I mentioned that 2017 is the year we see more social analysts evolving into data scientists, into data analysts that collect data from more sources than just social, into data analysts that are more self-sufficient. To get ready for that evolution, social analysts of today will have to get to grips with programming, specifically two languages - Python and R:
- **Python** is ideal for grabbing publicly available data from the web. You can either use python [to access APIs](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/twitter-apis-vs-twitter-firehose) or to get data off a webpage (“scraping”). Thankfully, a lot of social platforms make their APIs available, including [Twitter](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/twitter-apis-vs-twitter-firehose), Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Reddit.
- **R** is built with statisticians in mind, so it’s perfect for data analysis, statistics, data models, and especially data visualisations. R lets you visualise data in a more effective and efficient way than rows of numbers in spreadsheets.
If you can master both Python and R, you’ll eventually find yourself relying less and less on 3rd party social analytics tools, which will in turn help you save the money that you’d normally be spending on tools. This isn’t to say that Python and R will completely replace tools: BI tools are still going to be important for analysts, if not more. But, if you’re already using a poor or mediocre social analytics tool (including social listening, social monitoring, social management tools, and social suites), mastering Python and R will give you the right tools you need to do the job.
More social analytics tools are picking up on this trend: for instance, [Brandwatch recently released their second iteration of their visualisation platform Vizia](https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/news-introducing-the-vizia-2-platform/?ref=benkellis.com), this time going beyond just social data visualisation, with “[a new open development framework, powerful new visualizations and intelligent new ways to tell the business stories that matter to you](https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/news-introducing-the-vizia-2-platform/?ref=benkellis.com)”. Then you have other BI tools like Power BI that are constantly beefing up their data analytics and reporting capabilities (too many for me to list here, but you can check out [the Power BI blog for more info](https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/?ref=benkellis.com)). For instance, I sometimes use Power BI to correlate my social activity (mostly on Twitter) with the traffic this blog gets (which I mostly track via Google Analytics). While Google Analytics has *some* social capabilities, it is very, very basic, and it’s nowhere near the amount of data you can get via Twitter Analytics…so why not join both? Joining Google Analytics (an expert in measuring web traffic and conversions) with Twitter Analytics (the expert in measuring Twitter analytics) via Power BI ([the expert in business intelligence and analytics platforms](https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/gartner-positions-microsoft-as-a-leader-in-bi-and-analytics-platforms-for-ten-consecutive-years/?ref=benkellis.com)).
## You’re not alone
One of the things I mentioned towards the end of my session was that, just because there’s not enough of us, and just because social analysts are far and far in between, it doesn’t mean you’re alone. Find yourself a mentor, especially if you don’t know how to get started, and if you don’t know who to ask for advice or some mentoring, I’m available; find yourself a group of people that you can rely on for help with any social analytics dilemmas. One example is the [Social Media Analytics group for Quintly](https://www.facebook.com/groups/204748313263786/) (specifically built for social media analyst and social analytics enthusiasts in and around London), which you can join [here](https://www.facebook.com/groups/204748313263786/). There might not be many of us, but you’re definitely not alone.
Anyway, if you want access to the slides, [**here’s the link to them**](https://www.dropbox.com/s/v5wswhsiy3t6880/Let%27s%20Talk%20About%20Social%20Analytics%20SMWi%20CPH.pptx?dl=0&ref=benkellis.com).
As always, if you have any questions, just give me a shout.
### Google's SyntaxNet and Sentiment Analysis
URL: https://benkellis.com/google-syntaxnet-sentiment-analysis/
Last updated: 2016-05-15T22:17:33.000Z
[Google have released SyntaxNet to the public](http://googleresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/announcing-syntaxnet-worlds-most.html?ref=benkellis.com), and as an analyst let me say this: **this is the biggest news we’ve heard in a long time**. Here’s why.
SyntaxNet is a library of tools that can help machines understand language, a process called [Natural Language Understanding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural%5Flanguage%5Funderstanding?ref=benkellis.com) ([NLU](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural%5Flanguage%5Funderstanding?ref=benkellis.com)). To understand language, a machine needs to be able to:
- break down a sentence in its components (words, mostly),
- analyse all components,
- see how they relate to each other, and
- understand the role of each component in the sentence.
This process is called **parsing**. Parsing is second-nature to us: we know that in the sentence “*Ben is drinking wine*”, *Ben* is the subject, the action is *drinking*, and the object here is *wine*. Simple, right? Not so simple for machines, which find this task very complex. There are a few tools out there that are built to run this process, and these are called **parsers**.
Alongside SyntaxNet, Google have open-sourced a parser for the English language, called Parsey McParseface. ([Google and its sense of humour](http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2016/03/21/they-wont-let-actual-people-name-their-boat/?ref=benkellis.com).)
This is a significant step towards language understanding, but it’s not very useful in itself. Sure, it can call out nouns and verbs in sentences, and it can tell which words are connected to others within the same sentence, but that’s not where the value of Parsey is. Parsey’s full potential comes out when used with other technologies, or to solve other problems in computational linguistics - problems like **sentiment analysis**.
Being able to parse a sentence correctly is instrumental to accurate sentiment analysis. Parsey, in particular, can now help solve one of sentiment analysis' biggest problems: **comparative opinions**.
## Sentiment Analysis and Comparative Opinions
Comparative opinions are essentially comparisons, where one topic is compared to one or more topics. In the case of “*A works better than B*”, **A** and **B** are the **topics**, also known as “**targets**”, while **better** is the **sentiment shifter**, as it changes the sentiment that the verb (“*works*”) holds.
Sentiment analysis hasn't been great at identifying the actual sentiment behind these comparisons. Take the following sentence:
> "Coke is better than Pepsi."
A sentiment analysis of that sentence will return it as positive, mainly thanks to the positive sentiment shifter (**better**). If I were the social analyst for Coke, that sentence would totally work in my favour. That would be the opposite, however, if I were the social analyst for Pepsi. The sentiment changes depending on which topic (target) we're shifting our focus on: Coke is being talked about positively here, but Pepsi is being talked about negatively.
Another example is multiple comparisons in one sentence, a condition that often sends most social listening tools in a frenzy. Take this sentence for example:
> "Coke is better than Pepsi, but they're both worse than Dr Pepper.”
The sentiment for this sentence as a whole isn’t easily identifiable. The first clause (“**Coke is better than Pepsi**”) is positive, as we’ve already established; however, the second clause ("**but they're both worse than Dr Pepper**") is negative. As a result, most social listening tools will just tag the whole sentence as "neutral". Technically, neutral means that a sentence doesn't express any sentiment. However, a lot of social listening tools also use neutral for anything that their algorithm cannot easily categorise: the tool doesn’t know which side to pick (positive vs. negative), so it just throws the sentence in the “neutral” bucket.
This parser changes a lot of things: first of all, it can identify all the topics, verbs and sentiment shifters in the sentence. Then, the parser can help tell which direction sentiment is shifting, where from and where to. So, in the last sentence, the parser does the following:
- it identifies the two verbs in the sentence (“**is**” and “**are**”)
- it then splits the sentence into two clauses: the main clause “**Coke is better than Pepsi**”, and the subordinate “**but they're both worse than Dr Pepper**”.
- FYI it’s called a subordinate as it only makes sense in the presence of the main clause it depends on - “**but they're both worse than Dr Pepper**” doesn’t make sense on its own - but add “**Coke is better than Pepsi**” and it all makes perfect sense.
- it identifies the two sentiment shifters as adverbs (“**better**” and “**worse**”), and it attaches them to their respective verbs, forming two couples (binomials): **(is - better)** and **(are - worse)**
- it picks up on the topics of this sentence (“**I**”, “**Coke**”, “**Pepsi**”, “**Dr Pepper**”)
- it identifies that the adverb “**both**” groups “**Coke**” and “**Pepsi**” together: **(Coke - Pepsi)**
- it then determines the direction of the sentiment shifters:
- the binomial **(is - better)** shifts the sentiment from **Coke** to **Pepsi**,
- the binomial **(are - worse)** shifts the sentiment from **(Coke - Pepsi)** to **Dr Pepper**.
The parser does a lot more than that, but when it comes to sentiment analysis, these are the most relevant steps.
Now, it’s important to note that this parser isn’t a sentiment analysis tool. It parses clauses, thus breaking down sentences, paragraphs and whole pages in their various components - topics, verbs, connectives, etc. As such, the parsing tool doesn’t tell us that sentiment is shifting from one topic to another, but it does call these shifters out and the topics they relate to.
## The Flaws of Parsey McParseface
This English parser is the most accurate in the world, even beating Google’s previous algorithms, and that’s great. However, at 94% accuracy, it is not perfect. While there’s space for improvement, it probably will never get to 100%, mostly because language is complex. We’re not immune to this complexity either. Take, for example, this sentence:
> “I saw a guy on a hill with a telescope.”
A simple sentence, right? Not so much when you start analysing its alternate meanings:
- There’s a guy on a hill, and I’m watching him with a telescope
- I’m seeing a guy, who is on a hill, and he has a telescope
- There’s a guy, he’s on a hill, and this hill has a telescope on it
- I’m on a hill, and I saw guy using a telescope
Or perhaps we could get dark and interpret that sentence as “There’s a guy on a hill, and I’m sawing him with a telescope”. (Yeah, I know.)
There are so many sentences with ambiguous meanings, sentences that humans could interpret differently. As we cannot unanimously agree on these interpretations, it’s rational to have the same expectations of tools like Parsey.
Now, on to the big question: what does this mean for sentiment analysis, particularly in the context of social listening? And why is this the biggest news I’ve heard in a long time?
## SyntaxNet and Social Listening
While SyntaxNet is a great addition to Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology, it shines brightest when used with other tools and algorithms, making them even stronger and more reliable. There are so many reasons why this excites me.
Here are some of them:
1. **Less neutral**: Parsey can help social listening tools provide more accurate sentiment analysis, reducing the number of times mentions are unnecessarily tagged as neutral when they really aren’t. A tool can pass complex sentences to Parsey, which can then do its magic and break the sentences down in manageable clauses; these are then passed back to the tool for sentiment analysis on each clause. You’ll then end up with a sentiment for each clause, as well as an overall sentiment score for the whole sentence, paragraph or document, depending on how advanced the social listening tool is.
2. **Competitor analysis**: a lot of social listening tools claim excellence in competitor analysis, yet a lot of them either aren’t aware of the issues around comparative opinions (as we’ve discussed) or perhaps they don’t quite know how to fix it. Parsey can help here, and while not 100% accurate, it can at least give you a much better breakdown of how people talk about you vs. your competitors. This will give you a better breakdown than what you’re used to with your current social listening tool, I’m sure.
3. **Aspects and features**: social listening tools can start playing with aspect-based sentiment analysis, i.e. determining the sentiment expressed on different aspects of entities. So, if someone wrote a blog post reviewing your latest product, imagine if your social listening could break down the product features listed in the post, and quickly tell you the sentiment towards each aspect? Just knowing that your brand or your product is mentioned positively or negatively without knowing what aspects make people jump to those conclusions isn’t good enough - if anything, you only have half the picture. I hope this piques the interests of several social listening vendors to provide better text analysis and sentiment analysis.
With all these great innovations coming out this year, I can confidently say that **there’s never been a better time to be a social analyst**.
But I’ll write on that some other day.
(You can read Google’s announcement [here](http://googleresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/announcing-syntaxnet-worlds-most.html?ref=benkellis.com), and more on sentiment analysis [here](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-sentiment-sentiment-analysis).)
### Let’s Talk About Social Analytics
URL: https://benkellis.com/lets-talk-social-analytics/
Last updated: 2016-03-29T09:54:20.000Z
I spoke at a Link Humans event last week, and it was all about social analytics and "drawing consumer insights from your social analytics".
Instead of picking just a topic, I thought I'd hold a "social analytics intervention", talking about a few things I need marketers and social analysts to be aware of in 2016\. Just four points, four slides, in 20 or less minutes.
For anyone who couldn't make it, for anyone who was there but would like a recap, or if you're just interested to know what I had to get off my chest, here's what I talked about.
## Get yourself a social analyst, or be ready to be one
You have at least two options:
- you can either have a dedicated social analyst, whose sole role revolves around social analytics and social intelligence, or
- have a social professional adapt social analytics to their role, thus having a hybrid role, like a community manager **and** social analyst, or a marketing manager **and** social analyst.
Companies that don't have much of a social budget then to go for the second option when it applies and when both roles can fit without overworking resources (remember that you're pretty much squeezing two job roles in one for one person to take over). Most others, however, are just happy going with the first option, having one person fully dedicated to social analytics.
Having been in hybrid roles (e.g. social and web analyst, social media manager and analyst) and in dedicated roles, I can definitely say that both options work as long as you take the right approach towards it.
Whether you're currently hiring for a social analyst, or you already do have resources allocated to this area, see social analytics as an essential part of your social media team, as essential as your IT department is for your company. Just like having an IT department is a no-brainer for most companies, social analytics should be viewed the same for your social media team/department - and ultimately for the whole company too.
Now, if you’re going to have a social analyst, you’re also going to have tools - but not just any.
## Get the right social analytics tool(s)
There is no perfect tool. There are great tools, good tools, capable tools, seriously underwhelming tools... The one thing that doesn't exist is the perfect social analytics tool (despite what a few social vendors may tell you).
What does exist, however, is a set of tools that fits perfectly within your social analytics requirements, and thus your business requirements.
Now, be critical of your tools: don’t be afraid to scrutinise tools that you want to procure, whether it’s a social management tool, a social analytics tool, a social listening tool or what have you.
When it's time to look for a tool, the first question you should be asking yourself isn't, "what tool should I go for?", but rather "what are my social requirements and my business requirements?". Only when you have the answer to that question you're safe to shop around for tools.
Do not shop around for tools without that list of requirements - you may get sales reps dictate what your requirements are in a way that favours them more than you. As a representative of your business, you should have the upper hand here. While these vendors' sales managers know more in terms of what works (and what doesn't) for companies today, and the visions of social intelligence that you should aspire to, don't let them dominate the procurement process.
What if you already have a social analytics tool? Ask yourself the following questions:
- Are you confident that your tools satisfy not only your current requirements, but also your social strategy 6 to 12 months from now?
- Do your tools give you Social [FOMO](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear%5Fof%5Fmissing%5Fout?ref=benkellis.com)? Do you feel confident that your vendor will inform you of important social media changes, how that may affect you, and how that may impact the tool? For instance, if you have a social analytics tool, have they told you whether they’re going to integrate with Facebook Reactions? Have they shared their plans with you? Do they have an opinion on how brands can incorporate them in their measurement? While Facebook Reactions rolled out in early March, it was only made available via their API in mid-March, which means that social tools can finally integrate with that feature, if they want to. Do you find yourself having to play catch-up with these features, or do you feel confident that your tool has you covered no matter what change will come tomorrow?
- Does your tool invest in social as much as you do? Some tools invest a lot in research and development, cooking up features that will be standard years from now. Features like going beyond textual search in social listening and being able to look out for images instead - what if you could spot your company logo in Instagram pictures, even if the caption doesn’t explicitly mention your name? Besides features that may come in handy in the future, think about social investment today too: if you see yourself investing heavily in social, yet your social analytics tool doesn't, thus lagging behind the (social) times, perhaps they're no good for you.
A great set of social analytics tools can help you become socially intelligent, which is linked to being a social brand. Speaking of social brands...
## Just because you have a social media team, doesn’t mean that your brand is social.
I repeat: **just because you have a social media team, doesn't mean that your brand is social**.
Having a social media team is definitely a good start, but that in itself won’t make your brand social. While the two are definitely linked, one doesn’t cause the other.
Now, if you want to know what makes a social brand (or a socially intelligent brand), I do have [a post on the Link Humans blog which you can check out in your own time](http://linkhumans.com/blog/socially-intelligent-brand?ref=benkellis.com). As it pertains to social analytics there a number of things you should ask yourself, things that are telling of whether your brand is really social or not:
- Are you ready to invest in social analytics?
- Are you reporting on insights, or are you just churning out reports?
- Are you active, reactive, or proactive? If you’re active, you’re early in the social maturity ladder; if you’re reactive, you’re ahead of a lot of brands out there, but not quite at the top; if you’re proactive then well done, you’re quite far high on the scale.
- Do you think in silos? I don't mean that as a buzzword, but do you have a singular view on everything you do? Look at your tools: are they entirely separate from each other with no chance of having them communicate with each other even if you wanted to? What about your reports: as an analyst, do you think about who else may benefit from your reports, or do you only see reports as individual solutions? Basically, do you report one-to-one or one-to-many?
- Do you think about social as a primary concern, pretty much second nature, or is it alway an after-thought, a burdensome tick on a checklist?
- Are your reports stuck in the past, or do you rely on actual insight from analysis?
- Does the business understand the role of social analytics and what the social analyst does, or is it just seen as a report-churning resource?
### Rethink how you report
Stop being stuck in the past. It’s easy for social analysts to keep reporting on what happened in the past, without thinking about what lies ahead, what’s going to happen in the future, what you’d like to do in the future, what you envision will happen 6 to 12 months from now...
Now, it’s important that we all understand what reporting actually is, and how it differs from analysis.
Reporting says what happened, while analysis says why it happened.
Reporting is overall descriptive, while analysis is prescriptive.
Reporting usually provides a very specific scope which is mostly backward-looking. Analysis should recommend what you can or should do to generate more or less of the same.
Reporting tells you what happened in the past, providing a great baseline from which to observe changes and trends. However, it is a backward view of the world. Being data-driven involves going beyond that - being forward-looking. To be forward-looking and engage in analysis, dig in, find out why the numbers are changing, and where appropriate make testable predictions or run experiments to gather more data.
## Understand what social analysts do
During the event, I asked for all social analysts to raise their hands up. I did first. After waiting a good 5-10 seconds I realised that I was the only social analyst there. While sad, I was not totally surprised, and it kinda proved my point: social analysts are the unicorns of social marketing.
Social analysts are hard to find, and when you do find them you’ll often find them being the only one doing what they do where they work. In fact, it's not unusual to find only one social analyst working for the whole company.
That can be exciting, being so indispensable that everyone will come to you for insights, being the "gatekeeper of social analytics", being the Gandalf of social data - that's absolutely great.
However, here’s one thing that both analysts and their managers need to understand: **analysts are decision-influencers, not decision-makers**. That’s whether you’re a social analyst, a data analyst, a business analyst, a data scientist, or any other analytics role - you’re the decision-influencer, not the decision maker.
https://twitter.com/chloesometimes/status/713085804541829120
Which is to say, your role is to provide a user interface between the data and the decision maker, because out of everyone in the company, the social analyst is the closest one to that social data.
When I say "user interface" I mean a medium that your stakeholder can use to understand that raw social data. That can be in the form of a report in PowerPoint, or an Excel spreadsheet, or a dashboard in [Tablo](http://www.tableau.com/?ref=benkellis.com) or in [Power BI](https://powerbi.microsoft.com/?ref=benkellis.com), or a dashboard in your social listening tool - as a social analyst, you decide the best medium on a case by case basis.
A good social analyst isn’t judged by how many reports they generate every week, but by how well they provide this interface - because any machine can churn out reports, any social tool can do it nowadays, but only an analyst can create that interface between social data and the decision maker.
> *?*
If you’re a decision maker and you hire an analyst to help influence your decisions based on data and strategic insights, yet you continue making decision based on gut, opinion and tradition ("*this is how we’ve also done it, so this is how we’ll keep doing it*"), your team is not data driven, and if that behaviour propagates across the whole company, your brand is definitely not data driven.
Change needs to happen before you can go past that hurdle. What drives that change? Culture. (Ultimately it’s behaviour, but behaviour feeds right into culture, so the answer here is culture.)
It’s the internal culture that sets the mindset and processes to take notice of those findings, trust them, and act upon them.
Now, once you’ve got the right culture in place, you do need a social analytics framework, a workflow that helps social analytics get from end to end - from social data getting into the analysts’ hands, to social insights driving business decisions.
While everyone can approach it differently, a social analytics framework involves the following 10 steps (feel free to remix them as you wish):
1. the social analyst collects the social data;
2. the social data feeds into the analyst's report;
3. the report sparks interest for deeper analysis;
4. the social analyst is there for that deeper analysis;
5. from that analysis, the social analyst surfaces insights - valuable recommendations that you can actually act upon, based on knowledge, experience and hindsight;
6. the analyst provides the decision maker with those insights;
7. the decision maker sees it, trusts it, and uses it for their own decision making (be it a business decision, a social strategy decision, or what have you);
8. the social insights influence the decision making, thus the direction that the company takes;
9. the company then takes a social data-driven step;
10. as a result, the business gets value and impact, and you - the social analyst - have just provided value and impact.
And *that* is what social analytics is all about.
### Social Listening Catch-All Queries
URL: https://benkellis.com/social-listening-catch-all-queries/
Last updated: 2015-10-25T23:32:57.000Z
The way you manage your Boolean queries differs from tool to tool. Some tools let you build queries that you can file in folders, like [Sprinklr](https://www.sprinklr.com/?ref=benkellis.com) with its *topics* and *topics groups*; other tools let you build queries and subqueries, as a way to categorise your search - so for a query looking into Apple products, you may have a subquery for each Apple product (tools like [Synthesio](http://www.synthesio.com/?ref=benkellis.com) support that functionality).
[Brandwatch](https://www.brandwatch.com/?ref=benkellis.com) handles queries differently, letting you set various filters (tags and categories) and rules around them to “supercharge” your dashboards.
The problem that plagues all of these tools, however, is that as time passes you end up with so many overlapping queries: you may find two or more queries covering the same topic (thus retrieving the same mentions), or multiple duplicate queries. The likelihood of this happening will only increase as you start sharing the platform with more users.
So, how do you manage queries to make sure that your social listening platform doesn’t get too unwieldy and cluttered with queries? I’ve seen a lot of social analysts use different ways to manage queries, but I’ve settled with one method that works best with me: **using a catch-all query**.
## What’s a Catch-All Query?
Instead of setting up different queries for different aspects of your brand, the catch-all query works as your “master query” that catches all these mentions. This query consolidates all the other queries that pull any mentions about your brand, making sure that you don’t have any duplicate mentions.
This catch-all query pulls in any mentions of anything related to your brand, including:
- **brand names**: the full brand name, any variations of it (used by yourselves and by consumers), and trading name. For example, brand names for [British Telecom](https://twitter.com/bt%5Fuk?ref=benkellis.com) include *"British Telecommunications" OR "British Telecoms"* (**full name**), *"BT"* (**variations used by the brand as well as its consumers**), and *"BT Group PLC” OR “BT-A.L"* (**trading name**).
- **brand products**: any products owned by you, both current and discontinued. You may choose to add any mentions of future products you know are going to be released, but remember you're sharing this query with other people who may not know this info, or may not have signed an [NDA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure%5Fagreement?ref=benkellis.com) for it.
- **brand services**: any services you provide, including customer services, consultations etc.
- **brand properties**: any mascots, buildings and other properties owned by your brand, e.g. in this case British Telecom may want to track mentions of their iconic [BT Tower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT%5FTower?ref=benkellis.com), including [its own Twitter account](https://twitter.com/bttowerlondon?ref=benkellis.com). Online properties are part of this too, so include any website(s) and other digital estates owned by your brand (e.g. apps).
- **brand social accounts**: usernames of all your social accounts.
- **brand people**: names of people in your C-suite (CEO, CMO, CTO, CXO and the rest), as well as any influential people working for the company or related to it. For instance, a catch-all query for Microsoft would definitely include [Satya Nadella](https://twitter.com/satyanadella?ref=benkellis.com) (CEO), as well as [Bill Gates](https://twitter.com/BillGates?ref=benkellis.com) and [Steve Ballmer](https://twitter.com/Steven%5FBallmer?ref=benkellis.com) only when mentioned in the context of Microsoft. Provided your tool supports proximity operators, you would end up with this as part of your query:
"Satya Nadella" OR (("Bill Gates" OR "Steve Ballmer") NEAR/10 Microsoft
Add anything else that may be relevant and related to your brand, including things that people mention in that context.
## Managing the Catch-All Query
One of the benefits of having a catch-all query is that you don’t have to fiddle with so many queries just to get by: you know that all mentions about anything brand-related are pulled by this one query, so you don't have to wonder which query to edit, and you only need to make one change once.
For this method to work you need to have a few rules in place:
1. **Update**: this catch-all query must always be up to date. If anything new happens with your brand (e.g. a new CEO, a new product release), you need to add the relevant keywords to the query. By doing so, you know that dashboards built on top of this query are always current. Related to this, make sure you also review the query from time to time, to make sure that it’s still working for you, and to make sure that it’s not pulling in any unwanted mentions.
2. **Ownership**: whoever creates the catch-all query is officially the owner of the query. However, ownership goes beyond being the one who created the query: you’re also responsible for its maintenance. Feel free to share this responsibility with others, but don't spread this responsibility too thinly: the people who can edit this query need to be well versed in the tool, knowing how to update the query without breaking its logic. Also, when it comes to giving someone admin access to this query, remember they may be able to delete the query too, so choose wisely.
> *A few tools out there, like* [*Brandwatch*](https://www.brandwatch.com/?ref=benkellis.com)*, will let you "lock" queries, so you can rest assured that only authorised people can make changes to the query.* [*When a query is locked, only admins can make any changes to that query*](https://www.brandwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Whats-Next-August-Update.pdf?ref=benkellis.com)*, and as you wouldn’t give admin permissions to anyone left and right, it’s one way to prevent any unwanted changes to this query.*
1. **Audit**: this master query may end up powering the majority of your dashboards, so you need to make sure that you keep an eye on any changes made to it. Depending on which tool you're using, you may or may not be able to do full audits (e.g. seeing the full list of who edited what and when). Auditing this query also means making sure that the query isn’t pulling more mentions than you can afford based on your allowance (not to worry about if you have unlimited mentions).
2. **Visibility**: changes you make to this query can have a big impact on other people’s dashboards. Bear in mind that people might have dashboards they rely on for their reporting, some might get their performance scores, baselines and KPIs from these dashboards. What may appear as a small change to you could dramatically change these metrics for them. Send out an email to let your other team members know that you’ve updated the catch-all query, and how you’ve updated it: that will assure them that the query and dashboards that feed from it are always up-to-date. Even though the rest of your team won’t be able to make changes to the query, have workflows in place that let these team members suggest addition for other changes to the query.
## Before You Replace Your Old Queries
Using this method could dramatically change the way you manage your queries for the better. What about all the queries that may be replaced by this catch-all query? Before you go ahead and delete them, make sure you store them somewhere safe. I’ve used repositories in the past to save all my queries, and I still do.
Here are some of the tools I recommend:
- [**Evernote**](http://evernote.com/?ref=benkellis.com) (Windows, Mac): create a notebook to save all queries, and tag them based on their purpose so you can easily access them later.
- [**OneNote**](http://onenote.com/?ref=benkellis.com) (Windows, Mac): similarly to Evernote, create a notebook to save all your queries.
- [**Snippets Lab**](https://www.renfei.org/snippets-lab/?ref=benkellis.com) (Mac): an easy-to-use repository for queries. This tool lets you add your own notes too throughout the query, a great way to explain the logic behind how you’ve built the query (especially if you’ll need to refer to it later on).
- [**Quiver**](http://happenapps.com/%23quiver?ref=benkellis.com) (Mac): heavyweight code repository, which lets you mix queries and notes too. A trial is available for this too, if you want to test it before purchasing.
- [**Brackets**](http://brackets.io/?ref=benkellis.com) (Windows, Mac): an open-source code editor where you can write up your queries.
I currently use a combination of [Brackets](http://brackets.io/?ref=benkellis.com) and [Dropbox](https://www.dropbox.com/?ref=benkellis.com), both of which I can use on my personal laptop (Mac) as well as my work laptop (Windows): I write my queries in [Brackets](http://brackets.io/?ref=benkellis.com), and save them all in their dedicated folder in [Dropbox](https://www.dropbox.com/?ref=benkellis.com). I can always see these in Brackets, where I can always see queries side by side (to track changes or just make comparisons) and work on them, while knowing that any changes are saved immediately to Dropbox (cloud FTW!).
### Social Listening for Products with Similar Names
URL: https://benkellis.com/social-listening-with-similar-names/
Last updated: 2015-10-11T23:01:46.000Z
When doing social listening, how do you track mentions of products with similar names? Or better, how do you do social listening for two products when one’s name is just a variant of the other? Products like the
iPhone 6S
and
iPhone 6SPlus
, or the
Microsoft Surface
and
Microsoft SurfaceBook
, or the
Lumia 950
and
Lumia 950XL
…
If you’re looking for mentions of both products together, then you won’t have any issues with a query like this:
“iphone 6S” OR “iphone 6S
plus
”
You won’t have any issues looking for mentions of the variant either
“iPhone 6S plus”
What is tricky, however, is searching for mentions of the product whose name is included in the variant name. In other words, searching for mentions of “iPhone 6S Plus” is much easier than searching for mentions of “iPhone 6S” , as searching for the latter will return mentions for both products.
In other words,
“iPhone 6S” = (“iphone 6S” OR “iphone 6S plus”)
> **“Variant**
A
”**Variant**
AB
**and*So, what if you only want to look at mentions about **Variant**
A
without bringing up mentions of **“Variant**
AB
”?
## Real Case Scenario: Microsoft Surface
I recently wanted to see mentions of the new Surface Pro 4 during its launch event on 6th October. While I could’ve just used this query… "surface pro 4" …I knew that it would only limit my search. As I soon found out, only a small percentage of people used the full name of the new Surface (“surface pro 4”) throughout the event.
During the same event Microsoft released another product called Surface Book. Due to that, doing a search for “
Surface
” would return mentions of both the
**Surface**
(tablet) as well as the
**Surface** *Book*
(laptop). Two different products with similar names, the first one being “**Variant**
A
” and the second being “**Variant**
A B
”.
The problem here is that I don’t want to see mentions of the Surface Book unless it’ s for a good reason, like people comparing the Surface to the Surface Book: while the Surface Book is being mentioned, the overall mention is about the Surface. So, how do we approach the query?
Here’s where [the NEAR operator](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/on-boolean-proximity-operators) comes to the rescue. The query would then be:
(surface -"surface book")OR (surface NEAR/15f "surface book”)OR (“surface book” NEAR/15f surface)
What we’re saying with this query is essentially:
**“I want to find all mentions of Surface as long as the Surface Book isn’t mentioned, or mentions of the Surface as long as it’s mentioned close to the Surface Book.”**
## Why “NEAR” and not “AND surface book"?
Could we use the following query instead? (surface -“surface book”) OR (surface AND “surface book”) This query tells the tool:
“**I want to find all mentions of Surface as long as the Surface Book isn’t mentioned, or** *mentions of the Surface as long as it’s mentioned with Surface Book in the same page*.”
That wouldn’t work for two reasons: **relevance and Boolean interpretation**.
First of all, **relevance**. As mentioned [in my previous post](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/on-boolean-proximity-operators), if we’re looking for mentions of the Surface and Surface Book together in a relevant context, then the **NEAR** operator is a much better alternative to **AND**. We don’t just want to see mentions of the two keywords mentioned in the same page, we’re only interested in the two keywords mentioned together in a relevant context (e.g. used together in comparison).
Secondly, **Boolean interpretation** is a key factor, i.e. how the query is interpreted through Boolean logic. When doing a search for "surface **AND** book", we’re telling a tool to do the following:
- scan a page: does it contain the keyword surface? If so, continue;
- scan the same page: does it also contain the keyword book? If so, return as a valid mention.
However, when doing a search for "surface book" AND surface (which is the same as surface AND “surface book”), we’re telling the tool to do this:
- scan a page: does it contain the "surface book"? If so, continue;
- scan the same page: does it also contain the keyword surface? If so return as a valid mention.
Due to that logic, a page that mentions “
surfacebook
” also mentions “
surface
” by default, as the word “
surface
” is contained in “
surfacebook
”.
All of that is different from “
surface
NEAR/xf “
surfacebook
””, where **x** is any number higher than or equal to 0, and where **f** tells the tool to look for the presence of that keyword **f**ollowing the first one. Thus, this part of our original query…(surface NEAR/15f "surface book”)OR (“surface book” NEAR/15f surface)
tells the social listening tool to do the following:
- scan a page: does it contain the keyword surface? if so, continue;
- scan x words before and after surface \- is surface book present in either direction? If so, return as a valid mention.
## Why the direction parameter?
In other words, why use the following: (surface NEAR/15f "surface book") OR ("surface book" NEAR/15f surface) when we could use (surface NEAR/15 “surface book”) ?
Because the latter, while shorter than the former, has a very similar logic to what we previously discussed about the **AND** operator.
Try it: search for…
surface NEAR/
x
“surface book”
…and choose any number to replace the
x
. It can be
0, 1, 5, 10, 20, 50
\- you’ll get the same number of results.
For instance,
(surface NEAR/
15
“surface book”)
returns 93,519 mentions for the past 8 days. I can swap the
15
with any other number, and I’ll still get 93,519\. I’ll also get exactly the same results using the following:(surface AND “surface book”)
We only see a difference and a considerably lower number of results when we add a
direction parameter
(
**f**
):(surface NEAR/
nf
"surface book") OR ("surface book" NEAR/
nf
surface)
If I choose
15
as my distance parameter (
n=15
), I get 22,692 mentions. Compare that to our initial 93,519 and you’ll see that only 24% of those mentions are the ones we really need.
## How Does This Affect Me?
This post focused on the Microsoft Surface, but you can apply the same logic to other products with “**Variant**
A
” and “**Variant**
AB
” naming. While this might seem as a niche search, there are so many other products out there that use a similar naming convention, where one product name is just a variant of another.
Back to the Surface example, I had a feeling that just searching for “surface pro 4” would limit the number of mentions, and I was right: **only 15% of people who talked about the new Surface called it the “Surface Pro 4”**, and most of them weren’t actually “people” but just press articles that had to refer to the product with its full name. Using the NEAR operator I was able to find all the mentions I needed.
This example shows the importance of having a social listening tool that can help you when it comes to complex queries like that, to make sure that you don’t have to sift through unnecessary mentions, and to make sure that you can create queries that are as targeted and accurate as possible. After all, the quality of the mentions you receive is just as good as the quality of the query you create.
> ***(microsoft OR windows10devices)***
### Proximity Operators (and Why You Need Them)
URL: https://benkellis.com/on-boolean-proximity-operators/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:44:39.000Z
There are so many features to look out for when shopping for social listening tools, but one thing that should definitely be on your list of requirements is this: **proximity operators**. Here’s what they are and why you need them.
## What are proximity operators?
If you’ve ever had to build a social listening query then you may be familiar with the **AND**, **OR**, and **NOT** Boolean operators (technically the parentheses and quotes are operators too, but they don’t get as much recognition).
There’s another Boolean operator: **NEAR**, the **proximity operator**. This specifies that two words must be within a certain distance of each other. It’s useful for when you need to contextualise your search, or if you’re looking for two keywords/topics that may sometimes appear in the same page but not in relation to each other.
For example, there have been over 33,400 Tweets about the Microsoft Surface so far this month, yet only 22% of them have the words “*Microsoft*” and “*Surface*” right next to each other. In 78% of those 33.4k mentions, there’s at least one word (or letter) separating “*Microsoft*” from “*Surface*”:
- 42% of people who mention the Surface also mention Microsoft nearby, almost to clarify which tablet is being talked about (this is not unusual for products that are named after a common name):
https://twitter.com/TheNextWeb/statuses/643564061351936000
https://twitter.com/gamespot/statuses/643605085549907968
https://twitter.com/STLouisRams/statuses/644119804543000577
- 35% of all Tweets call the tablet “Microsoft’s Surface”, thus separating the two keywords with the possessive “’s”:
https://twitter.com/tomwarren/statuses/641709305796931584
Not everyone is going to mention a product, a brand or a topic the same way that you would. Merely searching for “
*Microsoft Surface*
” would’ve surfaced not even a third of all the mentions you need. That’s when the proximity operator comes in handy: with it you can just tell your tool that you’re looking for the words “
*Microsoft*
” and “
*Surface*
” as long as they’re close by, even if they’re not adjacent:
microsoft NEAR surface
## How do proximity operators work?
The **NEAR** operator is normally made up of two components:
- **distance parameter**, usually a number (≥0) (e.g. keyword1 **NEAR/5** keyword2); the number dictates the proximity between words, i.e. how many words separate keyword1 from keyword2;
- **direction parameter**, usually just a letter (e.g. keyword1 **NEAR/5f** keyword2) or a predefined set of words (e.g. keyword1 **FOLLOWED BY** keyword2); this dictates the direction where the proximity is sought, i.e. to the left or to the right of keyword1.
For instance:
- juice **NEAR/5** orange returns any mentions that contain “juice” and “orange” within 5 words of each other;
- juice **NEAR/5f** apple (we can interpret “f” as “following” or “forward”) returns any mentions where “apple” appears **after** “juice”, with 5 or fewer terms in between.
This isn’t limited to social listening tools: this can be done in most tools that let you search through text using Boolean logic. While the format of proximity operators may differ from tool to tool, its presence is crucial for contextual searches, so much that numerous databases, utilities, and web search engines let you use proximity operators. For instance:
- you can use the format keyword1 **near:n** keyword2 in Bing, e.g. [“apple near:5 “operating system””](http://www.bing.com/search?q=apple+near%3A5+%22operating+system%22&go=Submit&qs=n&form=QBRE&pq=apple+near%3A5+%22operating+system%22&sc=8-31&sp=-1&sk=&cvid=29a7842f0df441b89864e97c35fc7650&ref=benkellis.com) will only find search results where Apple and “operating system” are within 5 words of each other;
- Yandex omits the word “**NEAR**” altogether but you can define the distance parameter using the format keyword1 **/n** keyword2, e.g. [“apple /5 “operating system””](https://www.yandex.com/search/?text=apple%20%2F5%20%22operating%20system%22&lr=10393&ref=benkellis.com).
If either parameter is missing from the operator, then the parameter is irrelevant. So, if I write
juice **NEAR/5** orange
I don’t care if “*orange*” is found within 5 words before “*juice*” or after it. While the same applies to the distance parameter (e.g.
juice **NEAR** orange
), it’s quite rare to find tools that don’t require a distance parameter nowadays.
Every search/monitoring/listening tool is different, and as such the format of the proximity operator will differ from tool to tool. Check with your vendor on how to make the most of this operator and how best to format it for your searches.
## How is NEAR better than AND?
**NEAR** is a lot better than **AND** for so many reasons, but here’s the main one: **AND** looks out for two keywords in the same page, while **NEAR** makes sure that those keywords are close by for relevance and context.
**NEAR** helps you weed out most (if not all) irrelevant mentions, making sure you’re putting the right context to words that may otherwise be too ambiguous or irrelevant together.
**NEAR** is incredibly valuable when looking out for mentions outside of Twitter and Facebook. When using “**AND**” you may find a lot of press releases, blog posts or forum posts where two words just happen to be mentioned in the same page, without being related.
For example, if you search for
microsoft AND iPhone
you’ll find [this article from The Verge](http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/28/9407617/lg-gram-microsoft-signature-edition-laptop-us-release-date-price?ref=benkellis.com) for one reason alone: while the article talks about Microsoft, you’ll find the “*more from The Verge*” section right at the end of the article where one link just happens to contain the word “*iPhone*” (first link from bottom).
The iPhone clearly has nothing to do with the article, but you’ll still end up with this as a search result for your query - after all both Microsoft *and* iPhone are mentioned in the same page.
Meanwhile, the query
microsoft **NEAR/5** iPhone
will give you a link like [this one](http://www.technobuffalo.com/2015/09/25/microsoft-invite-is-latest-iphone-app-from-microsoft-garage/?ref=benkellis.com), where the article talks about Microsoft and the iPhone. The two keywords are related due to proximity, making **NEAR** a much better option than **AND**.
## On Distance Parameters
How close should two words be to be relevant? In other words, what number should you put after **NEAR/**?
I usually go for the following rule of thumb:
- **0**: to find keywords right next to each other;
- **between 3-5**: to find keywords in the same phrase;
- **10, 15**: to find keywords in the same sentence;
- **30, 40, 50**: to find keywords in the same paragraph.
### “Isn’t NEAR/0 the same as using the quotes operator?”
Writing
keyword1 **NEAR/0** keyword2
is not the same as writing as "keyword1 keyword2, although the results may overlap.
This is for two reasons: first of all, while two keywords under quotes will be found in that same order (e.g.
"keyword1 keyword2"
), using the proximity operator and 0 as the distance parameter will return any occurrences of those words whether one directly follows or precedes the other. So,
keyword1 NEAR/0 keyword2 = ("keyword1 keyword2") **OR** ("keyword2 keyword1")
Secondly, **NEAR/0** can often make your query more manageable, especially if you’re dealing with repetitive keywords or phrases. For example, if we’re looking for mentions of the main Microsoft Office applications, instead of writing the following
"microsoft word" **OR** "microsoft excel" **OR** "microsoft access" **OR** "microsoft powerpoint" **OR** "microsoft outlook"...
…you can start with the **constant** (the main word that keeps repeating, “*microsoft*”) and put the variables (the only words that change, e.g. “*excel*”, “*access*”, “*word*”) linked together by the OR operator, within parentheses:
microsoft **NEAR/0** (word **OR** excel **OR** access **OR** powerpoint **OR** outlook)
*(cue the distributive property.)*
This is just one example of how the **NEAR** operator makes queries not only more accurate but more manageable too, essential if you’re under a character limit constraints for building queries.
Proximity searches are invaluable when doing social listening. Should your social listening tool have a way to let you do this? Yes, and if it doesn’t already I’d ask your vendor if this is something they’re planning to do anytime soon.
### Using 'NOT' and Brandwatch Lists to Filter Data
URL: https://benkellis.com/using-not-and-brandwatch-lists-to-filter-data/
Last updated: 2015-08-02T20:13:28.000Z
One question I recently had from a few work colleagues was about the use of the
**NOT**
operator in Brandwatch dashboards, and how that differs from using Brandwatch lists.
If you’re already a Brandwatch user then you may be familiar with their lists: **site lists**, **author lists**, **location lists**. These help you group sites, authors and locations so you can later filter your data based on the lists you’ve curated. (You can find more info about it [here](https://www.brandwatch.com/filtering-and-lists/?ref=benkellis.com).)
However, if you have a dashboard and you exclude authors via an author list or if you exclude them right in the query (using the
**author:**
operator), you’ll get the same result: you won’t see mentions from those people anywhere in your dashboard. The same applies when using the
**site:**
operator vs. filtering out site lists, and using the 5 location operators (
**city:**
,
**county:**
,
**state:**
,
**country:**
,
**continent:**
) vs. filtering out location lists.
I’ve seen a few Brandwatch users filtering lists out instead of using the
**NOT**
operator to exclude mentions, mainly when it comes to long lists of parameters (authors, locations or sites). For instance, if you have a really long list of authors, you can add them to a list which you can use to quickly filter their mentions out, instead of dumping all of those names in the query, especially if you don’t have enough space left in the query builder.
So, what’s essentially the difference between the two? Are there any advantages in using the custom operators rather than filtering out by lists?
## Excluding vs. Filtering out
**Lists don’t really exclude mentions, they merely filter them out**, and that makes a huge difference. The
**NOT**
operator makes sure that Brandwatch doesn’t pull those mentions at all if they’re from the authors/locations/sites you don’t want to see. On the other hand, the author list looks at those mentions you already have, finds the mentions that match those lists, and hides them from your dashboard. All your components will update accordingly: figures, charts, everything else. However, take off the author list exclusions and you’ll see those mentions again.
## So, which one’s better?
Lists are a great way to filter your data, but you should really use them for more than just permanent exclusions. If you’re unsure of which option to go for, chances are you can use more effective ways to exclude mentions, like the following:
- **can you afford to have Brandwatch collect those mentions, even if you’re not going to need them later?** If you already have a small data allowance, or you’re struggling to stay within your monthly allowance, then perhaps you should just exclude those mentions from those authors/locations/sites at a query level;
- **do you need those mentions from those authors/locations/sites at all?** If not, then you can safely delete those mentions at a query level.
- **does anyone sharing the same project need to see those mentions?** If you’re sharing a project with other people then you might not want to “tamper” with a shared query, and have your own lists to exclude mentions you don’t need instead. Other users sharing that query might need to see those mentions after all, and any changes you make to the query will affect everything that it powers (dashboards, alerts, Vizia screens etc.). Sure, you could duplicate the query so you can add your exclusions to it (thus leaving the main query intact), but bear in mind that Brandwatch will see the mentions from both queries as separate. So, if Query A has 1,000 mentions and the duplicate Query A1 (which is a copy of Query A + your exclusions) has 800 mentions, Brandwatch will take off 1,800 (Query A + Query A1) from your data allowance. You may not need to worry about data usage if you have unlimited data, but you may want to use your query allowance sparingly, in which case I suggest using rules and/or lists.
- **does the list of authors make you go over your query character limit?** Brandwatch has a limit of 5,000 characters per query. While that covers most of your needs (especially with the advanced operators, which we’ll talk about in the next post), you may run out of characters if you have a really complex query (and I know a thing or two about those). If that’s the main reason why you’re considering using lists, the first thing I’d recommend is reviewing your query. You may be using a lot of space unnecessarily: try and condense your query if you can, by using the advanced Boolean operators. So, for example, say we want to exclude all Buzzfeed Twitter accounts from our query. There are at least two things we can do:
- instead of listing all Buzzfeed accounts ([there are quite a few of them](https://twitter.com/search?f=users&q=buzzfeed&src=typd&ref=benkellis.com)), we can use the "**\***" operator, so by writing **NOT author:buzzfeed\***, Brandwatch will exclude all Twitter accounts that begin with Buzzfeed (and most of Buzzfeed Twitter accounts do). However, if you’ve ran out of characters in your query and you *really* need a few more, use rules to delete the mentions you don’t need. Rules are a clever way to use an extra 5,000 characters on top of your query. You can keep your query as it is, and then list your exclusions as a rule that deletes all mentions that match your rule query. **Please note*: the rule won’t stop the query from capturing the mentions you don’t need; the rule will simply delete the mentions you don’t need after Brandwatch has captured them.*
- another tip is grouping all the authors together. While most Buzzfeed Twitter accounts start with “Buzzfeed”, there’s also a number of “secondary accounts” that don’t follow that rule (e.g. [@YrBFF](https://twitter.com/YrBFF?ref=benkellis.com), [@CocoaButterBF](https://twitter.com/cocoabutterbf?ref=benkellis.com)). Instead of writing “**NOT author:**” every time you want to exclude an author...
**buzzfeed NOT author:buzzfeed***
**NOT author:YrBFF NOT author:CocoaButterBF**...
...you can group them all by writing...
**buzzfeed**
**NOT author:(buzzfeed* OR YrBFF OR CocoaButterBF)**...
(cue: [distributive property](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributive%5Fproperty?ref=benkellis.com).) That’ll save you a few characters.
### Brandwatch Unveils New "links:" Operator
URL: https://benkellis.com/brandwatch-unveils-new-links-operator/
Last updated: 2015-07-10T20:32:47.000Z
Brandwatch have unveiled a new feature: they’ve introduced a new Boolean operator that lets you retrieve any Tweets containing links to a website, **even if the links have been shortened**. You can read more about it in their official announcement [**here**](https://www.brandwatch.com/2015/07/brandwatch-updates-introducing-the-new-links-operator/?ref=benkellis.com).
What makes this operator so special is the second part of its definition: *“even if the links have been shortened”*. The vast majority of social monitoring tools can only retrieve links as long as they haven’t been shortened by a URL shortener like [bit.ly](https://bitly.com/?ref=benkellis.com), Buffer’s buff.ly, Hootsuite’s [ow.ly](http://ow.ly/url/shorten-url?ref=benkellis.com), and several more. Brandwatch is now one of the very few tools to retrieve all links, whether they’ve been shortened or not. To illustrate why this makes a huge difference it I’ll use the Brandwatch website as an example.
## Before links:
Previously, if you wanted to know how many people linked to your site on Twitter through Brandwatch, you had to do a search for **\[site\] site:twitter**. So, to find out how many Tweets contain links to the Brandwatch site, I’d write the following Brandwatch query:
> “brandwatch.com”
site:
twitterRunning that query, I’ll see that **114 Tweets** linked to [brandwatch.com](https://www.brandwatch.com/?ref=benkellis.com) in the last 8 days. Besides linking to the Brandwatch site, those Tweets have another thing in common: all the links in those Tweets are unshortened, like in the following Tweet…
https://twitter.com/jimmyrey/status/618424466671054848
We’re missing out on Tweets from people who have shortened any links from brandwatch.com. Thankfully, Brandwatch use a branded short domain, which means that when you shorten a link from their site, it’ll *often* begin with **brnw.ch/**, like in the following Tweet…
https://twitter.com/MelTaylorUK/statuses/616279371796619264
I could then tweak my original query to include those Tweets too:
> (“brandwatch.com” OR “brnw.ch”)
site:
twitterI now get **446 Tweets** linking to the Brandwatch site (a big jump from the previous 114), and only a quarter of them contain unshortened links.
Is that all?
## With links:
We’re missing a big chunk of Tweets. We’ve not accounted for **vanity URLs** (e.g.[tnw.co](http://tnw.co/?ref=benkellis.com) linking to [http://thenextweb.com](http://thenextweb.com/?ref=benkellis.com)) and other **shortened URLs**.
Now that we have the handy **links:** operator, we can finally have full visibility of all Tweets linking to any site. So, using Brandwatch again as an example, I can now run the following query:
links:
brandwatchI now have **969 mentions** \- a lot more than what we found before the **links:** operator.
A lot of social tools and platforms shorten URLs for you when you post, and not all of them will defer to your branded short domain (if you have one). **links:** tackles that problem, showing you all Tweets linking to your site, whether those links are unshortened, branded, or shortened via a URL shortener or social tool like **Klout**…
https://twitter.com/LJ\_Blanchard/statuses/616518474769170432
**Bit.ly**…
https://twitter.com/LoriMoreno/statuses/616305282839244800
**Hootsuite**…
https://twitter.com/WorkMobile/statuses/616517973587722240
**LinkedIn’s “share to Twitter”**…
https://twitter.com/Chris\_P\_Silva/statuses/616650194134798336
…**Oktopost**…
https://twitter.com/BW\_React/status/617369833496297472
## Is This a Big Deal?
It sure is: before Brandwatch introduced the **links:** operator, we would’ve only spotted less than half of all Tweets linking to the Brandwatch site (46% to be precise). The same applies to any website out there. For instance, for the same period of 8 days, here are how many links were shared on Twitter from some of the most trafficked sites out there:
- **New York Times**: 581k Twitter shares, 75% coming from shortened links;
- **Washington Post**: 102k Twitter shares, 77% coming from shortened links;
- **The Next Web**: 78k Twitter shares, 90% coming from shortened links;
- **Buzzfeed**: 92k Twitter shares, 56% coming from shortened links;
- **Mashable**: 210k Twitter shares, 88% coming from shortened links;
- **TechCrunch**: 151k Twitter shares, 92% coming from shortened links;
- **Amazon**: 1.2m Twitter shares, 54% coming from shortened links;
- **BBC**: 1.2m Twitter shares, 76% coming from shortened links.
I could go on and on, but it’s pretty clear that shortened links are increasingly becoming the medium people use to share links, especially since they don’t even have to think about it: most social tools, plugins and platforms will shorten links automatically, and chances are if the site contains sharing buttons, the links will automatically shorten them.
With URL shortening tools like bit.ly shortening [nearly half a billion links per month](https://bitly.com/pages/about?ref=benkellis.com), it’s extremely important to have a view of those links when you’re looking at who’s driving traffic to your site. Ignoring shortened links will only give you half the picture, and if those stats are any indication, what you might get for your own site probably won’t even amount to half the picture.
Thanks to the **links:** operator, you can now fully measure the success of your content marketing and social reach on Twitter.
## Part of a Bigger Plan
Brandwatch have added custom operators in the past, but **links:** is nothing like them. **links:** is part of a bigger plan, a plan that Brandwatch has been crafting for some time now. In fact, **links:** is closer to its [**Signals**](https://www.brandwatch.com/signals/?ref=benkellis.com) product than any of the other 12 operators in Brandwatch.
[**Signals**](https://www.brandwatch.com/signals/?ref=benkellis.com) is two steps ahead of your query, [finding any related nuances that you may find relevant](https://www.brandwatch.com/2015/03/launching-signals/?ref=benkellis.com), even if they don’t exactly match your query. Similarly, **links:** finds any mentions of people sharing your content, even if they don’t explicitly mention your name, your brand or your products. Both [**Signals**](https://www.brandwatch.com/signals/?ref=benkellis.com) and **links:** were built to uncover mentions beyond the obvious, helping you see the full extent of your social reach.
Both **Signals** and **links:** are signs of a major restructure that is underway for Brandwatch - call it Brandwatch 2.0 if you like (you can find out more about it [here](https://www.brandwatch.com/2015/07/enterprise-social-intelligence-mission?ref=benkellis.com)).
Brandwatch already does more than matching queries, but they’re now going to turbo-charge their platform by tackling five main areas:
1. **conversations** (what’s being said about you, and why?),
2. **people** (who’s talking about you?),
3. **places** (where are you being talked about?),
4. **images** (looking at conversations around your brand through pictures and videos),
5. **ROI** (what’s my social value?).
This is exciting for a number of reasons:
- **Social Intelligence 2.0**: Brandwatch is already what I call a social intelligence tool, going beyond what most social monitoring and social listening tools do, uncovering social insights for those who aren’t satisfied with data at face value. Brandwatch is now planning to join more dots now, stepping further away from traditional social listening tools (Brandwatch has never been “traditional” anyway, in my opinion): whether it’s trawling for pictures and videos to find content about you, or beefing up their already robust platform, expect this social intelligence tool to become even smarter;
- **Social ROI**: this is still a mystery for quite a few marketers, for various reasons. It doesn’t help that a lot of social tools, blogs and social events preach their own ways of calculating social ROI, with each method giving you a different result. It’ll be interesting to see how Brandwatch tackles this area;
- **PeerIndex**: remember PeerIndex? [Brandwatch acquired them a while ago](https://www.brandwatch.com/peerindex-and-brandwatch/?ref=benkellis.com) (late 2014), and we haven’t heard much about it since, [besides the promise of it being integrated in the platform sometime in the near future](http://blog.peerindex.com/azeem-brandwatch/?ref=benkellis.com). Well, it looks like that time is getting close: [Brandwatch promising to let you create custom audiences and segments to better understand your audience](https://www.brandwatch.com/2015/07/enterprise-social-intelligence-mission/?ref=benkellis.com) is a hint that we’ll finally see PeerIndex reincarnated, somehow, in the Brandwatch platform. Judging by what PeerIndex used to be pre-acquisition and judging by [the analyses they’ve been Tweeting out from their new Twitter handle](https://twitter.com/BW%5FReact?ref=benkellis.com), it looks like Brandwatch are going to make their demographics, psychographics and location analysis bigger and better.
The future looks amazing for Brandwatch, and this is only the beginning - once again.
### The State of Social Media Analytics - 2015
URL: https://benkellis.com/the-state-of-social-media-analytics-2015/
Last updated: 2015-06-15T01:31:01.000Z
I’ve been reading quite a few articles on “the state of social media” recently. They’re interesting, I can’t help but notice how a lot of these articles seem to ignore analytics, which is a shame considering how great the last 6 months have been for social analytics.
If the first 6 months were busy with changes from social platforms, acquisitions (e.g. Sprinklr, Clarabridge), new platforms coming up (e.g. Meerkat, Periscope), old platforms going through major makeovers (e.g. Pinterest, Google+), new data being made available (e.g. Facebook and Datasift), I can only imagine what’s in store for the next 6 months ahead of us.
Here are a few examples:
- **Facebook**: [Facebook opened up a firehose of data to Datasift earlier this year](http://datasift.com/press-releases/DataSift-Partners-with-Facebook/?ref=benkellis.com), unleashing a whole new potential that was previously untapped. Unlike with the previous Graph API (v 1.0), this new partnership allows the aggregation of non-public posts (status updates) as well as public posts, likes and comments. You can get richer demographics based on audiences engaging on a specific topic, in real time too if you fancy. While you can’t directly use that information to target ads on Facebook (there’s no integration between DataSift and Facebook’s advertising platform…yet), nothing stops you from using that topic data analysis as a basis for your marketing content, advertising, and reporting too, to better understand who your Facebook audience is. Just think of the many ways analysts and marketers can repurpose that data. [Pulsar](http://www.pulsarplatform.com/?ref=benkellis.com), a UK-based social monitoring platform, [has already partnered with Datasift to get to that data](http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2015/06/04/pulsar-partners-with-datasift-to-bring-facebook-topic-data-to-its-social-media-monitoring-platform/?ref=benkellis.com), and it’s only a matter of time until you start hearing of other big social companies and agencies following suit.
- **Twitter**: [despite cutting off the Twitter firehose away from resellers](http://thenextweb.com/dd/2015/04/11/twitter-cuts-off-firehose-resellers-as-it-brings-data-access-fully-in-house/?ref=benkellis.com), Twitter is being more open with its data as it brings its access fully in-house. That’s especially the case when it comes to advertising (e.g. [app data](https://blog.twitter.com/ja/node/6078?ref=benkellis.com)) and analytics, much more than before: look at the regular updates to their analytics dashboard, look at the new [Twitter Curator tool](https://blog.twitter.com/2015/introducing-curator-a-new-way-to-find-and-display-great-twitter-content?ref=benkellis.com), which is basically a social listening tool for publishers; look at the most recent additions to their analytics platform, such as the [Audience Insights tool](http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2015/05/27/twitter-unveils-audience-insights-to-detail-follower-demographics-interests-and-behaviors/?ref=benkellis.com), [giving marketers and advertisers a deeper understanding of their audience](https://blog.twitter.com/2015/introducing-audience-insights?ref=benkellis.com): that is just one step away from adding psychographics to not only understand gender and location, but also interests, [real-time intent to purchase](https://blog.twitter.com/ja/node/6074?ref=benkellis.com), behaviour and propensity to become a customer or churn.
- **Sentiment analysis**: with sentiment analysis being a huge passion of mine it comes as no surprise that I’m really excited to see more investment going towards text analysis. Look around and you’ll see a questionable lack in text analytics unicorns (more on this [here](http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/03/where-are-the-text-analytics-unicorns/?ref=benkellis.com)). While my bets have always been on Clarabridge being acquired, [it was interesting to see them acquiring Engagor](http://www.clarabridge.com/press/clarabridge-acquires-engagor-real-time-social-customer-service-and-engagement-platform/?ref=benkellis.com) just recently, in a sudden twist of events. Sentiment analysis hasn’t seen much innovation in a long time, and a lot of social analytics tools (social listening included) have been resting on their laurels when it comes to it. Some social listening tools exclude it completely from their platform, citing “linguistic inaccuracies” as their primary reason. However, with this investment in text analytics not only will we see smarter algorithms towards a better accuracy and understanding of linguistic nuances, but vendors can also start seeing that social content goes beyond the linguistic constructs that we’re used to. So far most tools have been taking sentiment as a binary measure (positive vs. negative), but what about the underlining tone? What about the underlining emotion (positive as in happy, satisfied, content or excited? Negative as in angry, disappointed, frustrated or indifferent?) What about the strength of the sentiment (“being tired of something” and “being livid” are both negative, yet they’re not close on the sentiment scale)?
- **Social media and linguistics**: closely related to the previous point, it’s great to see more researches on linguistic nuances on social media, and as a linguistic aficionado I’m thrilled to see more linguists, data scientists and vendors coming together to look into all this language data available on social media. And why not, let’s throw in analyses on picture-based content (identifying your brand logo or your products on an Instagram picture, for example) and analyses on emoji use too ([while they won’t replace language as we know it](http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2015/05/22/enoji/?ref=benkellis.com), [they’re an undeniable part of our culture now](http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2015/05/04/emoji-the-new-language-of-the-internet-is-improving-the-way-we-communicate-online/?ref=benkellis.com)). Let’s throw in analyses on “[Twitter dialects](http://news.sciencemag.org/social-sciences/2015/02/are-yinz-frfr-what-your-twitter-dialect-says-about-where-you-live?ref=benkellis.com)” (or in general “[social media dialects](http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~jeisenst/papers/dialectology-chapter.pdf?ref=benkellis.com)”), leading us into sociophonetics. While we’re at it, let’s have a look at[the morphology of reaction gifs](http://daily.jstor.org/the-morphology-of-reaction-gifs/?ref=benkellis.com). As crazy as these may sound right now, pause for a second and think about it: these may easily become default features in your social listening tool 5 years from now. (On a side note, kudos to all the social listening vendors that have a team of linguists in-house: they’re the ones who are most likely to be at the frontier of social intelligence innovation.)
- **Social innovation**: 3 words - [Big Boulder Initiative](https://twitter.com/bbi?ref=benkellis.com) (BBI). Founded back in June 2013, BBI is an industry association “*wholly dedicated to the advancement of social data in businesses and organisations of all kinds*”. That’s [in their own words](http://www.bbi.org/about/?ref=benkellis.com). Personally, I think of them as the “Social Data Avengers”. Think about it: this is an organisation that takes the lead on initiatives regarding social data, such as [setting a code of ethics and standards of using social data](http://blog.bbi.org/2014/11/14/draft-code-of-ethics-standards-for-social-data/?ref=benkellis.com), finding standards to measure data value and make social data easily accessible without compromising on privacy etc. They go beyond that too with [their yearly event](http://bigboulderconf.com/?ref=benkellis.com), which isn’t the usual buzzword-filled event with fluff and zero substance (just [look at their agenda and the speakers as an example](http://bigboulderconf.com/agenda/?ref=benkellis.com)). The reason why I’ve singled them out in this point on “social innovation” is pretty simple: initiatives like BBI make me hopeful for social analytics companies, hopeful that vendors won’t be blinded by IPOs and acquisition-sprees, but that they’re actually going to invest in the future of social data. Hopefully more vendors will follow suit. (You can read more about it [here](https://www.brandwatch.com/2015/01/connecting-social-industry-dots-brandwatch-joins-big-boulder-initiative/?ref=benkellis.com), their event [here](http://bigboulderconf.com/?ref=benkellis.com), and of course their site [here](http://www.bbi.org/?ref=benkellis.com).)
## Social Analytics in 2015 - Q3 and Q4
More and more companies have started taking social media seriously, and now a lot of them are starting to see the benefits of social analytics too, resulting in bigger investments in social intelligence (it usually starts with social listening and then moves across to the other subcategories of social intelligence); you also have more creative ways of using data from social platforms to feed into intelligent targeting, thus moving away from the ‘big data” paradigm and shifting to smart data - honestly, there’s so much that can be done with all this social data, and so much left to do.
I’m also worried for the companies that aren’t taking enough (or any) chances to embrace social analytics, but overall I’m excited for the future of social analytics, and I’m excited for what’s to come this year. In a day and age where everything around us is now drenched in social data, it would be foolish to ignore that and let it pass by.
### Social Analytics Tools That Don’t Suck
URL: https://benkellis.com/social-analytics-tools-that-dont-suck/
Last updated: 2015-06-14T18:10:15.000Z
I sent this Tweet the other day:
https://twitter.com/fr314/status/608246584741117952
To say that it caused quite a stir would be an understatement: it resulted in a few replies, a couple of calls, quite a few DMs and several emails, ranging from pitches to people sharing their own opinions, recommendations, worries and more.
I should really explain what I meant by that Tweet.
## Social Analytics and Social Listening
Most people who reached out to me after I sent that Tweet assumed that by “social analytics tools” I was talking about social listening tools. I wasn’t. (At least for the most part.) When I say "social analytics tool" I'm talking about a tool used to analyse social content and social accounts, the equivalent of web analytics for social. I’m talking about tools like Socialbakers Analytics, Adobe Social, UberVu via Hootsuite, Simply Measured…
Now, while 99% of my Tweet was about social analytics, I also had social listening in mind, inevitably. My job deals more and more with social listening and social intelligence as a whole, and I do a lot of social listening outside of work too. So of course I start building a wishlist in my head of what I wish tools could do more of or less of, what I wish tools could do better and what I wish they could start doing to keep up with the recent changes from major platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
That explains the “social analytics tool” bit. Now, as for the “suck” part…
https://twitter.com/jamieriddell/status/608246813402001408
Two things to mention here:
1. Although I mention tools, I’m also talking about vendors, the people and the companies behind these analytics tools;
2. The “suck” bit is subjective: you may agree with these points while thinking “yup, that’s right”, just as you may completely disagree with all of them - and that’s perfectly fine. (If anything, I’d like to hear your viewpoint on the state of social media analytics tools today.) So, don’t take this as the absolute truth, this is just a personal view.
Here’s how I define a social analytics tool or vendor that doesn’t suck:
- **a vendor that supports timely innovations**: one that proactively adapts to the changes imposed by various social platforms. If Twitter were to cut off an API or if Facebook were to make major platform changes (like they recently did by removing Graph Search), I’d like the vendor to inform me of those changes, explain what they mean for me, and tell me if and how they’re going to tweak the tool to adapt to those changes. (This comes down to openness and transparency in the vendor-customer relationship.)
- **a vendor that keeps me in the know**: related to the previous point, I need to know how these changes are going to affect my reporting. Some of these changes are great, as they may result in more data being available; others, however, can dramatically change the way I report, even cutting off essential bits of data that I rely on.
- **a vendor that understands that social intelligence goes beyond social**: what’s the use of knowing how many retweets your content had if you don’t know how those retweets had an impact on traffic to your website, how those retweets contributed to sales, a bigger share of voice, or an increased positive brand sentiment? A lot of social analytics tools only cater to just one area, and they do it well: [Iconosquare](http://iconosquare.com/?ref=benkellis.com) is **only** for Instagram analytics, [Twitter Counter](http://twittercounter.com/?ref=benkellis.com) is **only** for Twitter analytics, and [Tailwind](https://www.tailwindapp.com/pinreach?ref=benkellis.com) is **only** for Pinterest analytics, and that is totally fine. However, when you position yourself as a “social intelligence tool” and yet you only tell me half the story with your analytics, are you really a social intelligence provider?
- **a tool that thinks outside of the box**: this isn’t just about innovation, this is about thinking unlike other social analytics tools. Showing me that my content was shared more than the usual over the weekend is only telling me half the story; showing me who the influential people were who shared my content first, thus resulting in this ripple effect of more people sharing my stuff, answers the “what happened?” question before I even ask myself.
- **a tool with an UI as pleasant as its UX**: I’ve used a few tools that were so great and innovative in functionality, but with an interface so clunky, so unintuitive and so difficult to use; I’ve also used quite a few tools that looked nice and pretty, but scoring 0 in functionality. You **can** have both. I’ve seen quite a few glaring errors in functionality and user journey in certain tools that made me wonder - **do the people who create this tool actually use it?** And I’m not talking about the sales managers and the sales representatives who come to your offices to pitch or who demo their tool via a GoToMeeting: they use it because they have to showcase it to clients. I’m talking about the other people in the organisation. That’s why I applaud vendors who document on their company blog how various members of the company use their software: it’s not only a great source of tips and tricks, but it’s also reassuring to know that the people who sold you the tool understand how you’re using it.
- **a tool that is accurate**: trust me, this is not a given. From incorrect definitions of metrics, to incorrect naming of those metrics and beyond. Whether it’s confusing reach with impressions, or [unexplained “engagement rates”](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/twitter-hyper-engagement-rate), or “forgetting” to add “potential” to your impressions metric (even though you know that those are actually *potential impressions*), I really can’t excuse analytics tools for being sloppy with accuracy. I don’t mind potential/approximate metrics either, as long as they clearly state that those are not exact metrics. (Perfect example: check how your social analytics tool refers to Twitter impressions or Twitter reach, then [read this](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/twitter-impressions-reach).)
- **a tool that cares about acquisitions as much as the tool itself**: a lot of vendors have been going on crazy shopping sprees lately, acquiring as many vendors as possible. As an outsider, seeing all these big vendors gobbling up smaller vendors looks like a game of Pac-Man. Some vendors do it as a tactic, some do it as a way to boost their image and marketing (read: IPOs), some do it to have some tools in their arsenal as if they were badges of honour, while others do it to invest in the platform, beefing up and improving what they offer. I’m happy to see these acquisitions, but every time I see a new one I ask myself: **what does that mean for the acquirer? How will they improve their tool after this acquisition? Or is this just a gimmick?**
- **a tool that cares about performance**: the performance of a tool is very, very important, especially when scaling up: sales managers would love to see more people joining the platform, as that often means more money from you to them. However, not all of these tools can take the load of more and more people using the platform at the same time. These are the tools that should put more effort in making the platform robust and reliable, even if it means having more regular updates. I’d rather have a tool with regular performance updates than a tool that spews out new features just for the sake of it, while disregarding how any of that has an impact on performance. If the performance is great, then I can definitely rely on it as opposed to just using it.
- **a tool that caters to various types of clients when it comes to pricing**: there are so many companies out there that have an issue with social media budgets. Whenever I go to social conferences I hear a lot more from people struggling with budget than people with enough budget to spare. While that’s a problem in itself (which I may discuss in a separate post), there are other social teams that genuinely have very low budgets for valid reasons, e.g. small non-profits organisations, charities, up-and-coming startups. It’s nice to see more vendors being more understanding of these cases and accommodating their situation: Hootsuite, for instance, has [three main pricing points](https://hootsuite.com/en-gb/plans?ref=benkellis.com), as well as [plans for non-profit organisations](https://hootsuite.com/about/hootgiving?ref=benkellis.com). Unfortunately, looking at other social analytics tools, this is more of one exception.
- **a tool that I can plug into others**: personally I’d like to have a few tools that do a great job and that can “talk to each other”, rather than several tools that do their own thing. I’m seeing more and more IT companies (including tech startups, telecommunications etc.) having a preference for tools that offer APIs. These companies understand that tools work better when they’re not in silo environments.
- **a tool with better sentiment analysis**: I’m not taking the same old “*sentiment analysis is inaccurate so settle for this really low accuracy*” or “*sentiment analysis isn’t useful so we’ve completely left it out”*. I could go on and on about it, but I’m only going to say this: a lot of tools that have very strong sentiment analysis capabilities are owned by vendors that have at least one person dedicated to linguistics and/or text analytics - that is not a coincidence.
- **a tool with less douchey marketing**: I’ve said it several times and I’ll say it again: I don’t care if you claim to be the first one to do X unless you’re the first one to do X well. Hell, I’ll most likely ignore the word “*first*” anyway. If you’re going through a procurement process for a tool, **any** tool, ask yourself - *are you buying their tool, or are you buying their marketing pitch?* Focus less on false marketing and focus more on delivering.
- **vendors that practice what they preach**: I’m only buying your tool, right? That’s not how I see it: if you advocate great features and you toot your horn about social intelligence, I’d like to see you practice what you preach. So, if you’re a social analytics tool, do you share regular content on how best to measure the performance of your social content? Do you share tips on how to approach dips and spikes in engagement on certain platforms? Do you share thoughts and opinions on how the various platform changes may affect reporting and social media marketing in general? When it comes to social listening vendors in particular, I always check if they use social listening at all, and you can easily spot who they are: they’re usually the ones who reach out to other people who mention them online. I’ve mentioned tools before even on this blog and had one of their representatives comment on the post with a “thank you”; I’ve had vendors reply to Tweets of mine that were about their tool, even if I didn’t @mention them. If you’re going to pitch to me, telling me about the hundreds of ways I can use your tool to improve my reporting and make my job easier, show me how it works for you.
- **a tool that doesn’t give me fluffy mediocre features**: this mainly goes out to vendors of all-in-one tools - you know, those tools that promise to help you with social analytics, as well as social publishing, social moderation, social customer services and so much more. A lot of them are really great, and they’re really handy to have. However, you also have all-in-one tools that only half-baked features. This is why so many marketers debate on whether all-in-one tools are really better than specialist tools that only do one thing but well. Part of me understands that these features are being used by these vendors for their marketing (“hey, look at us, we can do 20 things and we’re cheaper than going for specialist tools for all of those 20 things!”). Three questions here: *out of all those 20 features, which ones do you really need? How many of those features are essential vs. nice to have? Out of the ones that are essential, can you get something out there that is actually great in that field?*
A lot of these points aren’t available in a lot of platforms due to investment, which often has a direct effect on priorities and resources, and I understand that. I understand that a lot of tools can’t accommodate those points, that they have tight roadmaps that they need to stick to, and that there’s just so much customisation that they can allow for their clients - I get that. I guess when you start relying on any digital tool (social analytics, web analytics, social publishing, scheduling, social CRMs etc.), you start wishing that the vendor could take a step back and think - **how does this tool I’m selling help my clients do their job, and what can I do to make it even better?**
So sure, a tool that ticks all those boxes won’t make the perfect tool for everybody, but it’ll definitely be the perfect tool for me.
### Keyword Searching vs. Hashtag Searching
URL: https://benkellis.com/keyword-searching-vs-hashtag-searching/
Last updated: 2015-05-25T18:00:00.000Z
A lot of social listening tools out there have clever ways of monitoring hashtags: [Synthesio](http://synthesio.com/corporate/?ref=benkellis.com), for instance, has a special search field for any hashtags you’d like to monitor; [Brandwatch has a dedicated Boolean operator for hashtags (“hashtags:”)](https://www.brandwatch.com/brandwatch-launches-new-boolean-operators-advanced-query-searching/?ref=benkellis.com). Even Twitter lets you search for hashtags separately from keywords when you’re using its [Advanced Search](https://twitter.com/search-advanced?lang=en&ref=benkellis.com).
Unfortunately, not a lot of platforms out there are clear on the implications and differences between searching for a keyword vs. a hashtag. Besides, they don’t always explain why searching for the hashtag “#apple”, the keyword “apple” and “#apple” as a keyword may bring you different results.
## Why A Separate Hashtag Search?
The main reason why these tools have a dedicated hashtag search is so that you can monitor any hashtag on the platforms they support (usually Twitter and Instagram). Pulling hashtags from other social platforms, like Google Plus, Pinterest, VK.com etc. may be limited due to API restrictions.
There’s another reason why these tools have a search field for hashtags. If you’re searching for a hashtag that can only be related to a specific campaign or brand, then you’re safe with pretty much any social listening tool out there. However, things can get tricky if you’re searching a hashtag that can be easily mistaken for something else.
For instance, doing a search for the word “bt” on any social listening tool will give you results from people using “bt” as a shorthand for “bt” and “bluetooth”, among other things. However, when doing a search specifically for the hashtag #BT, most of the results will be about the brand “British Telecommunications”. The same applies to a lot of brands whose names can have various meanings, like Apple, Orange, Virgin, Blackberry, TIM…
Additionally, a few tools out there also let you search for hashtags as keywords: while searching for a hashtag restricts your search to Twitter (and Instagram) only, tools that let you use hashtags as keywords expand your search to pretty much anywhere online - news sites, forums, blogs, other public social networks etc.
## Searching for a keyword vs. searching for a hashtag
Here’s the difference between searching for a keyword vs. searching for a hashtag:
- searching for the keyword “apple” will return mentions of “apple” and the hashtag “#apple”;
- searching for the hashtag “#apple” will only return any mentions of the hashtag #apple on supported platforms (e.g. Twitter, Instagram), but not mentions of “apple” without a hashtag;
- searching for “#word” as a keyword will return any mentions of “#word” (including the # symbol) anywhere online (so not only restricted to Twitter and Instagram).
So, to put it in practical terms:
- If a news site has an article that contains the hashtag “#apple”:
- a query searching for the hashtag “#apple” will not return that article: when you’re searching for a hashtag, you’re explicitely telling your social listening tool to search in its hashtag-supported platforms (e.g. Twitter and/or Instagram) and nowhere else;
- a query searching for the keyword “apple” will return that article: most social listening tools see the “#” character as a space outside of Twitter and Instagram, so on that page “#apple” looks just like “ apple” to your listening tool, thus matching your search query;
- a query searching for the hashtag “#apple” as a keyword will return that article.
- If a news site has an article that contains the keyword “apple”:
- a query searching for the hashtag “#apple” will not return that article: when you’re searching for a hashtag, you’re explicitely telling your social listening tool to search in its hashtag-supported platforms (e.g. Twitter and/or Instagram) and nowhere else, so that news site will never appear in the results;
- a query searching for the keyword “apple” will return that article;
- a query searching for the hashtag “#apple” as a keyword will not return that article, as that article doesn’t contain “#apple” anywhere in the page, so it wouldn’t match your query.
- If a Tweet or Instagram picture contains the keyword “#apple”:
- a query searching for the hashtag “#apple” will return the Tweet;
- a query searching for the keyword “apple” will return the Tweet;
- a query searching for the hashtag “#apple” as a keyword will return the Tweet.
## So, Which One’s Better?
It all depends on what you’re searching for. As a general rule of thumb:
- if you’re looking for mentions of a word, regardless of whether it’s used as a word on its own or as a hashtag, just search for it as a keyword;
- if you’re only interested in mentions of a hashtag, just stick to hashtag searching.
### Impressions ≠ Reach
URL: https://benkellis.com/twitter-impressions-reach/
Last updated: 2015-03-22T23:15:34.000Z
I wrote about Twitter reach and impressions a couple of years ago ([here](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/reach-audience-and-impressions-on-twitter-and-beyond)). That was [before Twitter revamped their Analytics dashboard](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/twitter-analytics-2-0). That was before Twitter gave us a good amount of metrics. Twitter analytics evolved considerably in those 2 years, but one thing seems to remain: the confusion between reach and impression. There is a difference between the two metrics, but a lot of articles, posts and social tools seem to confuse the two.
I was recently catching up on my [Feedbin](https://feedbin.com/?ref=benkellis.com) inbox and I came across this post on the Buffer Social blog: “**[how to create a social media report and explain it to your boss or client](https://blog.bufferapp.com/social-media-report?ref=benkellis.com)**”, a post I definitely recommend reading.
I then stumbled upon this:
> **Facebook uses it to refer to the number of people who see a post. Twitter calls the same thing Impressions.**
Sure, both reach and impressions refer to your exposure, be it your content exposure, or profile exposure. Still, **they are not the same thing**.
## Similar, but not the same
Reach and impressions aren’t the same. **“Reach” is the number of people who have seen your content, while “impressions” is the number of times your content was seen.**
This may appear as a subtle difference, but it makes a lot of difference, especially on social networks where you’re served the same content multiple times, like Facebook.
The same concept exists in so many other scenarios, like advertising, where you have a metric showing you how many times your ads were served (**ad impressions**) vs. how many people saw those ads (**ad reach**); or web analytics, where you have a metric showing you how many times your webpage was viewed (**pageviews**) vs. how many people viewed it (**visitors**). In fact, we could say that visitors is to reach as pageviews are to impressions.
That’s the difference, in a nutshell. So, why the confusion?
## Lack of Clarity
A lot of tools nowadays don’t offer much information on the metrics they offer. Some of these tool suppliers may say that they have access to Twitter, but they won’t tell you if that access is via the Twitter APIs or the Twitter Firehose ([the results you get from those sources do differ](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/twitter-apis-vs-twitter-firehose)).
Others may offer you an engagement rate, but they won’t tell you how that rate is calculated, even though the way an engagement rate is calculated can totally change the output of such ratio, whether it’s [an engagement rate for Facebook](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-rate-out-of-fanbase-or-out-of-reach), [for Twitter](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/twitter-hyper-engagement-rate) or another social media platform.
Unfortunately, a lot of companies behind these social media analytics tools don’t offer much clarity behind metrics like reach and impressions, sometimes only offering either metric, or confusing the terms, which in turn may confuse users who rely on these metrics for their reports.
While I believe that social tools should be transparent in what the metrics they offer actually mean and how they’re calculated, it’s the responsibility of the user to ask those questions - whether you’re paying for the tool, or whether you’re using a free tool, a trial or a demo.
## What’s the fuss?
So what if you’re using reach instead of impressions or vice versa? If that’s you, then you may be undercounting or overcounting your stats. It gets even worse when you use those figures as part of other metrics (e.g. as part of an engagement rate), or if you’re basing your next business decision on inaccurate reporting.
So, again, whether you’re paying for an analytics tool, or you’re using one for free, or perhaps you’re just on a trial, a demo, or you’re just exporting stats from the platform, make sure you’re fully clear on what those metrics actually mean. This is even more imperative when you start reporting on these metrics or when you make them your KPIs: **don’t report on metrics you don’t fully understand**.
That is why I applaud tools like [Simply Measured](http://simplymeasured.com/?ref=benkellis.com), a tool that offers a description of what each and every metric means within your dashboard. Furthermore, they also have a blog post written on these metrics too, because sometimes a brief description of what a metric is or what a metric does is simply not enough. (I definitely recommend checking out [their Resources page too](http://simplymeasured.com/resources/?ref=benkellis.com), with complete guides on what [Facebook](http://get.simplymeasured.com/2015-03-facebook-ebook.html?ref=benkellis.com), [Twitter](http://get.simplymeasured.com/twitter-ebook-2nd.html?ref=benkellis.com) and [Instagram metrics](http://get.simplymeasured.com/instagram-guide.html?ref=benkellis.com) mean.)
Here’s a challenge for you: go through the reports you receive and generate on a regular basis, and ask yourself the following three questions for each and every metric:
**1\. What does this metric really mean?**
**2\. How is this metrics calculated?**
**3\. Why am I reporting on this?**
---
Through it all, one thing remains true:
https://twitter.com/FR314/status/576341311550279681
### “Hyperengaged”: the Twitter Engagement Rate that Shouldn’t Be
URL: https://benkellis.com/twitter-hyper-engagement-rate/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:44:40.000Z
I saw this Tweet from [Gareth Price](https://twitter.com/G%5FPrice?ref=benkellis.com) a while ago and I thought I’d write something about it:
https://twitter.com/g\_price/status/563024295212113920
An engagement rate of 186.7% clearly sounds good…but it also sounds paradoxical: how can you have an engagement rate beyond 100%?
I’ve seen this happen quite a few times, so I thought I’d finally write about it.
## What’s wrong?
Twitter’s definition of engagement rate is: “*the number of engagements (clicks, retweets, replies, follows and favourites) divided by the total number of impressions”*.
Impressions are *the number of times users saw a Tweet on Twitter*.
(I can confirm that impressions and engagements are still counted even on 3rd party apps, so if you’ve viewed a Tweet on [Tweetdeck](http://tweetdeck.twitter.com/?ref=benkellis.com), [Hootsuite](http://hootsuite.com/?ref=benkellis.com) or any other Twitter application on any platform, your impressions are still counted in.)
You can have more social interactions than impressions because when you view a tweet you can interact with it in different ways: click on the embedded picture, favourite, retweet, reply, send the Tweet as an email - those are already 5 social interactions (engagement) from one single view (impression). Hence, that Tweet would have an engagement rate of 500% *\[(5 social interactions) / (1 impression)\]*.
You’ll notice this quirk on Facebook too if your engagement rate is based on number of engagements ([consumptions on Facebook](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-vs-consumption-the-facebook-dilemma)) and impressions (page/post views on Facebook). That’s the main reason why the engagement rate Facebook shows you in its Insights dashboard is calculated differently: **engaged users out of people reached**. That way you’re calculating **the number of people who saw your post and then engaged with it**, and
that
is the engagement rate you need.
## Two Rates aren’t Always the Same
When a platform, a tool, a piece of software or anyone mentions an “engagement rate”, question how that is calculated and question what that really means. Not all engagement rates actually tell you how engaging your content is.
Is Twitter’s engagement rate a real engagement rate? Technically, in the pure form of statistics, yes. Practically, when it comes down to social analytics, no.
The engagement rate that Twitter provides, for instance, doesn’t tell you much, and it’s definitely not one I’d recommend using for your reporting. Engagement rates work best when you’re using **unique values**: impressions aren’t unique as Twitter counts how many times people have seen your Tweet, even if the same user has viewed it multiple times. Twitter engagements aren’t unique either, as I can engage with your Tweet multiple times, in multiple ways: I can reply to your Tweet multiple times, before then retweeting it, favouriting it, and emailing it to myself.
However, take reach and engaged users and you can tell how engaging your content really was: reach is the unique number of people who have viewed your content, even if they’ve done so multiple times; engaged users is the unique number of people who have interacted with your content, even if they’ve done so multiple times. That gives you a much better view of how engaging your content was, as it tells you if your content led people to engage with it after seeing it in their timeline. That is the engagement rate you really need.
Unfortunately, Twitter doesn’t provide those stats. Sure, you can see how many times people have seen your content, but you can’t see how many people saw your content; sure, you can see how many times people have engaged with your content, but you can’t see how many people have engaged with your content. These are subtle differences that make a huge difference if you report on these metrics (or with these metrics).
A lot of tools out there use workarounds to calculate reach, although they’re just approximations (I won’t go into it now, but you can read all about it [here](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/reach-audience-and-impressions-on-twitter-and-beyond)).
When you look at the metrics that Twitter provides, you can tell why they’re there…
**Advertising**.
Twitter Analytics is still under development, and I’m happy to see where it’s heading. In the meantime, I hope they shift their focus lense from social advertising to social analytics for content marketing (Twitter’s current “engagement rate” is a clear example of why that needs to happen).
In other news, I think Twitter needs a social media analyst…
**updates CV*
### Disrupt Enterprise Reviews
URL: https://benkellis.com/disrupt-enterprise-reviews/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:44:40.000Z
TrustRadius released a [buyer’s guide to enterprise social media management software](https://www.trustradius.com/guides/social-media-management?ref=benkellis.com) just recently, and it’s pure gold: lots of great recommendations and great insights from those who use the tools named in the report. It’s also nice to see some of my old-time favourite vendors on the map, like [Hootsuite](https://twitter.com/trustradius/status/560506101062721536?ref=benkellis.com) and [Simply Measured](http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2015/01/28/trustradius-names-simply-measured-top-social-media-management-tool-for-enterprise-brands/?ref=benkellis.com) being named **Top Rated Social Media Management tools**. That’s amazing.
I also noticed something quite interesting in this report: look at the following picture from TrustRadius…
You can see long-standing vendors like Radian 6, Attensity and Oracle scoring pretty low, and surprisingly Adobe Social scored the lowest. This may come as a surprise to you especially if you’re familiar with the Forrester Wave report, that listed Adobe as “[a strong performer](http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2014/07/adobe-a-strong-performer-in-the-forrester-wave-digital-experience-delivery-platforms-q3-2014.html?ref=benkellis.com)” in the list of digital platforms (although this was not just for Adobe Social but for the entire Adobe Marketing Cloud). [Gartner](https://twitter.com/gartner%5Finc?ref=benkellis.com) also recognised Adobe as “[a leader in the 2014 “Magic Quadrant for Digital Marketing Hubs” report](http://www.adobe.com/news-room/pressreleases/201412/122314AdobePositionedAsLeaderInGartnerMagicQuadrant.html?ref=benkellis.com)” (which you can find [here](http://offers.adobe.com/en/na/marketing/landings/%5F62513%5Fgartner%5Fmq%5Fmarketing%5Fhub%5F2014.html?ref=benkellis.com)).
So, who got it wrong - the well-known and respected independent reviewers (e.g. Forrester, Gartner), or the latest consumer reviews sites like [G2 Crowd](http://g2crowd.com/?ref=benkellis.com) and [TrustRadius](http://trustradius.com/?ref=benkellis.com)? And is TrustRadius on to something bigger than what it’s selling?
## A Direct Comparison
The first thing to notice in all of this is that while the TrustRadius-type reports are from thorough crowdsourced reviews and opinions, the professional Gartner-like reviews come from groups of independent reviewers, who mainly review the tool, interview the vendor, and may (or may not) interview the CIOs and CMOs of a few key clients from each vendor.
However, with these new reports, you’re having feedback from the people who use the tool, those who know it inside out, those who are accustomed to the tool’s perks, faults and workarounds, and those who have managed to incorporate the tool in their digital/social strategy.
To understand the discrepancies, we need to understand how these reports are made. Let’s compare two reports like for like: the latest TrustRadius report ([trustradius.com/guides/sm](https://www.trustradius.com/guides/sm?ref=benkellis.com)) and the [Forrester Wave Report for Enterprise Listening Platforms](https://www.forrester.com/The+Forrester+Wave+Enterprise+Listening+Platforms+Q1+2014/fulltext/-/E-RES101261?ref=benkellis.com).
Let’s start with the first aspect: **price**.
### Price
A lot of these reports aren’t available to the general public. Sure, Forrester makes this report readily available…as long as you can fork out $2,495 (£1,650). May I just say, that’s a big deal - a report aimed for marketers, that costs the same as a marketer’s one-month salary (if not more, depending on where you work, position, country etc.).
The cost of a TrustRadius report? Free. Well, you do need to fill in your personal details to download the PDF ([here](https://www.trustradius.com/guides/social-media-management/2015/%5Fwelcome?ref=benkellis.com)), but that’s optional: you can freely browse the web view of the report, with the report’s 102 pages condensed in 26\. You’ll miss out on the interviews, use cases, and so much great information, but it’s equally as valuable.
### Criteria
The second aspect to look at is the **criteria** used in this report. Here we could talk about three types of criteria:
- criteria for the report,
- criteria for shortlisting tools to review,
- criteria to analyse and score those tools.
Let’s start with the first one: **how did these companies decide what to focus their report on?**
Forrester’s report is entirely dedicated to enterprise listening platforms, while TrustRadius takes a wider approach and includes other capabilities of social media tools, such as publishing, scheduling and analytics. By doing so, TrustRadius turned their report into a social media management tools review, rather than one specifically targeted to social listening.
Now, one could argue that it’s unfair to judge specialist social listening tools on the same scale as specialist social publishing tools, and so forth. However, I can understand where TrustRadius are coming from: in an industry that is trying to consolidate tools to create all-in-one tools, this is becoming a trend, where social media listening tools branch into other functions needed to manage a social media role - publishing, analytics, advertising, app creation (à la Wildfire) and more.
Now, **how about choosing the tools to review?** Here’s Forrester’s criteria:
> *We identified the 11 most significant software and service providers in the category — Attensity, Brandwatch, Converseon, Crimson Hexagon, NetBase, salesforce.com (Radian6), Sprinklr, Synthesio, Sysomos, Tracx, and Visible Technologies — and researched, analyzed, and scored them*
This criteria goes even further when you look at the actual report:
> *Selected vendors must have $10 million in annual revenue from their listening offering*
> *Selected vendors must have a minimum of 70 enterprise customers*
> *Selected vendors’ average contract size must be greater than $30,000*
> *No more than 55% of the vendor’s business can come from a single business line, such as public relations or market research*
With this criteria, the Forrester report covers 11 enterprise products.
Here’s TrustRadius’ criteria:
> *We decided to focus on comparing the software products used by large companies with more than 500 employees for enterprise-level social media programs… We’ve analyzed 400+ end-user ratings and reviews of 23 social media management software products to understand how enterprises are leveraging social media in general, and what tool or set of tools are they using to facilitate those activities*
> *Based on end-user reviews, in-depth interviews with some of the reviewers, and interviews with vendors, we’ve identified three primary use cases, or ways that companies are leveraging social media, and the tools that support them: social customer care, social intelligence, and social media marketing*.”
With this criteria, the TrustRadius report covers 23 enterprise products.
Lastly, **how did both companies analyse and score the products?**
Forrester used a 27-criteria evaluation that considers 3 main areas:
> **Strategy*: we considered if each vendor’s product plan includes ways to unify data across other consumer feedback channels, like the call center or solicited surveys — a future that Forrester calls enterprise customer listening, and we assessed each vendor’s progress toward enabling these connections*.
>
> **Market presence*: the vendor’s customer retention, active customer base, and revenue as indicators of financial well-being*.
TrustRadius on the other hand reviews and rates 13 aspects, including usability, performance, support, analytics and satisfaction. Other criteria are used too, bringing in the comments and reviews from the people who are using the tool (e.g. interface, 3rd party integration, performance).
Just comparing the two approaches, you can see that Forrester takes a more technical and strategic approach, while the approach taken by TrustRadius is more for the buyer, for the marketer who’s undecided on what tool to get - for the user.
## Thoughts
So here’s the question: would you rather hear the opinion of the informed decision-making CIO/CMO or the opinion of the people “on the floor” who use the tool day in and day out?
Personally, I want to have both. Sure, I’m interested to see what the various execs, officers and seniors think of a tool; I’m curious to see how they see a tool fit in their digital strategy, and I’m particularly interested to find out how they’ve been able to integrate that tool with other systems and processes, to avoid the dreaded “marketing silos”. However, I’m also interested in the open, honest feedback from the people who are using the tool; they might not hold senior positions, they might not even be managers, but they’re in a much better position to tell the story on how the tool works in practice.
Now, having the opinion of the people using a tool doesn’t necessarily exclude the opinion from the “seniors”, the executives, the officers and those in the C-Suite who may be a bit too busy to use the tool daily.
So, how do we get all these opinions together? What’s needed is a push from both the reviewers and the software vendors: sites like TrustRadius need to encourage vendors to get more reviews on their sites; then vendors need to encourage their clients to review the tool they’re using on those review sites. The problem here is that the supplier might have one contact whose experience in using the tool may be totally different from other teams and other users, with different requirements, different expectations, different opinions.
The incentives for people to review the tools they’re using needs to be clear: you need to justify to the busy manager why she needs to take 10 minutes out of her busy schedule to write a review for a tool she uses; you need to explain to the busy analyst why he needs to take 10 minutes out of his reporting days to write his opinion on the analytics tools he relies on.
Then, these “roundup reports” (e.g. [TrustRadius’ buyer’s guide to enterprise social media management software](https://www.trustradius.com/guides/social-media-management?ref=benkellis.com)) need to be regular. I say twice a year. The Forrester Wave research is technically yearly (I say technically because the last one was in Q1 2014, and prior to that it was in 2012). I propose having these roundup reports twice a year - one in Q1, one in Q3\. After all, a tool can dramatically change over the course of the year.
But let’s take things further for these reports and these review sites: don’t just wait for people to review tools, **tap into social listening**. This applies to any other digital tools: analytics tools, marketing automation tools, CRM software etc. For instance, there are on average 5,000 mentions of Hootsuite online every day, yet only \~110 users have reviewed Hootsuite on [G2 Crowd](https://www.g2crowd.com/products/hootsuite/reviews?ref=benkellis.com), and only \~50 have reviewed it on [TrustRadius](https://www.trustradius.com/search?query=HOOTSUITE&ref=benkellis.com). Have I ever been asked to review Hootsuite? Never. Would I review it if I were asked? Sure thing! However, if social listening tools encourage users to get insights about their brand via their tool, I think review sites should be able to get insights on those tools by tapping into the sea of unsolicited opinions on social media.
(**Sidenote**: [Gleanster](http://www.gleanster.com/?ref=benkellis.com) already does that, tapping into social media for real-time "snippet reviews", and it works just fine: [gleanster.com](http://www.gleanster.com/?ref=benkellis.com))
## Disrupt Enterprise Reviews
So, are the likes of TrustRadius on to something bigger than what they’re selling? Sure, they packaged their latest report as a “buyer’s guide to enterprise social media management software”, and it definitely is useful…but I think it’s a lot more than just that. I think this is just one step to disrupting software reviews, and I’m totally here for it.
Here’s how I see it: the likes of Forrester and Gartner will still be relevant - the big players that have gained reputation for in-depth reports, great analyses, and insightful reviews. However, when marketers look for feedback on what tool to use, they’ll start flocking to alternative sites. A lot of these marketers don’t need to (or want to) have a paying account with Forrester: some of us marketers are still struggling to get some serious budget to finance our social media teams, how are we supposed to justify paying $2.5k for one report? Some marketers are struggling to prove the ROI of social to their seniors - now they need to justify paying that much money for a report?
Then come these new sites, like [G2 Crowd](http://g2crowd.com/?ref=benkellis.com), [TrustRadius](http://trustradius.com/?ref=benkellis.com), [Credii](https://credii.com/?ref=benkellis.com), [Gleanster](http://www.gleanster.com/?ref=benkellis.com), that move reviews from the elite marketers who can afford paying $2.5k for a report, to marketers who genuinely want to know what tools to go for, and all they have is a LinkedIn account. These new sites are like open forums, and the only currency here is knowledge: ask a question and wait for your peers to come back with some answers; leave tips, tricks, and insights on how you made the tool work for you, just for someone on the other side of the world to login and find that they’re not alone in that same situation. It’s an open forum, where no question is a stupid question, where anyone can write, read and question reviews. It’s a community, where anyone is invited as long as you have a LinkedIn profile. And then, in between reading reviews and answering questions, you get a report that captures all the reviews that you and your peers have written over the past who-knows-how-long, all of your valuable contributions, from one category, and then gives you an in-depth report of that. For free. For. Free. What more could you ask for?
### What's the best tool for Web Analytics?
URL: https://benkellis.com/whats-best-tool-web-analytics/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:44:40.000Z
There’s a long list of web analytics tools available out there: some are free, others come at a price; some are basic and they do the job just right, while others take a 360-degree approach and offer a lot more than just web analytics.
When people ask me for advice on which web analytics tool to go for, I always tell them this: **the best web analytics tool doesn’t exist, but what does exist is at least one tool out there that’s perfect for you**, and ultimately it really depends on what you want/need it to do.
Having said that, I usually recommend one the following three tools:
- **Google Analytics**
- **Adobe Analytics**
- **GoSquared**
Here’s why I recommend these tools, and why I’m fairly certain that one of these is a good fit for you - starting with **Google Analytics**.
## Google Analytics
Google Analytics is often the go-to analytics tool for people who want to get started with web analytics. This is mainly because (A) it’s free (with the option to upgrade to Google Analytics Premium, if you have large volumes of traffic coming to your website) and (B) it’s a really powerful tool with lots of features and options. It goes beyond just web analytics, and it offers analytics for eCommerce, SEO, demographics and psychographics of your visitors, and a bit of social media too (although at a basic level).
Google Analytics is easily customisable and really easy to use. Their app (available on both iOS and Android platforms) is just brilliant, and I regularly use it on-the-go to check my stats, and to be aware of what’s going on. What’s missing from the app is the ability to get push notifications when you reach a goal or when something happens that needs your attention (e.g. unusual volume of traffic on your site), but until then I’m satisfied with what I have.
Implementing Google Analytics on a website isn’t at all difficult - I managed to set it up on this blog and get going in a short time.
Although Google Analytics is great for beginners and intermediate users, you do need to step up when your demands get bigger and more intricate. Once you’re ready to take web analytics to the next level, it’s time to move to a more sophisticated tool, like **Adobe Analytics**.
## Adobe Analytics
Adobe Analytics is the tool to go for once you’ve decided to take your web analytics seriously. Its main aim is to get all your data in one place - web analytics, social analytics, search and paid traffic analytics, revenue and ROI, and so much more.
One of the biggest advantages of Adobe Analytics over Google Analytics is the ability to create multiple advanced segments, if you want to analyse and better understand a subset of your traffic to see their behaviour, preferences etc. (e.g. how does your social traffic behave differently from traffic from search engines? Do visitors from Facebook buy more than visitors from Twitter?).
Adobe Analytics is just a big tassel in the [Adobe Marketing Cloud suite](https://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/digital-marketing.html?ref=benkellis.com). If you choose to get the whole suite, you’ll also get:
- [**Adobe Web Experience Management**](https://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/web-experience-management.html?ref=benkellis.com), to tailor the web experience of your site regardless of device and medium your customers/visitors choose;
- [**Adobe Social**](https://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/social-marketing.html?ref=benkellis.com), a social media management and analytics platform (+ a social application builder, as a replacement of the now defunct [Wildfire](http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/google-puts-out-wildfire-156305?ref=benkellis.com));
- [**Adobe Media Optimisation**](https://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/media-optimization.html?ref=benkellis.com), to make your life a whole lot easier when it comes to search, display and social ads, thanks to intelligent algorithms that can predict the impact of your ads;
- [**Adobe Testing and Targeting**](https://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/testing-targeting.html?ref=benkellis.com), an intuitive way to quickly create A/B tests, optimise and target on desktop and mobile;
- [**Adobe Campaign**](https://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/campaign-management.html?ref=benkellis.com), to create campaigns across mulitple channels seamlessly.
- One practical example of this comes from [**Blinkbox**](http://www.blinkbox.com/?ref=benkellis.com), in the wake of Google pulling support of Silverlight in the Google Chrome browser (more on this [here](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/blinkbox-chrome-silverlight)).
Technically speaking, if you want to see more than web analytics, you need to get the other components of the Adobe Marketing Cloud. So, if you want to see if a spike in mentions of your brand on social media resulted in a spike in site traffic, you need to subscribe to both Adobe Analytics and Adobe Social. Once you’ve done that, you can see all of that data in one place.
Having said that, you can also get Adobe Analytics on its own. Sure, you won’t benefit from an integrated view of everything you’re doing online, but at least your web analytics is totally covered.
Going beyond web analytics, Adobe Analytics offers the most and strongest options and features for mobile analytics, to better understand how people use your apps. As if that wasn’t enough, Adobe Analytis can give you analytics arouns GPS positions and Beacons proximities. (More on this [here](https://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/digital-analytics/mobile-web-apps-analytics.html?ref=benkellis.com).)
There’s so much more that Adobe Analytics offers, and it’s really no wonder why Adobe was nominated a leader in web analytics in the [Forrester Wave](http://landing.adobe.com/en/na/solutions/analytics/50824-forrester-web-analytics-wave.html?ref=benkellis.com).
Adobe Analytics is a premium tool, and you definitely get what you pay for. However, it doesn’t come cheap. That aside, you do need a team of people to maintain it - maintain the various segments, the campaigns, the reports you’ve created etc. If you’re struggling for budget and/or you’re aiming for simplicity, there’s one tool you should consider: GoSquared.
## GoSquared
The usual question I get when I mention GoSquared is, “*isn’t this just another version of Google Analytics?*”. It really isn’t.
Simplicity, real-time analytics, and responsive customer service puts them way ahead of Google Analytics.
I use GoSquared as my go-to analytics dashboard: I can see who’s on my site, where they’re from, how engaged they are, what device and browser they’re using, whether they came through social media and if so which network and exactly where in that social network they were linked to my site (so if they’re coming from Reddit I can see exactly which subreddit and which thread that visit comes from).
One of the biggest points in favour of GoSquared is its real-time analytics capability. I’ve tried using both Google Analytics and GoSquared side by side, and I noticed that GoSquared is always faster at identifying real-time traffic.
Another feature I find very handy is the Twitter Search: I can see who’s talking about my blog or referring traffic to it in real-time from Twitter. (Unfortunately this is a basic Twitter search, so I can’t use the operators I’d normally use in [Twitter Advanced Search](https://twitter.com/search-advanced?ref=benkellis.com); however, for a basic search it certainly does the job.)
One of the many things I like about GoSquared is their open and transparent pricing: you know what you’re going to pay, and you know exactly what you’re getting for your money: [gosquared.com/plans](https://www.gosquared.com/plans/?ref=benkellis.com)
Unlike a lot of web analytics tools out there, GoSquared has an eye for detail, and I’ll mention 3 examples:
- **People > Pageviews**: GoSquared focuses on people, not just pageviews. GoSquared can tie up multiple pageviews, sessions and devices into one unified profile, so you can see clearly how many people are on your site;
- **Engagement > Pageviews**: while other web analytics tools only tell you if someone was on your page, GoSquared uses a smart pinging technology to accurately track what visitors are doing on the page: are they browsing? Are they scrolling? As soon as the visitor leaves your site, GoSquared stops counting how long that person was on your site, so you can see a precise time spent on page. Using this technology, you won’t have to use approximate metrics for your expected ad revenues or server allocation;
- **Granularity**: GoSquared shows you a minute-by-minute view of your traffic. Imagine you’re managing a sport website and you’re tracking traffic: it’s pointless to know that you had a spike during the main hour of a match, you need a more granular breakdown to make sure you don’t miss out on the details that matter.
GoSquared is also developer-friendly [thanks to their open API](https://www.gosquared.com/developer/?ref=benkellis.com), which lets you build on top of an already reliable and robust analytics tool.
Lastly, they also offer analytics around eCommerce, so if you’re used to that in Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics (or whichever other analytics tool you’re using), you don’t have to sacrifice that if you choose to convert to GoSquared: [gosquared.com/software/ecommerce](https://www.gosquared.com/software/ecommerce?ref=benkellis.com)
There are so many other reasons, but GoSquared details all of their benefits [in one handy page on their site](https://www.gosquared.com/reasons/?ref=benkellis.com), mainly revolving around accuracy, simplicity, privacy, speed and support.
## Recap
In a nutshell,
- if you’re just starting up and you need a robust tool to fall back on, you should definitely check out **Google Analytics**;
- **Adobe Analytics** should be your go-to tool if you’re looking for a one-in-all tool that takes analytics seriously;
- if you’re looking for a reliable, easy-to-use analytics tool with the premium features but without the premium price tag, **GoSquared** is your friend.
### Google Search and Knowledge Graph Get More Social
URL: https://benkellis.com/google-search-knowledge-graph-get-social/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:44:40.000Z
This just in: **Google’s Knowledge Graph now shows social profiles for brands**. In other words, the card you see on the right hand side when you Google a brand (the one that shows your logo, information from Wikipedia and other “rich information”) will now show links to our social profiles.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because this is not a first for Google - they started adding these “social links” within the Knowledge Graph box [in November](http://searchengineland.com/googles-knowledge-graph-finally-shows-social-networks-named-google-209171?ref=benkellis.com), although that was only limited to famous personalities - singers, celebrities, politicians etc.
Google are now extending this to brands. So, if you Google a brand’s name, you’ll now see a link to their social accounts.
Doing a quick check on Twitter and Google+, it looks like marketers are generally happy about this move, which is Google’s way of embedding social media even further in their search results. If you’re thinking “*where’s Google+ in all this*?”, Google have reserved a special place for its “social network” right under the other social icons, pulling through the most recent posts from the brand’s Google+ Page. The only exception to this is if you have no content on your page. For instance, the [Staples Google+ Page](https://plus.google.com/110037934989117264592/about?ref=benkellis.com) is pretty much dead, with only a dozen followers and no content. Due to that, when you search for Staples on Google, you’ll see the social icon for Google+ right next to the Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter icons.
Just FYI, the Knowledge Graph supports links to the following social networks:
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google+
- Instagram
- YouTube
- LinkedIn
- MySpace
If you’re wondering, Google doesn’t display a link to your site from this Knowledge Graph, as it relies on your site being listed in the first page of the search results, right next to the Knowledge Graph (which **only** appears in the first page).
Me being me I had to do some thorough testing and see what this change looked like for brands out there, and it’s not looking good for a few brands.
## Technical and Algorithm Issues
How does Google know which social accounts of yours to link to? Without getting too much into the technical details, Google relies on the structured data markup on your website. In a nutshell, **the code on your website needs to explicitly say what your social accounts are**. You can explicitly “declare” as many social profiles as you wish, including profiles on networks that won’t show in the Knowledge Graph (e.g. Vine, Pinterest, Snapchat). (More on the technical details later.)
Because not every brand has these links set up on their website, Google will look for the best possible alternative - and sometimes the alternative is plain wrong. ([May I remind you of what happened to Greggs back in August, when Google’s algorithm chose an “alternative” logo for them](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/19/why-did-an-offensive-greggs-logo-show-up-in-googles-web-search?ref=benkellis.com)? \[[link](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/19/why-did-an-offensive-greggs-logo-show-up-in-googles-web-search?ref=benkellis.com)\])
So far I’ve encountered four scenarios:
1. **Right brand, right account**: I searched for a brand, I got that same brand in the Knowledge Graph box, and the right links to their social accounts. **This is the ideal scenario**.
2. **Right brand, wrong account**: I searched for a brand, I got that same brand in the Knowledge Graph box, but it was pointing to their wrong social account. A lot of brands have separate social accounts dedicated to specific functions: a brand account where they post brand-related content, a separate account dedicated to customer care, a separate one for PR communications etc. (e.g. [@Spotify](https://twitter.com/Spotify?ref=benkellis.com) vs. [@SpotifyCares](https://twitter.com/SpotifyCares?ref=benkellis.com) vs. [@SpotifyPR](https://twitter.com/SpotifyPR?ref=benkellis.com) ). If you don’t choose which profile you’d like people to see as your primary account, Google will choose for you. For example, search for TalkTalk and you’ll notice that the link to their Twitter account points to their X Factor Twitter account ([@TalkTalkXFactor](https://twitter.com/TalkTalkXFactor?ref=benkellis.com)), instead of their main brand account ([@TalkTalkUK](https://twitter.com/TalkTalk%5FUK?ref=benkellis.com)).
3. **Wrong brand, wrong account**: I searched for a brand, and got a completely wrong brand in the Knowledge Graph (hence wrong social links). Search for Fox, and you’ll notice that the link to their Twitter profile doesn’t point to their account ([@FOXTV](https://twitter.com/FOXTV?ref=benkellis.com)), but rather to the account of Julie Stewart-Binks ([@JSB\_FOX](https://twitter.com/jsb%5Ffox?ref=benkellis.com)), a FOX Sports Reporter. It’s not just Twitter - it can happen to any other social network: just search for Lush and you’ll find that the link to Facebook points to a boyband called “[Lush & Simon](https://www.facebook.com/lushandsimon)” ([facebook.com/lushandsimon](https://www.facebook.com/lushandsimon)). Meanwhile, the official (not-yet-verified) [Facebook Page for Lush](https://www.facebook.com/lushcosmetics) ([facebook.com/lushcosmetics](https://www.facebook.com/lushcosmetics)) doesn’t get any love from Google’s Knowledge Graph.
4. **No brand, no account**: I’ve Googled a few notable brands and got no social icons in return. Try Googling Facebook, and you’ll see links to its accounts on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, and of course Facebook. Now try Googling Pinterest - you’ll find nothing. Sure, they have an account on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+ and LinkedIn - yet, none of these show up in the Knowledge Graph.
## How do I fix it?
First things first, **Google your brand name right now** \- what do you see? Check that all the information on your brand’s Knowledge Graph is correct and that all the links are pointing to the right destinations.
If you notice anything wrong (or anything other than scenario #1, as outlined above), or if you’re just getting started with this, you have three options:
- **do it yourself**,
- **request a fix**, or
- **contact Google**.
If you want to fix this yourself and you need some pointers on how to change the markup on your site, you’ll find all the info you need on [the official Google Help Page on the matter](https://developers.google.com/webmasters/structured-data/customize/social-profiles?ref=benkellis.com) ([link](https://developers.google.com/webmasters/structured-data/customize/social-profiles?ref=benkellis.com)). The basic requirements for this to function are:
- Publish markup on a page on your official website
- Page(s) with markup must not be blocked to the Googlebot by robots.txt
- Include a Person or Organization record in your markup with:
- “url” = the url of your official website
- “sameAs” = the urls of your official social media profile pages
The second option is reporting any errors yourself (incorrect links etc.). You can request any corrections from the feedback form in the bottom right of the Knowledge Graph. Once you click on it you can select the part that is incorrect and send in your feedback to request changes. (Quick tip: get more people to submit this, so that your request moves up the priority queue with Google's engineers.)
The third option is contacting Google: depending on where you work and the relationship you have with Google’s Account Management, you can contact them to rectify any issues with what appears in the Knowledge Graph (so this includes the Wikipedia entry, the logo and any other associated info).
## Don’t forget about analytics
Don’t just check if Google is pointing people to the correct accounts - check the impact of this change.
Start tracking if your fans and followers are increasing, how many impressions your profiles are getting, and how your engagement and conversions are being impacted as a consequence. Remember: this change may affect your accounts on the following platforms if they’ve been linked to on Google’s Knowledge Graph:
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google+
- Instagram
- YouTube
- LinkedIn
- MySpace
You can track the necessary stats on Facebook by downloading the Page Level Export; you can do the same on Twitter via your [Analytics Dashboard](https://analytics.twitter.com/?ref=benkellis.com); and on YouTube via their native analytics. Google+ offers some analytics for profile views, although they’re quite basic.
Or, simply, if you want to track the impact on all those accounts in one place (without having to log in and out and have several tabs open), I recommend [Simply Measured](http://simplymeasured.com/?ref=benkellis.com) as your go-to analytics super-tool to track if this new change by Google is having an impact on your reach and community growth in any way.
### 2014 Year in Review
URL: https://benkellis.com/2014-year-review/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:44:40.000Z
Now that we’re in the new year, it’s time for me to look back at the main highlights of 2014 - on this blog and outside it. Looking back to look forward, right? I jotted down a few highlights from the past year, and that quickly turned into quite a few lists… So, in the interest of time and brevity, I present to you my top highlights from 2014.
## Top 5: brnrd.me Posts
I definitely wrote a lot more last year compared to the previous year, maybe not as much as I would’ve liked, but it was a fun ride nonetheless. Here are my most read posts from last year:
- **[On social sentiment and sentiment analysis](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-sentiment-sentiment-analysis)**: this is by far the most viewed post on this site, and definitely my favourite post of all time \[footnote\]Studying linguistics was worth it after all...\[/footnote\]. The subject of sentiment analysis and its accuracy often comes up during social media/marketing events, so it’s handy for me to direct people to this post instead of me going on and on about it (which I can also do - after all, it’s a subject I’m passionate about);
- **[Reach, audience and impressions - on Twitter and beyond](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/reach-audience-and-impressions-on-twitter-and-beyond)**: this was posted back in September **2013**, almost a year before Twitter rolled out [Twitter Analytics 2.0](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/twitter-analytics-2-0), giving everyone access to true impressions instead of just an approximation. Till this day, a lot of marketing solutions and analytics tools still use approximations for impressions. In fact, to my knowledge, the only digital analytics tool that has updated their reporting to include accurate impressions is **Simply Measured**:
https://twitter.com/FR314/status/488695719143149568
That aside, I was pretty chuffed to discover that [this post is used as lecture material](http://www.benkellis.com/s/2014/05/18/twitter-analytics/img?ref=benkellis.com) in the University of Perugia (Italy), in the study of theories and techniques in digital marketing. **What?!** Yes - personal accomplishment here.
- **[The death of PTAT (People Talking About This)](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/death-ptat-people-talking)**: PTAT died just a week before my birthday, and I had the pleasure of documenting its demise. It was (and somehow still is) a metric that a lot of marketers and industry solutions relied/rely on. Frankly, Facebook weren’t big fans of this metric either, so I’m not surprised that they finally pulled the plug on it. Here’s what Facebook recommend instead:
> *To better see how people interact with a pages content, the PTAT metrics have been split into separate elements: Page Likes, People Engaged (the number of unique people who have clicked on, liked, commented on, or shared your posts), Page tags and mentions, Page checkins and other interactions on a Page. We recommend that you use these metrics moving forward to evaluate your Page posting strategy and engagement.*
Even though Facebook took off this metric in July, they fully removed any mentions of it from Facebook Insights in September, when they revamped their analytics dashboard. I’m ecstatic to see what’s in store for Facebook analytics in 2015.
https://twitter.com/FR314/status/509312503688728576
- **[Engagement vs. Consumption: the Facebook Dilemma](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-vs-consumption-the-facebook-dilemma)**: this took me quite some time to crack down and write down, but it was totally worth it. This was about a 2-year dilemma that a few marketers tried to fully understand and explain: what’s the difference between engagement and consumptions, and engaged users and consumers? Those metrics had changed over time, yet the definitions provided by Facebook were quite “fuzzy”. [Jon Loomer](https://twitter.com/JonLoomer?ref=benkellis.com) did a brilliant job at highlighting the change and trying to break down the (confusing) definitions [in this blog post](https://www.jonloomer.com/2013/03/11/facebook-insights-consumer-vs-engaged-user/?ref=benkellis.com). However, as Jon put it, he was just trying to break down these definitions with a best guess. So, after months of digging into those metrics, cross-checking and endless supply of coffee, I managed to give a clear-cut definition of consumption, engagement, consumers and engaged users. Here’s one lesson I learnt from all this: the confusion originated from a really bad habit that Facebook has of **not e** **x** **plaining their metrics properly**. So, whether you’re just a marketer working on you own, or an analyst working for a big corporation, **always make your metrics clear and easy to understand, for others and for yourself**.
- **[Engagement Rate - out of Fanbase or out of Reach?](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-rate-out-of-fanbase-or-out-of-reach)**: not all engagement rates show actual engagement. I went into detail in this post to show how different ways of calculating engagement rate can make a lot of difference. It got a few people thinking, including [Socialbakers](http://www.socialbakers.com/?ref=benkellis.com), which were strong advocates of calculating engagement rate out of fanbase. ([They later introduced engagement rate out of reach](http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/1875-socialbakers-introduces-a-new-engagement-metric?ref=benkellis.com), and [linked me in their blog post announcing this](http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/1875-socialbakers-introduces-a-new-engagement-metric?ref=benkellis.com) \- yay!). This debacle comes mainly from the fact that a lot of tools calculate engagement rate in their own way without fully disclosing how they calculate it. My main takeaway from this post is well put in the last paragraph:
> *“Question everything about your analytics tool – whether it’s a free tool or a premium one, whether you’ve had it for a long time, just acquired, or you’re thinking of adopting one. Make sure you understand exactly how each metric that you’re going to report on is calculated, and try and match it with your own calculations to see how accurate your reports are going to be if you decide to rely on whatever tool you have.”*
## Top 5: Posts Elsewhere
Here are 5 posts I really enjoyed reading last year, posts that I’d definitely recommend:
- **[30 Under 30 Who Are Changing The World 2014](http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinehoward/2014/01/06/30-under-30-who-are-changing-the-world-2014/?ref=benkellis.com)**: I’ve been following this list since it first came out in 2012, and those who know me know that I have a goal of being in this list before I turn 30 (I still have a few more years left). It’s not for fame, not even for the recognition, but it’s a push to do something great, something amazing, something life-changing for someone else, for a good cause. I definitely recommend having a good read through this link. There were 450 “prodigies” last year (as Forbes calls them), and each one of them has an amazing story of how they got up and did something great, from [Evan Spiegel](https://twitter.com/evanspiegel?ref=benkellis.com) (Snapchat co-founder, 24) to [Palmer Luckey](https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey?ref=benkellis.com) (Oculus Rift, 22), and beyond. Oh, and [Bruno Mars](https://twitter.com/BrunoMars?ref=benkellis.com) is on it too.
- **[Creation is a beautiful torture](http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2014/02/creation-is-a-beautiful-torture/?ref=benkellis.com)**: this was written in the wake of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s passing, It’s a powerful piece about creativity, art, and the pain of knowing that, alas, you'll always fall short.
- **[More than Liking and Bookmarking? Towards Understanding Twitter Favouriting Behaviour](http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~mlw/pubs/icwsm2014-favouriting.pdf?ref=benkellis.com)**: this is a study that surfaced last year, and it tickles the analyst and linguist in me. In a nutshell, it’s a study in the “psychology behind the Twitter Favourite”. An interesting read if you too are into computational linguistics, or if you’re just curious to know what makes people Favourite Tweets.
- **[The Ultimate Guide to Solving iOS Battery Drain](http://www.scottyloveless.com/blog/2014/the-ultimate-guide-to-solving-ios-battery-drain?ref=benkellis.com)**: if you have an iPhone or iPad and you want to read just one article today, let this be the one. I followed the tips in this post, and my battery has improved dramatically, especially after turning off all notifications from Facebook, Facebook Messenger and Facebook Groups. Sure, I don’t see Facebook messages right away, but do I really need to instantly reply to each Facebook notification ? No, not really. **It’s time to treat push notifications as sacred** ([as this article by Owen Williams puts it](https://medium.com/@ow/its-time-to-treat-push-notifications-as-sacred-28635e6c42bc?ref=benkellis.com)), and the difference that will make to your device performance and, more importantly, your productivity is immense.
- **[Charged](http://weekly.char.gd/?ref=benkellis.com)**: fair enough, this isn’t a blog post, BUT it still counts as one of the best things to come out of 2014\. It’s a weekly newsletter by [Owen Williams](https://twitter.com/ow?ref=benkellis.com), [editor at The Next Web](http://thenextweb.com/author/owilliams/?ref=benkellis.com). Simply put:
> *Charged a weekly newsletter that helps you keep up with what's going on in tech, find cool startups and interesting reads, without you needing to decipher cryptic stories.*
If you’re interested in technology, social media, startups, and “the next big thing” and you’re looking for a way to be in the know, this is the newsletter to subscribe to. Oh, and if you’re looking to see how the process of creating newsletters is painstakingly amazing and rewarding, I recommend [this other post](http://owened.co.nz/why-writing-and-subscribing-to-newsletters-is-awesome?ref=benkellis.com) by [Owen](https://twitter.com/ow?ref=benkellis.com)
## Top 5: Tools
I’m surrounded by tools and applications I use every day, for work, for personal work, for personal reasons, and for wasting time. (This comes from someone with over 200 apps on his iPhone, but I digress) If I had to choose my top 5 tools that made my life easier in 2014, I’d nominate the following:
- **[Buffer](http://bufferapp.com/?ref=benkellis.com)**: where would I be without Buffer? I tried so many tools to schedule posts in the past, but in the end I settled for Buffer, and I don’t regret it. I have a thousand reasons why I use Buffer, but the main ones are:
- I can always access it on whatever device I’m on - I can schedule Tweets on my iPhone, check my schedule on my iPad, and throw a few more items in the list from pretty much any iOS app that integrates with [iOS 8 extensions](https://medium.com/buffer-posts/what-you-might-find-in-buffer-for-ios-8-bbe1e4cb06e7?ref=benkellis.com) (including [Reeder](http://reederapp.com/?ref=benkellis.com), [Tweetbot](http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/?ref=benkellis.com), [Drafts](http://agiletortoise.com/drafts/?ref=benkellis.com), [Pinboard](http://pinboard.in/?ref=benkellis.com) and [Pocket](http://getpocket.com/?ref=benkellis.com), apps I use daily);
- It integrates with what I do every day: thanks to [Buffer’s extensions](https://bufferapp.com/extras?ref=benkellis.com), not only can I send any site to my Buffer list, but I can also use it on quite a few social sites, including Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and even Tweetdeck (as long as you’re using their web app). It’s all seamless and in the words of Steve Jobs, it just works;
- the design! You can tell that the developers at Buffer aren’t just developing the app, they’re designing it too, taking care of the tiniest details. I have an eye for design and beautifully crafted apps, and I’m glad Buffer thinks the same way.
- **[Visually](http://visual.ly/google-analytics-report?ref=benkellis.com)**: sure, Google Analytics offers reports and alerts if you need them, but when it comes to simplicity, [Visually](http://visual.ly/google-analytics-report?ref=benkellis.com) blows Google out of the water. Every Monday morning I receive an email highlighting the previous week’s highs and lows for my site - how much traffic did I get, how many conversions, how much traffic was from social, how about traffic from mobile devices, and what about the bounce rate? All of that is covered, and that’s one of the few newsletters I eagerly look forward to every week.
- **GTD:** [Omnifocus](https://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus/?ref=benkellis.com) **\+** [Clear](http://realmacsoftware.com/clear?ref=benkellis.com): I discovered GTD back at University, and I’ve been using it ever since. GTD (“Getting Things Done”) is a productivity/time-management method that’s built to help you visualise your tasks, break them down in smaller tasks, and prioritise. The end goal is to spend less time doing the things you have to do so you have more time for the things you want to do. To help me achieve that I use [Omnifocus](https://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus/?ref=benkellis.com), where I keep track of pretty much everything, including tasks and ideas. To break these down, I list the 5 most important tasks of the day in [Clear](http://realmacsoftware.com/clear?ref=benkellis.com): the success of my day is determined by how many of those tasks I’ve completed and how I’ve completed them. Clear is a clear (ha, puns) and no-nonsense way of managing my daily tasks. I also manage my yearly Vision Board there, as a constant reminder of what I need to work on this year.
- **RIL (Read It Later):** [Pocket](http://getpocket.com/?ref=benkellis.com) **\+** [Pinboard](http://pinboard.in/?ref=benkellis.com): whenever I see something interesting online, or whenever I don’t have enough time to read an article, or if I see a great post that needs my attention, I’ll save that to [Pocket](http://getpocket.com/?ref=benkellis.com), and/or if I really like the link or if I think it’ll come in handy in the future, I’ll archive it on [Pinboard](http://pinboard.in/?ref=benkellis.com). Pinboard is my digital library where I bookmark interesting links and/or links I don’t want to forget about. These include really cool sites or great tools and applications that I recommend. (Pinboard doesn’t have an official app, so I use **Pushpin** on iOS and **Spillo** on Mac.)
- **[Mailbox](http://www.mailboxapp.com/?ref=benkellis.com)**: listen, Mailbox saved me from email flooding. Mailbox definitely improved the way I handle emails: if the email takes less than 5 mins to deal with, deal with it now; if it doesn’t, schedule it for a better time; if it’s not that important, archive or unsubscribe. Simple. The aim is to reach Inbox Zero, a zen-like state where you have no emails at all in your inbox.
## Top 5: Songs
Looking at my most played songs, I’m chuffed with the top 5, and I can guarantee that I’ve blogged with these playing in the background:
- **Uptown Funk - Mark Ronson x Bruno Mars**
- **Paris - Little Dragon**
- **But We Did - Thomas Dybdahl**
- **Talk Talk - George Maple**
- **The Light - SBTRKT x Denai Moore**
## In Conclusion…
I don’t really do New Year’s resolutions, not anymore anyway. However, as part of my [Vision Board](http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Vision-Board?ref=benkellis.com) for 2015, I’m reshuffling my workstack:
- First of all, I’m putting more emphasis on writing: blogging and guest-blogging.
- I’m going to start reading a lot more - as tempted as I am to get myself a [Kindle](http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/20/amazon-kindle-voyage-review/?ref=benkellis.com), I’m going to get started with iBooks on iPad and iPhone instead. [Mark Zuckerberg is reading a book every week this year for his New Year resolution](http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/3/7487225/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-book-club?ref=benkellis.com) \- well, I’m reading one book a month. (At least one.) First book on the list is “[Culture Shock: A Handbook For 21st Century Business](http://willmcinnes.com/book-culture-shock/?ref=benkellis.com)” by [Will McInnes](http://willmcinnes.com/?ref=benkellis.com). I’ve had this book for over a year now, maybe two, and I’ve been meaning to read this from cover to cover for so long - it’s about time. [Here’s a quick synopsis from Will himself](http://willmcinnes.com/book-culture-shock/?ref=benkellis.com):
*“Culture Shock is a book about a movement of revolutionary businesses that are emerging into the 21st century and radically changing expectations about how businesses should behave, that are addressing some of the biggest problems of our time, and doing so in exciting, subversive and powerful new ways.”*
- I’m going to speak at a few events here and there in the meantime, starting with Berlin and Frankfurt in the next few months.
To help me accomplish all of this and a couple of other big projects I’m starting this year (*fiction and coding*), I’ve had to make a decision: **I won’t be freelancing in 2015**. No freelancing. At all. Sure, I’ll still be writing, and sure, I’m always happy to write on other sites too. But, when it comes to freelance work, regular or irregular, 2015 will be an off-limits year.
So, in a nutshell, I’m going to **write more, read more, travel more, and be much more than I was last year**.
(Sounds about right.)
### Blinkbox, Chrome and Silverlight
URL: https://benkellis.com/blinkbox-chrome-silverlight/
Last updated: 2014-12-15T08:00:37.000Z
Due to a recent update to Google Chrome, it is no longer possible to stream video on sites that rely on the Microsoft Silverlight plugin using Chrome for Mac. If you’re a user of video streaming sites like Netflix then you probably already know about this. [Blinkbox](http://blinkbox.com/?ref=benkellis.com) have been affected by this change too, and I found out from this email I received not so long ago:
Me being me, I had to dig deeper to see what was *really* going on and make a quick analysis. (Because, why not?)
## Perfect targeting
Blinkbox did not email all of their customers, as that could’ve easily alarmed customers who aren’t affected by this change (e.g. customers who use Blinkbox on a Windows PC, or customers who don’t access Blinkbox via Google Chrome). They targeted their email to customers who have accessed their site with a Mac. To do so, they used **[Adobe Campaign](https://www.g2crowd.com/products/adobe-campaign/reviews?ref=benkellis.com)**, part of the **[Adobe Marketing Cloud](http://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/digital-marketing.html?ref=benkellis.com)**. As it’s integrated with **[Adobe Analytics](https://www.g2crowd.com/products/adobe-analytics/reviews?ref=benkellis.com)**, the folks at Blinkbox were able to see exactly who their Mac-using customers are (via **[Adobe Analytics](http://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/digital-analytics.html?ref=benkellis.com)**) and then easily target them with an email (via **Adobe Campaign**).
*(More on* ***Adobe Campaign*** *here: http://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/campaign-management/neolane.html)*
## Customer Services and Site Experience
Blinkbox have put a message up on their site advising people about the change.
People will only see this message on a “*watch page*” (i.e. on the page they’d land to watch a movie), as long as they’re logged in using Chrome for Mac. When non-customers (or customers who aren’t logged in) land on these “watch pages", they can only watch movie trailers, which Blinkbox have moved from Silverlight to an Adobe Flash file format (SWF). I assume this is not to alarm or turn away any non-customers.
The “*find out more*” link points to this URL: http://blinkbox.me/chromesupport. That is a new page in their Support Knowledgebase dedicated to this issue: it’s comprehensive and it answers the main questions they had anticipated in a nice and concise way.
As for a resolution, Blinkbox are "*working on a HTML5 player solution that will work with Google Chrome for Mac… We're almost there, and we hope to launch a HTML5 player in the first few months of next year. We'll also work to add Chromecast support in the first half of next year.*"
Blinkbox’s customer service strategy for this issue starts right from their website, with:
1. a brief and targeted message to alert affected users;
2. a link to the help page answering the FAQs;
3. a couple of ways to contact Blinkbox if the above two steps haven’t answered your question, via their webform OR chat.
Instead of waiting for the customers to approach them, Blinkbox have anticipated the customer, and THAT is great customer service.
If Blinkbox have the right analytics set in place (which I hope they do), they can easily see how many customer queries they’ve saved thanks to their “*learn more*” link and the dedicated help page. Add to this a layer of cost savings and there you have your ROI for this particular page. Neat!
## Responses on Social Media
This issue hasn’t sparked too many comments on social media. In fact, there have only been about 30 Tweets on the subject to date. Had Blinkbox not anticipated customers and sent the advisory email, or added a link on the “watch pages”, or even created a dedicated help page, they would’ve easily received way more than 30 Tweets.
The general sentiment is that customers don’t want to have to change their browsers to watch their movies…
https://twitter.com/ConnerPL/statuses/543548288956653568
https://twitter.com/faffyman/statuses/537906315516211200
…with some criticism on the technical details around this issue…
https://twitter.com/Keithamus/statuses/537927996959895553
All in all, customers are glad that they ‘ve been alerted of the issue, while waiting impatiently for a resolution:
https://twitter.com/Rich\_LW/statuses/538086704364916737
You can see all the latest mentions of this “issue” on Twitter through this link: [bit.ly/BlinkboxAndSilverlight](http://bit.ly/BlinkboxAndSilverlight?ref=benkellis.com) (switch from “TOP” to “ALL” when you get to the page, to view the Tweets in chronological order).
## What I hope Blinkbox are doing
Now, I don’t work with Blinkbox so I don’t know what they’re doing about this **internally**. However, as a loyal (and frequent) Blinkbox customer, I’m quite happy with how they’re dealing with this matter. As an analyst, I do wonder what else they’re doing internally to contain and deal with this.
So, if anyone at Blinkbox is reading this (oh, hello!), here are 5 things I hope they’re doing to successfully deal with this situation:
- **Plan**: have a “social media crisis” plan, with guidelines on how to handle the situation before, during and after a crisis erupts. Such plan isn’t only useful for when you’re having a crisis: it can definitely come in handy to avoid a crisis. Make sure that whoever is going to deal with and reply to the mentions online is fully informed of the issue, any updates, and what information to refer back. That aside, don’t forget internal communication - your staff need to know what’s going on too, don’t let them find out from a Tweet on your profile.
- Interestingly, for this specific issue (Silverlight on Chrome for Mac), there was definitely a chance for planning. Google had alerted a few select sites of this change a few months prior to the change, as a forewarning. That was to make sure that companies relying on video (or, more specifically, Silverlight) were aware of this with ample time to prepare for the update.
- **Monitor**: monitor what’s going on and what people are saying about the situation. Whose job is it to do so? Certainly not just for the social media analyst to pick up - this is **everyone’s** While you do need your analysts to report on what’s going on, everyone needs to see what’s going on. Here’s an idea: put monitors around (in your offices, on your desks etc.), open Tweetdeck and add a stream that shows real-time mentions of people talking about this issue AND your brand. Use Boolean queries to make sure you’re covering all mentions (e.g. one person might write “Blinkbox”, another might write “blink box”, but they’re both referring to the same company). For the Blinkbox saga, you can use this query: *(blinkbox OR "blink box") AND (chrome OR silverlight OR googlechrome)*. By doing so, everyone who sees the monitors will be aware of what’s going on. While you focus on monitoring and reporting, don’t forget about awareness too. Inexpensive idea but oh so effective!
- **Acknowledge**: I’ve already seen Blinkbox doing so, and I think they’ve covered this pretty well. They’ve publicly acknowledged the issue, and they’ve given enough information to those specifically affected, thanks to fine targeting. I personally didn’t expect Blinkbox to come out and say that they’ve already fixed everything, but at least they’ve given a reasonable explanation as to what’s going on and what they’re doing about it.
- **Inform**: keep people informed, update them as and when you have any new **valuable** (Not all information may be useful for public consumption.) Set up a help page with the frequently asked questions, which you can update based on the questions you’re geting on the issue - so it's a proactive **and** reactive help page. Inform your customers, the public and your staff as well. Speaking of staff, advise them on what to do and say on social media, and when contacted by the public or the press. By taking all these steps, you’re keeping on top of the situation and you stop speculations and misinformation from spreading.
- **Respond**: respond, and respond fast. If you have a plan in place, you won’t hesitate to respond, as you’ll already know what to say. Hesitation can easily create more frustration, misinformation and more damage to your brand - and no one needs that. The number of mentions and queries may increase any day, at any time, so be prepared for when that happens. You may not be able to reply to all comments - and that’s okay! However, show that you’re actively monitoring what’s going and responding to the issue to the best of your abilities.
I really, **really** hope Blinkbox are taking all of those 5 steps, although I’m sure they are from how they’ve been managing this issue so far.
In the meantime, I’ll go and have a look at what’s on Blinkbox for tonight.
### A Shift In The Market
URL: https://benkellis.com/shift-market/
Last updated: 2014-12-13T19:50:06.000Z
Simply Measured announced their latest integration earlier this week: https://twitter.com/simplymeasured/status/541992241250570240
## Why Is This a Big Deal?
Sure, this isn’t the first time that solutions are merging or integrating with each other. To understand why this is such a big deal, we need to understand why such a move makes so much sense.
[Simply Measured](http://simplymeasured.com/?ref=benkellis.com) are a digital analytics powerhouse, a leader in social analytics across owned, earned and [paid](http://simplymeasured.com/social-ads-analytics/?ref=benkellis.com) social media ([paid being a fairly recent addition to the platform](http://simplymeasured.com/social-ads-analytics/?ref=benkellis.com)), with integration with web analytics (via Google Analytics).
[SHIFT](http://www.shift.com/?ref=benkellis.com), on the other hand, is the leading cross-network social advertising platform for brands and agencies. SHIFT’s forte is their unique partnership with [Facebook’s Atlas](http://atlassolutions.com/why-atlas/introduction/?ref=benkellis.com), an ad-serving and measurement company that focuses on cross-device and cross-platfom advertising. At time of writing, SHIFT is only one of three social advertising solutions that partner with Atlas, making them pretty unique.
With both solutions being leaders in the digital marketing space, it only makes sense for them to integrate with each other **to help people adopt a holistic approach to digital analytics**. With in-depth social and web analytics on one side, and in-depth ad analytics on the other, you’ll start having a 360° view of how you’re performing across platforms when you merge these two together. You can run optimised multi-channel campaigns and see how they’re performing **in one place**; you can see how your social ads are contributing to your site traffic **in one place**, and so much more. This doesn't mean more data to work with - it's the same data you'd get from multiple sources, except in one platform, and with a better context. **Same data + better approach = better insights.**
This is a sign of a shift in the market for digital marketing software: in the same ways that more and more brands are embracing the omni channel approach, so are solutions - specialist tools are branching out, embracing other areas of digital marketing, while others are bundling up, becoming a hub of analytics. A bit like Simply Measured - from providing analytics for so many social networks, they also provide an integration with web analytics, and you can now have a view of social ads and their performance in one platform. The more dots you connect, the better your results, and the more you get in one analytics platform, the less time you have to spend joining the dots yourself.
This shift, however, is not new: [Socialbakers were one of the very first solutions to provide ad analytics in their analytics suite a year ago](http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/1906-ad-analytics-new-ads-optimizing-product-from-socialbakers-is-here?ref=benkellis.com) ([with a recent makeover to make their analytics, publishing and campaign solution bigger and better](http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/2313-welcome-to-the-next-generation-of-social-marketing?ref=benkellis.com)).
While Socialbakers and Simply Measured aren’t the first (and definitely won’t be the last) at taking this holistic approach to digital analytics, it clearly shows that solutions are gradually starting to “practice what they preach” - if you’re advised to adopt a multi-channel approach, there’s no reason why the tool you’re relying on shouldn’t do the same.
You can read more about the Shift + Simply Measured integration [on the Shift blog](http://blog.shift.com/blog/2014/12/5/shift-platform-integrates-simply-measured?ref=benkellis.com) and [on the Simply Measured blog](http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2014/12/08/simply-measured-integrates-with-the-shift-platform/?ref=benkellis.com).
### Sentiment Analysis: Why It's Never 100% Accurate
URL: https://benkellis.com/sentiment-analysis-never-accurate/
Last updated: 2014-11-23T19:56:13.000Z
If you’ve ever used a social listening or social monitoring tool to analyse sentiment, then you’re familiar with the inaccuracies that afflict all of these tools - from incorrect tagging to skewed sentiment percentages. Why does that happen?
The first problem is that some sentences aren’t easy to analyse. In fact, sentences aren’t positive or negative at all. The most common assumption in this subject is that subjective sentences always express some sentiment, while objective sentences don’t. That is often the case - after all, an objective sentence presents factual information, while a subjective sentence expresses personal feelings, views or beliefs. (More on this [here](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-sentiment-sentiment-analysis).) However, it doesn’t always work that way.
For example, what’s the sentiment of a sentence like “*I think I have the latest version of the browser*”? Sure, it’s a subjective sentence, but it doesn’t express any sentiment. However, what about an objective sentence like “*I opened the browser after updating it and it kept crashing*”? It’s objective as it states a fact, yet it expresses an implicit opinion about the topic: the browser’s persistent crashing - negative.
With that said, while we know that the last sentence expresses a negative sentiment, **how does a machine know that a browser that constantly crashes isn’t a good thing?**
## What Makes Sentiment Analysis Inaccurate Today?
One thing I’ve learnt studying linguistics is that **language is complex**. It would be too naive to oversimplify language thinking that its underlying sentiment can always be accurately examined by a machine or an algorithm.
There are five main factors that currently stop us from relying blindly on tools for sentiment analysis:
- **Context**: a positive or negative sentiment word can have the opposite connotation depending on context. “I’ve **done a great job**” may be interpreted as a positive statement. However, in “my internet provider **does a great job** when it comes to stealing money from me”, doing a great job is no longer a positive thing, based on the context (“stealing money from me”).
- **Sentiment Ambiguity**: a sentence with a positive or negative word doesn’t necessarily express any sentiment. For example, “*can you recommend a good tool I could use?*” doesn’t express any sentiment, although it uses the positive sentiment word “**good**“. Likewise, sentences without sentiment words can express sentiment too. So, “*this browser uses a lot of memory*” doesn’t contain any sentiment words, although it clearly expresses a negative sentiment.
- **Sarcasm**: a positive or negative sentiment word can switch sentiment if there is sarcasm in the sentence. “Sure, I’m **happy** for my browser to crash right in the middle of my coursework” is obviously a sarcastic (and negative) statement, even though it has the positive word “**happy**”. We can detect the sarcasm mainly from how the sentence starts with “sure”, and the context (we know for a fact that a browser crashing is negative).
- **Comparatives**: social listening tools often misunderstand comparative statements. For example, what’ s the sentiment of “*Pepsi is much better than Coke*”? If you’re reporting for Pepsi, then this is definitely a positive statement. However, if you work for Coca Cola and you’re reporting back to the company, then this statement would be negative. Most social listening tools aren’t intelligent enough to “pick sides” when they find comparative statements like the above, leaving them to pick the sentiment based on keywords. So, the previous example would be tagged as “positive” as it contains a positive keyword, “**much better**”, regardless of who you’re reporting for.
- **Regional Variations**: a word can change sentiment and meaning depending on the language used. This is often seen in slang, dialects, and language variations. An example is the word “sick“, which can change meaning based on context, tone and language, although clear to the target audience (“*That is a sick song!*” vs. “*I’m not feeling well at all, I might be sick*”). An example of a regional variation can be found between British and American English for words like ‘*quite*’, ‘*rather*’, ‘*pretty*’: in British English those words take the meaning of “*fairly*”, while in American English they take the meaning of “*very*”. This can sometimes be misunderstood in day-to-day conversations too, so it's no wonder that tools may find this problematic.
The biggest threat to accuracy in sentiment analysis today is **human concordance**: this is the degree of agreement among humans (or between humans and machines). Numerous studies have shown that the rate of human concordance is between 70% and 80%. (More on the subject [here](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-sentiment-sentiment-analysis).)
Even humans don’t agree universally with one another on anything subjective, so it’s no wonder that sentiment, when rendered in text with no extra-textual clues (visual, aural etc.) can be really tricky for us humans, let alone for machines. Hence, sadly, we're nowhere close to perfect sentiment analysis.
However, despite its current flaws, social sentiment has very high potential. While it’s easy to treat it as a “soft metric”, it’s very useful when used in context – yes you’ve received a positive review, but what does it mean for your brand? What are the underlying opinions behind that specific content? In the right hands, sentiment can be the key to various social analyses, predictions, and ultimately a solid insight into your social performance.
### Best Times and Days to Post on Social Media?
URL: https://benkellis.com/best-times-days-post-social-media/
Last updated: 2014-09-15T07:00:58.000Z
I often hear the following:
> *“Post outside of working hours and during lunchtime, for people who want something to read during their lunch break…”*
I personally have a problem with generic recommendations on best times and days to post, as well as *“scientific guides on best and worst times to post on social media”*. Here’s why.
Just imagine if we were all to post at the same, on Facebook, altogether. That “best time” would soon become the worst time to post – ever. Facebook would then filter out all the content that it deems “uninteresting” for users, and your post reach will quickly, but surely, go down.
There are best times to post for a brand, and that time differs depending on industry vertical and brand. Ideal times differ from platform to platform too – perhaps your Facebook fans are more engaged in the evening, while your Twitter followers are more engaged during the day. So many factors can come into this, but the main one is your audience – **where is your audience?** Perhaps you’re based in the UK, yet you have a big following from Australia; or perhaps you’re based in New York, but your Facebook is getting a lot of attention from a lot of Canadians.
Luckily most platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and YouTube, offer insights into demographics, so instead of making educated guesses, you can make a data-driven decision as to when is the best time for you to post on what social network.
### Campaign Tracking on Social Media
URL: https://benkellis.com/campaign-tracking-social-media/
Last updated: 2014-09-09T07:00:14.000Z
Here's what I believe – **most campaign tracking on social media sucks**. Heavily! Whether you’re a Google Analytics power-user, or perhaps you only use it occasionally, you know that campaign tracking can be a lifesaver to manage your owned traffic. You wouldn’t send a monthly newsletter without properly tagging your links, right? You wouldn’t advertise your site on a magazine or a TV ad without campaign tracking, right?
Campaign tracking helps you assign traffic to your specific campaigns. Failure to do so means that not only will you not be able to properly segment your owned traffic, but you’ll also make it difficult to get actionable insight from your campaigns. (And you’ll also make a social analyst very unhappy.)
At the moment, Google Analytics lets you apply up to 5 campaign tracking parameters. For instance, if you’ve ever clicked on a link that was shared via Buffer, you’re probably familiar with the following pattern:
*utm\_content=bufferfaf44&utm\_medium=social&utm\_source=twitter.com&utm\_campaign=buffer*
If you’re wondering what all that means, here’s a quick breakdown:
- *utm\_campaign*: **campaign tracking**: this lets you group all the links from one campaign in your analytics tool. Imagine all your campaign links in one big folder – the campaign tracking name is the name of that folder;
- *utm\_source*: **source tracking**: this helps you track which website is sending you traffic. So, going back to my Buffer example, I can see that this link comes from Twitter (*utm\_source=twitter.com*);
- *utm\_medium*: **medium tracking**: this lets you track the marketing medium the links is featured in. So, *utm\_medium=social* tells me that this link was shared on social media, while *utm\_medium=sms* tells me that this link was used in an SMS marketing campaign;
- *utm\_content*: **content tracking**: if you have more than one link pointing to the same destination, this tag lets you differentiate the links or entry points bringing traffic to that destination. So, if your homepage has two links to your contact page, yet one is in the**sidebar**, one is in the **header**, and one is in the **footer**, you may want to use*utm\_content=sidebar*, *utm\_content=header*, *utm\_content=footer* This is commonly used on pay-per-click (PPC) ads and A/B testing;
- *utm\_term*: **term tracking**: while you might not see this often, this parameter is used to track what keywords you’ve paid for in a pay-per-click (PPC) ad.
As for the ampersand (*&*), that’s only used to join these parameters together, hence why you end up with long strings of parameters in a URL.
So, what’s the problem? It’s twofold:
- A lot of social campaigns are often carried out without thinking of these parameters. Sure, you have Google Analytics on your site, and sure you can have a referrals report through Google Analytics, to see which sites are referring traffic to your own site. However, this isn’t always effective – what if someone clicks on your link from a Twitter client (e.g. Tweetdeck)? What if someone cicks on your link from an email client, or a Facebook client etc.? They’re not clicking from a website, so they’ll normally show up under “direct traffic”. That aside, campaign tracking makes it infinitely easy for you to see the impact of your campaign on your website;
- A lof of social publishing tools aren’t conducive to writing parameters properly. So, for instance, you’ll have tools that promise to shorten and schedule links for you, when instead their default parameters aren’t helpful when it’s time to report on traffic. This will then leave you with unhelpful and ambiguous parameters.
If you need help in creating custom campaign parameters for your links, [Google Analytics have a handy tool that can help you with that](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en&ref=benkellis.com) – [click here to access it](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en&ref=benkellis.com).
### Content Is NOT King
URL: https://benkellis.com/content-king/
Last updated: 2014-09-08T07:00:17.000Z
Stop me if you've heard this before:
> *“Content is king”.*
This expression was great the first time I heard it. Maybe the second time too. It stopped amazing me the third time onwards.
This usually comes with the variation of:
- *Content is king, and context is queen*
- *Content is fuel*
- *Content is fire*
(For more associations, just search for [“content is” on Google Images.](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=content+is&es%5Fsm=119&biw=951&bih=722&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=Ys0MVKDUAsLVaov5gIgM&ved=0CAYQ%5FAUoAQ))
Personally, **I don’t believe content is king**.
Sure, I understand the perspective of those who use this adage and actually understand it - “*content is king*” justifies what we do as marketers, whether we’re social media managers, analysts, advertisers or PR professionals. However, content isn’t everything - content is what happens in conversations.
Author and activitst Cory Doctorow puts it nicely,
> **“Content isn’t king. If I sent you to a desert island and gave you the choice of taking your friends or your movies, you would choose your friends…. If you chose your movies, we would call you a sociopath.** **Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about** **.”**
…and that couldn’t be further from the truth. Content helps you build your portfolio, but conversation makes your marketing go round. Because if you have some great content to share, yet no one shares it, what happens to your great content?
Conversations are what make social media what it is today; the constant change in how we carry conversations is the major reason why social media continually evolves. So, if you have great content and you also have conversations around it, your content may lead to relationships, which may then lead to acquisitions (which will make everyone in your company happy). If you have great content and there’s no conversation happening, you’re just broadcasting and/or advertising - nothing more, nothing less. Sure, you’ll have an audience, they’ll read your content and perhaps they’ll remember it someday down the line… but if no one shares it, if no one talks about it, that’s where your content stops - in your audience’s memory. Throw conversations in the mix, and you’ll see your content getting a new boost, something that only conversations can give it - your content hasn’t changed, it’s still the same, it’s still great, but it now has a life of its own.
So please, next time you find someone saying “*content is king*” as a buzz-phrase, stop in your tracks and think about it - **is it? Is it really?**
### Social Media Analytics FAQ
URL: https://benkellis.com/social-media-analytics-faq/
Last updated: 2014-09-07T21:32:36.000Z
After a long hiatus from meetups, conferences and “digital events”, I finally returned to the [London Web Analytics](http://www.meetup.com/London-Web-Analytics-Google-Analytics-OmnitureMVT/?ref=benkellis.com) meetup, a great London-based meetup for people interested in all things analytics. The subject for this month’s meetup was [social media analytics](http://www.meetup.com/London-Web-Analytics-Google-Analytics-OmnitureMVT/events/196148322/?ref=benkellis.com), pretty topical considering that I work in social media analytics day in and day out.
I met quite a few great people there, including [the lovely Samantha Sile](http://www.benkellis.com/s/2014/09/04/what-are-your-social-media-analytics-questions-crickets/img?ref=benkellis.com)…
https://twitter.com/samanthasile/status/507553706448261120
I had lots of interesting conversations, and I also had my first-ever analytics selfie…
https://twitter.com/WillKennard/status/507275314649911296
Needless to say, it was an amazing night.
However, there were more questions than answers during the meetup. Granted, I should’ve raised my hand and intervened a bit more often than I did, but I took notes of the “hot topics” and unanswered questions that were raised that night. While I did my best to answer those who raised their questions after the meetup, I thought - what better way to tackle this than with a blog post? So, here it is.
## Twitter Analytics vs Facebook Analytics: Reach and Impressions
The first subject that was raised was on [the new Twitter analytics](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/twitter-analytics-2-0). With all the new metrics that Twitter introduced, two stand out: **reach** and **impressions**. When asked about what they really mean, the answer was:
*“Reach tells you how many people have viewed your tweets, and that is calculated as the sum of all your followers, the people who have interacted with your Tweet and their followers; impressions tells you how many times your Tweets have been viewed by your followers’ connections.”*
**Wrong**. Bearing in mind that the majority of people in attendance were more familair with web analytics, here’s an analogy that would’ve worked:
*“Reach and impressions are to social analytics as visitors and pageviews are to web analytics.”*
Short and sweet. Later, a debate ensued on why you can’t directly compare Facebook analytics with Twitter analytics, because of the Facebook algorithm and the inherent features in each platform. So, for instance, while Twitter shows you tweets in real-time, Facebook filters what content you see in your News Feed.
I understand where some of this confusion comes from. Facebook analytics give you the exact number of people reached (*reach*) and the number of times your page and its content have been viewed (*page impressions* and *post impressions*). However, until July 2014, Twitter didn’t really help much with these metrics - in fact, they didn’t show those metrics at all (with the exception of Ads Analytics). Due to this, a lot of marketers and analysts resorted to 3rd party tools to calculate an approximate reach for them.
Unfortunately, not all of these tools calculated reach in the same way. There were mainly three formulas used: [under-calculation](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/reach-audience-and-impressions-on-twitter-and-beyond), [approximate calculation](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/reach-audience-and-impressions-on-twitter-and-beyond), and the most common one - [over-calculation](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/reach-audience-and-impressions-on-twitter-and-beyond). Over-calculation required the sum of all your followers, the people who have interacted with your Tweet and their followers. This is statistically incorrect, as it’s based on the wrong and overly-optimistic assumption that all of your followers and the followers of people who have interacted with your Tweet are online at the same time, looking at your content. (I’m not going to get too much into detail, but you can read all about it in [this blog post](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/reach-audience-and-impressions-on-twitter-and-beyond).)
Due to this, it was almost impossible to compare an exact Facebook reach with just an approximate (and exaggerated) Twitter reach. However, that changed in July, when Twitter launched the second iteration of their Twitter Analytics dashboard on [analytics.twitter.com](https://analytics.twitter.com/?ref=benkellis.com). (You can read all about it [here](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/twitter-analytics-2-0).)
https://twitter.com/buster/status/487646027923484672
With the introduction of Tweet impressions, you can now compare Twitter analytics to Facebook analytics. Yes, Facebook has an algorithm that filters what content you see in your News Feed, while Twitter doesn’t (well, [at least not yet](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/09/03/twitters-product-checklist-better-search-and-group-chats/?mod=WSJBlog&ref=benkellis.com)). However, a diligent analyst knows how to safely compare two similar metrics from two different platforms. Comparing how your impressions are increasing on Twitter while they’re dwindling on Facebook is a great start for a case to ask for a bigger “social marketing budget”; comparing how your impressions differ between Twitter and Facebook can help you craft two separate but equally effective content strategies for the two platforms (because what works on Facebook won’t automatically work on Twitter, and vice versa).
If you’re using a 3rd party tool for your analytics, don’t worry - they’re gradually adapting to this change, adding the new Twitter metrics to their platform. The first analytics provider to have done so right away was [Simply Measured](http://simplymeasured.com/?ref=benkellis.com) (you can read more about their clever workaround [here](http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2014/07/11/report-update-twitters-newest-metrics-available-in-twitter-account-report/?ref=benkellis.com)).
## Campaign Tracking on Social Media
While not everyone was familiar with social media analytics, there’s one thing we all agreed on - most campaign tracking on social media sucks. Heavily!
Whether you’re a Google Analytics power-user, or perhaps you only use it occasionally, you know that campaign tracking can be a lifesaver to manage your owned traffic. You wouldn’t send a monthly newsletter without properly tagging your links, right? You wouldn’t advertise your site on a magazine or a TV ad without campaign tracking, right?
Campaign tracking helps you assign traffic to your specific campaigns. Failure to do so means that not only will you not be able to properly segment your owned traffic, but you’ll also make it difficult to get actionable insight from your campaigns. (And you’ll also make a social analyst very unhappy.)
At the moment, Google Analytics lets you apply up to 5 campaign tracking parameters. For instance, if you’ve ever clicked on a link that was shared via Buffer, you’re probably familiar with the following pattern:
*utm\_content=bufferfaf44&utm\_medium=social&utm\_source=twitter.com&utm\_campaign=buffer*
If you’re wondering what all that means, here’s a quick breakdown:
- *utm\_campaign*: **campaign tracking**: this lets you group all the links from one campaign in your analytics tool. Imagine all your campaign links in one big folder - the campaign tracking name is the name of that folder;
- *utm\_source*: **source tracking**: this helps you track which website is sending you traffic. So, going back to my Buffer example, I can see that this link comes from Twitter (*utm\_source=twitter.com*);
- *utm\_medium*: **medium tracking**: this lets you track the marketing medium the links is featured in. So, *utm\_medium=social* tells me that this link was shared on social media, while *utm\_medium=sms* tells me that this link was used in an SMS marketing campaign;
- *utm\_content*: **content tracking**: if you have more than one link pointing to the same destination, this tag lets you differentiate the links or entry points bringing traffic to that destination. So, if your homepage has two links to your contact page, yet one is in the **sidebar**, one is in the **header**, and one is in the **footer**, you may want to use *utm\_content=sidebar*, *utm\_content=header*, *utm\_content=footer* This is commonly used on pay-per-click (PPC) ads and A/B testing;
- *utm\_term*: **term tracking**: while you might not see this often, this parameter is used to track what keywords you’ve paid for in a pay-per-click (PPC) ad.
As for the ampersand (*&*), that’s only used to join these parameters together, hence why you end up with long strings of parameters in a URL.
So, what’s the problem? It’s twofold:
- A lot of social campaigns are often carried out without thinking of these parameters. Sure, you have Google Analytics on your site, and sure you can have a referrals report through Google Analytics, to see which sites are referring traffic to your own site. However, this isn’t always effective - what if someone clicks on your link from a Twitter client (e.g. Tweetdeck)? What if someone cicks on your link from an email client, or a Facebook client etc.? They’re not clicking from a website, so they’ll normally show up under “direct traffic”. That aside, campaign tracking makes it infinitely easy for you to see the impact of your campaign on your website;
- A lof of social publishing tools aren’t conducive to writing parameters properly. So, for instance, you’ll have tools that promise to shorten and schedule links for you, when instead their default parameters aren’t helpful when it’s time to report on traffic. This will then leave you with unhelpful and ambiguous parameters.
If you need help in creating custom campaign parameters for your links, [Google Analytics have a handy tool that can help you with that](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en&ref=benkellis.com) \- [click here to access it](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en&ref=benkellis.com).
## Social ROI
*“How do you calculate social ROI?”*
This is the jackpot question. This is still a grey area for many: while a brand’s ROI is easily measurable, social media’s ROI seems to raise more questions than answers. A lot of people know how it works theoretically, yet fail when it comes to putting it in practice.
**ROI** stands for **Return On Investment** \- what do you get back from everything you’ve put in? This could be for a campaign, an ad, or your overall social strategy. So, if you pay £500 for a promoted post on Facebook, how much do you get out of it at the end of the promotion?
The main problem arises when you try and fit in more factors, factors that are peculiar to social media: what about influence? What about advocacy? What about engagement? What about new fans and followers? What about [employee advocacy](http://linkhumans.com/blog/employee-advocacy-guide?utm%5Fcontent=bufferfaf44&utm%5Fmedium=social&utm%5Fsource=twitter.com&utm%5Fcampaign=buffer)? How do you factor all of these metrics into ROI? What’s their monetary value? This is where a lot of marketers get stuck.
Some have come up with their in-house formulas to resolve this, attributing a monetary value to each of those elements. Some tools can do this for you, notably [Adobe Marketing Cloud](http://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/digital-marketing.html?ref=benkellis.com) and [Salesforce1 ExactTarget Marketing Cloud](http://www.salesforce.com/uk/marketing-cloud/overview/?ref=benkellis.com). These tools can show you how much money your followers’ traffic is worth. You can then calculate the average value of an influencer, which may differ from platform to platform.
Often the need to attribute a monetary value to all these social features and attributes stems from the need to speak in the same language as managers and directors: money, money, money. Sure, your campaign had a great clickthrough rate, the engagement was incredible, the positive sentiment went through the roof, and the fanbase growth was exceptional - but how does that translate into money? All these social attributes mean a lot to those who work in social media, but often to justify investing in social media, you’ll need to translate your efforts into “money talk”. “Sure, social media is great, but will it help me make more money or will it only cost me money? Either way, how much money are we talking about?”.
## Targeting on Social Media
Someone asked,
> *“I heard a rumour from a friend of mine that you can target social posts and even ads by email - he didn’t go too much into detail, but I’m definitely interested - can brands and marketers do that?”*
The room was quiet, and that’s when I knew I had to put down my bottle of cider and raise my hand up.
I confirmed - yes, you can target by email, but not how you think. I quickly touched on the subject email targeting and lookalike audiences on social media, using Facebook and Twitter as examples. At the end of it, it seemed that I had raised more questions - “so you mean people can target me if they have my email address? Doesn’t that go against privacy and ethics?”
Let me clarify with the following example.
Say you have a newsletter, and with it you have a CRM with all the email addresses of people who have explicitely chosen to to receive emails from you. While you cannot share email addresses for privacy reasons, your CRM will safely encrypt each email address into a 32-character hexadecimal string. This string is called an **email hash**. Twitter will then match your email hashes against their list of Twitter accounts. You can then target these matched accounts for Promoted Tweets. These people won’t see more Twitter ads - if anything they’ll see better targeted ones. These people can always opt-out of seeing these ads by unchecking the “promoted content” field in their accounts.
You can do the same with Facebook too, although the options will differ from the ones you’ll find on Twitter Advertising.
Email hashing isn’t a new practice; in fact, hashing dates back to 1992 - just google [MD5 hash](https://www.google.co.uk/search?rls=en&q=md5+hash&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&gfe%5Frd=cr&ei=s8kMVILjEuiq8wf76IGQDg&ref=benkellis.com).
Right after that, someone said,
> *“Wouldn’t it be cool if you could pick a person and tell their personality based on what they post and their online behaviour? Is that even possible?”*
The answer is **yes**! There are tools out there that can do just that; besides, you also have other tools that have great psychographics integration. My personal favourite is [Brandwatch](http://www.brandwatch.com/?ref=benkellis.com), a powerful social listening tool that integrates [social analytics and psychographics](http://www.brandwatch.com/2014/02/demographic-insights/?ref=benkellis.com). With it I can tell what someone is into, based on who they follow, what they talk about, and their general online (and social) behaviour. Additionally, as a marketer, I can also tell what the followers of my brand are interested in - ideal if I want to tailor my content to what will resonate better with my audience.
That aside, if you’re looking for a specialised tool that lets you target and market based on psychographics, have a look at [Certona](http://www.certona.com/?ref=benkellis.com) and [Monetate](http://www.monetate.com/?ref=benkellis.com).
## Aggregated Analytics
Someone asked,
> *“Social media sounds so interesting, but with all these social networks it can be quite confusing and quite difficult to keep up with, especially when it comes to analytics - is there a tool that can join all these analytics together?”.*
Unfortunately the gentleman’s question was quickly shot down by a resounding *“no, there isn’t, it’s impossible, and even if it were possible it would be futile”*.
At the end of the meetup I quickly approached the guy and introduced him to two of my personal favourites in this area - [Simply Measured](http://simplymeasured.com/?ref=benkellis.com) and [SumAll](https://sumall.com/?ref=benkellis.com). I told him that YES you can have a tool that aggregates all these data points for you, but NO you can’t expect these tools to do everything for you. What I mean is that, whether you’re an analyst or not, it is your due diligence to still look at the data - aggregated or not - to make sure you’re doing a good job with your social marketing.
## When’s It Best Time To Post?
Mid-cider I heard the following:
> *“Post outside of working hours and during lunchtime, for people who want something to read during their lunch break…”*
I personally have a problem with generic recommendations on best times and days to post, as well as *“scientific guides on best and worst times to post on social media”*. Here’s why: just imagine if we were all to post at the same, on Facebook, altogether. That “best time” would soon become the worst time to post - ever. Facebook would then filter out all the content that it deems “uninteresting” for users, and your post reach will quickly, but surely, go down.
There are best times to post for a brand, and that time differs depending on industry vertical and brand. Ideal times differ from platform to platform too - perhaps your Facebook fans are more engaged in the evening, while your Twitter followers are more engaged during the day. So many factors can come into this, but the main one is your audience - **where is your audience?** Perhaps you’re based in the UK, yet you have a big following from Australia; or perhaps you’re based in New York, but your Facebook is getting a lot of attention from a lot of Canadians.
Luckily most platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and YouTube, offer insights into demographics, so instead of making educated guesses, you can make a data-driven decision as to when is the best time for you to post on what social network.
## Sentiment Analysis
Someone mentioned [sentiment](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-sentiment-sentiment-analysis), which prompted me to put my bottle of cider down and examine the opinions of the people in the room around this topic. The general consensus is that social sentiment analysis is interesting yet impossible to measure.
While I could go on and on about this topic (no honestly, I could), I’m just going to leave you with this post I wrote not so long ago on the subject of sentiment analysis in social media: [here](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-sentiment-sentiment-analysis).
## “Content is King”
Shortly before ending the meetup, I heard those 3 words together.
> *“Content is king”.*
This expression was great the first time I heard it. Maybe the second time too. It stopped amazing me the third time onwards.
This usually comes with the variation of:
- *Content is king, and context is queen*
- *Content is fuel*
- *Content is fire*
(For more associations, just search for [“content is” on Google Images.](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=content+is&es%5Fsm=119&biw=951&bih=722&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=Ys0MVKDUAsLVaov5gIgM&ved=0CAYQ%5FAUoAQ))
Personally, I don’t believe content is king. Sure, I understand the perspective of those who use this adage and actually understand it - “*content is king*” justifies what we do as marketers, whether we’re social media managers, analysts, advertisers or PR professionals. However, content isn’t everything - content is what happens in conversations.
Author and activitst Cory Doctorow puts it nicely,
> **“Content isn’t king. If I sent you to a desert island and gave you the choice of taking your friends or your movies, you would choose your friends…. If you chose your movies, we would call you a sociopath.** **Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about** **.”**
…and that couldn’t be further from the truth. Content helps you build your portfolio, but conversation makes your marketing go round. Because if you have some great content to share, yet no one shares it, what happens to your great content?
Conversations are what make social media what it is today; the constant change in how we carry conversations is the major reason why social media continually evolves. So, if you have great content and you also have conversations around it, your content may lead to relationships, which may then lead to acquisitions (which will make everyone in your company happy). If you have great content and there’s no conversation happening, you’re just broadcasting and/or advertising - nothing more, nothing less. Sure, you’ll have an audience, they’ll read your content and perhaps they’ll remember it someday down the line… but if no one shares it, if no one talks about it, that’s where your content stops - in your audience’s memory. Throw conversations in the mix, and you’ll see your content getting a new boost, something that only conversations can give it - your content hasn’t changed, it’s still the same, it’s still great, but it now has a life of its own.
So please, next time you find someone saying “*content is king*” as a buzz-phrase, stop in your tracks and think about it - **is it? Is it really?**
### Brandwatch and the Power of Hindsight
URL: https://benkellis.com/brandwatch-power-hindsight/
Last updated: 2014-08-11T09:33:00.000Z
I briefly touched on Brandwatch’s latest feature, [Hindsight](http://www.brandwatch.com/hindsight/?ref=benkellis.com), [in my previous post](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/twitter-apis-vs-twitter-firehose). Just to recap - [Brandwatch](http://www.brandwatch.com/?ref=benkellis.com) now offers full historical Twitter data since Twitter’s inception in 2006, thanks to a new feature called [Hindsight](http://www.brandwatch.com/hindsight/?ref=benkellis.com). Combined with the already thorough archive of other online sources stretching back to 2010, Brandwatch have further solidified their social listening and monitoring solution as the main tool of choice to access the most comprehensive archive of social data.
As exciting as Hindsight sounds, it’s not just a nice-to-have feature: based on what you’re trying to accomplish, it can play a vital role in your overall strategy.
Frankly, with all this unbridled stream of Twitter data, there’s no limit to what you can do. Here are 10 practical examples.
**Campaign tracking**: [if you’ve ever wanted to review a past campaign](http://www.brandwatch.com/2014/05/use-social-media-monitoring-campaign-tracking/?ref=benkellis.com), you can now do so. Look at your own campaigns, see what worked, what didn’t, and what you could’ve done better; look at the campaigns of your competitors or of brands you look up to, to dig out any tactics you can learn from. Either way, tracking past campaigns is always a great starting point for future campaign planning, to make sure your planning is data-driven.
**Eyes on the competition**: historical data relating to your competitors will help you uncover any strengths and weaknesses they might have, hence showing you opportunities that you can learn from and make best use of. While you do so, don't forget to monitor **your own** historical data and see how your performance ranks against the competition and how this benchmark has moved over time against industry standards.
**Share of Voice**: closely related to the previous point, one thing that’s worth keeping an eye on is your share of voice - not just going forward, but historically too. With Hindsight you can track how your competitors took to Twitter from the very beginning, and how the share of voice moved as more of your competitors joined Twitter. What caused the shifts in share of voice? What caused any spikes or dips in your share of voice? Did you have any impact on your competitors’ share of voice? You now have the freedom to track and delve into all this data to your (digital) heart’s delight.
**Research**: with all this data, you can easily run an analysis of recurring or specific events. For instance, how did the volume of mentions change from the 2006 World Cup to the 2010 World Cup? How does that compare to the most recent Cup? What were the recurring themes? What was the sentiment, and how did that shift throughout the event? This is the kind of in-depth analysis you can make with all this data being available to you.
**Bring your data over**: I recommend regularly reviewing the social listening tool you’re using. Instead of waiting for your 36-month contract to lapse before reviewing the social listening tool they’re using, I recommend having a yearly review to make sure that the tool you’re paying for is still the one for you, and to make sure that you’re using it to the fullest potential. If, in the process of this review, you identify that your tool isn’t fit for (your) purpose anymore and you want move to another tool, you won’t be able to migrate all of your data (dashboards, queries etc.) over, as most tools save their data on their own servers. While you can replicate the dashboards or queries in hope to get most of the mentions you had in your previous tool, this isn’t ideal as you won't be able to retrieve all your mentions from the beginning. Hindsight gets rid of this problem, providing you with all the Tweets you had in your previous tool. (As a bonus, you’ll also get any Tweets your previous tool may have overlooked if they didn’t have full access to the [Twitter Firehose](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/twitter-apis-vs-twitter-firehose)).
**Influencer identification**: [influencers can be a brand’s best asset](http://linkhumans.com/blog/influencer-marketing?ref=benkellis.com), but they’re not permanent. Some of your best influencers may move on to your competitor’s side, and while this is sometimes inevitable, you can always analyse the reasons why to prevent that from happening. Having access to historical data, you can identify your past key influencers, or find how long your current influencers have been your brand ambassadors, and reward them for their continued loyalty. You can also see how influence towards your brand shifts over time, and how this leads to your content going viral. [Influencer identification is only the first step in influencer marketing](http://linkhumans.com/blog/influencer-marketing?ref=benkellis.com), and with full access to Twitter data you can make sure that no stone goes unturned and no influencer goes unnoticed in the process.
**Sentiment tracking**: I’m particularly fascinated by **[social sentiment analysis](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-sentiment-sentiment-analysis)**, not only because it’s a bit of an untapped area which I’m currently studying, but also because it helps uncover a lot of useful data and trends. With full access to the Twitter Firehose, you can now see what drove negative and positive reactions towards your brand as well as other brands in your industry vertical. By doing so, you can make sure you don’t make the same mistakes again and trigger a similar reaction, if not worse.
**Brand reputation and brand strategy review**: every brand has its highs and lows - while it’s nice to have a look back at your accomplishments, you also need to look at your “low points”. See how you dealt with them, see the impact of your actions, and ask yourself - would you act the same way if the same issue were to happen again today? Reviewing this data is a great starting point for when you need to review your brand strategy.
**Trend projection**: trends change over time, and while you may feel that your customers want more and more, it’s worth keeping an eye on their collective behavior over time to project trends. Of course you can’t project trends without your “past data points”, and here’s where unlimited historical data comes into play. Whether it’s to forecast growth (or a decline) in demand, or perhaps just a shift in market, it’s important that you have the right amount of data to track where your industry is going, and where you’re moving accordingly.
**Brand medical history**: do you have a record of your past campaigns and how they performed? Do you have a record of mentions from influential people and any [PR](http://www.brandwatch.com/2013/07/5-reasons-why-social-media-monitoring-is-essential-from-a-pr-perspective/?ref=benkellis.com)/marketing opportunities you picked (or passed on)? How has the volume of your brand mentions moved over time? These (and more) are factors to bear in mind when you do your regular check-ups, and Hindsight enables you to have a full history of your “brand health”, a bit like a medical history. Why is this important? Often brands run the risk of running regular reports that are then shelved and never looked at again. When you keep a history of your brand’s metrics and contributing Tweets at hand, you have a repository of data you can use to back up your strategies, reports, campaigns, budget requests… - you name it.
**\[BONUS\]** **Peace of mind**: simply that - peace of mind, knowing that if you ever need to go back to uncover any data, you can do so. You don’t have to think about digging out old reports or old data exports - you can simply run a query to get your data back and, just like that, your data is back. Oh, you want to build data visualisations looking at past events, or based on the shift in market, or looking at pivotal moments in your brand history (e.g. above-the-line campaigns, changes in managements, new products, brand restructure)? Hindsight has you covered.
## Do I Even Need Access to the Firehose?
The answer to this question depends on what you’re trying to achieve.
Perhaps you want to track customer services or you want to identify Tweets related to your brand or a largely talked-about topic on Twitter; perhaps you want to build an accurate benchmark for share of voice or some other NPS-like report to track your “brand health” over time. For these and similar scenarios missing tweets is not an option, so you definitely need access to the Twitter Firehose (or a tool that can provide you with that).
Granted, [sometimes a sample from the Twitter API is enough](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/twitter-apis-vs-twitter-firehose), if you’re looking to build reports or analyses that scratch the surface. However, if you’re looking to integrate social listening in your brand strategy, from customer services to PR, from marketing to analytics and beyond, then the Firehose is your best option for accuracy.
So, ultimately, whether you need full access to the Firehose or not depends mainly on what questions you want answered, and what actions you want to take based on those answers.
### Twitter APIs vs Twitter Firehose: Why The Difference Matters
URL: https://benkellis.com/twitter-apis-vs-twitter-firehose/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:44:40.000Z
If you’re looking to listen to the chatter on social media, specifically Twitter, you need to have a tool that can adequately do so based on your needs. Thankfully there are lots of tools out there that can help you with social listening on Twitter. However, while a lot of these tools (free and premium) will say that “*they have access to Twitter*”, it’s worth enquiring about the type of access they have. This can dictate not only the accuracy of your search results, but also how many mentions you’ll get, as well as their recency (i.e. real-time mentions or past mentions).
There are currently three ways to access Twitter:
- **Search API**
- **Streaming API**
- **Twitter Firehose**
While you may have already heard of “**Twitter Firehose**”, it’s worth explaining what the difference is between these three types of access, and how they can impact you.
However, before we begin, it’s worth clarifying a very important detail: **what’s an API?**
## What is an API?
**API** stands for **Application Programming Interface**, and it's how an application can be used by other applications.
Think of the API as the bridge between **Application A** and **Application B** \- this bridge contains the various rules in which **Application B** can communicate with **Application A**.
In our case, Twitter APIs state how other applications and devices can communicate with Twitter.
Twitter has several APIs, all for various functions - searching, posting, etc. So, for instance, if you use a 3rd party Twitter application like **[Hootsuite](https://hootsuite.com/?ref=benkellis.com)** to post to Twitter, it’ll use the [POST APIs](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1/post/statuses/update?ref=benkellis.com) to communicate to Twitter and tell it to post your tweet.
When it comes to searching on Twitter, a tool like [Hootsuite](https://hootsuite.com/?ref=benkellis.com) has three ways of accessing the platform, starting with the most commonly used way: the Twitter Search API.
## Twitter Search API
The first API that tools can use to search on Twitter is the Search API. This lets you search through past tweets. You can get a feel of how this works when you run a search on [search.twitter.com](http://search.twitter.com/?ref=benkellis.com): keywords, usernames and places are the main things you can search for through this API.
When you query Twitter via the Search API, the maximum number of search results Twitter returns to you is 3,200 (with a limit of 180 searches every 15 minutes).
Due to these restrictions, you are limited in the volume of matching tweets that Twitter will return to you.
## Twitter Streaming API
Another API that Twitter offers is the Streaming API. Unlike the Search API, the Streaming API gives you tweets in (near) real-time as long as they match your search query (e.g. keywords, usernames, places).
However, like most APIs, there’s a limitation here - out of all the tweets that match your search query in real-time, Twitter only returns a small percentage of them ([source](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/faq?ref=benkellis.com#6861)).
How many tweets you get depends on various factors, such as demand on Twitter, something to look out for during periods of high traffic (e.g. during the World Cup). However, the main factor is how specific or broad your search query is. To illustrate:
You decide to search for all tweets that contain the words “**social media**”:
- If the tweets that contain “**social media**” make up less than 1% of all Tweets currently being posted on Twitter, **you’ll receive all the mentions that match your query**;
- If a lot of people are talking about social media, raising the volume above 1% of all Tweets currently being posted, **you’ll only get a sample stream of the tweets**.
One way to overcome this limitation is by refining your query: if you combine “**social media**” with other keywords like “**marketing**” and “**analytics**” (or other parameters like *location*), you’ll increase the chance of retrieving all (if not most) matching tweets. So, as a rule of thumb, **the more keywords you combine, the less the chance that more than 1% of all current Tweets match your query**.
Why the limitations? It ultimately comes down to Twitter’s current infrastructure - there needs to be something bigger that can support all of the tweets and all the queries that may match them, in (near) real-time. The answer to that is the **Twitter Firehose**.
## Twitter Firehose
Just like the Twitter Streaming API, the **Twitter Firehose** gives you all the tweets in (near) real-time. However, unlike the Streaming API, there are no caps or limitations on the number of search results you can have - you’re guaranteed to have all the tweets that match your search queries.
While this is a great advantage, it doesn’t come for free. The Firehose is very costly, especially for individual users. Hence, the best option is to have access to a tool that has full access to the Twitter firehose.
At the moment, only a handful of [Certified Product Partners](https://business.twitter.com/partners/list/certified-products?ref=benkellis.com) have access to the Twitter Firehose, and the vast majority of them only offer 1-2 years of Twitter data (mainly due to the costs involved).
Other tools only have partial access to the Firehose, like [BuzzFinder](https://business.twitter.com/partners/certified-products/buzzfinder?ref=benkellis.com), a social analytics tool that only draws from [the Japanese Firehose](https://business.twitter.com/partners/certified-products/buzzfinder?ref=benkellis.com) due to its customer base.
A special mention goes to [Brandwatch](http://www.brandwatch.com/?ref=benkellis.com), the only tool in the industry that currently provides access to the full historical Twitter data since Twitter’s inception in 2006\. This is thanks to Brandwatch’s latest feature, [Hindsight](http://www.brandwatch.com/hindsight/?ref=benkellis.com) (you can learn more about it [here](http://www.brandwatch.com/2014/07/now-offering-historical-twitter-data-back-2006/?ref=benkellis.com)). This is definitely (and highly) recommended if you’re looking to uncover trends, do in-depth analysis, track performance over time, and much more.
## Does It All Really Matter?
Now that we’ve covered the essential differences between the three types of access to Twitter, you’ll see why it matters to check which type your tool makes use of.
If you’re looking for a sample of tweets for a social listening report, or if your’e looking to analyse past trends, then accessing Twitter via the Search API may be enough for you.
If you’re looking to implement a data visualisation monitor (e.g. through Tweetdeck, or an in-house built tool) to look at specific mentions in real-time, then the Streaming API is great for this.
However, if you’re looking to implement real-time social monitoring, whether it’s for an ad-hoc situation (e.g. an event you’re following or a brand crisis you’re going through), or a permanent “digital strategy”, then the Twitter Firehose is your best option.
Don’t just rely on tool providers and account managers to tell you that they have access to Twitter - make sure you check what you have access to, so you’re aware of what you’re getting in return.
## In a Nutshell
To recap:
- **Search API** searches in the past (limited in search results - 3,200 at most);
- **Streaming API** searches in (near) real-time (number of results is sampled);
- **Twitter Firehose** tracks all tweets, past and present (unlimited search results, with costs involved).
### So Long Clutter, So Long Numbers
URL: https://benkellis.com/long-clutter-long-numbers/
Last updated: 2014-07-21T00:24:23.000Z
If you've been following this blog for a while then you may have noticed a change in theme and layout. I've gone from a full multipurpose theme to a stripped down layout. No more fancy drop down menus, no more funky animations, no more colour coding my articles by category. Just text, a bit of blue at the top, and a simple navigation. I had to make this change, as a detox from clutter and numbers.
## Declutter
Lately I've been drawn to minimalism, taking a leaf out of [Paul Jarvis’ site](http://pjrvs.com/?ref=benkellis.com) and [his latest book, “The Good Creative”](http://pjrvs.com/creative?ref=benkellis.com), as well as [Owen Williams’s blog](http://owened.co.nz/?ref=benkellis.com) ([owened.co.nz](http://owened.co.nz/?ref=benkellis.com)), which sports a clean, content-focused layout, the norm for blogs hosted on [Svbtle](https://svbtle.com/?ref=benkellis.com). Both Paul and Owen have their newsletters, and while the subject matter is quite different ([Paul focusing on creativity and content](http://pjrvs.com/signup?ref=benkellis.com), and [Owen focusing on technology and innovation](http://owenwillia.ms/newsletter/?ref=benkellis.com)), there’s one thing that these two have in common: they pack a punch of great content, with zero clutter.
Less really is more, but I didn’t fully realise it until I saw my own blog being brought down by fancy CSS animations, fancy colour coordinations and fancy layout. All that fancy fluff was becoming the highlight of my blog, to me. (*Trust me, you don't want to know the hours I spent tinkering with the design behind the scenes of this blog.*)
So I changed it and “rebooted” my site, with a stripped down layout that puts emphasis on content.
I want to showcase my content, not my platform. While the platform does have its own importance, it shouldn’t be the highlight of your time spent on this site, or my time spent working on this site.
## No numbers
My previous layout used to display the number of times my articles were viewed right next to the article title. While I could've easily turned it off, I have to admit - I thoroughly enjoyed it. It gave me a sense of pleasure and self-gratification: look at all the views, look at the numbers going up, look at them increasing. **Look. At. Them**.
Those numbers worked as a comfort pillow, which eventually turned into a crippling exercise. Stats *can* be crippling. That's odd for me to say since I work with numbers on a daily basis - but those aren't my numbers. Those are numbers that belong to the company I work for, those are numbers that belong to clients I work for, those are numbers that belong to people who email me through this blog asking for help with their Facebook Insights exports. Those numbers aren't mine.
My best performing and most read article to date is [one on sentiment analysis](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-sentiment-sentiment-analysis). The feeling I’d get looking at the times that article was read, **that** would give me a kick, a good one. You'd think that it would spur me to do more, and it certainly did - to some extent. That was until the crippling moment kicked in: how do you top your best work? What if everything else you create from now on is only second to your best work? The mind of a creative person is the best and worst thing that could ever happen to them.
Numbers aren’t crippling, but the way you look at them and react to them *can* hinder your creativity. That’s why I removed them from my site. Now, the focus is on what I write, the responses in the comment section or in the emails I receive from here.
As for numbers, I’ll only look at them when and if I need to, but otherwise I’m content with what I write.
> *Numbers shouldn't prove your work - your work should be good enough to prove itself.*
### Twitter Analytics 2.0
URL: https://benkellis.com/twitter-analytics-2-0/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:44:41.000Z
It was just a little over a year ago that Twitter released the Twitter Analytics Dashboard to advertisers and publishers. Now, Twitter have revamped their analytics dashboard, introducing “*an enhanced Tweet activity dashboard to provide measurable insights into how your organic Tweets perform*”. **Welcome to Twitter Analytics 2.0**.
https://twitter.com/buster/status/487646027923484672
This is awesome news for advertisers, publishers, and social analysts alike who have a presence on Twitter. Here’s an in-depth look into the new Twitter Analytics dashboard and [the announcement from Twitter Analytics Product Manager and Data Extraordinaire, Buster Benson, ](https://blog.twitter.com/2014/introducing-organic-tweet-analytics?ref=benkellis.com).
## What’s Changed?
The first thing you'll notice once logged in is the focus on impressions: the graph that used to show your follower growth has now been replaced by a histogram that shows your Tweet impressions over the past 28 days.
There are clear signposts on the dashboard that tell you how you're performing in terms of impressions, with one welcome addition - **real-time tracking**. Twitter tracks how many times your content has been viewed in real-time, so you can rest assured that your stats are always up-to-date every time you log in.
The table of tweets has been revamped too, this time showing a breakdown of your tweets, filtered by organic tweets, tweets with replies, and promoted tweets.
The Tweets table shows the three main metrics: **impressions** (how many times have your tweets been viewed?), **engagements** (how many times have people interacted with your tweets?) and **engagement rate** (a ratio of engagements over impressions).
On the right-hand side of the page you’ll also see 5 handy graphs showing you the daily frequency of your engagements over the past 28 days, with a breakdown for **engagement rate**, **link clicks**, **retweets**, **favourites**, and **replies**.
However, here’s where the new Twitter Analytics Dashboard truly shines: click on any Tweet in the Tweets table, and you’ll get an overview of the following metrics:
- an **hourly breakdown of impressions** covering the first 30 hours of the Tweet's "lifetime";
- **impressions**;
- **link clicks**;
- **detail expands** (*number of times people have clicked on the tweet to view more details*)
- **retweets**;
- **favourites**;
- **user profile clicks** (*clicks on the name, @handle, or profile photo of your Twitter account*)
- **replies**;
- **follows** (*number of times users followed you directly from the Tweet*)
- **shared via email** (*number of times users emailed the Tweet to someone*);
- **permalink clicks** (*number of times people clicked on your Tweet's permalink, or "timestamp"*);
- **hashtag clicks** (*number of times your Tweet's hashtags were clicked; if your Tweet has multiple hashtags, Twitter will aggregate all the hashtag clicks*);
- **embedded media clicks** (*number of times your embedded media were clicked on*);
- **app opens** (*if your Tweet includes* [an App Deep Linking Twitter Card](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/app-installs-and-deep-linking?ref=benkellis.com)*, and a user successfully opens your app from it, it will be counted towards this metric*);
- **app install attempts** (*if your Tweet includes* [an App Install Twitter Card](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/app-installs-and-deep-linking?ref=benkellis.com)*, this metric will count all the times someone tried to install your app - successfully or unsuccessfully*);
- **dial phone** (*if your Tweet includes* [a Lead Generation Twitter Card with the option to call you](https://blog.twitter.com/2013/capture-user-interest-with-the-lead-generation-card?ref=benkellis.com)*, this metric will count all the times a user dialed a number through the Tweet*).
When it comes to Promoted Tweets, Twitter will break down engagement metrics for Promoted Impressions and Organic Impressions.
Lastly, if your promoted Tweet is part of a campaign you’ve set up in Twitter Ads, you’ll now be able to see how many engagements your campaign has received in total, as well as the campaign engagement rate.
This is a huge improvement from the previous Twitter analytics that only used to show the number of replies, retweets and favourites. Now you can see exactly how people engage with your content, what ticks and what doesn’t, and you can now correlate that to Twitter growth (especially useful if you tweet multiple times per day).
## What’s Gone?
With all these great changes and improvements, two metrics have been taken away from the dashboard: **daily followers** and **unfollowers**.
As the Followers graphs has been replaced, you now can’t have an overview of how many followers you’ve gained and lost per day. New followers are now shown at tweet level instead of daily level, so unless they’ve followed you from your tweets, they won’t be shown in the new dashboard. As for the number of unfollowers, this metric has completely disappeared from the new dashboard.
## Impressions - At Last
For the first time, advertisers and publishers will be able to see information related to Twitter impressions - [real Twitter impressions](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/reach-audience-and-impressions-on-twitter-and-beyond). Before this new dashboard, most tools used to rely on [Potential Reach, an approximation based on engagement and/or follower count](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/reach-audience-and-impressions-on-twitter-and-beyond).
One metric that Twitter isn’t providing publicly is reach - while you can now see exactly how many times your tweets have been viewed (**impressions**), you can’t tell how many people viewed those tweets (**reach**). This is in line with the Twitter Cards Analytics Dashboard which shows impressions without the reach.
So, what do these impressions cover?
- Twitter web views;
- Mobile app views (Android or iOS);
- Logged-in and logged-out views (so if your tweet is embedded in an article and you happen not to be logged into Twitter, it will still be counted as a Tweet view).
> **Quick note**: Twitter doesn't give stats on impressions and engagement data for Tweets created before 1st October 2013.
## What about the exports?
Previously you were able to choose a date range when exporting tweets, with a choice to download a maximum of 500 tweets in either CSV or XLS version. This has now changed: when you click on “Export data”, it will automatically download the last 3,200 tweets in CSV format, with a detailed breakdown of all impressions and engagements for each tweet.
While a lot of people (especially marketers and analysts) will use these exports for their social reports (or perhaps out of curiosity), there’s no limit to what you can do with these reports in CSV format.
For instance, you can correlate Twitter impressions with retweets; you can compare the performance of your organic engagement rate with your paid engagement rate; or perhaps, if you’re lucky enough to know how to code, you can play around with the exports [like Bill Johnson did with this example](http://dubrie.tumblr.com/post/91606245359/playing-with-twitter-analytics?ref=benkellis.com).
https://twitter.com/dubrie/status/488158223279853568
## Who has access to this?
If you advertise on Twitter, a Twitter Card publisher, or a verified user, then you should have access right now.
Here’s a quick way to see if you have access: click on the following link: http://analytics.twitter.com/user/*/tweets*. If you fit Twitter’s criteria, you’ll be directly pointed to the new Twitter Analytics Dashboard. Otherwise, you’ll see a message from Twitter prompting you to get access by implementing Twitter Cards on your website. (Here’s how you can do so: [Twitter Cards](https://support.twitter.com/articles/20170934-twitter-card-analytics-dashboard?ref=benkellis.com).)
## How About Twitter Analytics Tools?
It’ll be interesting to see how social analytics tools adapt to this change, especially since these new metrics are currently unavailable through the Twitter APIs.
Having said that, there’s nothing stopping the various tool providers from working out a workaround. The first analytics provider to do so right away was Simply Measured (you can read more about their clever workaround here: [bit.ly/1y8iKNK](http://bit.ly/1y8iKNK?ref=benkellis.com)).
https://twitter.com/FR314/status/488695719143149568
In the meantime, if you haven’t already done so, you may want to ask your social analytics provider if they have any plans to integrate with the new Twitter Analytics Dashboard anytime soon.
### Vine - Where Loops Count
URL: https://benkellis.com/vine-loops-count/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:42:24.000Z
```
```
The Vine app and platform received an update on July 1st, introducing a minor redesign of the Home Feed and a revamp of the Activity Feed that notifies you when you reach certain milestones. However, the most important announcement was the introduction of a new metric: [Loops](http://blog.vine.co/post/90463642406/introducing-loop-counts?ref=benkellis.com). This will change the way marketers and advertisers use Vine, and here’s why.
## Marketing Pre-Loops
Unlike Twitter and Facebook, Vine doesn’t offer native advertising. That hasn’t stopped brands from advertising on the platform, thanks to partnerships with Vine influencers to create ads disguised as marketing campaigns and sponsored Vines. These Vine influencers with a large fanbase are a hot commodity for brands looking to reach a large audience on the platform. This explains the rise of “Vine agencies” that recruit talents from the video platform, thus working as a directory of Vine influencers for brands. A notable example of this is [Grape Story](http://www.grapestory.co/?ref=benkellis.com), a “mobile-first talent agency” founded by [Gary Vaynerchuk](https://twitter.com/garyvee?ref=benkellis.com) and Vine star [Jerome Jarre](https://twitter.com/jeromejarre?ref=benkellis.com). This agency, and the very few others like it, make use of “Vine celebrities” who have caught fame for being able to story-tell in 6-seconds. This is a skill that a lot of brands are going after, and advertisers love it: these sponsored Vines are like pre-roll ads that people are happy engaging with and sharing with their friends and followers without skipping. The only metrics that brands, advertisers and agencies like [Grape Story](http://www.grapestory.co/?ref=benkellis.com) used to have at hand were engagement-related: likes, comments and revines. The number of revines was often the main factor for payouts to Vine influencers - the more revines you get, the bigger the payout. [Earlier this year Vine introduced web previews](http://tnw.to/p3LZi?ref=benkellis.com), making it possible for these advertisers to see how many times Vines were shared outside of the platform, to have a view of the social reach outside of Vine. Vine has gone one step further and introduced possibly the most important metric for display ads - loops. While Vines are limited by a 6-second limit, they do loop over and over again. This new metric now counts how many times people have viewed Vines from beginning to end - or in short, how many times Vines have been looped. Loops are different from Vine views - if you don’t finish watching a Vine, it won’t be counted as a loop. This makes Loops a robust metric for video marketing that can be used with other engagement metrics. This approach is reminiscent of YouTube’s analytics for audience retention, and Facebook’s recent introduction of Video analytics focusing on videos viewed for 95% of their total duration.
## What About Spam?
Loop Count is the only directly controlled metric from Vine. While spammers can comment on Vines, those comments can be removed either by the Vine’s owner or by people who report the spammers, making this a manual task. Loops, however, cannot be abused in the long-term - Vine has already thought about ways people could gamify Loop Counts, e.g. embedding a vine in a page and leaving that page open, like this:
To counteract this, Vine has methods in place that remove “spam loops”. Due to this, loop counts may fluctuate for some users, [as mentioned in Vine’s FAQ](https://support.twitter.com/articles/20170317-faqs-about-vine?ref=benkellis.com#loops).
## What’s So Special About Loop Counts?
The Loop Count is a metric specific to Vine. We’re already familiar with likes and comments, while revines are the equivalent of Shares on Facebook and Retweets on Twitter. However, Vine has now introduced a metric that is dedicated to the unique feature that only this platform has - the loop, the fact that a Vine will loop at the end of its duration, over and over again, until the user taps away, stops the Vine, or closes the app. So now you have a special metric, one that you can’t find anywhere else - you can use it to see how many people are viewing your Vine right this very moment, regardless of whether they’re viewing it on the App, on the web preview, or embedded on a website. This shows you real-time activity, similar to the real-time analytics from Google Analytics. Now advertisers have a solid metric to show the performance and virality of their content, making it even easier to justify budget that goes into the social videos.
## What About Analytics?
Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Vine doesn’t come with an analytics dashboard. While you can manually count likes, comments, revines, social shares (from [the web preview](http://tnw.to/p3LZi?ref=benkellis.com)), and now the number of loops, you may want a tool that takes care of all of that for you. There are only a handful of tools out there that cover Vine analytics, Simply Measured being the first one that offered this feature shortly after Vine was released to the public - and best of all, it’s free: [simplymeasured.com/freebies/vine-analytics](http://simplymeasured.com/freebies/vine-analytics?ref=benkellis.com) One very important metric that is currently missing from Vine is **reach** \- the ability to measure reach of video loops could make the move to Vine for advertisers even easier. However, advertisers can still play around with the available metrics to see their video performance. So, for instance, what if you have thousands of views, yet only a handful of social interactions? Or perhaps you have millions of views, yet people don’t find it share-worthy and it’s reflected by the low number of social shares and revines. You now have access to that information, to see whether your vines are getting the traction you expected.
### In The Mind of a (Swift) Developer
URL: https://benkellis.com/mind-swift-developer/
Last updated: 2014-06-23T07:00:58.000Z
I used to question buying apps that cost £1.99, yet not bat an eyelid when buying a drink at Starbucks at over £3/£4\. I used to want and demand more and more from apps and their developers, and while I **am** a lover of great design and what I like to call “*beautiful pixels*”, I used to act like an illegitimate UX/UI critic on some of the apps I had on my phone, iPad or Mac:
\- *why is the bar so skeumorphic? Have they never heard of iOS 7?!*
\- *why is it launching Safari just to authenticate with my Twitter account? Can’t it just do it natively?*
\- *the colours are too bright, I’m about to get a headache.*
While some of my points were valid, others were just lousy, from the perspective of a spoilt iOS user who loves great design but doesn’t know anything about the code that brought that design to life in the first place.
All of that changed recently - when I started learning how to code.
Now, I’m by no means an expert developer - I used to want to learn how to code “because it was cool”. 2013 was the year when a lot of blogs came up with the “let’s code and rule the world” spirit and that was awesome - yet, I didn’t have the right motivation. “*Because it’s cool*” might be a good reason for some, but it’s not a good reason for me to want to stick around the coding playground.
Then something happened. WWDC happened. Specifically Swift. There’s just so much that attracts me to this new programming language, but there’s one thing that stands out - with Swift, I don’t feel left behind anymore. While people who do have experience in Objective-C have a big advantage (as Swift has its roots in Objective-C, among other languages), I don’t feel too "small" now to learn coding - I feel like I’m in the same line to race with other beginners like myself, racing with some of the great developers I follow and admire.
Basically, metaphors aside, Swift is giving me that confidence that I can actually do some great stuff, that I can turn my ideas into apps that people everywhere can download (and why not, critique too).
I’ve started learning from day one, both Swift and Objective-C (just to get some proper grounding).
Now I don't mind paying for apps and services especially when I think of all the work and effort that went into such app. The more I learn how to code, the more I get in the mind of a developer and understand the implications of building universal apps vs iPhone- and iPad-specific apps; the more I learn about functions and variables, the more I understand why Mac apps cost disproportionally more than iOS applications.
## DISCLAIMER
Now, the reality is - regardless of what coding language you choose, unless you have the right motivation, you’re just not going to go through with it. That's why I recommend learning how to code while building a project, so it’s more practical and hands-on. A perfect example of that is [Make It With Code](https://www.makeitwithcode.com/?ref=benkellis.com) \- they give you the theory and a project, and they help you build your own project too instead of just learning a prepackaged syllabus.
### Adobe Summit 2014 - Day 1 & 2
URL: https://benkellis.com/adobe-summit-2014-day-1-2/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:42:24.000Z
The eight edition of the Adobe Summit EMEA concluded on Thursday 15th May, making it the largest digital marketing event of the year, with almost 4,000 in attendance from 47 countries and almost 100 breakout sessions over the two days. Needless to say, it was a huge success! This year’s theme was the **reinvention (and evolution) of marketing**, a theme that ran throughout the main keynote sessions.
The two Summit days were packed with lots of information and valuable insights, but I’ll do my best to summarise it all, starting with Day 1.
## Day 1
### The Reinvention of Marketing
Day 1 started with the opening keynote, aptly entitled “**The Reinvention of Marketing**”, hosted by Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen and Summit host [Brad Rencher](https://twitter.com/bradrencher?ref=benkellis.com). They discussed the importance of creativity in marketing, the need for a “marketing reboot”, and the steps needed to do so.
Here are the main takeaways:
- **Customer behaviour has changed**, and so should marketing to match it. While more people are moving to digital transactions, it’s worth noting, as [Brad Rencher](https://twitter.com/bradrencher?ref=benkellis.com) pointed out, that every analogue interaction has a digital footprint. Unfortunately, not all businesses have been able to keep up with it all - customer behaviour, real-time marketing, being able to link various digital points to better target your existing (and potential) customers.
- Adobe had to go through a similar process too, reimagining their entire business, moving from selling Photoshop in boxes to delivering a whole cloud-based solution through online subscriptions.
- This calls for a change - a “**reinvention of marketing**”. The good news is that it is possible to keep up with this change and be part of this reinvention, but to do so you need to be a real-time enterprise, and to be a real-time enterprise you need to have interconnected systems that give you a unified view of all your customers. Luckily, Adobe is at the forefront of this “marketing revolution” with its Marketing Cloud. To better assist brands and marketers, Adobe have announced a new release of Adobe Media Optimiser with new predictive modelling capabilities. Some of the highlights in this update are:
- Next-generation predictive modelling algorithms, helping marketers make the best use of search marketing metrics and other attributes;
- Unified campaign analysis, to have a complete view of your campaigns, thanks to the integration of search engine metrics and website engagement data being passed between Adobe Analytics and Media Optimiser;
- Extended audience reach, allowing marketers to efficiently manage and optimise remarketing lists for Google search ads. With the new unified view, you’ll now be able to quickly identify high-value customers and deliver targeted messages;
- Real-time campaign management, thanks to the fully revamped user interface that makes it a lot easier to set up, adjust, monitor, and optimise campaigns across multiple channels in real time. You’ll also be able to forecast your performance based on your budget and goals.
- We also had a demo of real-time (and lightening fast) personalisation across multiple devices and I’m proud to say - it just works!
- Special guests joined Brad Rencher, to give their personal experience of how they’ve adapted (and reinvented) their own marketing and digital strategy in order to keep up:
- Mathieu Staat of L’Occitane, who spoke about personalised omni-channel customer experiences, and how they get a complete view of their customers through analytics and profiling;
- [Michael Aïdan](https://twitter.com/onzmike?ref=benkellis.com) of Danone Group, who spoke about digital transformation across 80 countries and 100,000 employees on board;
- young entrepreneur [Amber Atherton](https://twitter.com/AmberAtherton?ref=benkellis.com) of [My Flash Trash](https://twitter.com/MYFLASHTRASH?ref=benkellis.com), who shared her amazing experience of how she got into business at age 9, and how she started My Flash Trash at just 16.
### The reinvention of brands and marketers
While the morning was dedicated to the reinvention of marketing as a whole, the closing keynote of Day 1 was directly aimed at brands and marketers and how they too can “reinvent”. [Mark Zablan](https://twitter.com/mrzablan?ref=benkellis.com), President of Adobe EMEA, talked on stage about this and gave his own definition of how marketers should see this “reinvention” process:
https://twitter.com/AdobeSummit/status/466608650329403392
Mark was later joined on stage by special guests to explore how brands need to reinvent themselves to excel in the digital age:
- [Gaston Legorburu](https://twitter.com/gastonleg?ref=benkellis.com) of [SapientNitro](https://twitter.com/sapientnitro?ref=benkellis.com), who spoke about how brands need to become mentors, as story-enablers, and talking about “[storyscaping](https://twitter.com/FR314/status/466616355144613889?ref=benkellis.com)”, an approach taken by [SapientNitro](https://twitter.com/sapientnitro?ref=benkellis.com) as a whole;
- [Jez Frampton](https://twitter.com/jezframpton?ref=benkellis.com) of [Interbrand](https://twitter.com/Interbrand?ref=benkellis.com), who spoke about the need to learn completely new skills as marketers to meet the changing market needs;
- former professional BMXer turned actor [Kurt Yaeger](https://twitter.com/kurtyaeger?ref=benkellis.com), who shared his inspirational and eye-opening life experience about how he was bold to reinvent himself.
Last but certainly not least, [Ann Lewnes](https://twitter.com/alewnes?ref=benkellis.com) (Adobe CIO) and [Gerri Martin-Flickinger](https://twitter.com/GMFlickinger?ref=benkellis.com) (Adobe CMO) hosted a panel of industry experts to discuss the relationship between IT and Marketing today, with the help of:
- Patrick Hoffstetter, Chief Digital Officer at Renault
- Lucio Adrian Ruiz, Head Office Vatican Internet Office
- David M. Cooperstein, VP, Research Director from Forrester
### Summit Bash
Adobe Summits are also known for their great bashes, and they certainly didn’t disapppoint this time: this year’s theme was “Festival”, and we were joined by caravans, plenty of delicacies, and (surprisingly) bumpy cars. The night ended in style with [Rudimental](https://twitter.com/RudimentalUk?ref=benkellis.com) performing their hits from their latest album. Needless to say, Day 1 ended with a bang - but that was only the beginning…
https://twitter.com/lonistark/status/466684106151956480
## Day 2
Adobe VP [John Mellor](https://twitter.com/MellorTime?ref=benkellis.com) kicked Day 2 off with a great comparison between the Adobe Summit and the “rise of the coffee houses” that led to the Age of Enlightenment in England around the 18th century. The Summit is not only a place for us to hear about the latest innovations in marketing, but it’s also a great space for marketers to talk amongst each other and share their experiences and come up with new ideas for the next “Age of Enlightenment” in digital marketing - starting now.
John also shared the results from the [Adobe Maturity Self-Assessment Tool](http://adobemarketingpro.com/?ref=benkellis.com#/marketing/start), a large study conducted by Adobe over the past few months around the maturity level of brands in the digital space. The results were presented with an explanation of the Digital Maturity Matrix, which assesses the performance of brands and companies in three areas: **Products**, **People** and **Processes**. Deficiencies were highlighted in different areas, such as mobility, sales assignment and knowledge, and that was a wake-up call for all marketers in attendance - what’s currently stopping you from evolving? (You can read more about the roadblocks that most marketers face [here](http://www.adobe.com/news-room/pressreleases/201405/051414AdobeDigitalRoadblockEMEA.html?ref=benkellis.com).)
We were then treated to some very interesting experiences from the keynote’s special guests:
- [Michael Acton Smith](https://twitter.com/acton?ref=benkellis.com), founder of Moshi Monsters , a virtual world for children that makes use of “stealth education”. Michael had to reinvent himself and his business, taking advantage of mobile devices and other touch points.
- [Dr. David Cox](https://twitter.com/drdavidtcox?ref=benkellis.com), Chief Medical Officer of [Headspace](http://www.getsomeheadspace.com/index.aspx?ref=benkellis.com), an online platform dedicated to “meditation for modern living” using mobile devices to be present in the lives of its followers.
- Justin Coghlan, co-founder of Movember, an 8-year old movement that reinvents itself every year through social media.
We also heard from Paolo Yuvenico of DigitalsLBi and Aldo Agostinelli of Sky Italia on how data and technology “changed the game” for them.
### Peeks
The day ended with a sneak peek at the latest developments from Adobe Labs. Hosted by Adobe's Steve Hammond and the hilarious David Schneider (yes, THE David Schneider), we were treated with bad jokes…
https://twitter.com/FR314/status/466972479119179776
…some insights on David’s life/work balance (which some of us can certainly relate to)…
https://twitter.com/AdobeSummit/status/466975253449957376
…and a few sneak peeks into what Adobe might introduce in its Marketing Cloud in the (near?) future.
I have to say, I’m quite impressed by what Adobe has been working on - from new features to tweaks, big and small, to improve the Marketing Cloud.
One feature I’m extremely happy about is a seemingly small one but very relevant to me - an update to the sentiment analysis in Adobe Social and the introuction of Robert Plutchik’s “wheel of emotion” within the platform, to show the underlining emotions behind the three main sentiments (positive, neutral, and negative).
I’m very particular about sentiment analysis, as [I’ve already spoken (and written) at lengths about it](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-sentiment-sentiment-analysis), so I’m really happy to see Adobe take it up another notch to make this already excellent platform even better.
Now, Adobe Summit may be over for this year, but this is definitely not the end. So, until next year’s Adobe Summit, keep evolving!
### The Death of PTAT (People Talking About This)
URL: https://benkellis.com/death-ptat-people-talking/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:42:24.000Z
The infamous **PTAT** (**People Talking About This**) metric will soon be removed from Facebook Insights, and that is a very, very good thing. It will be available in the exports and through Facebook’s API until July 2nd 2014, which may coincide with [Facebook “adjusting” its Insights dashboard](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/facebook-changes-2014-whos-ready). After that, PTAT won’t be available anymore, as announced on [its Platform Roadmap page](https://developers.facebook.com/roadmap/?ref=benkellis.com). The reason? According to Facebook, it’s ‘*to better see how people interact with a page’s content*’. This is definitely one of the most exciting changes I’m looking forward to this year. Now, before I tell you why I dislike this metric so much, I’m going to explain what people think PTAT is, what it actually is, and why it’s not that useful, as well as a few recommendations of metrics you can use instead.
## What is PTAT?
PTAT stands for “**People Talking About This**”, and it’s a metric that a lot of marketers and industry tools swear by. The problem with PTAT is that, while it’s been here for almost 3 years, not everyone actually understands it. The two most common mistakes are:
- Assuming that PTAT is only a combination of people liking, commenting and sharing your Page content;
- Taking PTAT literally, assuming that PTAT is the number of people who are *actually* talking about your Facebook page.
This confusion often stems from the wording that Facebook uses - “*People Talking About This”*. So, before going any further we need to understand Facebook’s rationale behind calling this metric what it is today.
## Facebook Stories
When you interact with a Page’s content, you create an item that is then displayed on your friends’ News Feed and News Ticker (until the old layout completely fades out). An example of a Facebook story is “*Ben liked a picture*”, “*Ben was tagged in a picture*”, “*Ben commented on a post*”. (You can read more about this [here](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/facebookstory).)
Every time someone triggers a ‘story’ from your Page or its content, it mentions your Page in the story. For instance, if my friend Paul shares your latest picture, it will show in my News Feed as “*(* ***Paul*** *) shared (* ***Page*** *)’s (* ***picture*** *)*” . Because of how this item appears in my News Feed (with your Page’s name on it), that item is telling a “story” about your Page on my feed, spreading your Page name through “Facebook word of mouth”. Everyone who triggers a story from your Page is, in a way, talking about your page - hence the wording “**People Talking About This**”.
However, likes, comments and shares aren’t the only interactions that can trigger a ‘story’. Here’s a list of actions that trigger a story:
- liking a post
- liking a comment
- commenting on a post
- commenting on a comment
- sharing a post
- answering a question/”poll”
- responding to an event
- claiming an offer
- posting on the page wall
- mentioning the page in a post
- tagging the page in a photo
- checking in at your place/page
- sharing a check-in deal
- liking a check-in deal
- writing a recommendation
- liking a page.
As you can see, a lot goes into PTAT, but what’s of great interest is the last one in the list: **liking a page**. This means that your PTAT includes people who engage with you as well as people who like your page. Liking your Page goes beyond engagement, as I can like your Page and not interact with it at all, or even worse - I can like your Page and hide all your posts from my News Feed.
The problem is that PTAT is often used incorrectly as an engagement metric, when it actually involves interactions that go beyond engagement. PTAT is better classified as an “*activity metric*”, as it looks at all activity going on around your Page and its content, as long as a story is triggered.
Another problem with PTAT is that it’s an aggregate metric, a mashup of several metrics together. Due to the metrics involved, it can be easily manipulated and gamified. For example, if you run ads to increase your number of fans, your PTAT will increase considerably. PTAT favours pages that have a high fan growth or who run advertising, regularly or irregularly. This makes it an unfair metric to use for page comparison, especially if your content performs better than your competitor, while your competitor invests a lot more money than you in ads.
Lastly, if one of your goals is to drive traffic from your Page to your website, PTAT won’t be of much use to you as clickthroughs don’t trigger ‘stories’. This means that a well-performing link (in terms of clickthroughs) won’t be counted towards your PTAT. The same applies to video plays and picture views.
So, all in all, PTAT is a nice-to-have metric that shows you at a high level how many users are creating stories that display in others’ News Feeds. However, if you’re looking for something to measure the performance of your content, PTAT is not what you’re looking for.
## “Miscalculations and Misspending”
Facebook used to put a lot of emphasis on PTAT, making it the only engagement metric publicly available for all pages - even those you don’t own. Everything else, including reach and engaged users, is only visible to Page Owners for their own pages. Due to this, page owners who haven't invested in a social analytics tool are forced to make do with two metrics for comparisons: the number of fans, to benchmark fan growth, and PTAT, to benchmark engagement.
This leads to other implications, such as the need for brands to have one engagement metric that factors in the size of the page, leaving some marketers to use an improvised engagement rate - PTAT out of Fanbase. While [I've already talked about why I’m not a big fan of this engagement rate](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-rate-out-of-fanbase-or-out-of-reach), this is the only calculation that Facebook leaves Page owners to make with what’s publicly available for other pages. The result? More spending on ads to increase this engagement rate, putting page owners in a vicious circle of miscalculations and misspending.
However, it would be wrong to put all the blame on Facebook: responsible marketers should be aware of what metrics mean if they intend to use them as Key Performance Indicators. This aggregate metric doesn’t tell you what drove engagement - in fact, if you choose to have PTAT as your KPI, it can be a very misleading indicator of engagement.
## What You Need
To measure engagement and its performance, you need engagement metrics. The good news is, most of what you need is already in the Facebook exports. If you’re serious about Facebook Marketing, you can’t afford to ignore those exports.
So, what metrics can you use? Here’s Facebook’s recommendation:
> *To better see how people interact with a pages content, the PTAT metrics have been split into separate elements: Page Likes, People Engaged (the number of unique people who have clicked on, liked, commented on, or shared your posts), Page tags and mentions, Page checkins and other interactions on a Page. We recommend that you use these metrics moving forward to evaluate your Page posting strategy and engagement.*
You can make use of metrics in the Facebook exports, like engaged users, or [consumers and consumptions](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-vs-consumption-the-facebook-dilemma) (although [I personally prefer the last two](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-vs-consumption-the-facebook-dilemma)).
Additionally, you can build your own ratios, based on what you’re looking for, such as:
**Rate of Engaged Fan Reach**: how many of your fans who saw your content later engaged with it?
**Rate of Engaged Fanbase**: how many of your fans engaged with your content?
**Rate of Fan Reach**: how many of your fans actually saw your content?
**Rate of stories per impression**: how many of your content and page impressions result in a Facebook story?
Facebook’s removal of PTAT is a great thing, as it shows how important it is to focus on the individual elements that make up aggregate metrics instead of relying solely (and blindly) on them.
### Mentorship - Who I Look Up To
URL: https://benkellis.com/mentorship-look/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:42:24.000Z
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I was recently asked to find myself a mentor at work, which raised the following question: "who do you see as a potential mentor in your workplace?". While there are people I look up to at work, my mentors don't actually work with me. In fact, they don't even know they're my mentors. Well, unless they're reading this. (In which case - hey, this is awkward, but...coffee sometime?)
Back in my first ever job role, working for the local government, my manager was also my role model and my mentor, and that was awesome - 1-2-1s weren't meetings to solely discuss what my weekly tasks were, but they were also meeting to discuss my career, opportunities, areas of improvement, as well as "wins and fails". My manager took me under his wing, coached me without taking away my freedom to develop on my own, and he certainly didn't discourage me from developing outside of work. (He was basically my personal Dumbledore.)
That was years ago, and while I've moved on, I've learnt that one of the best things you could do to yourself professionally is having one person (or more) to look up to, as a target, as a mentor - someone who regularly inspires you, someone you're striving to be like, someone whose actions push you to do more and more, someone who indirectly advises you through his/her actions, because I would never take advice from someone who isn't doing or (hasn't done) what I'm trying to accomplish.
Well, I have not one, not two, but three "mentors". I regularly follow what they're doing, what they're saying, their achievements and yes, their shortcomings too and how they deal with them.
Here's how I came up with three mentors:
1. First, I plotted where I see myself going 12 months, 5 years and 10 years from now;
2. I then looked at people who inspire me **AND** who are also in those 12 month/5-10 year-positions.
3. Bingo!
Now, before I reveal the identities of these three mentors, here's a disclaimer: I'm in no way saying that in 1, 5 or 10 years I'm going to be just like these 3 gentlemen, nor am I trying to undermine all of their great achievements. These three have achieved a lot and it's taken them years and years to get them where they are. Having said that, they all have one thing in common: they started from 0 and they've moved relentlessly from there - that's what I'm doing, hence why they're my targets.
So, here we go.
## Where I see myself in 1 year - [James Whatley](https://twitter.com/whatleydude?ref=benkellis.com).
[](http://cl.ly/Upva/James%5FWhatley%5F%5FWhatleydude%5F%5Fon%5FTwitter.jpg?ref=benkellis.com)
James is definitely one of the most hard-working, dynamic and diverse people I know (although I'm using the word "know" very loosely here). He's the type of guy who has hands in several pots, **and** he actually excels in all of them. He's currently the social media director for [Ogilvy & Mather Advertising in London](http://ogilvy.co.uk/?ref=benkellis.com). That aside,He regularly writes for [The Drum](drum.com/content/james-whatley) and the [Social@Ogilvy blog](https://social.ogilvy.com/leaders/single/james-whatley/?ref=benkellis.com);
- He co-hosts [The Voicemail](http://thevoicemail.net/?ref=benkellis.com), a weekly podcast that covers the mobile industry and general pieces of technology (gadgets, gizmos, you name it);
- He's the creator of one of my favourite visual/photography projects, called the [#EmptyUnderground](http://emptyunderground.com/?ref=benkellis.com), which featured on several sites, including [The Daily Mail](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2547943/Its-not-like-rush-hour-Incredible-pictures-capture-eerily-deserted-early-morning-London-Underground-BEFORE-commuters-turn-up.html?ref=benkellis.com), [Buzzfeed](http://www.buzzfeed.com/matthewtucker/curiously-atmospheric-pictures-of-the-empty-london-underg?ref=benkellis.com) and [It's Nice That](http://www.itsnicethat.com:8080/articles/empty-underground?ref=benkellis.com);
- He's also the organiser of the London 'Not at' events (e.g. [Not at MWC](https://www.facebook.com/events/1433088086926122/?source=1), [Not at SXSW](http://techcitynews.com/event/5103/?ref=benkellis.com));
- He's [an awesome speaker](http://whatleydude.com/speaking/?ref=benkellis.com) and he is actually informational (none of that fluffy-talk): I saw him last at [Social Media World Forum](www.socialmedia-forum.com/europe/agenda/smwf-keynote-day-1-a-2), where he spoke on a panel about social trends, platforms and tools to be aware of in 2014\. I have to say, it's refreshing to see someone telling it like it is, someone who's in the know and on top of what's going on in digital marketing.
https://twitter.com/Whatleydude/status/450665381389406208
He does a lot more, but you can try and keep up with his current projects [on his blog](http://whatleydude.com/about/?ref=benkellis.com) and on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/whatleydude?ref=benkellis.com).
James is my target for the next 12 months - while I too dabble in various areas (some related to marketing, some that aren't), I realise that there's a difference between "*doing many things*" and "*doing many things well*" - and this is one of the many areas where James excels. Another quality I'm currently learning from James is speaking in public - *well*. Yes I've spoken in public before, but for someone who has a slight stammer and someone whose first language isn't English (third actually), public speaking can feel daunting at times. That said, I definitely do want to improve my public speaking skills. One way I'm doing this is by studying public speaking - enunciation to begin with - e-nun-ci-a-tion. While I've only seen James speak publicly once, I do study and pick up on essential public speaking qualities every week through his (and [Stefan Constantinescu](https://twitter.com/whatthebit?ref=benkellis.com)'s) [podcast](http://thevoicemail.net/?ref=benkellis.com).
**Sidenote**: Stefan has a great website called [Tab Dump](http://tabdump.com/?ref=benkellis.com), where he posts interesting links. You should definitely check it out.
## Where I see myself in 5 years - [Jeremy Waite](https://twitter.com/jeremywaite?ref=benkellis.com).
Jeremy has been my personal mentor for quite some time, as I've been following his work and achievements for the past 2-3 years. He was recently named [Head of Digital Strategy at Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud](http://jeremywaite.tumblr.com/post/80887634397/hello-salesforce-exacttarget-marketingcloud?ref=benkellis.com), and I couldn't be happier for him. Besides that, he's an excellent digital polymath:
- He talks and writes about current events and thoughts about social media and leadership. He doesn't take things at face value but instead he takes a step back and [comes up with something great that's always a step forward](http://jeremywaite.tumblr.com/post/80593179146/just-because-youre-a-ceo-doesnt-make-you-a-thought?ref=benkellis.com). I admire him for that, [as well as his impeccable fashion sense](http://instagram.com/p/fqRo50hUxI/?ref=benkellis.com).
- Jeremy is a great example of someone who puts their word into practice - like [having a social strategy around what he shares on Tumblr](http://jeremywaite.tumblr.com/post/79885331480/too-much-noise-not-enough-signal?ref=benkellis.com), and being an adopter of new technologies and platforms (e.g. [Medium](https://medium.com/@jeremywaite?ref=benkellis.com), [Ideapod](https://www.ideapod.com/Jeremy?ref=benkellis.com)).
- He has an extensive book collection, and my inner librarian lives vicariously through him and his Instagram pictures where he shows off what's new on his reading list. There's a large number of books in my (digital) bookshelf that I bought after seeing them in his pictures, mostly on the topics of [public speaking](http://instagram.com/p/mm3twQhU-W/?ref=benkellis.com), [digital](http://instagram.com/p/fUvvThhU03/?ref=benkellis.com) [innovation](http://instagram.com/p/fUl-GYBU%5FQ/?ref=benkellis.com) and [leadership](http://instagram.com/p/jzY4gmBU%5F4/?ref=benkellis.com).
- Speaking of books, he did write one called "Sex, brands and rock'n'roll" a few years ago (2010 if I'm not mistaken), although finding a copy online is a rarity, unfortunately. I'm currently anticipating his next book, "80 Rules of Social Media", which you can read more about [here](http://jeremywaite.tumblr.com/80rules?ref=benkellis.com).
Jeremy's creativity is definitely one of the things that I find inspiring, and it seems to be at the basis of all his posts, be they about typography, design, leadership, social media or analytics. On top of that, he's the author of my life/work mantra:
> "*(It's) funny where life takes you when you stop making decisions based on money.*"
- **Sidenote**: click [here](http://socialmedialondon.co.uk/adobe/?ref=benkellis.com) for a good introduction to Jeremy ([although it's from last year from when he was working at Adobe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aJPGXchrBQ&ref=benkellis.com)).
## Where I see myself in 10 years - [Gary Vaynerchuk](https://twitter.com/garyvee?ref=benkellis.com):
Gary is not your conventional marketer. In fact, I'm sure he doesn't even like being called a marketer. He's a businessman: he's a wine-enthusiast/seller at heart, but that doesn't stop him from dipping into other various areas -technology, social media, marketing, everything online-related. I could go on and on about his life/work/business philosophy, but I think [this video will help](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=howHXaSG4y0&ref=benkellis.com).
Granted, those 5 minutes and 47 seconds alone don't do him justice, but you can see what he's up to [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/garyvee?ref=benkellis.com) and his projects [on his website](http://garyvaynerchuk.com/?ref=benkellis.com). Gary's been online since the 90s, where he put up his wine business, [Wine Library TV](http://tv.winelibrary.com/?ref=benkellis.com); from being the youngest recipient ever of the Market Watch Leader award in 2003, to writing his latest book "[Jab, Jab, Jab Right Hook](http://garyvaynerchuk.com/jjjrh/?ref=benkellis.com)" in 2013, he's accomplished a lot, and at the moment he's in charge of a 300-person social media agency called [Vaynermedia](http://vaynermedia.com/?ref=benkellis.com). I'm seriously grateful for people like Gary who aren't afraid to slap you in the face with the hard truth. His charisma and that unconventional drive are definitely two of his many qualities that give me that steer and extra-boost whenever I'm in my "what the hell am I doing?" moments. Here's one thing about Gary's philosophy: **stop being a marketer who asks people for stuff, be someone who gives.** That is not fluffy talk, especially since he puts it in practice, and that is exactly where his energy comes from: **gratitude** ([if you follow him](https://twitter.com/garyvee/status/351370644744716289?ref=benkellis.com) [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/garyvee/status/351362119645667328?ref=benkellis.com), [then](https://twitter.com/garyvee/status/453903201461608448?ref=benkellis.com) [you know exactly](https://twitter.com/garyvee/status/453903201461608448?ref=benkellis.com) [what I mean](https://twitter.com/garyvee/status/403770140598099968?ref=benkellis.com)).
- **Sidenote**: [here's his latest keynote from #SXSW14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyzNjPU0GqU&ref=benkellis.com), "[How to Rock SXSW](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyzNjPU0GqU&ref=benkellis.com)", a speech that can easily apply to any other event, big or small.
## Inspiration and Beyond
Besides James, Jeremy and Gary, I do have a few more people who inspire me in several ways, like:
- [Will McInnes](http://willmcinnes.com/?ref=benkellis.com) ([@willmcinnes](http://twitter.com/?ref=benkellis.com#!/willmcinnes)), Chief Marketing Officer at [Brandwatch](http://www.brandwatch.com/blog/?ref=benkellis.com) and author of one of the three books I'm currently reading, [Culture Shock](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Culture-Shock-Handbook-Century-Business/dp/1118312430?ref=benkellis.com), a future-thinking book about 21st century business.
- [Esteban Contreras](http://socialnerdia.com/blog/?ref=benkellis.com) ([@socialnerdia](https://twitter.com/socialnerdia?ref=benkellis.com)), Director of Strategy at [Sprinklr](http://www.sprinklr.com/?ref=benkellis.com), author of [Social State](http://socialnerdia.com/socialstate/?ref=benkellis.com), a great guide to the state of social media in 2013 which is still valid in 2014\. (That too is in my reading list.)
- [Joel Gascoigne](http://joel.is/?ref=benkellis.com) ([@joelgascoigne](https://twitter.com/joelgascoigne?ref=benkellis.com)), founder and CEO at [Buffer](http://blog.bufferapp.com/?ref=benkellis.com) and [perfect embodiment of the words "openness" and "transparency"](http://joel.is/post/69066438261/how-we-handle-team-emails-at-our-startup-defaulting-to?ref=benkellis.com) in everything he does (and the same applies to [Buffer](https://twitter.com/buffer?ref=benkellis.com), of course).
- [Jon Loomer](http://www.jonloomer.com/?ref=benkellis.com) ([@jonloomer](https://twitter.com/jonloomer?ref=benkellis.com)), author of [JonLoomer.com](http://www.jonloomer.com/?ref=benkellis.com), a website dedicated to advanced social media analytics (with a focus on Facebook analytics). As a social media analyst myself, it's interesting to see how we handle analytics and "social media dilemmas", e.g. when we both covered [the difference between Facebook engagement and consumption](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-vs-consumption-the-facebook-dilemma) ([here's Jon's take on the subject](http://www.jonloomer.com/2013/03/11/facebook-insights-consumer-vs-engaged-user/?ref=benkellis.com)).
- [Paul Jarvis](http://pjrvs.com/?ref=benkellis.com) ([@pjrvs](https://twitter.com/pjrvs?ref=benkellis.com)), an inspirational "*doer of things*" as I call him - he's a writer, designer, entrepreneur. As a writer myself, his regular emails that drop in my inbox are great reminders for me to let my creativity flow, and his tweets are great reality checks too:
https://twitter.com/pjrvs/status/457805902280544256
I'm sure that years from now my top 3 mentors will change, but so far they're my top influencers, and I couldn't be more grateful to have them as my personal mentors. So, if you're reading this, from me to you: **thank you - stay awesome**.
### Simply Measured: a Thorough Review
URL: https://benkellis.com/thorough-review-simply-measured/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:44:41.000Z
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For those who follow me on Twitter, it's no news that I simply adore Simply Measured. Not only do I love the company ethos, their ready-to-help attitude, and their general friendliness, but their tool shines through and through, and it definitely stands out as an exemplary social media analytics tool.
There aren't a lot of tools and applications that have made such a big and positive impact on me the way that Simply Measured has, and, as odd as it may sound, I've formed an attachment with the tool as well as the company. But enough with all the praises.
As a token of my appreciation for the existence of this tool, I thought I'd write a complete one-of-a-kind review. This is for anyone who's considering to get a social media analytics tool, or anyone who's heard of Simply Measured and just isn't sure of what it can do for them.
PS. Feel free to skip to the bits you're interested in: see the index below.
- [**Overview**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/2/img?ref=benkellis.com)
- [**Complete Social Media Snapshot**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/3/img?ref=benkellis.com)
- [**Facebook**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/4/img?ref=benkellis.com)
- [**Twitter**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/5/img?ref=benkellis.com)
- [**Google+**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/6/img?ref=benkellis.com)
- [**YouTube**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/7/img?ref=benkellis.com)
- [**Instagram**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/8/img?ref=benkellis.com)
- [**Tumblr**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/9/img?ref=benkellis.com)
- [**LinkedIn**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/10/img?ref=benkellis.com)
- [**Vine**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/11/img?ref=benkellis.com)
- [**Google Analytics**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/12/img?ref=benkellis.com)
- [**Monitored Keywords**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/13/img?ref=benkellis.com)
- [**Customer Service Reports**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/14/img?ref=benkellis.com)
- [**Pinterest**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/15/img?ref=benkellis.com)
- [**FAQ**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/16/img?ref=benkellis.com)
- [**Final Thoughts**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/17/img?ref=benkellis.com)
## Overview
[Simply Measured](http://Simply%20Measured.com/) is a tool that provides social media analytics to individuals, brands, agencies, and business - small, big and anywhere in between. Their Twitter bio describes them quite well:
> *"Our software helps bring social media analytics to life. Over a dozen data sources in one place. Beautiful reports in Excel, PowerPoint, and on the web"*
Simply Measured covers:
- **Measurement** (measuring your social media performance and efforts);
- **Listening** (tracking online mentions of keywords);
- **Active Monitoring** (alerts based on custom triggers you can set).
### A Quick Note
Before we begin, here's a quick note on how Simply Measured works. There are three factors that determine what price plan you're going to be placed in:
- **Social profiles**: the number of social media accounts you want to track;
- **Audience**: the sum of all the fans, followers, subscribers and connections (for LinkedIn analytics) for all the social profiles you track. If you decide to throw Google Analytics in the mix too, your average weekly unique visitors counts towards your audience size;
- **Mentions**: total mentions of keywords and hashtags that you want to monitor.
Based on these 3 factors, you'll be placed on one of these three plans:
Having said that, those aren't the only plans available - [Simply Measured](http://Simply%20Measured.com/) are quite flexible when it comes to pricing, so they have plans that scale to meet your needs, whether you're part of a large brand or a small digital agency.
Once you've set up your account, you can share it with others too. Of course, in the name of security, everyone you add to your account will have their own credentials (email address and password), and they can be placed in groups too if needed (e.g. a Customer Service group and a PR group).
One last note: me being a design-freak and a lover of great UI and UX, I've put Simply Measured through a lot of "design scrutiny", especially outside of the desktop environment. Simply Measured is fully compatible with mobiles and tablets. The layout fits perfectly on mobile and tablet, regardless of screen size, with a fully responsive design that looks as gorgeous as the web view on a desktop. More importantly, every mobile tap works as perfectly as a web click, to make sure you can run and view reports on the move without being tied to your desktop. Smooth!
## First Steps
The first thing you'll see after logging in is the main dashboard. Here you'll see all your options and available reports. At the very top you'll see **Reports**, **Data Collections**, and **Account**.
- **Reports** is where you'll find the full list of reports you can run and reports you've already generated;
- **Data Collections** is where you can see all the data sources you've linked to Simply Measured; here you can also create folders ('*collections*'), to group data sources when and if needed (more on this later).
- **Account**, as the name suggests, is the place for any account-related settings - time zone, plan details, adding/removing team members and more.
This first screen shows you all the reports you can run. To make your reporting life easier, Simply Measured breaks down and sorts these reports based on their function and platforms:
- **Single Profile**: reports for individual accounts.
- **Multi Profile**: reports to see how your accounts perform together, to give a holistic view of your social efforts. Not only does Simply Measured offer platform-specific multi-profile reports (e.g. a report to see how your various Twitter accounts stack up), but also [a complete social media snapshot, to see how all of your accounts across multiple platforms perform together to achieve your targets](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/3/img?ref=benkellis.com).
- **Competitive**: reports to see how you stack up to your competitors. Included in this is also a share of voice report, which tells you, through [social listening](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-listening-how-and-why), what your organic share of voice is across the web.
- **Influencers & Trends**: reports that identify the influencers within your audience. This report also points out people who drive traffic to your site, to see who your brand ambassadors and advocates are.
- **Keywords & Hashtags**: reports that monitor keywords, hashtags and links.
- **Customer Service**: reports with a focus on your customer service efforts on social media.
- **Web Traffic**: reports that integrate web analytics with social analytics, to show you how your social efforts have an impact on your website (and vice versa).
Besides that, Simply Measured also sorts its reports by platform, namely:
- **Twitter**
- **Facebook**
- **YouTube**
- **Instagram**
- **Google+**
- **Tumblr**
- **LinkedIn**
Simply Measured is a strong social media analytics tool not only because of its in-depth reporting, but also because, like me, it believes that your social efforts shouldn't be completely separate from your other online efforts. Social analytics and web analytics, when brought together, can give you a deeper, richer story that a silo outlook on social would never be able to give you. To support that, Simply Measured integrates with **Google Analytics**, as well as **[social listening](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-listening-how-and-why)**.
Simply Measured supports two more social platforms: **Vine** and **Pinterest**. Simply Measured was the first tool to offer Vine analytics, just 20 days after Vine's public launch. Pinterest reporting is currently under development, and while the reports aren't available for public use yet, you can apply to be one of the first users [here](http://Simply%20Measured.com/free-social-media-tools#report-128).
## Other Features
Simply Measured makes reporting easy with so many features, such as:
- **Scheduled Reports**: you can schedule any report you want, with highly customisable scheduling options.
- **Generated Reports**: Simply Measured offers you a repository with all your generated reports. What's the limit you say? None. I still have reports that I ran months ago, and they're still sitting there, intact. This is a lifesaver, especially for anyone who has to deal with social media reports on a regular basis and knows that keeping reports organised isn't always an easy task. Simply Measured does that for you, with smart filters that organise your reports by creation date, report type, platform, and date range covered by the report.
- **Data Collections**: this is a social media manager's best friend, especially when you have quite a few social accounts to report on. Think of it as folders or smart filters, with which you can organise your social data sources.
## Reports Overview
Now, let's get to the meat and bones of Simply Measured - the reports. Most Simply Measured reports have a similar consistent structure:
1. **General overview** displayed as an easy-to-read infographic, to tell you what's going on at a quick glance;
2. **Audience**, with insights on your fanbase/followerbase and traffic;
3. **Engagement**, with insights on how you're engaging with your audience, and how your audience is engaging with your content in response;
4. **Optimisation**, with smart tips and data-driven recommendations based on your social performance;
5. **Community**, showing you who's driving the conversation **to** your profiles, **within** your profiles, and **away** from you (detractors);
6. **Content**, giving you an overview of what worked (and why it did), what didn't work (and why it didn't), and an interactive chart with the list of your top posts; this is totally customisable, so you can filter and sort your posts by type (e.g. photo, text, video), date, reach, and much more.
> Quick tip: if you're not sure what each report does, Simply Measured displays a brief explanation when you hover over the report icon.
When you open a report, the default view is the web view. Your report will open in the browser and you'll notice the following options:
- **Twitter share**, if you want to share your report on Twitter.
- I admit I used to struggle to see the point in this. I had two problems with this: first of all, why would you want to share a report about your brand publicly on Twitter? Secondly, why just limit social sharing to Twitter - why not extend this to Facebook, Google+, Pinterest etc? After doing some digging around, I noticed that some reports may be useful for public consumption (outside of your brand/company/office). For example, if you want to run a report about a viral social media story (e.g. [Ellen's viral tweet](http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2014/03/03/oscars-brand-recap-how-samsung-pepsi-and-pizza-stole-the-show/?ref=benkellis.com)) and you want to share it online, you can do so with Simply Measured. So, while I still can't understand why you would want to share your own Facebook report on Twitter, I can definitely see how social sharing could come in handy for some of the other reports available.
- **Date view**: this intelligent view shows you all the other reports you've run for the same accounts/data collections as the one you're viewing, and it shows them in a calendar view, so you can easily switch back and forth between reports to compare stats. This is great if you run social campaigns and want to compare your last campaign to a previous one. 
- **Report activity**: here you can have a view of everyone who's viewed your report. This will only be useful for people who share their account as part of a group (e.g. two social analysts with separate logins having access to the same reports). 
That is not all - you can export your reports in PowerPoint and Excel formats, each giving you different options.
The PowerPoint export is pretty much what you would expect: each section in the web view is a slide in the PowerPoint file.
Although the PowerPoint export comes in black by default, you can always change the theme, or you can upload your own.
Although I find the web view and PowerPoint exports useful, as well as visually appealing, I recommend you look beyond these and try the Excel exports, especially if you want to dig into more data. This is where Simply Measured truly shines.
#### Speaking of Themes
I've briefly touched on themes, but there's so much more that I could say about this. While the main two themes for Simply Measured reports are 'Black' (default) and 'White', there are a few more you can use, depending on the type of report: the Influence reports have a Pastels theme, and a few snapshot reports also have a special Reading Rainbow theme too.
While most people might only see this as a simple option to trigger on or off, there's a story behind this - there was a demand from clients, Simply Measured listened and took action.
> "Themes would offer our customers the ability to change the colors of their reports. At the time reports were offered in only one dark style – predominately grays and blues on a black background. Users wanted the ability to customize reports in their brand colors or custom theme colors. They had also requested a lighter and brighter version of the standard theme."
The mechanics behind this are quite complex too, and you can feel free to read it on the [Simply Measured Engineering Blog](http://engineering.simplymeasured.com/blog/2014/01/05/report-themes/?ref=benkellis.com).
This is but one of the many examples of Simply Measured listening to user feedback, be it from social media, email, or (in)formal conversations with the account managers. You can rest assured that you're not only paying for the snazzy reports
### Excel Exports
The Excel exports may look like "just" a spreadsheet version of the web view, but they're much more than that. These exports come with quite a few tabs (each with their own function), which you may eventually find more useful than the web view(s).
There are five sides to the Excel exports:
- **Charts**: this is the same view you have in the web view, except in Excel format. Simply Measured provides filters all over the Excel dashboard, so you can run your own segments or change granularity (e.g. from a daily view to a weekly view, or hourly - or a minute view, if you fancy!).
- **Tables**: this is where you have the main sections of the web view in table format. Useful if you want to run your own graphs or you want to incorporate this data into your existing tables.
- **Calculations**: this is the sheet that feeds all the data back to the **Charts** sheet. If you want to change the text on the main sheet (e.g. to add more details to a campaign report) or the formulas, you can do it here.
- **Controls**: this is the tab that feeds formatting settings into the "Charts" tab (e.g. week starting day, chart date ranges).
- **The Nuggets**: if you're an avid data geek like myself, you'll rejoice at the sight of these tabs, which I like to call "the nuggets". The tabs to the right of "**Controls**" have all the insights you need in raw form, giving you more than what your current platforms already give you in most cases.
So, what do the Simply Measured reports offer? How are they better than what the platforms already offer (e.g. Facebook Insights, Twitter Ads Analytics)? I've taken the time to go through each and every report, to analyse what they provide, so you too can see what Simply Measured can offer you. However, instead of long paragraphs of what each report does, perhaps you're mainly interested in what you can get out of those reports. So, I'll take you through each and every report and highlight the questions that these reports answer.
### Complete Social Media Snapshot
Simply Measured's social philosophy is that *your social accounts come together to help you achieve your business goals*. That's why Simply Measured offers a "**Complete Social Media Snapshot**" report.
This report has three main aims:
1. Compare performance across all your social channels;
2. Analyse your account health, engagement rates, and trending topics;
3. Check your content performance and user engagement.
There are several benefits to having a holistic social snapshot (some of which are discussed [in this article from Simply Measured](http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2013/04/11/product-update-the-complete-social-snapshot-report/?ref=benkellis.com)).
This report can spark quite a few actions and conversations in your team and across other departments too. For example:
- This report can flag up any under-performing accounts, while showing you where they're not performing well (is it engagement? is it audience growth? are you not posting enough, or are you suffocating your audience with too much content?).
- This report can help you identify which accounts need more/less spend, so you can reroute your social budget and use it more efficiently.
- This report can show you how your accounts have been affected by a recent campaign, a PR disaster, some viral content, or anything related to your brand or industry.
### Facebook
The first question I get when I showcase the Facebook reports from Simply Measured is, "**how is this different from Facebook Insights?**". Granted, [Facebook have been very busy revamping their Facebook Insights dashboard and making changes to their analytics offering](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/facebook-changes-2014-whos-ready). However, I know that some marketers still aren't too comfortable with Facebook's data exports. While they contain so much data, some of the metrics used in the exports aren't clear to everyone (e.g. [the difference between Facebook engagement and Facebook consumption](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-vs-consumption-the-facebook-dilemma)), and most importantly Facebook can't tell you how the performance of one Faceboook page ties in with your other Facebook pages and other social accounts (e.g. Twitter, Google+). This is where Simply Measured comes in:
Simply Measured's Facebook reports cover the following:
- [**Complete Social Media Snapshot**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/3/img?ref=benkellis.com)` `
- **Facebook Page Insights Report**: if you want to see an in-depth analysis of your Facebook page, this report is for you:
- how many of your fans engage with you?
- how do your views and reach fluctuate over time?
- keeping an eye on this can help you detect any changes in Facebook's algorithm.
- what's the breakdown of organic and paid reach and impressions?
- what's the breakdown of engagement your content receives (e.g. likes, comments, clicks)?
- how does your engagement rate change over time?
- how does engagement differ by post type (e.g. picture, link, video)?
- what are your top posts, sorted by engagement (positive and negative), reach, clicks and more?
- what's the demographics of
- your fans
- your engaged users
- your reach
- when are the best days and times to reach your fans, based on past performance?
- how has your page audience grown over time?
- how do you acquire new fans (e.g. through ads, mobile, timeline etc.)?
- how are your paid campaigns performing?
- who's referring to your Facebook page from other online sources?
- **Legacy Facebook Page Insights Report**: this is the same as the Facebook Page Insights Report, except with the "old" metrics that used to be available prior to [Facebook's changes in 2013](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/facebook-changes-2014-whos-ready). This is useful if you have any old reports that use [metrics Facebook isn't using anymore](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/facebook-changes-2014-whos-ready) (e.g. virality). https://twitter.com/simplymeasured/statuses/415204230295597056
- **Facebook Fan Page Report**: if you want to see how you're performing on Facebook at a page level, this report is for you:
- how engaged is your Facebook page?
- what's the breakdown of post engagement over time?
- how is your audience growing over time?
- how is your PTAT (People Talking About This) growing?
- what's your PTAT as a percentage of fans?
- Some marketers choose this as their engagement rate, especially when it comes to competitive analysis. Simply Measured offers this, so you won't have to calculate it yourself.
- who are your most engaged fans?
- what are your best times and days to post content, based on past performance?
- what are the recurring topics in your page comments?
- what are the most successful links you've posted, in terms of engagement and clickthroughs?
- what are your top posts and comments, sorted by engagement, post type and more?
- **Facebook Competitive Analysis**: this report lets you benchmark your page against your competitors. This report works as a page report for your profile and your competitor, showing how you're both performing, in terms of engagement, audience, and everything covered in the page report.
- **Facebook Customer Service Analysis**: if you want to measure the impact of your customer service efforts on Facebook, this report is for you:
- how do your inbound and outbound posts correlate?
- how many service queries have you replied to?
- what's your average time per response, and how does that compare to your time goal?
- what's you average length of conversation before a query is resolved?
- what's the breakdown of fan and brand activity within and outside business hours/days?
- how is your page engaged?
- how many of your fans are engaged with your content?
- how is your audience growing over time?
- who are the top commenters on your page?
- what are the most recurring topics in the customer queries you receive?
> For an even more in-depth breakdown, export this report in Excel.
- **Multiple Facebook Channel Analysis**: if you have multiple Facebook pages and you want to see how they perform together, you can use this report to analyse up to 150 Facebook pages in one single report. (This is an aggregate version of the Facebook Fan Page Report.)
- **Facebook Content Analysis**: if you want to see how various content types perform differently on your Facebook page, this report is for you:
- what's the breakdown of post types you use for your content?
- how does engagement differ based on the type of posts you publish,
- how does the length of text in a post caption affect engagement?
- which posts from your page are the most effective?
- how do people engage with your content?
- what are the most common keywords in your posts, and how does that affect engagement?
- **Facebook Posts Insights Report**: if you want to see what types of posts drive engagement and why, this report is for you:
- how do your organic, viral and paid impressions and reach change over time?
- while Facebook doesn't offer insights on viral reach and impressions in Facebook Insights anymore, you can still find it here.
- what's the share of [post consumption and engagement](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-vs-consumption-the-facebook-dilemma) by post type over time?
- what types of posts are you promoting?
- how are your paid posts performing compared to non-paid posts?
- how much negative feedback does your content get?
- which posts have driven the most negative feedback?
- what are your top performing posts, sorted by
- number of [Facebook stories](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/facebookstory) created ([click here for the definition of Facebook story](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/facebookstory))
- [consumptions](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-vs-consumption-the-facebook-dilemma)
- engaged users
- virality
- total reach and impressions.
### Twitter
Twitter reporting is one of Simply Measured's strongest points. Perhaps you feel underwhelmed by the stats that Twitter provides through , or perhaps you want to see how your Twitter stats fit in with the other platforms you're on (e.g. Facebook). Whatever the case might be, Simply Measured's Twitter reporting can help you.
Simply Measured definitely knows how to do Twitter reporting well - so well that [even Twitter recommends it](https://dev.twitter.com/programs/twitter-certified-products/simply-measured?ref=benkellis.com), and it's no wonder they've been accredited with the Twitter Certified Product badge.
Simply Measured offers the following Twitter reports:
- [**Complete Social Media Snapshot**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/3/img?ref=benkellis.com)` `
- **Twitter Account Report**: if you want to see how your Twitter account is performing in terms of engagement, while analysing your Twitter followers, audience and more, this report is for you:
- how much engagement do your tweets receive?
- what are your best performing tweets, in terms of engagement, reach and more?
- how many of your followers actively (and regularly) engage with your content?
- how is your audience growing over time?
- what's your Twitter reach, and how many views does your content receive?
- what are your best times and days to post content, based on past performance?
- how do various types of tweets (e.g. photo, video, links) perform?
- what's the breakdown of your followers, based on influence, network size, engagement, platform (e.g. web, mobile), Twitter clients, demographics and more?
- what are the recurring topics in your tweets?
- what are your top tweets, based on engagement, clickthroughs, most clicked links, views and more?
- **Twitter Competitive Analysis**: if you want to compare your Twitter account with others, this report is for you. This report works as an account report for your profile and your competitor, showing how you're both performing, in terms of engagement, audience, and everything covered in the account report.
- **Twitter Activity Report**: if you want to keep track of your Twitter activity, this report is for you:
- what's your share of retweets, replies and organic tweets?
- how far do your tweets go, in terms of reach and impressions?
- how influential are your followers, and who are the most influential?
- what's the demographics of your audience?
- what are your most used keywords in your tweets?
- what are your most shared tweets and links?
- **Multiple Twitter Channel Analysis**: (This is an aggregate version of the Twitter Account Report.)
- **Twitter Customer Service Analysis**: if you want to measure the impact of your customer service efforts on Twitter, this report is for you:
- how is your Twitter customer service workflow performing?
- how many unique people and inbound posts did you reply to?
- how many complex cases have you replied to?
- Simply Measured reports on 'complex cases', service queries that take longer than usual to resolve. While Simply Measured considers a complex case one that takes longer than 4 replies to resolve, you can adjust that based on your brand policy. You can also see a list of those complex cases, although I suggest exporting the report in Excel to see all the details.
- what's your average response time?
- what are your most active times and days?
- how fast do you respond to people based on their follower count?
- what's the breakdown of follower and brand activity within and outside business hours/days?
- how engaged is your Twitter account?
- how is your audience growing?
- who are your top users, sorted by number of followers and number of queries sent to you?
- what are the top keywords and their frequency within your mentions?
- **Multiple Twitter Customer Service Analysis**: (this is an aggregate version of the Twitter Customer Service Analysis Report.)
- **Twitter Traffic Analysis**: if you want to see how your tweets are driving traffic to your website, this report is for you:
- how many of your visitors are coming from Twitter (new vs. return visits), and how do they engage on your website?
- how valuable are your Twitter visitors?
- if you've set goals within Google Analytics, you can see how people you drive to your site from Twitter convert. This can help you find the monetary value of your tweets and the traffic they drive to your site.
- what are the best times and days to tweet links to your website, based on past performance?
- who are the top people sharing links to your site, and who are driving the most traffic?
- what are the top tweets that drive traffic to your site, based on performance, engagement, traffic driven, time spent on site and more?
- **Website Influencer Report**: while the Twitter Traffic Analysis report looks at people driving traffic to your site with their tweets, this report looks at the bigger picture, looking at people driving traffic to your site from all social networks.
- [**Klout Stream Report**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/13/img?ref=benkellis.com)` `
- **Klout Influencers & Advocates Report**: if you want to find the influencers talking about you on social media, or [you want to start with influencer marketing](http://linkhumans.com/blog/influencer-marketing?ref=benkellis.com), this report is for you:
- how does your influence change over time, and how does it compare to your audience?
- who (and where) are your influencers mentioning you?
- what are the most popular topics your influencers talk about?
- what are the top links tweeted by your influencers when mentioning you?
- **Klout Share of Influencers**: if you want to see the conversations around your brand driven by your influencers, this report is for you:
- who are the influential people talking about my brand?
- what's the share of voice by those influencers?
- how many of the tweets about my brand are influential?
- [**Vine Tweet Analysis**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/11/img?ref=benkellis.com)` `
### Google+
If you already have a Google+ Page, you'll know how much of a struggle finding a Google+ analytics tool can be (probably as much a struggle as trying to explain to people that Google+ is not a dead platform, but that's a discussion for another day).
Google offers [Google Ripples](http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/google-popular-posts-eye-catching.html?ref=benkellis.com) to page managers, a visualisation tool that shows public shares and comments:
While this is interesting and visually appealing, it leaves so many questions unanswered:
*\- Who are my main influencers on Google+?*
*\- What are the recurring themes in comments on my posts?*
*\- How is my audience growing, and how does that correlate to the content that I post (and its quality)?*
To help marketers answers those questions and more, Simply Measured offers a few reports
These Google+ reports cover the following:
- [**Complete Social Media Snapshot**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/3/img?ref=benkellis.com)` `
- **Google+ Brand Page Report**: if you want to see how your Google+ page is performing in terms of engagement, while analysing your G+ circlers, audience and more, this report is for you:
- how engaged is your Google+ page?
- how many people add your page to their circles?
- how much engagement does your content get by post type (e.g. links, photo, video)?
- what are the most recurring keywords in the comments you receive?
- who are the top commenters on your Google+ page?
- what are your most engaging posts?
- **Multiple Google+ Page Channel Analysis**: if you have multiple Google+ brand pages, this report shows you how those pages are all performing.
- **Google+ Competitive Analysis**: compare and analyse up to 10 Google+ pages to see how you stack up in terms of engagement, growth of circlers and more. This report works as a page report for your profile and your competitor, showing how you're both performing, in terms of engagement, audience, and everything covered in the page report.
### YouTube
When it comes to social platforms that can give you the most in analytics, YouTube is arguably at the top of the list (followed by Facebook). The amount of data that YouTube can capture is phenomenal. While this is great news for marketers who have a brand presence on YouTube, it can also be a bit overwhelming to some. Simply Measured simplifies that data for you, without losing the in-depth level that you're used to with the YouTube Analytics dashboard.
The YouTube reports cover the following:
- [**Complete Social Media Snapshot**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/3/img?ref=benkellis.com)` `
- **YouTube Channel Report**: if you want to know how well your brand is engaging on YouTube, this report is for you:
- how is your channel (and its videos) performing at a top-level?
- how does your engagement change over time?
- how does your audience growth fluctuate over time?
- what are the most frequent keywords people use in their comments to your videos?
- who are your most active commenters?
- what are the best times to upload new videos, based on your past performance?
- what's the ideal video duration for your videos, based on your past performance?
- what's your average engagement rate?
- what's your average engagement decay rate?
- this calculates how engagement on your videos decreases over time.
- what are your top videos, in terms of engagement and views?
- **YouTube Competitive Analysis**: if you want to see how your YouTube channel is performing against your competitors, or if you're mainly interested to see what works for other brands, this report is for you. This report works as a channel report for your profile and your competitor, showing how you're both performing, in terms of engagement, audience, and everything covered in the channel report.
### Instagram
The Instagram app doesn't give you much details about your account performance, besides how many likes and comments your pictures and videos get, as well as how often your hashtags have been mentioned. If you want to see the bigger picture with your Instagram efforts, Simply Measured can help:
Instagram reports cover the following:
- [**Complete Social Media Snapshot**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/3/img?ref=benkellis.com)` `
- **Instagram Account Report**: if you want to see how your Instagram account is performing in terms of engagement, audience and more, this report is for you:
- how many posts have you published?
- what are your most engaging posts?
- how much engagement do your posts receive?
- what are your most engaging locations, hashtags and filters?
- what's your engagement rate?
- how has your Instagram audience grown over time?
- what are recurring topics in the comments you receive?
- who are the most active commenters on your pictures?
- what are your top days and hours for the engagement, based on previous performance?
- what are your best performing posts, in terms of post type and engagement (on and outside Instagram)?
- If you're interested to see how you can increase brand engagement on Instagram, [click here](http://get.simplymeasured.com/instagram-white-paper-om.html?ref=benkellis.com) to download Simply Measured's whitepaper on the subject.
- **Multiple Instagram Channel Analysis**: if you're a big brand with multiple Instagram accounts, and you want to see how they all perform together, this report is for you. (This is an aggregate version of the Instagram Account Report.)
- **Instagram Competitive Analysis**: this report works as an account report for your profile and your competitor, showing how you're both performing, in terms of engagement, audience, and everything covered in the Account report.
- **Instagram Hashtag Report**: if you're using a hashtag for a campaign, a product launch, or if you have an ongoing brand hashtag, this report can help you measure its performance in terms of engagement, reach and audience, to help you optimise your campaign further:
- how many people have used your hashtag?
- how many posts include your hashtag?
- how many people have seen your hashtag, and how many times?
- how did your hashtag contribute to your account's engagement?
- how did the hashtag perform outside of Instagram?
- who are top users who have engaged with your hashtag, sorted by engagement, reach and influence?
- where is the hashtag being mentioned (demographics)?
- how frequently is the hashtag being mentioned over time?
- what other keywords are being used alongside your hashtag?
- what are the top posts with your hashtag, sorted by reach and engagement?
> If you're currently running a campaign on Instagram, [click here](http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2014/02/25/how-to-effectively-use-instagram-to-launch-your-product-or-business/?ref=benkellis.com) to see how you can effectively do so.
### Tumblr
Little known fact about Tumblr: [Tumblr **does** have an official analytics dashboard](http://tumblr.undercurrent.com/?ref=benkellis.com), called [Numblr](http://tumblr.undercurrent.com/?ref=benkellis.com). However, it's very buggy, unreliable, and it doesn't give much besides a somewhat mysterious "Numblr" score, which is supposed to be an influence score of your Tumblr blog (or 'Tumblog'), taking into consideration audience, engagement and content.
Simply Measured know that and have partnered with Tumblr (via Gnip) to offer the most exhaustive Tumblr Analytics I've seen to date.
Simply Measured's Tumblr reports cover the following:
- [**Complete Social Media Snapshot**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/3/img?ref=benkellis.com)` `
- **Tumblr Blog Report**: if you want to see how your Tumblr blog is performing in terms of engagement, while analysing your audience and more, this report is for you:
- how much engagement do your posts receive?
- who's influential among your followers, and who amplifies the reach of your content the most?
- what's the reblog longevity of your posts?
- **Reblog longevity** shows you how many reblogs your content gets as days go by. Not only is this an indication of interest among your followers, but it also gives you an indication of how viral your content goes.
- what's the best time to post (day and time of day) based on past performance?
- what is your follower growth over time?
- what is your Tumblr engagement rate?
- how is your content being shared outside of Tumblr?
- what are your top posts, in terms of engagement on and outside of Tumblr.
- **Tumblr Competitive Analysis**: if you want to compare your Tumblr blog with others (max. 10), this report is for you. This report works as a blog report for your profile and your competitor, showing how you're both performing, in terms of engagement, audience, and everything covered in the blog report.
- **Tumblr Web Analytics**: if you want to have an in-depth look at your Tumblr blog, with a focus on traffic and engagement, this report is for you:
- how do people engage with your content?
- how many of your blog visits result in reblogs?
- what are the top referring sources to your blog?
- how is the traffic to your blog performing, in terms of referrals, engagement, first time vs return visits, and more?
- what are the best times and days to post, based on your traffic performance?
- who are the main people sharing your content?
- how is your follower growth changing over time?
- what are the posts with more shares on other channels?
- how are your posts performing in terms of views, engagement, time spent, bounce rate and more?
### LinkedIn
LinkedIn introduced quite a few changes and additions to its platform in 2013, and if that's anything to go by then 2014 is going to be an even bigger year for the professional social network.
One of these additions is LinkedIn analytics, [announced back in July 2013 on their blog](http://blog.linkedin.com/2013/07/31/introducing-new-linkedin-company-page-analytics/?ref=benkellis.com).
[As detailed in their blog post](http://blog.linkedin.com/2013/07/31/introducing-new-linkedin-company-page-analytics/?ref=benkellis.com), the analytics dashboard was designed to help you do the following:
- Identify the updates that drive the greatest engagement
- Filter engagement trends by type and time period
- Get more detailed demographic data about your followers
- See the growth of your follower base and benchmark it against similar brands
While this is very useful, this reporting only covers LinkedIn company pages, leaving a big gap for LinkedIn profiles and groups. Simply Measured fills in that gap, making it the perfect choice for brands, agencies, and individuals who want to have something more than LinkedIn's "Who viewed you?" tab.
Simply Measured offers four LinkedIn reports, covering the following:
- **LinkedIn Group Report**: if you want to have an in-depth view of your LinkedIn Group, this report is for you:
- what company, industry, and locations (demographics) are your connections from?
- how engaging are your posts based on post type, and what's their engagement rate?
- what are the best times and days to post content, based on previous performance?
- how do your group members engage with your content?
- what are the top site referrals to your group?
- does short-form or long-form content work best for your group?
- what are the recurring topics in your group posts?
- how many group members do you have, and how many of them are actively engaged?
- what are the most common words in the headlines of your most active members?
- who are the most engaged people in your group?
- what's the average network size distribution of your engaged users?
- what are your top posts based on engagement, potential reach and more?
- **LinkedIn Profile Report**: if you're not satisfied with the list of your recent visitors and you want more, or even if you've ever been curious to know more about your connections, this report is for you:
- what company, industry, and locations (demographics) are your connections from?
- what's the network size distribution of connections?
- what's the average network size of your connections?
- how many of your connections have a larger network size than yours?
- how many 2nd degree connections do you have?
- what are the top keywords within the headlines of your connections?
- who are your top connections, sorted by network size, demographics and more?
- **LinkedIn Company Analysis**: if you want to have an in-depth view of your LinkedIn company page, this report is for you:
- what's the over-time breakdown of company updates vs. total engagement?
- how do people engage with my company page?
- what are the company posts with the highest engagement?
- what's the average engagement per post on status updates?
- what's the average network size distribution of your engaged users?
- how many of your group members have large networks (> 500 connections)?
- what's the demographics of the commenters?
- when do most people comment (by day and by time)?
- what are the most common keywords within comments?
- what are your top posts in terms of engagement and reach?
- **LinkedIn Competitive Analysis**: if you want to compare your business profile against your competitors, this is the report for you. This report works as an account report for your profile and your competitor, showing how you're both performing, in terms of engagement, audience, and everything covered in the account report.
### Vine
If your next (or recent) venture is Vine, Simply Measured can help you with free Vine analytics. Interestingly, Simply Measured was the first analytics tool to provide analytics for Vine, just 20 days after Vine's public launch.
You can find the free Vine report [here](http://simplymeasured.com/free-social-media-tools?ref=benkellis.com#report-316). The report covers the following:
- **Vine Report**:
- how many people interact with your vines?
- how much engagement do your vines get?
- what's the reach of your vines?
- how frequently do you post and tweet vines?
- how many times are your vines being viewed?
- how do your vines perform compared to other media you're posting (e.g. Instagram pictures etc.)?
- who shares your vines the most?
- who are the Vine influencers within your audience?
- what's the demographics of your audience?
- what are your top vines?
### Google Analytics
Simply Measured integrates [Google Analytics](http://www.google.com/analytics/%E2%80%8E?ref=benkellis.com) in its reporting. Now, I know what you're thinking:
*["An analytics tool in another analytics tool? What does this mean?"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI&ref=benkellis.com)*
Of course the first question is, **how does this differ from the reports I already get from Google Analytics?**. As a power user of both Google Analytics and Simply Measured, I can assure you that they don't replace each other. This integration is meant to enrich the data that you already get from Google Analytics with a deeper social layer. While Google Analytics helps you answer the "**How is my website performing?**" question, Simply Measured helps you answer the "**How exactly is social media helping my website perform?**" question. Simply Measured does the job pretty well, so much that [even Google recommends it as a Google Analytics companion](https://www.google.com/analytics/apps/about?app%5Fid=2363001&ref=benkellis.com).
Simply Measured offers seven Google Analytics reports, covering the following:
- **Social traffic**: if you want to identify the social networks driving traffic to your site, this report is for you:
- how much of your traffic comes from social networks?
- how does your social traffic change over time (peaks/dips)?
- what are the top social networks driving traffic to your website?
- where do your social visitors come from (demographics)?
- comparing social traffic and non-social traffic, how do they differ in,
- average time spent on site
- pageviews per visit
- average bounce rate
- percentage of return visits
- goal completions.
- For this to work, make sure you have your goals set up on Google Analytics. This could be anything from a purchase to a subscription, to see whether people coming from social networks are helping you reach your business objectives faster than visitors from other online sources.
- what's the breakdown of your visits by traffic type (e.g. social, paid, direct etc.)?
- **Landing Page Comparison**: if you want to know which pages bring in the most traffic to your site, which ones are being shared across social networks and more, this report is for you:
- what are your top landing pages, in terms of time spent, engagement, traffic performance and more?
- what are the top landing pages compared by referring traffic type (e.g. social, paid, direct etc.)?
- what are the entrance bounce rates for the top 50 pages?
- what are the most recurring keywords in your site webpages?
- **Blog Performance Report**: if you want to identify your most successful posts in terms of traffic, engagement, conversions and more, this report is for you:
- what's the breakdown of visits and pageviews per visit on your posts?
- what are the top performing posts, in terms of traffic performance, goal completions, engagement and more?
- where is your traffic coming from?
- what are the blog posts with the most return visits?
- looking at the visitors from your top referring sources, how do they differ in terms of,
- visits
- average time spent on site
- pageviews per visit
- propensity to return on site
- what social networks do most people share your content on?
- who is sharing your content, and how often?
- what are your top blog posts, in terms of traffic performance, time spent and more?
- **Traffic Source Analysis**: if you want to see how your visitors engage differently on your site based on their source (e.g. social, paid, search engines), this report is for you:
- what is the total traffic to your site (segmented by traffic type), and how do visitors engage (and ultimately convert) differently?
- what are the top landing pages for organic searches, and how do they differ from other traffic sources?
- what social networks drive traffic to your website?
- what are your main referral links?
- [**Twitter Traffic Analysis**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/5/img?ref=benkellis.com)` `
- [**Website Influencer Report**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/12/img?ref=benkellis.com)` `
- [**Tumblr Web Analytics**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/9/img?ref=benkellis.com)` `
### Monitored Keywords
Simply Measured integrates social listening in its platform. This can help you monitor any keywords on social networks, blogs, forums and video sites.
While Simply Measured supports Boolean language, you can use its wizard to build your search query. With this, you can add keywords ('OR' and 'AND') and exclude irrelevant ones ('NOT'). You can also target languages, so if you only want to see mentions in English, you can do so.
Simply Measured supports URL tracking. This lets you see all the social shares of a webpage (if you have a specific link), or an entire website (if you want to track social shares of your site regardless of what post or page is shared).
You can also track shortened links, something that only a few social listening tools can do well: you'll find that a large number of people who share content from your site do so using shortened links, whether it's with [HootSuite's shortening system (ow.ly)](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/hootsuite-challenge-day-1-10), [po.st](http://po.st/?ref=benkellis.com) or perhaps [bit.ly](http://bit.ly/?ref=benkellis.com). You want to make sure that you have a tool that can keep track of any links shared from your website, shortened or not, and Simply Measured can help you with that.
The monitored keywords reports from Simply Measured offer the following:
- [**Complete Social Media Snapshot**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/3/img?ref=benkellis.com)` `
- [**Twitter Activity Report**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/5/img?ref=benkellis.com)` `
- [**Instagram Hashtag Report**](http://www.benkellis.com/s/thorough-review-simply-measured/8/img?ref=benkellis.com)` `
- **Day Parting Analysis**: if you want to see trends in time and day for mentions of your brand, or if you need some help in choosing the best times to engage with your audience, this report is for you:
- how do mentions of my brand fluctuate by hour and day?
- what's the proportion of mentions of my brand by hour, hour-clusters (3-hour blocks), and day?
- **Share of Voice Analysis**: if you want to monitor multiple keywords and the share of conversation that each keyword gets (e.g. your brand vs. your top competitors), this report is for you:
- what's the share of conversation for each keyword?
- what's the relative volume of each term by social channel (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, forums)?
- **Conversation Driver Analysis**: if you have multiple products and services and you want to see how often (and where) they're being mentioned online, this report is for you:
- how many mentions of your brand mention your products?
- how often are your products being mentioned?
- where are your products being mentioned?
- **Stream Snapshot Report**: if you want to identify trends in keyword mentions, with an eye on impact, influencers and content, this report is for you:
- how often have your keywords been mentioned on social media?
- what's the relative volume of keyword mentions by social channel?
- how frequently do your keywords appear in social posts?
- **Klout Stream Report**: [if you want to take on Influencer Marketing](http://linkhumans.com/blog/influencer-marketing?ref=benkellis.com), or perhaps you just want to see influential people taking about your brand and driving conversations around it (be it positively or negatively), this report is for you.
- how many of the tweets about you were from influencers?
- how many influencers do you have in your audience, and how engaged are they?
- how do your influencers boost your reach?
- who are your top influencers, sorted by
- Klout score
- reach
- followers
- influence aside, who are the people who talk about you the most?
- what do your influencers mainly say about you?
- what are the top links that your influencers share with their audience?
#### Active Monitoring
One feature related to the Monitored Keywords reports is Active Monitoring, which lets you set alerts based on parameters you can set, such as:
- Mentions by someone with a Klout score higher than X (which you can define);
- Mentions by someone with more than X followers (which you can define);
- Increase in volume of mentions (you can set the percentage of increase);
- Mentions by specific people (e.g. influential people).
You can also filter those mentions by language, and you can exclude mentions by specific accounts (e.g. if you have a separate Customer Service account that often mentions your main account).
### Customer Service Reports
Simply Measured offers three Customer Service reports, two for Twitter and one for Facebook.
These reports measure the impact of your customer service efforts, tracking inbound and outbound service posts, response rates and response times, as well as trends from customer behaviour.
Besides these usual metrics that you would expect from a Social Customer Service report, Simply Measured also has two features that brands will definitely love:
- **Business Hours Highlight**: Simply Measured shows your activity within and outside your business hours, highlighting the differences between the two. This is the ideal report to run if you're reviewing your service hours, taking customer demand into consideration.
- **Complex Case**: Simply Measured reports on 'complex cases', service queries that take longer than usual to resolve. While Simply Measured considers a complex case one that takes longer than 4 replies to resolve, you can adjust that based on your brand policy. You can see a list of those complex cases, although I suggest exporting the report in Excel to see all the details.
### Pinterest
Pinterest reporting is currently under development, and while the reports aren't available for public use yet, you can apply to be one of the first users [here](http://Simply%20Measured.com/free-social-media-tools#report-128).
In the meantime, we know that Simply Measured's Pinterest reports are going to cover the following to begin with:
- audience growth;
- share of engagement (and engagement rate) for each Pinterest board;
- pin engagement;
- top pinned domains by activity (comments, likes, repins etc.).
## Frequently Asked Questions
Being a strong advocate for Simply Measured who can't stop talking about this tool, I do get quite a few questions, some of which are recurring. Hence, I thought I'd list them below.
### How Far Back Does Simply Measured Go?
This depends on the various social channels:
- **Facebook**: historical data goes back to several months, although for pages that have been running for quite some time (+2/3 years), Simply Measured can give you historical data from the beginning of the page;
- **Twitter**: historical data up to the last 1,500th tweet you posted. This is not an awkward number that Simply Measured pulled out of a hat, but it's the maximum allowed number of tweets that any tool can retrieve from Twitter's API.
- This is not to say that Simply Measured can't give you historical data beyond your 1,500th tweet. Simply Measured is [one of the few certified products](https://dev.twitter.com/programs/twitter-certified-products/products?ref=benkellis.com) that have access to Twitter's firehose, which is Twitter's continuous stream of tweets from the very beginning. Access to the Firehose is hard to come by, unless you have a Certified Product that can provide that to you, at an extra cost due to the intricacy involved.
- **Google+**: same as Facebook;
- **Instagram**: tracked moving forward;
- **YouTube**: tracked moving forward;
- **Monitored Keywords (social listening)**: Simply Measured separates live tracking from historical tracking. What that means is that when you create a monitored keyword report, it starts tracking for mentions from that moment. However, if you do want historical mentions, you'll have to request that at an extra cost.
I highly suggest that you connect all the data sources you need as soon as you get your trial (these data sources will carry forward when you transition from trial to full product), just so you don't miss any of that useful data.
### My Trial Has Expired and I Need More Time - Will My Data Still Be There?
Sure - take your time, your data isn't going anywhere. Your data is still saved (including any reports and alert settings), and your collections will continue to catch your data, so when you finally sign up for a subscription it'll be like you never left.
### Does Simply Measured Measure Sentiment?
I'm very, very particular (read: *pedantic*) when it comes to sentiment, as you may have noticed by [my lengthy article around social sentiment and sentiment analysis](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-sentiment-sentiment-analysis). That's why I often get asked about Simply Measured's sentiment analysis.
Simply Measured does track sentiment using a sentiment score. Its official definition is,
> *"Each piece of content has a score between -100% and 100%. Based on its score, we then categorise the content as: Negative, Neutral, or Positive."*
In technical terms, they use a graded keyword-based sentiment score to your content.
Sentiment analysis is available at an additional charge, and it can add an extra layer on top of your engagement reports. Not only can you see a breakdown of your brand tweets and mentions, but also their respective sentiment scores, to see which posts drew in more positive comments as opposed to negative ones.
Additionally, you can also segment your audience, to see who within your audience contributes to positive or negative conversations about you. You can also play with a few more segments, using both Klout influence and sentiment, to see the following proportions:
- high influence and positive sentiment
- high influence and negative sentiment
- low influence and positive sentiment
- low influence and negative sentiment
### What does Simply Measured offer me?
Simply put: you can't manage the data you don't measure, and Simply Measured wants to help you measure that data for you.
Your social goals should be in line with your business goals, and if you can measure your business goals accurately, why not do the same with your social efforts? That's why you need a tool that is especially designed to bring the best out of your social efforts, while showing you how you're performing.
### Does Simply Measured have anything for me as a taster?
They sure do:
- [You can use some of the reports Simply Measured makes available for free](http://simplymeasured.com/free-social-media-tools?ref=benkellis.com);
- [You can see the full list of reports that Simply Measured makes available for full subscribers here](http://simplymeasured.com/free-social-media-tools?ref=benkellis.com#%5F);
- [You can apply for a 14-day free trial of Simply Measured here](http://get.simplymeasured.com/trial.html?ref=benkellis.com).
Besides that, Simply Measured offers a few free tools, including a [Twitter Analysis and Spam Checker tool](http://simplymeasured.com/tour/twitter-spam-checker-tool/?ref=benkellis.com), to see if your account has been flagged as spam by anyone ([see here](http://simplymeasured.com/tour/twitter-spam-checker-tool/?ref=benkellis.com)).
### I Don't Have the Budget!
Sadly, I hear this a lot. Compared to other "premium" tools that offer social analytics, Simply Measured's pricing gives you value for less than you'd expect. However, not everyone has the budget, and that's totally understandable. Unfortunately, in some cases this is due to senior managers not believing in social media enough to put money behind it.
Here you have 3 options:
- **Start with less**: your best option will be to connect your main accounts, and leave your secondary accounts and any competitors off your pricing plan to begin with. By doing so, you'll be placed on a cheaper price plan. Over time, once you've proven to your team, department, and ultimately yourself that Simply Measured is the tool for you, you'll have a stronger case to get more budget to expand your pricing plan and add in any other accounts.
- **Build a business case**: you need to justify the need for a social analytics and its cost, especially since there are several free social analytics tools out there. Build a business case to support your case - this is something your Simply Measured account manager can help you with.
- **Comparison**: surprise your team and managers with a report from Simply Measured for a week or two, and then switch back to your usual reporting. Make a note of how long those reports take you, differences in quality, quantity etc. While the differences are noticeable, you need to give managers and your whole team a taste of what you've all been missing and a taste of what you will be missing without **Simply Measured**. Especially if the alternative means using free tools at the expense of time, quality and reliability, you have a strong case to go for Simply Measured.
### Where Can I Read More of Simply Measured?
Their [blog](http://simplymeasured.com/blog/?ref=benkellis.com) ([simplymeasured.com/blog](http://simplymeasured.com/blog/?ref=benkellis.com)) is the best place to read more about them. I always appreciate companies that not only provide software for marketers, but also a regularly updated blog to inform their customers of any updates but most importantly to educate, share opinions and any findings that marketers may find interesting. Simply Measured does a good job at that, and I'll even say that the blog alone does a pretty good job at selling the software (although it doesn't replace the friendly account managers).
### Why is Simply Measured your #1 Choice?
There are a million reasons why I recommend Simply Measured, online and offline. Ultimately, it comes down to 10 reasons:
1. Simply Measured believes in context, unifying social and web analytics. Simply Measured clearly understands that the perfect social strategy is one where social objectives are in line with the business/brand objectives. To aid that, Simply Measured provides not only account-specific and platform-specific reports, but also complete snapshots to include multiple data points, social and web.
2. Simply Measured is very thorough - you don't often see a social analytics tool that has an eye for detail, and that is representative of Simply Measured as a company.
3. Simply Measured believes in valuable, exciting statistics: numbers don't have to be boring, and the word "Excel" shouldn't scare anyone. I'm a lover of beautiful pixels, and that's something I mention often, especially on [my blog](https://benkellis.com/) \- it's not just about all the data you can hold, but also about how you present it. Simply Measured does it properly with a gorgeous interface that keeps you coming back.
4. Simply Measured can help you be more proactive with social listening alerts - one of the many reasons why this tool can be a PR professional's best friend.
5. Simply Measured is not just a Social Media Analytics tool, it's a Digital Analytics Powerhouse, merging social analytics, web analytics and social listening into one.
6. Simply Measured are always on the ball. Here's one perfect example: Vine debuted on the App Store back in January 2013\. 24th January to be precise. 20 days later,[Simply Measured announced support for Vine analytics](http://Simply%20Measured.com/blog/2013/02/13/are-your-vines-growing-new-simply-measured-free-report-helps-you-find-out/), **AND**, [in a very Oprah-like move](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcI-rHO0yko&ref=benkellis.com), they also announced that Vine reports are going to be free for all. I repeat - free Vine reports for everyone, whether you have Simply Measured as a trial, as a purchased software, or you don't have it all - *"YOU get a Vine report, YOU get a Vine report, and yes - YOU TOO can get a Vine report"*. It took Simply Measured only 20 days to look at Vine, see what meaningful metrics can be taken out of it, determine which of those metrics are actual Key Performance Indicators, tap into the available APIs, correlate those metrics with Twitter performance, test and make sure it's ok for public consumption, and [write a blog post about it](http://Simply%20Measured.com/blog/2013/02/13/are-your-vines-growing-new-simply-measured-free-report-helps-you-find-out/).
7. Simply Measured is very customisable and it adapts to your needs. For instance, if you want to score your social posts, Simply Measured can help you with that. If you want to present all your exports in your own theme, you can do so too.
8. Simply Measured has an eye for detail - while the free Twitter analytics give you a graph with a daily breakdown of follower and unfollowers for the last 30 days, Simply Measured treats you with an even more granular view in its Excel export, going down to hourly and minute breakdowns. Other Simply Measured reports offer a similar level of granularity that rivals other social analytics tools in the market today.
9. Simply Measured can be your competitor's worst enemy! Ok, maybe that's a bit too dramatic, but this tool can help you understand your competitors' strategy and help you compare yours to theirs and see where you stack up. It's also intelligent enough to provide you with useful data-driven recommendations. Which takes me to point #10...
10. Simply Measured is completely data-driven: you feed it data, it examines that data (thoroughly), and the output includes useful recommendations based on your social efforts, and beautiful reports based on your performance. Simply Measured is way above "fluffy data", while it provides you with the answers to the important questions: "**So what does that really mean?**" and "**So what shall we do now?**".
## Final Thoughts
This review is coming from someone who's quite demanding and particular when it comes to analytics tools. I wouldn't want to use a tool that is less than par, and I'm happy to say that I've never had to worry about that with Simply Measured. Now, don't get me wrong, by no means is Simply Measured perfect. However, besides a couple of minor bugs which were fixed shortly after I reported them (the dev team is very efficient), I've never come across any trouble with this tool. That puts me in an even more comfortable position when recommending this to other marketers, regardless of their position.
If you're ready to take your social and web analytics to the next level, take Simply Measured for a test drive - just click here: [simplymeasured.com](http://simplymeasured.com/?ref=benkellis.com)
### How to Live-Tweet
URL: https://benkellis.com/live-tweet/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:44:41.000Z
Little known fact, I started live-tweeting without actually knowing I was live-tweeting.
A few years ago I started going to more and more meetups and events to learn more about digital marketing and analytics, while learning from the best in the industry, meeting them and making connections. I've always taken notes at every event I go to as it helps me stay focused, it helps me pay more attention and, in a way, it helps me become an active listener. Besides, taking notes means I can always go back to them for future reference. Eventually, I created my own way of taking notes, in a way that would help me jot down quick bursts of ideas while taking in new insights from the speaker, and so forth.
Eventually I saw myself struggling trying to find "the perfect app" that could suit my note-taking technique method; I wanted an app that would let me share my notes after the event (or, even better, during the event), while tapping into other people's notes; I wanted an app that would let me add external links and media, such as pictures, videos, shared presentations etc. Basically, I wanted an interactive note-taking app. After months of trying different note-taking apps, the light bulb came on while I was tweeting:
https://twitter.com/fr314/status/182179487889358848
That's how I started live-tweeting, and I've been live-tweeting ever since.
[I was recently asked to give some live-tweeting tips](https://twitter.com/mykitchensync/status/431935817133879296?ref=benkellis.com), and as my second live-tweeting anniversary is coming up soon, I thought - why not write a blog post about it. So, here it is.
## Pre-event - Tools & Preparation
Before the event starts, make sure you're ready with the following:
- **Hardware**:
- **Device**: choose the device you'll be tweeting from. I always have two with me, just in case one fails: I always tweet from my MacBook at events, but if something goes wrong with it, I always have my iPad as a backup device.
- **Power Up**: come to the event with all your device(s) powered up. Bring a charger for each device you use, and sit next to (or near) a power outlet. Unfortunately, sometimes it's not always possible to sit next to a power outlet, in which case you should have an external charger for the main device you intend to use. If you have an iDevice (iPhone or iPad) or an Android phone, a simple [Mophie Juicepack](http://www.mophie.com/search?q=juicepack&ref=benkellis.com) or [Powerstation](http://www.mophie.com/search?q=powerstation&ref=benkellis.com) is enough. If you have a laptop, consider getting an external battery. For MacBooks, I highly recommend the [HyperJuice](http://www.hypershop.com/?ref=benkellis.com), as it can charge your MacBook as well as any other device that charges through a USB port (most smartphones and tablets).
- **Software**:
- **Client**: pick a Twitter application that lets you engage on Twitter AND check the stream of tweets from people talking about the event. Besides, you'll have to multitask dealing with mentions, DMs (if any), hashtag mentions, while tweeting at the same time. You need an application that can give you a bird's eye view of the event as it happens. This is why I don't recommend using the native Twitter apps or Twitter Web, as these limit you to only one view at a time. I always recommend stream-based applications, such as:
- [**Tweetdeck**](http://tweetdeck.com/?ref=benkellis.com): this is the only stream-app that lets you see any interactions with your profile and tweets, e.g. when you're being added to a list, a follow, a retweet etc. in real time.
- Please note: Tweetdeck is only available on desktop and it's only limited to Twitter interactions.
- [**Hootsuite**](https://hootsuite.com/?ref=benkellis.com): if you want a bigger experience than Tweetdeck, then I highly recommend HootSuite, a great choice if you want to see mentions on Twitter while engaging on other platforms. The fact that you can then report on the performance of your tweets and profile thanks to the inbuilt analytics is a great added bonus. It's available on desktop, mobile and tablet.
- Please note: if you're tweeting from a corporate profile that already belongs to a Hootsuite account, you may not add it to your own Hootsuite account. In this case, ask to be given temporary access to the corporate Hootsuite account or to be made a member of the team. (If you choose the former, remind them to change the password after the event, for security reasons.)
- [**Tweetbot**](http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/mac/?ref=benkellis.com): if you want an alternative, check out Tweetbot, a full-featured application that you can customise based on your needs - create streams based on what you want to see (e.g. mentions of hashtag + your own mentions). Like Tweetdeck, this is only for Twitter interactions.
- **Streams**: now that you've chosen your application, prepare your various streams/columns BEFORE the event starts.
- **Browser**: always have your browser open. This will come in handy when you quickly need to research a link, video, or other resources.
- **Notes**: you may want to take notes, especially if you're planning on writing a summary blog post after the event. While I look at Twitter as my note-taking application, I also recommend [Evernote](http://evernote.com/?ref=benkellis.com), available on most mobile, tablet and desktop platforms. You can use this as a bucket for any info you're planning to use later on.
- **Connectivity**: one word - wifi. There's nothing more annoying than going to an event to live-tweet while there's no working wifi. Besides, whether it's a big event or a small one, the fact that there's wifi available means that most attendees will connect to it (whether they need it or not). This can sometimes bring the speed down and make the wifi unreliable. That's why you should have plans to use your own wifi:
- **Dongle & Mobile Internet**: have a dongle or mobile internet device ready to use. I always recommend wifi enabled dongles/devices, especially if you need to connect your smartphone or tablet;
- **Tether**: if your data plan allows you to do so, tether from your mobile/tablet to whichever device you want to tweet from.
- **Hashtag**: make sure you use the hashtag for the event when tweeting. Most events will already have a hashtag in use, so find out from the organisers.
- **Multiple hashtags**: some events are part of bigger events, in which case the organisers might prefer using hashtags for both events or just one. A perfect example is Social Media Week: most sessions have their own hashtag, although some session prefer using only one. https://twitter.com/FR314/statuses/382568366873251841 If in doubt, confirm with the organisers.
- **Creating a hashtag**: if you're in charge of creating the event hashtag, or if you've been invited to an event that doesn't already a hashtag, it is your duty as a live-tweeter to create one. When it comes to creating one, make sure it's not too long (the shorter = the more characters you can use to tweet); most hashtags are (or contain) acronyms or abbreviation from the title of the event. Make sure no one's already using it. Lastly, stare at it intently for a good minute to see if it makes sense how ever you read it (you don't want to be [the next #susanalbumparty for "Susan Boyle's Album Party"](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236723/susanalbumparty-Susan-Boyle-promotional-teams-embarrassing-hashtag-double-entendre.html?ref=benkellis.com)).
- **Visibility**: this is a note to the organiser - the hashtag chosen needs to be visible. You can't expect people to participate in the conversation with a hashtag that isn't visible, and no - saying what the hashtag is at the beginning of the event is not enough. Take into consideration people who joined in later, or who may not have you heard you the first time, or who perhaps were not in the room when you mentioned the hashtag. Make sure with the organisers that the hashtag is always present, whether it's on the screen, monitor, or somewhere in the room that's clearly visible. (Bonus points if you include it in any communication about the event, such as flyers, leaflets, emails etc.) Do the same with the Twitter handles of the speakers on the panel, so people know who to mention in their tweets.
- **Notice**: another note to the organiser as well as yourself - start tweeting with the hashtag prior to the event, and keep an eye on what's being said around it. That will help you (as well as the organiser) set some expectations on what the future attendees are talking about, who they are, as well as what their interests are.
- **Profile**: a common mistake some live-tweeters make is assuming that they have to live-tweet from their personal profile. Unless you decide to live-tweet out of your own initiative, always confirm with the organiser to decide which Twitter profile you'll be tweeting from. If you're going to tweet from the official event's profile or another brand's profile, get the account details (username and password) well in advance, and link them to the app you've chosen to use for the live-tweet.
- After live-tweeting, remind the organiser to change password (for security reasons).
- **Research**: it's always best practice to do a research before live-tweeting:
- **On Profile**: if you're going to tweet from a profile other than yours, study the tone of voice that's being used on that account. You may be asked to stay in line with it.
- **On Event**: if it's an event you're not particularly familiar with, see what it's about, that the main topics of discussion are etc. You don't have to become an expert, but a good knowledge of what you're going to tweet about is always needed.
- **On Speakers**: see who's going to speak and take a note of their Twitter handles as well as the Twitter handles of the brands/companies they work for. They'll come in handy.
- **On Attendees**: see who's attending - often a quick search of the event hashtag prior to the event will give you an idea of the people you'll see on the day.
- **On Venue**: yes, do a research on the venue and its utilities: Wifi password, various facilities etc. This is not only for your benefit, but also for other people who may ask on Twitter.
- **Ready content**: have links readily available, like the links to the event website or presentations that may be mentioned during the event. Ask the organisers to make those links available, save them as tweet drafts so you can always copy and paste it in reply to people who ask on the day. Besides that, have tweet drafts that you'll use later, like tweets to introduce each speaker, general information about the event, a welcome tweet and an end tweet, one for the end of sessions (if you have a morning session and afternoon session etc.) This will save you time in the end.
- **Alert**: last, but definitely not least, let your followers know that you're going to live-tweet. You can do so with a tweet that contains the hashtag, event name, a short description of what it is, start time and end time. This is for three reasons:
- to let people know that your next tweets are due to a live-tweet and not a Twitter hack;
- to invite people to join in;
- some of your followers might be annoyed by the number of tweets that will come out of your profile while you live-tweet, so an alert can let them know which hashtag to mute, so those tweets won't appear in their feed.
- most Twitter clients will give you the option to mute a hashtag by long-pressing/right-clicking on the hashtag.
Now that you have all of this in place, you're ready for the event.
## During the Event - Live-tweet Etiquette
Now that the event is on, here's what you need to bear in mind:
- **Tweet carefully**: choose what to share carefully: live-tweeting doesn't mean you have to tweet everything thats's being said. Listen carefully and as soon as you hear something that's worth thinking about or worth sharing to your audience, get to tweeting. Share other information about the event too - a great way I do this is by welcoming people on Twitter (*"welcome, the event is about to start in X minutes, refreshments at the back etc."*) and tweeting information around the event (e.g. wifi code, faults with the wifi, emergency exits, where the after-party is etc.). Be a source of information.
- **Correct accreditation**: when you want to share tweets from other people, make sure you credit them properly. To do so, you need to know the difference from **RT**, **MT**, and **HT**:
- **RT** stands for '**R**e**t**weet': also called "old-style retweet" (as it was the original way of retweeting), this is a way to share other people's tweets verbatim. You can also add your own commentary to retweets in this way - it's custom to add your commentary before RT.
- **MT** stands for '**M**odified **T**weet': if you want to retweet a tweet but you're forced to edit it for length, add MT before it.
- **HT** (sometime spelt as '**H/T**') stands for '**H**at **T**ip': use this form to acknowledge where you first heard about what you're tweeting about. This is different from RT, as it often means that you've heard it in real life instead of Twitter.
- *Sidenote*: there are other Twitter abbreviations you could use (e.g. OH for 'Overheard'); however, bear in mind that not everyone is aware of these abbreviations. That's why some people use the general attribution "**via**", so whether it's a retweet, or modified, hat tip etc, you can copy the text and at the end add "**via** @name of the person/people you want to credit").
https://twitter.com/linkhumans/status/432586464749432832
- **Use rich content**: don't only use text: use pictures, videos, and other media. See where else the hashtag is being used: perhaps people are uploading pictures on Instagram or Flickr while using the hashtag, or perhaps people are taking videos and uploading them on Vine with the hashtag. Join in the conversation and reach them by doing the same, but do share those on Twitter, to let your audience know.
- **Brevity**: while the speaker is bound by a time limit, a live-tweeter is bound by a 140-character limit. This means that sometimes you may have to remove a few words just to fit content into a tweet. Don't sacrifice good grammar and correct spelling for brevity. Here's what you can do:
- word your tweets differently: use synonyms, use active voice instead of passive (e.g. "X gave the award to the speaker" instead of "the speaker was given this award by X"), and find other ways to convey the same content in different way.
- if you're going over your limit because you're mentioning somebody's name, see if they're on Twitter and mention their handle instead - more often than not it'll be shorter than using their full name. For example, writing "@FR314" instead of "Ben Donkor" saves you 4 characters - it might not be much, but sometimes 4 characters can be a life saver. (Besides, it's always nice to get a mention.)
- if you really have to share a tweet that goes over 140 characters, consider splitting the tweets. Ideally split the tweet in two (avoid splitting a long piece of content over more than two tweets). When doing so, add a "1 of 2" (or (1/2) etc.) to show that there's another tweet coming, and when you do write the next part, don't create a new tweet but create a reply to the previous part. By doing so, people who click on one part of the tweet will see the full thread to makes it complete.
- *Sidenote*: whatever you do, do not use "TMI resources", e.g. [Twitlonger](http://www.twitlonger.com/?ref=benkellis.com).
- **Links**: every time you share a link, it takes away 22 characters from your 140-character limit (regardless of the number of characters in the link). If you're sharing a long URL, consider shortening it with [bit.ly](http://bit.ly/?ref=benkellis.com) or [po.st](http://po.st/?ref=benkellis.com). Some tools, like Hootsuite, will automatically shorten your links for you. Always tell people where your shared links take them and why you're sharing them (e.g. a presentation that's just been mentioned on stage).
https://twitter.com/FR314/statuses/405416337520205824
### Splitting Your Time
Don't just listen and tweet. Whenever you live-tweet, you need to take the following into account:
- **Listening**
- **Writing tweets**
- **Reading the streams (hashtags and mentions)**
- **Wngaging**
You'll soon build your own technique to balance these four. How you choose to do so will mostly depend on:
- your attention span
- your reading speed
- your writing speed
As those are different for everyone, your method might not work for everybody. I know some live-tweeters prefer blocking out some time to engage with people, while dedicating more time to listening and crafting tweets afterwards; as for me, I take in information while I'm writing, which helps me keep up with the stream of tweets. You'll develop your own technique with practice, so make sure you practice live-tweeting at events even when you're not being asked to live-tweets, or during lifestreams and Google Hangouts.
### Engage
Now, while people who hire you may expect you to just dispense the information that's being said at the event, you need to do more than that.
Tweeting and listening isn't just enough - make sure you engage with other people who are using the hashtag. Don't invite people to the conversation if you're not going to talk to them. While it is not possible to talk to all of them, especially in the case of large events, you can try and talk to as many as you possibly can, without taking away the time and attention you need to *actually* live-tweet.
Of course, there are guidelines for this too:
- **Personal opinion**: some brands and organisers will let you share your own thoughts. I do the same at most events I attend, to give a personal touch to the live-tweet (so it doesn't become a boring Twitter-version of an event livestream). However, when I do so, I always make it clear that those are my thoughts, so I put them in square brackets. Differentiate between insights being said at an event, quotes, and personal opinions.
https://twitter.com/FR314/statuses/347055275980771328
- **Publicity**: don't over advertise - if you're live-tweeting on behalf of a brand, don't be a sponsor junkie, as that will only scare people away and make them unfollow you. Make your live-tweeting worthwhile and worth following.
- Even worse: don't advertise your own stuff unnecessarily. If relevant, share links that you own or articles you've contributed to if they're relevant to your audience. However, don't take the event as an opportunity to advertise yourself.
- **Share content**: don't be selfish - retweet and favourite other people too. Feel free to create **and** curate content.
- **Questions**: people may ask questions. If it's a question that you think a lot of people might ask, or if you think the answer will benefit your audience, retweet the question and answer via RT (in the format "Answer RT Question"). This will save you time, as you then won't have to answer everyone who has the same question. However, one thing you shouldn't do is tweeting your opinion as a definitive answer. This could be misconstrued as the general opinion of the event or event panel. This is only acceptable if people ask YOU personally "*what's your opinion on X*" and you reply from your own personal account.
#### A Quick Side note - Hashtags + Engagement
Some live-tweeters prefer using the hashtag for any tweets sent out during the event; other live-tweeters prefer not using the event hashtag when they're engaging with other people (even if the discussion is on topic), as they feel that conversations can saturate the stream of tweets with the hashtag. This is entirely your decision, but whichever 'strategy' you choose just stick with it and be consistent.
### What to Tweet?
Don't keep your tweets as a one-way street - mix them up. If you don't, your live-tweet will become a live-monologue, and as informative as it may be, you'll eventually see people dropping off from your conversation and engaging somewhere else. Always use a mixture of tweets to achieve the following:
- **Amplify**: relay information spoken from the speaker to your audience. This doesn't have to be written only from you, feel free to retweet other "amplifiers". Remember to be informative and don't assume that your audience consists of people who are present at the event - you'll have a number of people following and participating with the hashtag while they're not actually at the event.
https://twitter.com/danielcohen82/statuses/382588693997182976
- **Enrich**: enrich the event's experience with resources such as links to presentation, videos or articles related to the topic. This could either be mentioned by the speaker, OR something that is still related but hasn't been mentioned - if you think this will be for the benefit of the audience, and as long as it doesn't clash with the interests of the event or the speaker(s) involved (e.g. a link from a competitor), do share. If you've seen someone sharing it in your timeline, you can either retweet or take the link and credit them with a hat tip (HT).
- **Engage**: engage people and spark a conversation, as long as it doesn't sidetrack from the actual event or its main topic. Pose thought-provoking questions, add insights, statistics, new facts and ideas that may have been mentioned during the event.
https://twitter.com/FR314/statuses/405415564249952256
- Invite a dialogue, but be careful - you may have to monitor and moderate the conversation, so be careful of how you approach this. Something like "What do you think about this?" is great, so you spark interest, create a conversation, but you're not moving away from the main discussion.
- **Entertain**: add a bit of humour to the table. Don't be scared to be playful and show your fun side, while not detracting the interest away from the actual event.
### How to Deal with Spammers, Trolls and Detractors
Sometimes you'll find hecklers and disgruntled people trying to disrupt the conversation. Some have genuine concerns, some are very opinionated and "loud" even on Twitter, while others are simply trolling for the sake of it. While you can often differentiate the three, you can take the following steps in those situations:
1. Engage with them - see what the problem is and see if you can be the solution. When you're not able to help, redirect the person to someone who can.
2. Talk to them without the hashtag (one way of the taking the conversation offline without actually taking it offline) so they're not disrupting the event on Twitter.
3. Ignore them. (Especially if you see that they're trolls, in which case be aware that they feast on engagement - the more you engage with them, the more they'll engage with you.)
## Post-event
So the event has now ended, it's been a great success, and you're proud of your live-tweeting achievement, as you should be. Your job doesn't end here. Here a few things to do after the event:
- **Check your stats**: every time you live-tweet you'll gain a number of Twitter followers. Don't see them as just "new followers" - those are your new connections. Check who's interacted with your tweets and profile (mentions, replies, retweets and favourites), how many clicks your tweets have gained, who's now following you (and yes, who's unfollowed you too, just out of curiosity). Just do a quick health-check on your account post-event. (I wrote about this quite recently - [here's how to quickly check on your account stats](http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2014/01/20/how-to-run-a-weekly-social-health-check/?ref=benkellis.com).)
- **Connect**: take the time after the event to go through your new followers and people who have been tweeting you and connect with them.
- **After-event chatter**: this usually last for an hour or so after the event, although if done properly it can last for days too - refer to previous tweets, use Storify (or a custom timeline) to keep the conversation going, ask people how they've liked the event. Expect people to come asking you where the slides and the blog post(s) are, it's pretty common. Feel free to review the event afterwards too.
https://twitter.com/FR314/statuses/347066297407909889
- **Follow up with a blog post if needed**: perhaps you've also been asked to write a blog post about the event. You can use the event tweets (along with any notes you may have taken) to help you with this. You can use tools like [Tweetbinder](http://tweetbinder.com/?ref=benkellis.com) to store all those tweets so you can go back to them later. Unfortunately, most tools like that will only keep your tweets archived for a limited time unless you decide to pay a fee. The best solution to archive tweets is through Hootsuite, which lets you save all the tweets from a hashtag or a user or via any search queries in folders with one click of a button. Consider writing the blog post with Storify too, if you want to add media from other social networks (e.g. Instagram, Flickr, Facebook etc.).
## One Last Thing
Here's my last tip - have fun. Live-tweeting is a fun experience - you always learn something new, whether it's from the event itself or from other people who are tweeting with you; you make new connections, you learn new skills (such as being concise in only 140 characters without making sacrifices on grammar and spelling). You also learn new things about yourself, such as how long can you retain information while multitasking. Soon enough, like me, you'll find yourself live-tweeting at events even when you're not booked to do so, as a hobby, and soon enough you'll find yourself sharing this hobby with other people. Have fun and happy live-tweeting!
### The Problem with Social Influence - Part 1
URL: https://benkellis.com/problem-online-offline-influence/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:44:41.000Z
Social influence - much coveted, much debated about, but it seems like no one is 100% sure how to accurately measure it.
While the most known tool to measure social influence is [Klout](http://klout.com/?ref=benkellis.com), due to its longevity (and criticism), it's not the only player in this field:
- there are a few major competitors, such as [Kred](http://kred.com/?ref=benkellis.com) and London-based [PeerIndex](http://peerindex.com/?ref=benkellis.com);
- there are platform-specific variants, such as [EdgeRank Checker for Facebook](http://edgerankchecker.com/?ref=benkellis.com) and [Commun.it for Twitter](http://commun.it/?ref=benkellis.com);
- lastly, you'll also find that a few social analytics tools will have their own influence score based on their own algorithm (e.g. [Synthesio](http://synthesio.com/corporate/?ref=benkellis.com)'s very own Influence Score).
Most people working in the digital field have their own opinions on social influence and its accuracy given the current tools available in the industry nowadays. However, it's undeniable that social influence is still a metric that is very much sought after - whether it's by PR to see which bloggers to get as sponsors, or by the Social Media team to see who's driving conversations to (and away from) their social profiles.
I noticed something odd (but unsurprising) a few days ago - every year I follow Forbes' "[30 Under 30](http://www.forbes.com/special-report/2012/30-under-30/30-under-30.html?ref=benkellis.com)", a shortlist of the most influential young disruptors, innovators and entrepreneurs around the world in various sectors (marketing, technology etc.).
> Every year I follow the 30 Under 30 List from [@Forbes](https://twitter.com/Forbes?ref=benkellis.com), aspiring to be on it someday. Well, here's the latest one: [http://t.co/C3f41pOmWV](http://t.co/C3f41pOmWV?ref=benkellis.com)
>
> — Ben Donkor (@FR314) [January 12, 2014](https://twitter.com/FR314/statuses/422307058889666563?ref=benkellis.com)
Interestingly, a large number of these massive influencers either do not have a Twitter account, or just aren't that active on Twitter. Now, I'm aware that, as of the past few months, my Klout score has been steady between 60 and 62.
I picked a few influencers at random from that list, and I noticed that, according to Klout, I'm more influential than the following 3 people:
- **Douglas Weston** ([**@DougieWeston**](https://twitter.com/dougieweston?ref=benkellis.com)), cofounder of WestonExpressions.
- **Pranav Yadav** ([**@pranavyadav**](https://twitter.com/pranavyadav?ref=benkellis.com)), CEO of Neuro-Insight.
- **John Zimmer** ([**@johnzimmer**](https://twitter.com/johnzimmer?ref=benkellis.com)), cofounder of [Lyft](http://www.lyft.com/?ref=benkellis.com).
And, according to Klout, I'm nearly as influential as the following 3 people:
- **Matt Singley** ([**@mattsingley**](https://twitter.com/mattsingley?ref=benkellis.com)), CEO at Single Mackie.
- **Bruce Daisley** ([**@brucedaisley**](https://twitter.com/brucedaisley?ref=benkellis.com)), Managing Director at Twitter UK.
- **Tony Wang** ([**@tonyw**](https://twitter.com/TonyW?ref=benkellis.com)), VP at Twitter.
Now, while that sounds very flattering, it is completely wrong. This is because somehow the people I've listed don't play by Klout's rules. The first 3 people I listed don't tweet very often, while the last 2 people I mentioned do not have an active Klout account. The only person out of the 6 I've mentioned who has a Klout account and has multiple accounts linked to it is [Matt Singley](http://klout.com/?ref=benkellis.com#/mattsingley).
However, even though he's only one Klout point ahead of me, I personally don't see myself as influential as he is.
So, how come the scores seem so skewed? It's because of the following 3 factors that have a major impact on any influence score, regardless of platform:
- **Gamified Influence**: the more social networks you link to your Klout account, the more Klout increases your score. This means you can easily gamify your score.
- As a consequence, most people who do not have a Klout account have a generally low-to-medium Klout score (generally around 30, although this varies).
- **Other Social**: Klout doesn't count your influence from social networks and other sources it doesn't support.
- So, if you're an influential photographer and your main domain revolves around Flickr and 500px, Klout won't see it.
- Klout supports Bing, which means that if you own pages and articles and they're tagged by Bing, Klout will recognise that. However, if an article you've written gets a lot of comments or shares on social networks, Klout won't count it towards your influence score.
- **Offline**: offline influence is different from your online influence; some people are influential with what they do outside of social networks (e.g. the people I listed earlier), sometimes more than they portray on social media.
- To tackle this, Klout has added Wikipedia support, if you have a Wikipedia page, you can claim it on Klout, and that will count massively towards your score. However, not everyone who's influential has a Wikipedia page.
Does this mean that Klout is flawed? Yes and no.
## More Than One Influence
Despite popular opinion, [Klout](http://klout.com/?ref=benkellis.com) is a very clever tool - using complex algorithms to derive how your social networks tie in together and how your content ripples across your networks and beyond, it's definitely come a long way since its humble beginnings when it used to fit people within quadrants (remember that?).
While accurately measuring influence is a very ambitious piece of work, Klout seems to be a bit too overly ambitious when it refers to itself as "**the standard for influence**". The reality is, **Klout is purely a measure of mainstream online and social influence**.
For example, as of today (January 15), my Klout score is 61, and it's made up of the following:
As you can see, I've linked my Klout account with most of the accounts that it supports. [Facebook](http://facebook.com/fr314), [Twitter](http://twitter.com/fr314?ref=benkellis.com), LinkedIn, Instagram etc., these are all mainstream social networks, and Klout does a pretty good job at quantifying my influence on those platforms. However, Klout doesn't see that I'm on Pinterest too, as well as App.net, Flickr, Vine, Reddit, Quora, Path, and many, many other social platforms (and of course the latest addition, Jelly). Most importantly, I do contribute to a few blogs and, of course, I regularly write on this blog too. Klout doesn't see any of that. Hence, when it comes to mainstream social networks, my influence score is 61%; however, that is only a fragment of my online influence (which may be higher or lower, depending on how you look at it).
Lastly, there's offline influence too - there's no tool out there that can count my offline influence [when I get invited to speak at events](http://istrategyconference.com/events/london-13/speaker/ben-donkor?ref=benkellis.com), or when I'm writing my paper on [automated sentiment analysis](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-sentiment-sentiment-analysis). There's no tool out there that can quantify what you do offline - purely because it's offline.
How to tie all of these influences together can become quite complex, especially when you look at the implications behind each one of them. Ultimately this brings us to two questions: can you really measure social influence with a score? If so, how accurately can you quantify your social influence?
That will be another discussion that deserves an article of its own.
### Jelly = Search + Social?
URL: https://benkellis.com/jelly-search-social/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:42:25.000Z
I call 2014 the "**Year of the Ephemeral Networks**". We had a glimpse of this back in 2013 with [Snapchat](http://www.snapchat.com/?ref=benkellis.com), [Whisper](http://whisper.sh/?ref=benkellis.com), and ultimately [Bitcoin](http://bitcoin.org/en/?ref=benkellis.com) too (in concept). On the cusp of 2014 we already have a new player to set the example: [Jelly](http://jelly.co/?ref=benkellis.com), a new service from Twitter co-founder [Biz Stone](https://twitter.com/biz?ref=benkellis.com). The concept is pretty simple: you can use images and text to ask questions; after you've connected your Twitter and/or Facebook account, your questions are then sent to people you're already connected with on these platforms.
This video from [Jelly](http://blog.jelly.co/?ref=benkellis.com) describes it perfectly:
\[vimeo clip\_id=83478484 \]
Think of [Jelly](http://blog.jelly.co/%5D?ref=benkellis.com) as a human-powered search engine.
There are so many ways you could use this. For instance, imagine being on holiday somewhere foreign and needing some quick translation help: [http://jelly.co/a/3ce36](http://jelly.co/a/3ce36?ref=benkellis.com)
If this concept sounds familiar, then it's probably because you've heard it before: **Aardvark**. Aardvark was a "social search engine" devised to ask people questions to get answers. Just like Jelly. However, it didn't live long - it launched in 2008, [got acquired by Google (for $50 million) in 2010](http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/11/google-acquires-aardvark-for-50-million/?ref=benkellis.com), and [got discontinued (by Google) in 2011](http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/02/google-kills-aardvark/?ref=benkellis.com).
## Brands + Jelly = ?
The opportunities are endless for brands on Jelly, from market research to A/B testing (e.g. testing visuals such as ads, campaign media and logos among a small but influential pool of people), and much more.
The great thing about Jelly is that it gives brands an opportunity to receive fast consumer feedback. Granted, Twitter is there for that, and you can ask your Twitter followers for consumer feedback. However, you'll only get that feedback from people who are viewing their Twitter stream around the same time you're posting, and from people who regularly follow your account for updates (e.g. your brand advocates, people who have saved you in Twitter lists they regularly follow).
When you post on Jelly, everyone who follows you on Twitter AND has a Jelly account WILL receive your question in their inbox. While the majority of your followers won't be on Twitter at the same time of you posting, you have a higher chance of receiving a response by tapping into a number of your followers' inboxes.
It's also Twitter friendly, as it embeds perfectly, giving you a bigger estate on your followers' timelines:
https://twitter.com/eksays/status/422033194020777984
Unfortunately, Facebook Pages aren't supported, so brands would only be able to use Jelly with with one Twitter account.
Another advantage that brands have on Jelly is virality: both questions and answers can quickly spread across your followers and their friends, thus increasing your reach.
### But Wait...
As always, it's great to see these brands adopting new platform so quickly. However, early adoption doesn't work for everybody, and marketers should realise that Jelly MIGHT not be the right platform for their brands, especially if:
- You're currently going through a PR disaster or you're having issues with your brand perception, in which case forcing your way into your followers' Jelly inboxes probably isn't the best answer;
- You require strict moderation options, as Jelly currently doesn't provide that: there's no way to reply to answers to your questions, and you can't remove answers that you don't wan't appearing under your question (the only moderation you can perform is flagging the answer as inappropriate, or tap on "don't like"). If you need stricter (or just more) moderation options, you might want to hold off for now.
### Brands using Jelly
We already have a few brands using Jelly, leading by example. One of the very first ones was [General Electric](https://twitter.com/generalelectric?ref=benkellis.com), known for being an early adopter of new platforms and new technologies. Besides [General Electric](https://twitter.com/generalelectric?ref=benkellis.com), we also have fashion designer [Kenneth Cole](https://twitter.com/KennethCole?ref=benkellis.com), charity organisation [Livestrong](https://twitter.com/LIVESTRONG?ref=benkellis.com), UK retailer [Asda](https://twitter.com/asda?ref=benkellis.com)...
https://twitter.com/asda/status/421250407457763328
...and a few more.
https://twitter.com/eksays/status/422030785928249344
Besides the obvious question-and-answer scenario, there could also be a lot of niche uses for Jelly, and I'm looking forward to seeing brands doing this.
If you haven't tried it yet, feel free to take it for a spin - find it [on the App Store for iOS](https://itunes.apple.com/app/jelly/id685652528?affId=1503186&ref=benkellis.com) and [the Play Store for Android](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jellyhq.starfish&hl=en%5FGB&ref=benkellis.com).
### First Twitter "Fun-versation" of 2014: Sainsbury's x Marty Lawrence
URL: https://benkellis.com/first-twitter-fun-versation-2014-sainsburys-x-marty-lawrence/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:42:25.000Z
```
```
2014 is off to a great start - first [Jelly](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/jelly-search-social), a few hacks here and there, and now the first Twitter "fun-versation" (is that now a word?) involving brands on social media.
So, a bit of context: a customer (copywriter [Marty Lawrence](https://twitter.com/TeaAndCopy/?ref=benkellis.com)) complained about trying to buy a packet of salmon which had no barcode (or better, 'bar cod'). This led to a hilarious pun battle between Marty and the Sainsbury's Twitter account.
The rest is what follows...
[Sainsbury’s Fishy Puns](https://twitter.com/FR314/timelines/422433996144771073?ref=benkellis.com)
### An Ode to Simply Measured
URL: https://benkellis.com/ode-simply-measured/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:44:42.000Z
So, [I made it in Simply Measured's list of Top Tweeters of 2013](http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2014/01/07/simply-measureds-top-tweeters-of-2013/?ref=benkellis.com). After winning [the much coveted 'Boo Thang' award](http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2014/01/07/simply-measureds-top-tweeters-of-2013/?ref=benkellis.com) (that's hard work and dedication), what can I say in my acceptance speech?
[](http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2014/01/07/simply-measureds-top-tweeters-of-2013/?ref=benkellis.com)
Actually, I know exactly what I'm going to say - I'm going to tell you the story of how I met Simply Measured.
## It All Started When...
When I started working for \[
~~[redacted](http://home.bt.com/?ref=benkellis.com)~~
\] I had to find some tools to help me in my day-to-day job as an analyst. Now, I was already sorted with the web analytics, as I had access to Google Analytics and various tools from the ever powerful Adobe. However, in terms of social analytics, I didn't really have a tool that could help me find insights quickly.
I had already tried quite a few tools and there was always something that stopped me from being 100% happy with them - some didn't cover all the social platforms I needed, some didn't cover all the metrics I needed, some were too basic, some were just plain awful, atrocious and heart-breaking even. (Ok now I'm being dramatic.)
Then, one day, I found it. It was through a Google Search I think, although I can't remember exactly what I searched, probably **"OMG CAN I HAZ SOCIAL ANALYTICS?"**. Or perhaps **"MUCH SOCIAL. VERY ANALYTICS. SO COMPETENT. WOW"**. Anyway, Simply Measured came up, I clicked on it, and - I kid you not - my first words were:
> **"Oh they have a BLUE logo, blue is my favourite colour, this is going to be good."**
Yeah.
I looked at the features and I was immediately half-blown away; I looked at the company's reputation (always something I look at), and I was half-blown away; then I saw that they had a [blog](http://simplymeasured.com/blog/?ref=benkellis.com), and that in itself ticked so many boxes for me. I looked at their social media presence, especially on Twitter and Facebook, and I was actually surprised to see that they were genuinely engaging with people, active, and dishing out insights [like Oprah dishing out cars](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcI-rHO0yko&ref=benkellis.com) \- [YOU GET INSIGHTS, YOU GET INSIGHTS, EVERYBODY GETS INSIGHTS!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcI-rHO0yko&ref=benkellis.com)
Still, after all that, I was half-blown away. This wasn't because of my requirements, or because of Simply Measured, but only because I was used to analytics tools that promised the world and then could barely give me what I actually needed. I was used to other companies trying to get me [**DRUNK IN LOVE**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1JPKLa-Ofc&ref=benkellis.com) with their tools, and then I'd find out after using a trial that they're not the one. Hence, while I was shrieking inside out of sheer glee and pure joy at finding Simply Measured, the left side of my brain was quite sceptical about it all.
So, I applied for a trial, and in no time I was contacted by a very helpful, charming and enthusiastic guy called [Jesse](https://twitter.com/jsmitty206?ref=benkellis.com), [Jesse Smith](https://twitter.com/jsmitty206?ref=benkellis.com). He was my account manager, but I didn't like calling him that - we were kinda like buddies (or at least in my head we were) - he was very helpful, knowledgeable, considerate, understanding, and most importantly he was selfless, and that is exactly the reason why I didn't (and still don't) like referring to him as an account manager. See, you have two types of account managers: those who do their work to sell software and get a bonus at the end of the month, and those who put YOUR needs before THEIRS. The latter has no problem in meeting you halfway and two steps further; the latter has no problem in being honest about the tool you're talking about, but most importantly, the latter is not there to sell software - **they're there to help you help yourself with that software**. It's a bit like therapy. Social analytics therapy.
So, Jesse gave me a trial and my love for Simply Measured grew fast (and I definitely didn't expect to **ROCKET** this fast). It certainly did **BLOW** my mind. However, I couldn't help but notice something: this tool catered to my needs first of all, then my wants, and then a third category - features I never knew I needed. It felt a bit like when, at Valentines Day, you receive a lovely card with a big
**XO**
written on it, an awesome dinner in Paris, and [OH WAIT IS THAT THE NEW "PERFECT DRINK" GADGET FROM BROOKSTONE](http://www.brookstone.com/perfect-drink-app-controlled-smart-bartending?ref=benkellis.com)? Yes Ben, it sure is. Because nothing says "*I love you*" more than a "smart bar-tending" gadget that makes cocktails for you. But enough about my love life.
I started digging into this tool with a fresh mind, and I found so much in it:
- **reports**: Insightful, comprehensive, and oh so pretty. So pretty it hurts (yes, **PRETTY HURTS**).
- **backups**: Simply Measured gives you a repository where all your generated reports are filed, and you can easily go back to them whenever you want. (Say goodbye to messy desktops and messy folders.)
- **customisation**: for a lot of people, social analytics means exporting lots of data from a social platform, then spending time working on that data in Excel (and as much as I love Excel with a passion, I think we can all agree that it is definitely **NO ANGEL**); then comes the time to dump all of your work into a template, making sure the tables are properly in place, that the text is in the right format, and that everything looks on point. Well, Simply Measured saves you all of those steps (and all of that time), enabling you to export ready-to-go reports in your predefined template - customise the theme, colours, logo, text - the flexibility here is ah-mazing, and it will definitely leave your colleagues **JEALOUS**. [Give it a try](http://simplymeasured.com/?ref=benkellis.com).
- Did I mention that you can easily add your colleagues to your account, so they too can run their own reports and you can give them and other people permissions?
- You can set regular reports that give you a bird's eye view of all the efforts you put into your social profiles, as well as a detailed view of your "Return on Efforts" and how all of your social profiles help you accomplish your social (and, ultimately, your business) objectives. Present that data to your team and you'll soon become the superhero of the team. (They'll never know that your secret **SUPERPOWER** is Simply Measured. Unless they use it too, of course.)
- **segments**: you can **PARTITION** your data in so many ways - just export the reports and you get a shed full of data that you can use, manipulate, and play with.
- Simply Measured is a big advocate of going beyond face-value metrics, and they believe that you should try it too if you're aren't doing so already.
- **reliability**: the platform goes through regular updates to iron out any bugs, introduce new features, and to make sure that the reliability and experience are up to Simply Measured standards. Just *FLAWLESS*.
Suddenly reality kicked in and I realised that this trial wouldn't last forever, unfortunately, and I'd have to be "Simply Measured-less" for a while, while I was trying to sort out finances and budgeting. I shuddered at the thought of using other tools, and inevitably I had to think about what to use as a Simply Measured replacement. I didn't want to go back to the numerous tools and trials, but the thought of having to do so crossed this mind of **MINE** several times. It was like having the **GHOSTS** of "analytics tools past" haunting me - yes, it was like being in a **HAUNTED** Christmas carol - analytics-themed, of course.
That's when the penny dropped - while I'm not saying that you need to rely on a tool to do your job properly, tools like this \*can\* make your life easier, giving you more time to focus on other things, such as digging some insights about your profiles and various communities. (Not that Simply Measured doesn't already help you achieve this anyway.)
## In Conclusion
Now, you're probably thinking, "*Ben, how much did they pay you for this?*".
Nothing.
Well, ok, they did send me some chocolates (imported from **HEAVEN**, or so I've heard), a lovely card and an awesome Simply Measured mug all the way from Seattle, but that's besides the point.
When I say "I love Simply Measured", it's actually genuine admiration and gratitude for all the time saved, and all the times it proved to be invaluable. I'm not just talking about the software, but also the company behind it; their active online presence that shows you that if you need a hand or a quick joke, they're right there, just a tweet away; their [blog](http://simplymeasured.com/blog/?ref=benkellis.com) and its various writers (you soon start identifying who wrote the various [blog](http://simplymeasured.com/blog/?ref=benkellis.com) posts just by reading them, a bit like when you're in a group message with close friends you can tell who the message you've just received is from even before you've read who the sender is).
Lastly, besides other things, what I do admire is Simply Measured's philosophy - that analytics doesn't have to be boring, analytics doesn't have to be disjointed and without context, analytics shouldn't cost an arm and a leg, but most importantly - analytics makes your job (and life) easier.
[The more you know](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3rhQc666Sg&ref=benkellis.com).
### Where Does Social Media Sit?
URL: https://benkellis.com/where-does-social-media-sit/
Last updated: 2014-01-03T23:49:06.000Z
I did a bit of research in various businesses, organisations, brands and startups, and I found two main models for social media teams:
- **1:All**: one centralised social media team catering to the whole organisation and its needs;
- **1:1**: one social media team for each department (e.g. a customer service social media team, a PR social media team).
While social media teams are often sandboxed within Marketing, the truth is that *social media fits anywhere*. Here are a few examples of just that:
- **Customer care**: the outlet of the 21st century is online, and so is its customer service. Why wait on the phone to speak to a customer representative when you can easily talk to them in 140 characters and have a quick (or almost immediate) response?
- **PR**: people will always talk about your brand, whether you're on social media or not. Social media gives you the opportunity to connect with these people, while developing relationships with influencers and the general public - which is the essence of what Public Relations is/should be.
- **Branding team**: the main aim of the brand team is to 'protect' the brand's reputation and continuously monitor it. This can be achieved with [social listening](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-sentiment-sentiment-analysis), to see how your brand is perceived by your existing and potential customers, as well as detractors and competitors.
- **Products & Development**: did your latest update work? Did it introduce any faults? How is your latest product generally perceived? [Social listening](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-sentiment-sentiment-analysis) can help you find those conversations, which you can use to further develop your products and services.
- **Research**: pick up the keywords related to your business and see how they match against your brand and others. For instance, if you're in the telecommunications sector, see how people associate keywords like "broadband", "mobile", "phone" and "reception" with your brand, and do the same for your competitors. [Social listening](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-sentiment-sentiment-analysis) can help you see your share of voice in the industry - do people talk more about you, or your main competitor(s)? If so, [is it in a positive way or with a negative connotation](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-sentiment-sentiment-analysis)?
- **Content & Design**: who says that you have to do all the hard work? Crowdsourcing your content is a great way to identify influencers and use the content that they already have about you, while crediting them for their hard work. This results in a win-win situation - you get the content, the content creator gets the recognition, moving them to do more and/or get the word out about you.
- **Sales**: instead of waiting to get customers, why not proactively get some more? Besides targeting your own social/online communities, target people who may be interested in what you have to offer. Here's where social ads come into place: you can target people based on where they are, what they're interested in, and based on affinity, and this is what you want to utilise as much as you can. You can target people who like the pages of your competitors, or similar pages within your sector. Social platforms like Facebook can go even deeper and let you target people based on personal information that they've provided - from age to relationship status, from work status to current location.
## Data-driven
Where social media sits in a business ultimately comes down to cost, resources, and how the organisation is built: if you have limited resources, it's probably not sensible to have one social media team for every department in your organisation.
In an ideal organisation, social media is taken (seriously) as the source of meaningful data that can shape a business, and the medium to output data-driven signals out to the general public. It should therefore be in a position that acknowledges just that.
It's this type of setup that turns a business into a data-driven business.
### When An Employee Leaves: A Social Media "Leaving Checklist"
URL: https://benkellis.com/social-media-leaving-checklist/
Last updated: 2014-01-02T23:57:51.000Z
I've asked around at work and done some research online too, and I saw that there are set procedures that outline what to do when an employee leaves a company. However, there's no checklist that tells social media managers what to do when one of their employees/colleagues suddenly leaves. On a good case scenario, the departure is amicable and nothing else happens.
However, due to circumstances, these departures aren't always amicable...
These are just a couple of examples of what can happen are some of the most memorable ones. However,[this seems to be happening too often](http://theundercoverrecruiter.com/hmv-xfactor-firing-twitter/?ref=benkellis.com) for it to be left unnoticed by other social media managers.
So, here's a checklist you can use if anyone who's dealt with your social presence leaves your company/brand:
1. **Change the passwords to your social accounts**: while this is self-explanatory, the fact that there are more and more cases of (ex) employees easily hacking social accounts after they've left their companies clearly shows that this easy step is still ignored by many.
2. **Change the passwords to the emails that belong to your social accounts**: even if you change the passwords to your social accounts, it's easy to reset your password if someone has access to the associated email address = all you need is just a click on "forgot/reset password".
3. **Change passwords to any social tool**: whether you're using Hootsuite, SproutSocial, Adobe Social or any other social tool - if it's linked to any of your social profiles, change the tool's password. These tools can be used to access your social profiles without having to log in to those profiles.
- Do the same for other social tools, e.g. analytics tools. Unless you're comfortable with the thought of personal stats related to your social profiles being outed online (e.g. how much you're spending for ads, your reach), change the password for those tools.
4. **Revoke access from any social tool**: some social profiles allow you to link your personal profile to a brand page. For example, before you can manage your Facebook Page, you need to link it to your Facebook Profile. Make sure that you revoke access to any social accounts that work in the same way.
5. **Don't use the same passwords for all your accounts**: use a password generator if need be. There are several resources out there (free and paid) that can help you with this. One website I always recommend is [Wolfram Alpha](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=password+generator&ref=benkellis.com) \- it's free, efficient, and you can choose your parameters, such as password length and strength.
6. **Don't reuse passwords you've already used**: this applies to any profile and account that needs password authentication. While some social profiles won't allow you to reuse old passwords and will prompt you to create a new one after a certain amount of days (e.g. Facebook), it is best practice to apply that to any account you use.
7. **Check for any inactive accounts**: whether they're inactive because you're planning to use them in the future, or they're inactive because you don't need them anymore, keep a list of these accounts and change their password.
To conclude, here's one thing I definitely recommend: **two-step authentication**. This involves using two forms of authentication (e.g. a password and a code). Most banks, government websites, and local authorities use this form of protection (e.g. having to insert your password and a time-sensitive code generated from an app). Social tools are starting to do the same too: some of the first platforms to embrace this were Google+, YouTube and [HootSuite](https://help.hootsuite.com/entries/22527304-Managing-Google-Authenticator?ref=benkellis.com) (you can learn more about HootSuite two-step verification [here](https://help.hootsuite.com/entries/22527304-Managing-Google-Authenticator?ref=benkellis.com)). This high level of security can prevent "hacks" from outside sources, since knowing only the password to such an account would not be enough to log people in.
It's worth checking whether the social platforms you're on allow two-step authentication, and if they do, it's time to switch that option on, for your own security.
### Facebook Changes for 2014: Who's Ready?
URL: https://benkellis.com/facebook-changes-2014-whos-ready/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:42:25.000Z
```
```
[A lot of changes are happening starting from 1st January](http://mashable.com/2013/12/31/new-year-changes/?ref=benkellis.com). However, amidst all the changes, it seems like quite a few people (and companies) have forgotten about one key change that's happening sometime soon on Facebook. No, [not just the supposed change in reach](http://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-admits-organic-reach-brand-posts-dipping/245530/?ref=benkellis.com), but the change in Facebook Insights that may potentially change the way you report on your Facebook page(s).
Around the same time of the [EdgeRank algorithm change](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/facebook-edgerank-is-dead-now-what), Facebook revamped its Insights dashboard, got rid of its virality metric and [introduced a new engagement rate](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-rate-out-of-fanbase-or-out-of-reach). This new metric distances itself from the "People Talking About This" metric, puts a focus on Reach, and includes clicks as well as interactions that create what Facebook calls "[stories](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/facebookstory)".
As part of this change, Facebook announced that it was going to get rid of the old metrics (from Insights and the exports), and that the old reports were going to be available for a limited time only. Till when? *"Through the end of the year."*
If you manage your reporting from Facebook Insights, this is the perfect time to look at what you're reporting on and how this change affects you moving forward ([read here](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/facebook-edgerank-is-dead-now-what)).
However, if you're relying on a third-party application to get your Facebook stats, it's time for you to ask your account manager what they're going to do about this.
As a bit of a social experiment, I've asked a few of the main social analytics companies if they were ready for this change, and the results were...interesting.
Now, there are three things that I gathered:
- The responses are not an absolute indicative of the whole brand: unfortunately, some community managers aren't always aware of what the software developers are up to, or what changes are coming from within the company. Hence, while a community manager might say "I don't know", the brand probably already has a statement ready to go out soon saying "yes, we're here, and we're completely ready for this change".
- If it's not a yes, it's not always a no: some community managers are required not to spill the beans until an official PR announcement has been made. This results in them being either vague or denying the truth (which I personally wouldn't recommend).
- Some of these brands are just unprepared: some forgot about this change from Facebook, while some just weren't aware of them in the first place.
Now, let's see - who's ready for Facebook changes?
## Sprout Social
https://twitter.com/SproutSocial/status/415153594350845955
While [Sprout Social](https://sproutsocial.com/?ref=benkellis.com) are "not sure of any specifics on this", their platform is actually prepared for the changes: the Reporting dashboard within [Sprout Social](https://sproutsocial.com/?ref=benkellis.com) does offer Facebook's new Engagement Rate:
Well done [Sprout Social](https://sproutsocial.com/?ref=benkellis.com), you're safe. (But please, let your community manager know.)
## Falcon Social
https://twitter.com/FalconSocial/status/415122061376634880
https://twitter.com/FalconSocial/status/415125316634685440
A bit vague. Every social analytics tool is actively looking at how to redefine KPIs across networks, especially if Facebook *"is not the only platform in development"*, so their response sounds a bit cliché to me.
I'm not sure whether [Falcon Social](http://www.falconsocial.com/?ref=benkellis.com) offers some sort of engagement rate or not, but it's definitely worth looking into it now before it's too late.
## Social Bakers
https://twitter.com/socialbakers/status/415182115995541504
[Social Bakers](http://www.socialbakers.com/?ref=benkellis.com) are well known for their engagement rate which they use to benchmark Facebook pages, and that is one of their several selling points (e.g. their [Socially Devoted score](http://sociallydevoted.socialbakers.com/?ref=brnrd), [their ads analytics platform](http://ads.socialbakers.com/?ref=benkellis.com) etc.). Now, while I love their analytics platform, the only thing I didn't agree with them about was their engagement rate. That metric was calculated using the number of fans per page instead of a page reach - and there's a big difference between the two. [I blogged about it](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-rate-out-of-fanbase-or-out-of-reach) and sent [it](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-rate-out-of-fanbase-or-out-of-reach) to them, we shared opinions and we had a nice healthy discussion. I was surprised to find out that [my "Engagement Rate" article somehow influenced them to introduce engagement rate out of reach on their platform](http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/1875-socialbakers-introduces-a-new-engagement-metric?ref=benkellis.com).
So, in short, [Social Bakers](http://www.socialbakers.com/?ref=benkellis.com) **does** offer an engagement rate in line with Facebook's changes.
Well done [Social Bakers](http://www.socialbakers.com/?ref=benkellis.com), you're safe.
## HootSuite
https://twitter.com/HootSuite\_Help/status/415205339349671936
HootSuite is a brilliant tool that I always recommend, and [despite my ups and downs with it](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/hootsuite-challenge-day-1-10), it's definitely one of the best Social Media Management tools out there, hands down.
However, what worries me here is that, while Facebook's change is imminent, [HootSuite](http://hootsuite.com/?ref=benkellis.com) doesn't seem to have an answer. What worries me even more is that the platform is still referring to Virality, a metric that Facebook discontinued back in July 2013.
However, like I mentioned earlier, that tweet from HootSuite isn't indicative of [HootSuite](http://hootsuite.com/?ref=benkellis.com) as a business - perhaps they're currently working on it, and once it's ready I'm sure they'll announce it. Until then, I wouldn't recommend using the Virality metric, especially since you wouldn't be able to correlate it to anything in Facebook Insights.
## Salesforce Marketing Cloud
https://twitter.com/mcloudsupport/status/415192962889711616
https://twitter.com/mcloudsupport/status/418118830737854464
I'm still waiting to hear from [Salesforce](http://www.salesforcemarketingcloud.com/?ref=benkellis.com), but I shall update you on this when/if I do.
## Adobe Marketing Cloud
https://twitter.com/AdobeMktgCare/status/415224415425548288
https://twitter.com/AdobeMktgCare/status/418143411145699328
I'm still waiting to hear from [Adobe](http://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/digital-marketing.html?ref=benkellis.com) too, but I shall update you on this when/if I do.
## Simply Measured
https://twitter.com/simplymeasured/status/415204230295597056
https://twitter.com/simplymeasured/status/415210050643173376
[Simply Measured](http://simplymeasured.com/?ref=benkellis.com) offers two types of Facebook reports - a set of reports that use the old metrics ("legacy reports"), and a set of reports that have been updated to match Facebook's changes. This is extremely useful for marketers who weren't aware of this change, or for those who want to compare the new engagement rate with the old "virality" metric, or for those who are gradually transitioning from virality to the new engagement rate (e.g. if you had a list of KPIs for a campaign, including virality, and it's now time to report on that, you can do so).
One of the many things that Simply Measured offers is the freedom of choice - besides the plethora of reports available on this social analytics tool, all of the reports are designed around the user and the platform, and not around sales. Hence, I was not surprised to see Simply Measured adopting these changes as soon as Facebook announced them, while keeping the "old" reports active.
Well done [Simply Measured](http://simplymeasured.com/?ref=benkellis.com), you're safe.
## Final Words
When exactly will these changes take place? Facebook doesn't say. While we know that the old report exports are still available at the time of writing, they will be taken away from Facebook at any point sometime soon.
This may be in the same way that Facebook dealt with the new Facebook Insights dashboard: while the new version was publicly announced in June 2013, Facebook rolled it to everyone 4 months later, in October.
Here's what we know for certain:
- All APIs associated with the old Page Insights will remain available to Page owners and developers; only the old exports will be taken away;
- Any future changes to the old Page Insights APIs will be announced by Facebook, as they are bound to do so by their Developer policies;
- Facebook will soon announce APIs for the new Page Insights metrics as they become available, so page owners and developers can track key metrics more easily;
- While Facebook is gradually distancing itself from the People Talking About This (PTAT) metric, it will still be available as a public-facing metric (meaning that you can see the PTAT score for any page).
- Quick tip: to see the PTAT score of any Facebook page as well as other metrics, just add "/likes" at the end of the Facebook Page URL.
- PTAT will still be available via the old exports (until taken away) and the old Page Insights API.
### 2013 - Top 5 brnrd.me Articles
URL: https://benkellis.com/2013-top-5-brnrd-articles/
Last updated: 2014-01-01T03:19:12.000Z
The first full year for [brnrd.me](https://benkellis.com/) is over. A lot went on in 2013 - I've moved the blog across platforms (from Wordpress to [Medium](http://medium.com/?ref=benkellis.com), to [Svbtle](https://svbtle.com/?ref=benkellis.com), then [Ghost](http://ghost.org/?ref=benkellis.com), then back to [Wordpress](http://wordpress.org/?ref=benkellis.com), because who am I kidding); I've redesigned it many a time (and I've finally found a design that I'm completely happy with, so I'm sticking to it). Most importantly, I've written a fair bit, about a lot of interesting topics in social media and digital marketing, especially around my forte - analytics. So, to properly end the first year of [brnrd.me](https://benkellis.com/), here are the top 5 posts (in terms of traffic) of 2013:
1. [Engagement Rate - out of Fanbase or out of Reach?](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-rate-out-of-fanbase-or-out-of-reach)
- I sent this article to a few brands, including [Simply Measured](http://simplymeasured.com/blog/?ref=benkellis.com), Adobe, and mainly [SocialBakers](http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/?ref=benkellis.com), who were strong advocates of their engagement rate out of fanbase. I was surprised to find out that my "Engagement Rate" article somehow influenced them to introduce engagement rate out of reach on their platform ([read about it here](http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/1875-socialbakers-introduces-a-new-engagement-metric?ref=benkellis.com)).
2. [Engagement vs Consumption: the Facebook Dilemma](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-vs-consumption-the-facebook-dilemma)
3. [Facebook EdgeRank is Dead - Now What?](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/facebook-edgerank-is-dead-now-what)
4. [On Social Sentiment and Sentiment Analysis](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/social-sentiment-sentiment-analysis)
5. [Reach, Audience and Impressions - on Twitter and Beyond](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/reach-audience-and-impressions-on-twitter-and-beyond)
So, what's in store for this year? More content, more analysis, more reviews and more guest posts on other blogs as well (which I shall link to on [brnrd.me](https://benkellis.com/), of course).
Onwards and upwards...
### On Social Sentiment and Sentiment Analysis
URL: https://benkellis.com/social-sentiment-sentiment-analysis/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:44:42.000Z
When asked "**what is sentiment analysis?**", the default answer is often "[detecting and understanding how the audience is reacting to a brand, either positively or negatively](http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2012/05/31/beyond-the-buzz-41-social-media-metrics-defined/?ref=benkellis.com)".
The truth is, that only describes a fraction of what sentiment analysis involves and its potential. While some marketers prefer leaving the analysis to dedicated tools, the science behind sentiment analysis is nothing short from fascinating - the various levels of analysis, the detail and the intricacy that make this analysis more accurate when performed by another human rather than a machine.
Nowadays, sentiment analysis is an integral part of social listening, although it can also be performed on its own. The usual approach to this is with the following guideline:
> *"If a piece of content has more positive keywords than negative keyword, it's positive content; if it has more negative keywords than positive keywords, it's negative content."*
While this is not completely incorrect, there is a lot more to that. Here I'm going to explain at a surface level how this analysis actually works, the implications of automating sentiment analysis, and what the future holds for sentiment analysis.
## What is Sentiment Analysis?
Sentiment analysis is more than just a feature in a social analytics tool - it's a field of study. This is a field that is still being studied, albeit not at great lengths due to the intricacy of this analysis, in the same way that some aspects of linguistics are still up to debate or not fully understood.
When you perform sentiment analysis on some content, you're basically looking for the opinions in content and picking the sentiment within those opinions.
An **opinion** is an expression (a binomial to be precise) that consists of two key components:
- A **target** (which we shall call "topic", as referred to by most social Analytics tools);
- A **sentiment** on the target/topic.
So, in "*I love this company*", "*this company*" is the topic, and the sentiment (as expressed by the verb "*love*") is positive.
## Semantics and Sentiment
While a few tools out there rely on scoring sentiment words based on their "polarity" (i.e. their position on a scale between positive and negative), accurate sentiment analysis doesn't look at only keywords or individual words alone, because of **semantics**.
Semantics is the study of the relation of words, phrases, signs and their denotation (i.e. what signs stand for). Because of semantics, we can't assume that a sentence that contains a positive sentiment word (e.g. "useful") is also positive, or that a sentence that contains a negative sentiment word (e.g. "useless") is also negative. In fact, other words can invert the sentiment of a word, such as:
- **sentiment shifters** (e.g. "I find this tool **less** useful than yours");
- **connectives** (e.g. "This tool is everything **but** useful");
- **modals** (e.g. "In theory, this tool **should** be useful").
Besides individual words, expressions and phrases can be used to show sentiment. Take for instance "*I'm over the moon*". If taken word for word, '*over*' and '*moon*' are not sentiment words, as they don't express any positivity or negativity. Hence, we can conclude that **sentiment cannot be accurately presumed from word-by-word analysis, but rather on a level that allows for semantic interpretation**.
## Automated Sentiment Analysis in Social Listening
When looking for a Social Listening tool (e.g. [Brandwatch](http://www.brandwatch.com/?ref=benkellis.com), [Synthesio](http://synthesio.com/?ref=benkellis.com), [Salesforce Radian 6](http://www.salesforcemarketingcloud.com/?ref=benkellis.com), [Crimson Hexagon](http://www.crimsonhexagon.com/?ref=benkellis.com), [Attensity](http://www.attensity.com/home/?ref=benkellis.com)), it's now the norm to look for automated sentiment analysis as an added feature. The lack or low accuracy of this feature can definitely be a deal breaker. However, whether you choose to rely on a tool to look for sentiment, or you feel brave enough to do so manually (depending on the volume of content), it's important to understand what goes on behind the scenes and the building blocks that make sentiment analysis works.
For example: imagine someone, Joe Smith, writing on [SimplyMeasured's Facebook wall](https://www.facebook.com/simplymeasured) with the following comment on December 16th 2013:
> *I've just registered for a trial with SimplyMeasured. I'm loving it so far. The reports are incredible. Their blog is so informative, too. However, my colleague thinks it's expensive. - date: December 16, 2013.*
We can break this down into sentences:
**(1)** I've just registered for a trial with SimplyMeasured. **(2)** I'm loving it so far. **(3)** The reports are incredible. **(4)** Their blog is so informative, too. **(5)** However, my colleague thinks it's expensive.
While this comment is generally positive, it can be broken down into sentences. This comment has a number of opinions around SimplyMeasured, both positive and negative.
- **Sentence 1** is neutral, as it doesn't offer any sentiment.
- **Sentence 2** expresses a positive opinion about the tool as a whole.
- **Sentence 3** expresses a positive opinion about the tool's reports.
- **Sentence 4** expresses a positive opinion about the company's blog.
- **Sentence 5** expresses a negative opinion about the tool's pricing, this time from the eyes of the writer's colleague.
From this we can deduce the following:
- Content can have opinions from more than one person, which we shall call "**opinion holder**". The opinion holder for sentences **(2)**, **(3)**, and **(4)** is John Smith, while the opinion holder for sentence **(5)** is John Smith's colleague.
- Unlike sentence **(1)**, we can't take sentences **(2)**, **(3)**, **(4)** and **(5)** out of context, as they wouldn't make much sense when read their own. Taking sentence **(3)** as an example, we can see that the opinion is around one aspect of SimplyMeasured - "*reports*". An in depth review would also look at various attributes of this subtopic: the reports' reliability, design, layout, performance etc. So, topics can be broken down into aspects, as the graph below shows.
- Longer reviews can also have a longer list of opinions, as commonly found on forums and review sites, whether it's a hotel review on [Tripadvisor](http://www.tripadvisor.com/?ref=benkellis.com) or a list of [gaming reviews](http://home.bt.com/entertainment/games/reviews-01363796671815?s%5Fcid=con%5Fbrnrd&ref=benkellis.com). That's when we start seeing a nested relationship between the main topic of the review and its various aspects (subtopics and attributes included), a bit like this....
Lastly, opinions may change over time, depending on a lot of factors, both subjective (e.g. user perception) or objective (e.g. change in pricing). Hence, it's imperative that not only sentiment but also time is taken into account during sentiment analysis.
Now we have the 5 main factors to look at when doing sentiment analysis in social listening:
- **topics**: what are the main areas of discussion?
- **aspects (subtopics and attributes)**: what about those topics is being talked about?
- **sentiment**: what is the sentiment of the content and the opinions contained?
- **holder**: whose opinion is being discussed? Are there multiple in the same content? If so, how do they differ, if at all?
- **time**: when was this content posted?
## Levels of Analysis
Let's refer back to Joe Smith's review on [SimplyMeasured's Facebook wall](https://www.facebook.com/simplymeasured):
> *I've just registered for a trial with SimplyMeasured. I'm loving it so far. The reports are incredible. Their blog is so informative, too. However, my colleague thinks it's expensive. - date: December 13, 2013.*
While you can approach sentiment analysis in a few ways, you'll ultimately find three methods:
- **Document level**: analysing the overall sentiment expressed in the text. This works best on the assumption that the whole comment only discusses one topic.
- Overall, this comment is positive.
- **Sentence level**: examining the sentiment expressed in sentences.
- Out of the 5 sentences, the first one doesn't express any sentiment, as it only states a fact ("*I've just registered for a trial with SimplyMeasured*"). The remaining sentences express sentiment: the second, third, and fourth sentences are positive, while the fifth one is negative.
- **Entity and aspect level**: this granular analysis takes into consideration each opinion expressed in the content. The opinions on the reports, blog, and the trial are positive, while the opinion on the price is negative.
## Deeper Than Sentiment
Closely related to sentiment, we have two other factors that can shape social sentiment: **subjectivity** and **emotion**.
### Subjectivity
An objective sentence presents factual information, while a subjective sentence expresses personal feelings, views or beliefs.
Although similar, subjective sentences are not the same as opinionated sentences (i.e. sentences with sentiment):
- A subjective sentence may not express any sentiment.
- "I think I have the latest version of the browser" is a subjective sentence, although it doesn't express any sentiment.
- An objective sentence may imply sentiment.
- "I opened the browser after updating it and it kept crashing". While this sentence is stating a fact, it shows an implicit opinion about the topic (the browser crashing).
### Emotion
While sometimes used interchangeably, emotion and sentiment aren't the same, especially in sentiment analysis. Sentiment is influenced by emotion, a subjective feeling or thought. The strength of a sentiment is usually linked to the intensity of emotions felt by the opinion holder.
It's helpful to make a distinction between rational and emotional evaluations:
- **Rational evaluation**: evaluations from rational reasoning and tangible beliefs (e.g. "The reports from this tool are very useful").
- **Emotional evaluation**: evaluations from non-tangible and emotional impulses (e.g. "These reports are the best ever!").
After making this distinction, we could build a sentiment scoring system, taking into consideration the following sentiment ratings:
- (+2) emotional positive
- (+1) rational positive
- (0) neutral
- (-1) rational negative
- (-2) emotional negative
## Sentiment
How many sentiments are there? Mainly two, ultimately four.
The main two are positive and negative, as polar opposites. However, it's important to understand that sentiment is not a black and white subject. This is why neutral sentiment is equally as important. Some sentences express no sentiment at all: that isn't indicative of negativity, nor is it of positivity - it's just the absence of either sentiments.
At the same time, especially when looking at content on a document or sentence level, we can have conflicting opinions or multiple opinions with different sentiments. For instance, "*I love frozen yogurt, although I don't like regular yogurt*" is not generally positive or generally negative, and as there are sentiments expressed we cannot conclude that it's neutral. However, when broken down into opinions, we can see a positive sentiment in the first clause ("*I love frozen yogurt...*"), and negative sentiment in the second clause ("*...although I don't like regular yogurt*"). When we have the same number of positive and negative opinions in a piece of text, we have ambivalent sentiment.
A few industry tools also include two variations of sentiment: positive-neutral (between positive and neutral) and negative-neutral (between negative and neutral). These two are helpful when it comes to showing different grades of sentiment, mainly in terms of strength. For instance, "*I kinda like this new product*" and "*I absolutely adore this new product!!!*" are both positive, although in different strengths.
Unfortunately, when it comes to automated sentiment analysis, the higher the number of sentiments we choose to recognise, the higher the chance of errors in sentiment assigning, hence decreasing accuracy.
### Issues With Sentiment
One thing I've learnt studying Linguistics at university is that language is complex. In fact, it would be too naive to oversimplify language thinking that its underlying sentiment can always be accurately examined by a machine or an algorithm.
There are four main factors that currently stop us from relying blindly on tools for sentiment analysis:
1. **Context**: a positive or negative sentiment word can have the opposite connotation depending on context (e.g. "my internet provider does a *great* job when it comes to stealing money from me". )
2. **Sentiment Ambiguity**: a sentence with a positive or negative word doesn't necessarily express any sentiment. (e.g. "can you recommend a *good* tool I could use?" doesn't express any sentiment, although it uses the positive sentiment word "*good*"). Likewise, sentences without sentiment words can express sentiment too. (e.g. "This browser uses a lot of memory" doesn't contain any sentiment words, although it's clearly negative at a document level.)
3. **Sarcasm**: a positive or negative sentiment word can switch sentiment if there is sarcasm in the sentence (e.g. "Sure, I'm *happy* for my browser to crash right in the middle of my coursework").
4. **Language**: a word can change sentiment and meaning depending on the language used. This is often seen in slang, dialects, and language variations. An example is the word "*sick*", which can change meaning based on context, tone and language, although clear to the target audience.
## The State of Sentiment Analysis Today
What I've covered in this article may seem like a lot, but it's only a small percentage of everything sentiment analysis-related - I haven't discussed comparative opinions, sentiment analysis in content beyond text (how can you determine sentiment in a Vine video or an Instagram picture?), sentiment analysis in social interactions (can you classify a like and a comment as two positive interactions? Can you classify an unfollow as a negative interaction?), the role of punctuation in sentiment (also known as [the infamous difference between "I'm fine!!!" and "I'm fine."](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115726/period-our-simplest-punctuation-mark-has-become-sign-anger?ref=benkellis.com))...
There is just so much information on this topic that perhaps I should write a paper on it. (No, seriously.)
This brings us to two final questions: **can tools accurately analyse sentiment**, and **what does the future hold for sentiment analysis?**
### Can Tools Accurately Analyse Sentiment?
Tools cannot interpret factors like sarcasm (where the apparent sentiment is picked up by a tool, while the implied opposite sentiment isn't picked up), and social semantics, where some expressions could be interpreted in the same language depending on where it's being said (e.g. British English versus American English).
Having said that, while human perception of sentiment is more mature and accurate than a tool's perception, it still isn't 100% accurate.
Let's take this forum review for instance:
> *I'm leaving Company A for Company B because of their latest exclusive offer, which I can't miss! Company A's customer service is much better though, so I'm definitely going to return.*
While a tool might return this as a neutral mention because of the number of positive and negative opinions, we may or may not disagree with the tool's judgment based on **perception** . That review can be perceived differently by Company A and Company B, depending on what aspects they're looking at. If Company B is looking for feedback on their latest offer, this mention is definitely positive, although it does have a negative mention of customer service. Hence, while we can have a universal sentiment, sentiment can also change based on who's doing the analysis.
Ultimately, **a tool's accuracy is merely the percentage of times that human judgment agrees with the tool's judgment**. This degree of agreement among humans is also known as **human concordance**. There have been various studies run by [various people](http://www.agreestat.com/book3/?ref=benkellis.com) and companies (including [Biz360](https://twitter.com/biz360?ref=benkellis.com) before it merged into [Attensity](https://twitter.com/attensity?ref=benkellis.com)), and they concluded that the rate of human concordance is between 70% and 79%.
Taking that into consideration, we can safely say that **a good accuracy for sentiment analysis tools is 70%**. The problem is, a tool that is accurate less than 70% of the time isn't accurate, and a 'perfect' tool that is accurate 100% of the time will draw data that we disagree with roughly 30% of the time.
### What Does the Future Hold for Sentiment Analysis?
Due to its large undiscovered territory, there are so many questions about sentiment analysis that remain unanswered.
For instance, can social sentiment analysis help us predict events? We've already seen a few attempts at this, [as it happened with the election of Barack Obama against Mitt Romney](http://socialmediatoday.com/mlewis1/1002686/predicting-presidential-election-social-reach-and-sentiment?ref=benkellis.com). A more recent example comes from the UK, with an attempt from [Tweview](http://www.tweview.com/?ref=benkellis.com) to predict the winner of the 2013 X Factor using sentiment, volume, and a lot of other social factors using the ever useful API from [Brandwatch](http://www.brandwatch.com/blog/?ref=benkellis.com)). While they predicted [Nicholas McDonald](https://twitter.com/nickymcdonald1?ref=benkellis.com) as the winner of 2013 X Factor, he ended up second, with [Sam Bailey](https://twitter.com/SamBaileyREAL?ref=benkellis.com) winning. (You can read more about [Tweview's experiment](http://www.brandwatch.com/2013/12/social-data-gets-the-x-factor/?ref=benkellis.com) [here](http://www.brandwatch.com/2013/12/social-data-gets-the-x-factor/?ref=benkellis.com). )
Could we perhaps adapt social predictions from social sentiment for other scenarios, such as a viral campaign, or a PR disaster, or a business restructure or an app update? Perhaps.
Lastly, will we ever have a sentiment Analytics tool that is 100% accurate?
The answer is no, and that is a good thing. Here's why: a tool that tries to get 100% accuracy would be flawed, as we would naturally disagree with it 30% of the time due to clashes with human concordance (as we've already seen).
The ideal tool that a marketer needs to cover automated sentiment analysis needs to provide these 4 cardinal features:
- **Content type filter**: not all online content is the same - sentiment on forums works differently from other other social platforms, just as sentiment in microblogging sites (e.g. Twitter, Tumblr) works differently from other online sources. Due to that, an ideal tool needs to be able to filter search results by platform, so you can filter those results by content type and, ultimately, sentiment.
- **Analysis Levels**: while most industry tools measure sentiment at an article level, an ideal tool supports all three levels of sentiment analysis we've discussed: article level, sentence level and topic level.
- **Human accuracy**: instead of a tool trying to be 100% accurate, it needs to be in line with our human concordance, understanding factors that can impact human language, context, and various linguistics aspects (e.g. semantics). The ideal tool has strong competence in those areas, and it constantly evolves based with human feedback (e.g. through corrections, human overrides and regular updates).
- **Sentiment override**: to tackle the remaining 30% that clashes with our human concordance, the ideal tool needs to allow users to override automated sentiment, change topics and remove irrelevant results.
Ultimately, regardless of what tool you choose (if any), social sentiment has very high potential. While it's easy to treat it as a "soft metric", it's highly useful when used in context - yes you've received a positive review, but what does it mean for your brand? What are the underlying opinions behind that specific content? In the right hands, sentiment can be the key to various social analyses, predictions, and ultimately a solid insight into your social performance.
### HootSuite Challenge: Day 1-10
URL: https://benkellis.com/hootsuite-challenge-day-1-10/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:42:25.000Z
Here are all the links to the HootSuite Challenge post:
- [Day 1: Frustration](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/hootsuite-challenge-day-1-frustration)
- [Day 2: Seriously?](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/hootsuite-challenge-day-2-seriously)
- [Day 3-4: Can Anybody Tell Me...](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/hootsuite-challenge-day-3-4-can-anybody-tell)
- [Day 5-7: Tough Love](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/hootsuite-challenge-day-5-7-tough-love)
- [Day 8: 'Obrigado'](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/hootsuite-challenge-day-8)
- [Day 9-10: #ThanksFor5](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/hootsuite-challenge-day-9-10)
### HootSuite Challenge Day 9-10: #ThanksFor5
URL: https://benkellis.com/hootsuite-challenge-day-9-10/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:42:25.000Z
I took HootSuite through the hardest test on Tuesday - the [Social Media London](http://socialmedialondon.co.uk/?ref=benkellis.com) test. Now, I blog and live-tweet for [Social Media London](http://socialmedialondon.co.uk/?ref=benkellis.com), [the biggest Social Media meetup in London](http://socialmedialondon.co.uk/?ref=benkellis.com). The main tools I use when live-tweeting during this event are Tweetdeck and Tweetbot (although I later ditched Tweetbot for Tweetdeck, as it's more light-weight in terms of memory it consumes. Because environment.). So, I picked up HootSuite as my weapon of choice, putting it under heavy use. As expected, I struggled a bit to begin with - detaching yourself, even momentarily, from a workflow you're used to isn't always easy and often takes time.
I missed a few things from Tweetdeck - automatic streaming is the main one. While I did set the streams to refresh automatically every 2 minutes, the conversation at #smlondon was so fast-paced last night that there was so much being shared every minute, let alone two minutes.
Another main feature I missed was "simultaneous tweeting". See, I think in clusters - I can craft a tweet in my head while tweeting something else, and Tweetbot for Mac has helped me with that - I jot down the thoughts, and if the speaker says something tweet-worthy, I'll just press CMD+N to create a new draft, jot my thoughts there, and then craft the tweet. Then, post. Technically, I could do the same with HootSuite, creating drafts as I go along... However, that takes me longer: instead of having multiple "tweet windows" open, I have to concentrate on the tweet at hand before going to the next one, as there isn't (to my knowledge) a shortcut to save a draft and create a new tweet. (Ok, perhaps that was a poor way of describing how my cluster thinking works, but trust me, it's wonderful.)
With HootSuite I have to focus on one thing and one thing when it comes to composing (although you can view more than one stream at the same time). True, I can save tweets as drafts, but the process of saving, writing a new tweet, going back to the previous tweet which is saved as a 'template'...just, no.
Later that evening I tried using the iPhone app a bit more. I tried tweeting from the iPhone bookmarklet - it's great, it's a nice way of sharing interesting links to Twitter without copying the URL from Safari and pasting it in HootSuite, so I definitely recommend it. (Having said that, the page that HootSuite uses to advertise the iOS bookmarklet needs some series updating, as it's still showing an older iPhone with an older iOS, possibly iOS 4 or 5; yes, I'm that pedantic.) However, there's something wrong when you copy a hashtag from a tweet - try pasting it and it pastes as "search://(hashtag)". So, when copying the "#AskGaryBarlow" hashtag, it pasted as "search://#AskGaryBarlow".
Another oddity I found (besides the fact that I couldn't create a draft with a picture when my phone was offline for 5 minutes, as it returned a "NSURLErrorDomain" error when I tried to do so), was the refreshing. Go to a stream that you haven't updated in more than 24 hours, and HootSuite tells you that the last time the stream was updated was "never"; then, when you finally update the stream, it says you have "10 new tweets" (depending on the default number of tweets you've chosen to load at every refresh), even if you have more than 10 tweets. I'm used to Tweetbot which changes the new tweet count as you scroll up to read those new tweets; so, if I scroll up one tweet, from 10 it says "9 new tweets", accurately telling me how many tweets I've missed since the last time I've updated my streams. With the new background refresh function available on iOS 7, I'd really love to see HootSuite bring better updating to streams, so when I reopen the app I won't have to pull the stream down to see how many new tweets I've missed.
The next day it was back to using the Pro version at work. Having to post several articles between Twitter and Google+ with a shortened link, I found HootSuite to be a lifesaver - managing all of my content in one screen, instead of having to switch between Twitter, Google+ and bit.ly. You'll find this extremely useful if you want to schedule content on Google+, as Google doesn't support native content scheduling from within its platform (which is odd - you can schedule content on Facebook from within Facebook, and you can now schedule tweets from within Twitter, yet you can't do that with Google+). And, as if that wasn't enough, HootSuite also showed me stats for all the links I've shortened in HootSuite. Nice way to see how many clickthroughs you've had since you've posted the links on whatever social network you've chosen. Back to the scheduling, though, I wonder why HootSuite gives the option to schedule DMs, even though when you confirm that you want to schedule it, HootSuite then tells you that you can't do that. Odd. Another oddity is the fact that, within the iOS app, you can't save pictures - try opening a tweet that contains a picture, and now try saving that. I tried tapping, double-tapping, pressing, checking in the options - nothing.
Oh, and as for a recent question I had - the "recent" tab in Search isn't for recent tweets, but it shows a list of recent searches.
The pedantic in me noticed a few more things that I wish I never did, mainly inconsistencies though (HootSuite doesn't support posting to Google+ profiles, only pages, even though this is wrongly referred to as "Google+ profiles" in a few instances within the app). Having said that, I've had a reasonably good time, despite annoying bugs (not being able to receive notifications on a device that's not running a language other than English, with the current version of the HootSuite app), and fancy bugs (hashtags that turn punctuation blue - I sometimes look forward to that happening, it's like an Easter egg, it's probably not even a bug, just an enhancement).
# Back to #smlondon
At the end of the #smlondon event, I was still sat there, going through my streams, making sure I haven't missed any tweets. Suddenly I feel someone tapping on my shoulder, I turn around and I see this lady smiling and she kindly asked me what 'that' was. She said she was standing behind throughout the event and she couldn't help but notice that I was using a tool that not only let me compose tweets, but it also let me check new tweets that contain #smlondon, as well as tweets from my own followers. She was genuinely curious and asked me what that tool was, and I proudly said HootSuite, so proudly you would've thought I was working for HootSuite.
I explained to her:
- why I was using HootSuite (as I'm tweeting about the event, I need to see what other people are saying about the event, whether people agree with what the speaker is saying, whether there are any problems etc., and I also need to be able to compose tweets and shorten links easily and fast)
- what each column I had was for (the first stream with tweets from the @socialmedialond profile, the middle stream with my mentions, and the third stream with tweets that contain the #smlondon hashtag).
- the extra functions within HootSuite that I didn't use that night (being able to post to several accounts and several social networks, being able to see streams for all of those social accounts, seeing the analytics for links shorteners as well as other social metrics, being able to see and post RSS feeds with the RSS syndicator, scheduling posts, setting streams with 'complex boolean language' that contain sentiment, to show positive and negative mentions of a keyword), and so much more - and that's just HootSuite web!)
She seemed impressed, and so was I. After I was done praising HootSuite, she revealed to me that she heads up social media for Shell and that her team has been looking for a better way to handle their social media profiles and resources, since logging in and out of accounts can be quite tedious. That's when I praised HootSuite even more and gave her even more reasons to go for it. Now, I was honest with her - I told her that if she wants it for her personal use then she can go for the free plan; however, I also told there that if she was thinking of using HootSuite for the team, she shouldn't bother with the free plan, as the Pro plan is a lot better: not only does it unlock many more features that aren't available to Free users, but it will also allow her team to have their own individual logins to manage one account, and the advantages are plenty (managing a content calendar without the need of creating a separate one elsewhere, being able to see scheduled tweets regardless of who has scheduled them etc.). The one advantage that I mentioned (one advantage I knew would hit the spot) was being able to share templates and manage a 'content storage' that all her team members could access from anywhere.
Now, you're probably wondering why I recommended HootSuite to this lady despite my gripes with using HootSuite for 10 days. Here's why...
HootSuite is great at Social Media Management - there's just so much I haven't covered around its social media management capabilities (and trust me, it's a lot). However, when it comes to Social Media Engagement, it's not well designed and it hasn't been properly thought through. Their recent iOS update was a great update that seemed to have changed more about its layout than its functionality. While the current iOS layout is much better than it was before (and you can catch a glimpse of what it was before if you open the Android app, which still has a resemblance of the old layout), it just feels like they've put a nice, shiny tiara on an average app - it looks good, it looks fancy, but when it comes down to it (and by 'it' I mean engagement), it's still average. It could be a lot better - as I've written before, I'm not giving up on HootSuite as I really do believe in them - it still has a place in my home screen, although I won't rely on it for engaging with my followers.
Having said that, HootSuite still remains the strongest social media management I've ever used, and I can't take that away from them - I'm ready to be proven wrong, but point me to a Social Media Management application that not only spans across various platforms (web, mobile and tablet), but also integrates with other social networks and other software, while providing analytics to gauge how well your content and profiles are performing; I'm ready to be proven wrong, but point me to a Social Media Management application that lets your social media team work as a team in the very sense of the word - collaborating with content, sharing that content and being able to access that whether they're at work, home, or commuting to their next meeting, while being able to schedule that content to a time that suits them or to an optimised time that suits audience and social engagement, as suggested by HootSuite.
I'm ready to be proven wrong, but until then HootSuite remains the #1 app for managing content, managing profiles, and, ultimately, managing social.
### HootSuite Challenge Day 8: 'Obrigado'
URL: https://benkellis.com/hootsuite-challenge-day-8/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:42:26.000Z
While writing the title for this post, I realised that this "10-day challenge" is soon coming to an end. Despite all the frustrations that I've had with HootSuite (the free version), it actually saddens me that this trial is coming to an end. (Not that I can't use HootSuite after this trial...)
I didn't want to end it without exploring the Pro version of HootSuite (which is the one I usually recommend to people who are looking for a social media management tool anyway), so I thought I'd bite the bullet and get the Pro subscription. The process is quite easy - you get the first month for free, after which you pay $9.99 (that's £6.20, the price of a Frappuccino and a [duffin](http://www.starbucks.co.uk/menu/food-list/muffins-pastries-and-doughnuts/duffin?ref=benkellis.com) (which, if you ask me, Starbucks should've called MoNut in honour of Movember, but anyway...)). After that, you get a list of add-ons you can apply to your account. When you upgrade from a Free account to Pro, you get an additional user who can use your account. "*How is this different from me giving someone access to my account?*". I'd reply with two answers:
1. Never. Ever. Give access to your account. Any account for that matter.
2. If I have an account and you have an account as well, we can share scheduled tweets, you can edit mine, I can edit yours, we can share a content calendar. This is perfect for a team of two. However, you can add up to 9 additional users (for $10 each).
Other add-ons you can get are:
- **HootCare** ($5), personalised customer care, Monday to Friday, prioritised support with guaranteed response within 4 hours. You can also have HootCare in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and French.
- **Vanity URL** ($49.99), you can get personalised ow.ly links, including HootSuite Pro statistics.
- **HootSuite Archive** (from $10): with the Free version you can save up to 100 templates; this is useful if you have a bank of tweets/social posts and are tired of storing them in an Excel spreadsheet on SharePoint or Dropbox; store them on HootSuite and retrieve whenever, wherever. On the Pro version, you can add additional archived messages, with 10k additional template space for only $10.
## From Brazil with (HootSuite) Love
Now, something very interesting happened today: around noon, I started seeing a spike in traffic to my [blog](https://benkellis.com/). Now, yes I did squeak at my desk and yes I did get a few awkward looks from colleagues, BUT it was totally justified. However, when I delved deeper into Google Analytics I noticed one thing - I was getting quite a lot of traffic...from Brazil! While at first I was a bit unsure of this (but then again, who am I to question Google Analytics?), I went to HootSuite and checked the link stream I had set up and, lo and behold, I started seeing people sharing my articles. Interestingly enough, they were all from Brazil and they seemed to be quite interested in my article on [Engagement vs. Consumption on Facebook](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-vs-consumption-the-facebook-dilemma). Thanks to HootSuite, I was able to see a stream of people sharing articles from my blog, so I could see the shares (HootSuite) and the traffic that they drove (Google Analytics).
The result? Well, the [Engagement article](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-vs-consumption-the-facebook-dilemma) now has over 2k views, and [brnrd.me](https://benkellis.com/) had almost 1k pageviews yesterday, with 70% of that traffic coming from Brazil. So, "*obrigado pela letura*".
This is just to say - while I haven't enjoyed HootSuite much as an engagement platform or application, I can see its usefulness on the Pro plan.
Now, granted, the added notifications don't work for me on the Pro plan, but that's merely because of the ["Italian bug" I talked about in my previous article](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/hootsuite-challenge-day-5-7-tough-love). Besides, I find it quite bizarre that, while the streams i have set up on HootSuite Web don't seem to sync up with the iOS app, the app recognised me as a Pro user right away. Regardless of that, it looks like the Pro version has opened so many doors and features that I wouldn't be able to get with the Free version. I'll delve more into it tomorrow and, of course, report on it.
### Hootsuite Challenge Day 5-7: Tough Love
URL: https://benkellis.com/hootsuite-challenge-day-5-7-tough-love/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:42:26.000Z
I learned about a few new features within HootSuite, and I also realised that regardless of how frustrated the tool makes me at times (and by at times I mean oftentimes), there's just so much that I haven't tackled yet - while I'm familiar with the analytics that HootSuite provides, I haven't reviewed that side yet. I'm sure I'll cover it in the next how ever many days left in my 10 day trial.
I admit, using HootSuite is proving to be a frustration for me. I've stopped and told myself "*maybe if I use Tweetdeck just this time...*", but I'm determined to stick through for the 10-day trial. I had to take part in a Twitter chat on Friday, but I couldn't do it properly or at least with the same level of enthusiasm I used to have with other tools like TweetDeck. That's when I noticed that I've been tweeting less with Hootsuite - while I love tweeting, I noticed that the thought of having to open Hootsuite and bump into some annoying bugs just deterred me from tweeting sometimes. Even more so when I thought of tweeting people I do not follow (e.g. brands, customer service handles that I do not necessarily follow but I still want/need to contact): that would involve me writing a tweet, then remembering mid-tweet that I have to go out of the current screen just to do a search, save the current tweet as a draft (or template, using Hootsuite terms), looking for the person I'm trying to tweet, go back into the saved draft and pick up from there. I guess this is a workflow that Hootsuite users are used to, but it's not one that I am used to. In the end, I guess this conflict comes from the fact that I come from using engagement-focused tools to management-focused tool like Hootsuite, but more on this theory later...
By the way, I was able to replicate the bug that I mentioned a few days, whereby using a hashtag in certain circumstances would turn all the punctuation in the tweet blue. Why that happens, however, is not clear to me.
## HootSuite Notifications
If you've been following this 'trial' then you know that I've been struggling with notifications. Suddenly, I started receiving them. While I rejoiced at first, I realised that the notifications weren't useful, since the only thing that the notification said in the text was "TM". At first I thought that stood for "Twitter mention", but I started receiving them when I had direct messages too, as well as new followers (sometimes I'd receive a notification for that, and in other occasions I didn't - even though the free plan I'm on doesn't allow me to be notified of new followers, or any other interaction besides mentions and direct messages). Suddenly, I started receiving random notifications even when nothing was happening on my profile. All I'd get was an unhelpful "Hootsuite: TM" - imagine me going into my emails, refreshing every 5 seconds to see if Twitter's going to send me an email saying that something did in fact happen. I then contacted Hootsuite on Twitter, and they advised me to delete the app and reinstall it. I did so, for the umpth time, and when I redownloaded the app - lo and behold - I received two notifications. That's strange, especially since I received those notifications **BEFORE** I logged in.
Well, long story short, the notification issue has stopped, as I've blocked Hootsuite from giving me any more notifications - I've had to block it from within my iPhone settings, as disabling them on Hootsuite didn't seem to work, strangely.
I later received an email to tell me that this bug was caused by something that, in all honesty, I already suspected. Here's the cause of this notifications issue: **it's because my iPhone's language is set to Italian.** Yup.
While I do appreciate the email and the time taken to explain the issue to me, there's one paragraph that struck me a bit. Here's the fix that the Hootsuite Customer Advocate sent me:
> "In the meantime, since you're clearly quite comfortable using English, I suggest you adjust your device's language settings to English, as that will fix the issue."
Er,
**no**
. My phone is set to Italian not because I'm trying to be fancy, or because I'm trying to learn Italian - see, I am Italian, born and bred, and as such Italian just so happens to be my mothertongue. Technically, English is only my 3rd language. Yes, I am quite comfortable using English, as I have been my whole life, as I have been in the past 7 years living in dear ol' London. However, I'm not changing my phone's language to suit a bug that isn't going to be resolved any time soon due to developers and the usual time it takes Apple to approve apps.
Most of the apps I use are in Italian, and I'm very reasonable when it comes to developers not adding an Italian localisation to their app - [I've worked on a project where I had to translate a whole app into Italian](http://wayoflifeapp.com/?ref=benkellis.com), so trust me I know how difficult it can be accommodating other languages other than the main one you want to target. However, I love it when I open a newly downloaded app and I see that (A) the app detected my iPhone's language and it's switched to Italian to accommodate that, or (B) the app has a list of supported languages, and it so happens to have 'Italian' as one of the options. Sweet! However, if an app is English-only it's no big deal - like the Hootsuite Customer Advocate said, I'm '*clearly quite comfortable using English*'. However, I do not understand how an app that is marketed as "[international-ready with translation to/from over 50 languages](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/hootsuite-for-twitter-facebook/id341249709?ref=benkellis.com)" can fail at showing notifications if you don't use English, and the fix fort that switching your device language to English if you're '*clearly quite comfortable using English*'.
Post-Twitter chat I spent some time looking through my timeline and interacting with people, as I usually do. In doing so I noticed a couple more things within Hootsuite:
why, when I look at someone's profile, I get the option to follow AND unfollow that person at the same time? I know I've mentioned this before, but it still intrigues me... There must be a reason, but I can't seem to find it; *\[engagement: -1\]*
meanwhile, it's quite clever of Hootsuite to show you the relationship between the profile you're viewing and all the accounts you've added on your Hootsuite profile, whether you have the free, pro or enterprise plan; *\[management: +1\]*
## Pictures and other Media in HootSuite
I'm going to focus on media for a while. Twitter introduced inline media previews not so long ago, meaning that while you scroll your timeline, you'll also see the previews of pictures and other embedded media (e.g. videos, Vines etc.) as part of the tweets. Interestingly, some apps, like Tweetbot, were already doing so before Twitter implemented this, and most apps out there have adopted this function as well. Hootsuite, on the other hand, doesn't allow inline previews. Besides that, from my current experience with the tool, I don't think Hootsuite manages pictures very well.
Now, I will mention one thing - after Facebook bought Instagram and Twitter stopped showing previews of Instagram pictures on the app as well as on the web client, it's nice to see that Hootsuite didn't yank the ability to view Instagram pictures on timelines. However, if you want to see any sort of media, you'll have to tap on the tweet and be taken to the tweet's view. That's fine, I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem though is how media is being shown.
Take, for example, a tweet that contains geo-location information and a picture. When you open the tweet, Hootsuite seems to think that you're more interested in the location of the tweet than on the picture, so it puts the picture at the bottom, right after showing you a prominent map indicating where that tweet came from. From an engagement point of view, I'm asking myself "am I more interested in the picture attached or the location of the tweet?", especially considering the low number of tweets that do have any geo-location data attached anyway, according to Twitter statistics.
Here's another example: besides the fact that you cannot attach a picture to a draft if you do not have reception (so no chance of saving local drafts that then get uploaded as soon as you reconnect to the network, and no chance of planning posts to publish later on while you're sitting on the Underground train), viewing your own uploaded pictures is, dare I say, dreadful - for some reason, the pictures you upload through Hootsuite's own ow.ly service show up as somewhat blurry in the tweet preview. Why?!
## Other Apps: Evernote and Pocket
I thought I'd do something else, something new, such as adding new applications to HootSuite. As I use Evernote extensively, especially during [NaNoWriMo](http://nanowrimo.org/?ref=benkellis.com), I thought it would be great to integrate HootSuite and [Evernote](https://www.evernote.com/?ref=benkellis.com). This integration enables you to add threads of tweets as notes in Evernote with just one click. The great thing is that you also get the whole conversation instead of only tweet, so you have some context behind it. (Having said that, I'd rather have the option to attach only the tweet as opposed to the whole conversation, especially if it's a lengthy conversation and I really do not want to add all of it to my notes). The whole conversation is saved as a low-size screenshot, and there you have it. You can also add your own tags, although I found some limitations: unfortunately, there is no two-way synchronisation between HootSuite and Evernote, so when adding a new note within Hootsuite, you can't see the list of existing tags you already have. While this might not be a big deal for buddying Evernote users, it is a big deal for me since I use quite a few notebooks Evernote, and I'm what you'd call an Evernote power-user.
When I went to add a tweet to Evernote I was asked, to my surprise, to connect to Evernote, even though I had already done that. I did it anyway and when I clicked on the option to add a tweet to Evernote, well, I kept getting a message saying "processing", yet nothing seemed to process. I checked Evernote later on, and no tweets appeared.
Another application that I use very, very, very often is [Pocket](http://getpocket.com/?ref=benkellis.com). Pocket is a Read-it-Later (RIL) service that I use quite heavily especially since is tightly integrated with Tweetbot and other apps I use, as well as browsers, so I can quickly cache an article from within Chrome or Safari/Firefox. While I did find integration with Pocket from within the Hootsuite app (although the integration page is poorly implemented - showing a webpage as fullscreen without covering the top bar where you can see time, network reception etc., is bad UI practice), I couldn't find that same integration on Hootsuite web.
## Final Thoughts
Lastly I'll end with this: while you have the option to expand Twitter conversations, you can't interact with those tweets in the conversation, only the one you have right in front of you. Here's one example: when live-tweeting you get so many tweets and conversations being pulled through, and suddenly you find a tweet that catches your attention. You click on the tweet to reply, yet when you expand the conversation you also see that other people have commented and given their opinion on a subject. Say you want to interact with those previous tweets - you can't do that from within the expanded conversation. You're forced to go to the profile of the person in question, find the tweet in question and reply to it.
Now here's what I think: if HootSuite is targeting organisations, big and small, they're also targeting people who work as community managers, social media managers, as well as analysts. Now, from an analyst perspective I can't say much at this point as I've used the app mainly from an engagement point of view. Despite the frustrating reviews I've written since Monday, I do not dislike HootSuite. Yes, it's been frustrating me and more with some faults so basic that they look like sloppy oversights to me, especially from a company like HootSuite. While I wouldn't use it as my default app, I wouldn't delete it from my phone, because I'm waiting for that update that turns HootSuite into the Twitter client that marketers are waiting for.
I can see HootSuite becoming not just the most talked about application, but the most used application in social media, the application that people will mention by default in conventions, not just because of the number of features that the app has, but because of the strength of those features, because of the usability, because of the user-friendliness, because of its usefulness. I like HootSuite's business model, I appreciate HootSuite aim, and I really do admire HootSuite's dream.
However I personally believe that the tool that HootSuite is promoting right now is not strong enough to reflect what HootSuite is actually about. You cannot tell me that the people behind the [Hootlet](https://hootsuite.com/features/extensions?ref=benkellis.com), the [Hootups](http://www.meetup.com/hootup/?ref=benkellis.com), the [Hootsuite University](http://learn.hootsuite.com/?ref=benkellis.com) and [Social Academy](http://learn.hootsuite.com/u/socialwebacademy?ref=benkellis.com), are the same people behind the web and app interface of the company's flagship application in its current conditions.
I'm not saying that I want HootSuite to have all the bells and whistles - I'd rather not have a Pocket integration but a better user experience; I'd rather not have an integration with App.net but a refined experience when it comes to using the essentials, such as interacting with people, dealing with conversations. While I know that it's not all about the fancy looks but rather what drives an application and what it
does
offer (as opposed to what it
can
offer - and there's a difference), I feel that Hootsuite has a lot of features for quantity sake, yet not all of them have been implemented with quality, while the actual basic framework that holds the application together is, indeed, flawed when it comes to engagement. Basically - how can you make an application to manage social engagement just about managing instead of engaging? How can you allow an application intended to manage social engagement, to lose the social aspects of "social management"?
I love HootSuite as a brand, Hootsuite as a company, but it saddens me to see their flagship product in its current conditions. However, I'm still going to keep Hootsuite, because I know for a fact that it can be a lot better, and I'm hopeful that it will get there. I guess you can call this tough love.
### Hootsuite Challenge Day 3-4: Can Anybody Tell Me...
URL: https://benkellis.com/hootsuite-challenge-day-3-4-can-anybody-tell/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:42:26.000Z
I'm going to keep this short and sweet. I've said "why?" so many times both yesterday and today, mainly in front of Hootsuite Web instead of the app. I've been following and trying to live-tweet [Socialbakers' Engage 2013 event](http://www.socialbakers.com/events/engage/2013/newyork?ref=benkellis.com), while trying to work things out in Hootsuite. I'm going to start with the following: the mobile functions don't always translate to the desktop version.
Can anybody tell me what's behind the auto-scheduling? When Hootsuite says it's going to schedule tweets for me, I could just say "yay, great, please do so". Not me. Hootsuite says it optimises times, but how? Based on what? Based on the best times to catch most of my audience, or based to past times when I had more engagement? So, if on Monday my tweets had so many retweets but more people saw my other tweets in the evening (yet with not as much engagement), will Hootsuite schedule next Monday's tweet in the morning or the evening?
Can anybody tell me why Hootsuite streams don't support streaming?
Can anybody tell me why I keep seeing sneaky ads every now and then even after I've switched ads off?
Can anybody tell me why Hootsuite is so pushy with showing me ads in the app to say "hey buddy, how about you pay $9.99 a month for our Pro version?" - hey Hootsuite, I got the message. Thanks.
Can anybody tell me why links (including Twitter handles and hashtags) in Twitter bios aren't clickable within Hootsuite? (seriously, why?)
Can anybody tell me why Hootsuite doesn't autosave drafts? (Chrome kept crashing in the morning while I was using Hootsuite for work, meaning that the posts I was trying to write were lost - each and every time it crashed; thankfully I saved my posts on a doc first - I love tech, but can't trust it 100%).
Can anybody tell me why drafts are called templates? (Now I'm being pedantic, but really - everyone else calls them drafts...)
Can anybody tell me why I have to log out and log back in again after I add a stream, just so it can sync with my iPhone app (which I then need to log out from and log back in to see the changes)? Especially with the recent introduction of background refresh in iOS 7, and with the new APIs available on OS X, I don't see why that's the case...but then again, I guess it's also down to the infrastructure of the app.
However, I found something yesterday, thanks to a hat tip from a dear friend of mine, [Jay Perkins](https://twitter.com/jay%5Fperkins?ref=benkellis.com). Remember my hassle from [Day 1](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/hootsuite-challenge-day-1-frustration), where I couldn't find tweets that ONLY contained my URL? Doing a search for "brnrd" includes tweets that only mention that without linking to my site, and doing a search for "brnrd filter:links" include people who tweet a link AND the word "brnrd" in the same tweet. However, [Jay](https://twitter.com/jay%5Fperkins?ref=benkellis.com) suggested to create a column with the following query: **link:brnrd.me**
There you have it - that works a treat, and I'm going to keep that stream active.
One more thing I found while live-tweeting - have you ever been to an event that has one hashtag, and in the middle of it a speaker comes up and says "hey guys, tweet with this other hashtag instead for the next 45 minutes". Well, instead of having to create a new column manually and playing around with search strings (although to add a simple hashtag, creating a hashtag-based stream in Hootsuite isn't hard at all), just click on the hashtag when you see it in your stream and click on "Add as a stream", and there you have it - a new stream with a new hashtag. A clever thing that Hootsuite does (which again proves my point from yesterday about Hootsuite not positioning itself as a tool for social experience but for social management) - when you create columns, you can choose which account of yours will manage it by default. So you can have one stream that your personal account replies from, and the next stream can be one that your work account replies from - just a quick account setting and Hootsuite manages that.
### HootSuite Challenge Day 2: Seriously?
URL: https://benkellis.com/hootsuite-challenge-day-2-seriously/
Last updated: 2013-11-20T00:13:36.000Z
I called Day 1 "Frustration". If I could define Day 2 of my Hootsuite challenge in one word, it would be "Seriously?". (Question mark included.) Let me explain.
I started the day still frustrated from the previous day - no notifications? I got some more followers, some mentions, but I didn't realise until I checked my emails when I first woke up (and that is always the first thing I do when I wake up).
I posted a tweet later in the day and I added a link to the tweet. As links take off 22 characters regardless of their length, I went over the 140-character limit. I started deleting characters, rewording sentences and choosing shorter synonyms, and I don't mind that - once you're used to Twitter you know what to replace in most cases. However, I found something bizarre with the Hootsuite app - when deleting some characters from the main text, the character count wouldn't update. The number of times I had to delete characters, be within 140 characters and have HootSuite tell me "sorry but it's too long lolz" is quite frustrating. Even more bizarre, when I tagged something with a hashtag, that's when the hashtagged word turned blue (great!) along with every punctuation in the tweet (huh?). The same happened when I added a picture and your tweet goes over the character limit - then try adding a hashtag and admire the blue punctuation. (Now, I've only been able to replicate it twice, once I find how that happened I shall let you know.)
Out of curiosity I tapped on Places, the icon right next to "Compose new tweet". This is one way to see all tweets around you or in a specific location. Unfortunately, this wouldn't work when I tried it in the morning. I'd only get an error message saying "*Error loading*". Now keep that in mind, because I'll get back to that in a bit.
Then comes the turn for trends - you can easily see Twitter trends both on the app and on the web tool. However, trends seem to be set to "worldwide trends" by default, with no (apparent) way to change the location. Most trends in the "worldwide trends" section are either in Turkish, Spanish, or Portuguese, with a few English hashtags that are mostly music-related. Thankfully Hootsuite gives an explanation on each trend - just tap on the "?" Icon next to a trend and you'll see its definition. Having said that, the non-English trends do not have the explanation in English, perhaps because those definitions are provided by another site, most probably [WhatTheTrend](http://whatthetrend.com/?ref=benkellis.com). In the same app scree there are two other tabs - one to see nearby tweets, and the third one just says "Recent". I imagine these are the most recent tweets from the whole Twitterverse, which would explain why the page has never loaded for me.
Anyway, to avoid any further frustrations I thought I'd add something new, so I added a new social network to my HootSuite account - I went for Foursquare. When you add Foursquare to your account you get a list of your friends checking in. I'm yet to see how this will be of use to me - maybe it won't, but I shall play around with it. Right after that, I tapped back into Places and instead of seeing an error message saying "Error loading", a list of nearby (Foursquare) places appeared.
I took HootSuite to another level when I used it to engage with [#SMXChat](https://twitter.com/smxchat?ref=benkellis.com), a weekly Twitter chat that revolves around social media (definitely recommended). I often take part in Twitter chats, and if you're at all familiar with them, you know how fast-paced they can be. When it comes to my live-tweeting and my Twitter chats, I always go for a tool I can rely on completely, and the main 3 features I need for that are:
- **Streaming**: very important, -I want to see the tweets appear as and when they're posted, instead of having to refresh manually every 5 seconds. Ironically, Hootsuite's streams don't support streaming. You can have your streams update every 2, 5 minutes etc, but the minimum time you can set is 2 minutes. Either that or you can set it to manual update.
- **Easy engagement**: the perfect tool for me is one that puts the user in control, one that puts the user experience (UX) as a focus. I want to be able to reply easily, and change from a single reply to a "reply to all"; I want to choose whether to quote a tweet (old style retweet) or do a "normal" retweet.
- **Notifications**: I need to see who's interacting with me, my profile and my tweets without having to check my emails for that. Some applications, like Twitterrific, have a notification pane, where you can see all interactions in real time, including new followers and any engagement. I guess this is one thing that Hootsuite could be better at - showing notifications. Right now, if you want to see who retweeted you or who mentioned you etc., you'll have to create a separate "column" (stream) for each and every interaction. Meanwhile, other applications, such as Tweetdeck, offer the ability to create an "Interaction" column, showing in real-time who interacts with you and how. All under one column.
During the Twitter chat, I was getting mentions, new followers and retweets. However, I had no notification of that from Hootsuite. That's when I then opened my mail application, kept it on standby just to be notified of any engagement going on with my tweets and profile. I did report this to Hootsuite - they replied with the following:
[*"Our mobile team are working on a fix for this which should be available via the App Store very shortly."*](https://twitter.com/HootSuite%5FHelp/status/402819732195540992?ref=benkellis.com)
Now, I'm familiar with the Apple process to approve apps that have been submitted to the AppStore, even if it's for small bug fix. It can sometimes take 1-2 weeks from submission date before your app/update shows up for the public to download - and in the meantime, there's nothing stopping Apple from rejecting your app, in which case you'll have to go through the process all over again. That is, of course, when you've fixed the bugs, implemented them in an update and submitted such update to Apple. However, according to HootSuite's tweet, "the mobile team are working on a fix". It's safe to say that I'll be notification-less for the entire "Hootsuite challenge" I'm doing.
As for workarounds, here's HootSuite feedback:
[*"Currently there is no workaround while we await an update from our Dev Team."*](https://twitter.com/HootSuite%5FHelp/status/402855083576401921?ref=benkellis.com)
Damn skippy.
## Am I being too hard on HootSuite?
Hootsuite could take a leaf from its competitors and make features like notifications better, positioning themselves above its competitors. This made me think - maybe Hootsuite doesn't want to position itself as a standalone Twitter app. Maybe Hootsuite wants to position itself solely as a marketing tool, a tool to enhance the way you manage Twitter and other social platforms, not a tool to enhance your experience in using those platforms. Take, for example, Direct Messages: most tools for Twitter will show you the DMs you've sent and received as a thread, a layout that we're now used to in other applications such as Messaging, Chat, Email etc. Even Twitter itself uses the threaded layout when it comes to DMs. However, Hootsuite separates DMs sent from DMs received. This is not smart if you want to communicate with people (isn't this why Twitter was created in the first place?), and you'll eventually find yourself going back to Twitter.com to read the full thread to make sense of some of the DMs.
I went back to see how these tools I have in mind define themselves. For instance, Twitter describes Tweetedeck as "*the most powerful Twitter tool for real-time tracking, organizing and engagement*", while Hootsuite describes its tool as a "*the social media management tool which helps teams to securely engage audiences & measure results*". Perhaps I'm being a bit tough on Hootsuite because the tools and applications I use day in and day out are tools that enhance my social experience more than my "social managing" experience - fine, I can see what's going on with my feeds in real time with Tweetdeck, but I can't see the analytics for the links I publish - unless I use Hootsuite; fine, I can schedule tweets with Tweetdeck and with the inbuilt scheduling functionality in Twitter, but I can auto schedule my tweets - unless I use Hootsuite. (Technically you could use [Buffer](https://twitter.com/buffer?ref=benkellis.com), but this is in the context of using one tool that does both the managing of a social account as well as scheduling content.)
So, my question is - would I use one powerhouse tool that does more than one thing under one roof and integrates with so many applications, yet it doesn't enhance or facilitate the user experience, OR would I use multiple tools that can enhance my user experience, with the cost of switching from tool to tool based on my needs? You be the judge.
### HootSuite Challenge Day 1: Frustration
URL: https://benkellis.com/hootsuite-challenge-day-1-frustration/
Last updated: 2013-11-18T00:12:49.000Z
So I did it - I uninstalled Tweetbot and the default Twitter app, and relied solely on Hootsuite to get me through the day. Oh boy...
I had a tweet scheduled to go out at 8.30 in the morning, and I suddenly thought, "let me change the time". Nope, can't do that within the app. In fact, I didn't see any option to edit or remove a scheduled tweet. While other tweets (e.g. in your timeline) give you various options, scheduled tweets within the iOS app don't give you any option. At all. So, I just let it be, and come 8.30 my tweet was out.
I then decided to write another tweet, this time uploading a picture. Uploading pictures is pretty easy in the Hootsuite app, as it should be. However, I then wanted to open the picture, just to give it that quick look before posting. I usually do that with Tweetbot, just a last glance before sending my pictures out in the Twitter ether. Nope, not possible with Hootsuite - once you've selected a picture the only way to view is to go to the Camera Roll and view it.
That's when I realised that I was trying to translate my usual Twitter workflows and general experience in Hootsuite. I was swiping where I shouldn't have been swiping, I was double-tapping tweets just because I grew accustomed to the 'double-tap' gesture from most other Twitter apps. While most common Twitter functions are the same throughout most Twitter apps (composing a tweet, replying to a tweet etc.), every app has its own way of doing things. For instance, while some apps let you search through your followers and following list, Hootsuite only presents you with the list of people you follow and people who follow you, with no option to filter/search through them; while some apps give you the option to show you the display name AND full name of tweeters, Hootsuite lets you choose one OR the other.
However, workflows aside, I couldn't help but notice a few things that made me raise an eyebrow - both on some occasions. For example, when mentioning someone in a tweet, Hootsuite gives you two options: you can either start typing the username and Hootsuite will suggest a few names based on who you've contacted recently, OR you can go to the Contacts menu, which will only show you the most recent contacts. However, that is not helpful if you're trying to send a tweet to an account you've never contacted before, or even someone you rarely speak to. Here's an example: you've had a rough service at Nando's; frustrated, you decide to write about it on Twitter, mentioning them. So you start writing your text and in the middle of it you face a conundrum - is it @Nandos or @NandosUK? Or perhaps @UKNandos? You haven't contacted them recently because you don't always have conversions with restaurants on Twitter, so you save the tweet as a draft, close the current view, tap on Search, do a search for Nandos (bear in mind that searching for a term brings both users as well as tweet mentions), you see a long list of tweets mentioning Nandos (some with the handle and some without), you realise that it's @NandosUK, go back to the compose view, select the draft and type @NandosUK. Finish tweet, send tweet, done. While this might take a max. of 90 seconds, it's a long process that shouldn't be that long.
Besides that, I found a few oddities: when viewing people's profiles, Hootsuite for iOS shows you two buttons - follow and unfollow. Instead of toggling to 'follow' if you're not already this person's follower, or 'unfollow' if you already follow them, Hootsuite seems to give you the option to do both - so, technically, you have the option to follow a user you already follow, as well as unfollowing someone you're not following in the first place. Even more strange is the fact that, when viewing your own profile, Hootsuite shows you the option to follow AND unfollow yourself. Huh?
Another oddity is the blocking option - most apps (including the default Twitter app) give you two options in this situation: blocking and reporting as spam. Hootsuite Web, however, only gives you the option to report as spam within the app. What if you just want to block an annoying user but don't want to report them as spam?
It wasn't all doom and gloom though - in fact, I found two new features I didn't realise I could use with Hootsuite. The first one is the [RSS Syndicator](http://blog.hootsuite.com/syndicator-rss-reader-app/?ref=benkellis.com), which lets Hootsuite hook up with any RSS feeds, including your site/blog, and automatically tweets out any new blog posts. This is great - right this very minute I'm hosting my blog on Svbtle, although I'm in the process of migrating to Ghost. Now, I know that Wordpress gives options to automatically tweet new blog posts out, but other blogging platforms don't give that option. Here's where [Hootsuite's RSS Syndicator](http://blog.hootsuite.com/syndicator-rss-reader-app/?ref=benkellis.com) comes in handy - it detects any new blog posts and it pushes them out. I've yet to set it up though, so I'll let you know how that goes once I do. (I technically did know about the RSS Syndicator, although I didn't pay much attention to it until now.)
The second feature is great for people looking for mentions of their site - you can always create a new column and include your brand as a search term, so Hootsuite will show you in real-time all the tweets that mention your brand. However, in my case I only want to see mentions of my blog, with people tweeting out articles from it. If you create a search column with the following syntax:
*DOMAIN filter:links*
Hootsuite will bring as search results all the shares of any links from your site. Unfortunately, there are a few people whose Twitter usernames contain "brnrd", so when they post their Instagram pictures or YouTube videos I see them as part of the search results. However, it's not a big deal - most of the search results that come up with that filter are relevant to what I'm looking for.
There is one thing that ruined today's Hootsuite experience - finding out that, with the free version of Hootsuite, you only receive notifications for mentions and DMs. Besides the fact that due to an apparent glitch I didn't get any notifications at all (not even mentions or DMs), I was quite disappointed to find out that the free version of Hootsuite doesn't offer the basic notifications like new follows, retweets and favourites - notifications that even the default Twitter app can give you. This is not because the app can't handle it, but the extra notifications (as well as the extra features, which I'll get into in the next few days) are only for [Pro](https://hootsuite.com/plans/pro?upgrade&ref=benkellis.com) and Enterprise level customers. If you're wondering, the [Pro package costs $9.99/month](https://hootsuite.com/plans/pro?upgrade&ref=benkellis.com), with one month free trial bundled in. If you intend to stay with the free version of Hootsuite and you need to stay on top of notifications I suggest you enable push notifications on your emails to receive Twitter notifications as and when they occur, OR download the default Twitter app and activate the notifications you need. Unfortunately, that means that when tapping those notifications you'll be taken to the default app, not Hootsuite. Will Hootsuite change their pricing model? No idea. It would be great if they did, but I wonder if this is an argument to get more people to choose the Pro version over the standard free package.
On to day 2...
### The HootSuite Challenge
URL: https://benkellis.com/hootsuite-challenge/
Last updated: 2013-11-17T00:10:59.000Z
**Short version**: I'm going to take a "HootSuite challenge" for 10 days, using HootSuite as my default Twitter app.
**Long version**: there are usually two questions that people ask me when it comes to social media:
*"What is the social media analytics tool you recommend?"*, and my default answer is [SimplyMeasured](https://twitter.com/simplymeasured?ref=benkellis.com);
*"What is the social media management tool you recommend?"*, and my default answer is [HootSuite](https://twitter.com/hootsuite?ref=benkellis.com)...even though I technically do not use [HootSuite](https://hootsuite.com/?ref=benkellis.com). Let me explain.
I have HootSuite on my iPhone, although prior to their iOS 7 redesign it was a bit of an install-delete situation: I'd install it, use it for a while (between 24 and 48 hours), get frustrated by a few missing features that I've grown to love and live with from my usual Twitter apps, and end up deleting the app.
Meeting up with a client on Saturday and recommending HootSuite for the umpteenth time I wondered why I was never able to properly use HootSuite. I then realised that there were two reasons why I didn't last longer than 48 hours with HootSuite: main reason why I didn't last for more than 48 hours with HootSuite was pretty simple: when trialling it, I still had my go-to apps on my devices, and I'd end up using them when I couldn't find what I needed in HootSuite.
My main Twitter apps are:
- **iPhone**: **[Tweetbot](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/tweetbot-3-for-twitter-iphone/id722294701?ref=benkellis.com)**
- **iPad**: **[Twitterrific](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/twitterrific-5-for-twitter/id580311103?ref=benkellis.com)**
- **Mac**: **[Tweetbot](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/tweetbot-for-twitter/id557168941?ref=benkellis.com)**
I use these apps for two reasons: design and functionality.
Design-wise, I'm a sucker for a great app - yes, I do judge apps by their icons (and I actually prefer HootSuite's new iOS icon - nicer, cleaner, neater, it fits them pretty well); yes, I do love what I call "beautiful pixels" - the details, the contrasts in colours, how the UX and UI mesh up nicely, meeting, if not exceeding, my expectations. Design isn't everything - I've seen lots of gorgeous apps that are pretty much useless, so many apps with great icons but with really low performance after you open the app; on the other hand, I've seen other apps (and tools in general) that don't pack the "OMG LOOK AT THOSE BEAUTIFUL PIXELS" factor BUT they do pack a lot of power in the features that they have. Hootsuite, in my opinion, falls in this last category - while I don't think that Hootsuite is great at intuitive functionality, it is a strong tool, hence why I always recommend it to people who are looking for a social media management tool. However, when it comes to layout, the design for Hootsuite Web always leaves me wanting - I always end up going to Tweetdeck not because it's the 'familiar' app but because design-wise it appeals to me and it feels (and looks) less clunky than Hootsuite Web. Hootsuite's dated layout has been given a nice fresh touch on the iOS app, following the iOS 7 release; however, when it comes to the Web interface, the 5-year-old Hootsuite doesn't look like it's keeping up with the times.
Then comes functionality. In all honesty, while there are some functions I love in Hootsuite, such as the ability to create streams à la Tweetdeck, and the ability to incorporate other applications within Hootsuite, the suite as a whole has left me a bit underwhelmed. Coming from an analyst point of view, I didn't really see much in-depth analytics that I could make use of, while coming from an account/community manager point of view, I've often wondered why some of the basic functions were not part of the tool (have you ever tried sending a tweet to someone you don't follow? Yeah, that doesn't autocomplete - small detail I know, but it's a standard in most Twitter tools out there).
There are mainly 5 features I look for in an ideal Twitter application:
- **Easy communication**: I want to reply, retweet and favourite easily; I want to be able to mention people easily, whether I follow them or not; this includes
- **List management**: I have quite a few lists which I regularly update - some of these are public, the rest are private. I want to be able to update my lists on-the-go easily.
- **Sync**: one thing that really grinds my gears is going from one device to another and having to mark messages as read just because they don't sync between devices. Thankfully, there are some applications that sync read status, as well as drafts and even the reading position between devices and platforms (iOS and OS X).
- **Support for multiple accounts**: while I don't know if I'd use an application to manage more than one social platform (with the exception of Buffer), partly due to my consulting job, I manage quite a few profiles, especially on Twitter. Because of that, I need an app that can manage all of those profiles, without me having to log in and out of accounts.
- **Third-party integration**: I find quite a few interesting tools on Twitter, which I then save on Pocket and Pinboard. These are two of the several tools I use, but the main ones I integrate Twitter with.
So, I guess to see the real benefits of Hootsuite I need to bite the bullet and get rid of my go-to apps, all of my Twitter apps, and have this situation:
- **iPhone & iPad**: Hootsuite app
- **Mac**: Hootsuite.com (as there is currently no Hootsuite app for OS X).
So, here's the challenge I'm setting myself: I shall only use HootSuite as my default Twitter app for 10 days. Ten full days, no exceptions - iPhone, iPad and Mac. I'll blog about my progress and happenings day by day too\*.
\*Ok I guess that sounds a bit dramatic.
### Scoring Social Content and Performance - How, Why, and Why Not
URL: https://benkellis.com/scoring-social-content-performance/
Last updated: 2013-11-14T00:08:32.000Z
As an analyst, I do come across quite a few tactics and techniques that brands and individuals adopt to measure their performance online. Some are great, some are unusual, some are simply innovative, and some are downright bizarre.
One method that seems to be quite popular is what I like to call "weight for action": assigning weight (or a score) to the main social interactions, and using that to create a scoreboard for owned content as well as competitors'.
While there isn't a universal scoreboard for social posts, they mostly look like this:
- Clickthrough (CTR): 1 pt
- Like/Favourite: 2 pts
- Comment/Mention: 3 pts
- Share/Retweet: 4 pts
Let's say, for argument's sake, that a Facebook post received 2 clickthroughs, 1 like, 4 comments and 3 shares. To calculate that post's engagement score we'd follow this formula (based on the scorecard above):
(2 CTRs x 1) + (1 Like x 2) + (4 Comments x 3) + (3 Shares x 4) = 28 points.
That seems logical, but the question is - **does your content do as well as the score you give it?**
## Settling the Content Score
First of all, let's look at that score again. **28 points.** If I told you that your post had 28 points, what would that mean to you? By the same logic, if I told you that your main competitor's latest points only had 20 points it should technically be a good news, right? Wrong.
Let's look at the bigger picture:
- **Value**: as this scoring system was introduced mainly to benchmark and compare your posts against your average content performance, as well as against your competitors, ask yourself - **do two posts with the same points have the same value?** Do 28 clickthroughs have the same value as 14 likes? Do 14 likes have the same value of 7 shares? No two social interactions are equal, and context is always needed when comparing two scores this way.
- **Purpose and context**: still looking at your post with 28 points - does your post that generated 28 points have the same value as one of your competitor's posts with 28 points? What if your competitor gained 28 points from one post because that one post helped generate 28 clickthroughs to their site, with 25% of those CTRs resulting in sales, hence achieving the goal's original purpose?
- **Virality**: while *Virality* is [an engagement metric that Facebook ditched back in August-September in favour of engagement rate](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-rate-out-of-fanbase-or-out-of-reach), it's still important to look at how Virality can influence your posts and the engagement they receive. If I share your Facebook post \[X\], I'm creating a post \[Y\] that has your post embedded. My friends and followers then have the option to either engage with my post \[Y\] or your post \[X\]. Scoring posts just for the engagement you see on \[X\] means that you're ignoring the viral interactions created by \[Y\]. I could be someone very influential with thousands of friends and followers and as a consequence \[Y\] gets more exposure and more engagement - perhaps even more than your post \[X\]. Oftentimes you'll find these "second-hand interactions" being more than the interactions present on the original post. If you're scoring your posts for engagement but you're missing those viral interactions, you'll be severely undercounting your content's performance.
Other factors come into the picture as well, such as sentiment and other types of engagement that are not part of the "scoring system". For instance, that scorecard we mentioned before doesn't take into account tags: most, if not all, viral pictures have tags, which are often seen as a quick way of alerting friends that you've seen something worth checking out. Ignoring these tags will result in under-counting the interactions that your post had.
Now, we can pick all the imperfections that this method has all day, but it's useful to realise that this method originated from a need, the need for marketers to quantify the performance of their content, and ultimately make comparisons between their own content and other similar/competitors' pages. It doesn't help that the seemingly-useful-but-actually-unhelpful PTA(T) metric (People Talking About This) is being phased out by Facebook and replaced by the more believable [Engagement Rate](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-rate-out-of-fanbase-or-out-of-reach), a metric that, unlike PTA(T), is only available to page owners for their own pages. In other words, Facebook seems to have made it even harder to quantify your performance against your competitors at a quick glance. Well, so it seems.
So, this raises two questions:
- How do you successfully quantify the performance of your content, and ultimately of your social media efforts?
- How do you perform an accurate competitive analysis?
I'm going to tackle these two questions in my next two blog posts, coming from two perspectives:
- using free tools (if you have little to no budget)
- using premium tools (my tool of choice here is [SimplyMeasured](http://simplymeasured.com/?ref=benkellis.com)).
On to the next blog post...
### On Twitter's Custom Timelines
URL: https://benkellis.com/twitters-custom-timelines/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:42:26.000Z
Twitter introduced a new feature yesterday, called **custom timelines**. Think of it as Twitter's equivalent of Spotify playlists:
- add the tracks (tweets) you want into a playlist;
- once you've put them all together, you can share your playlist (custom timeline) with others;
- you can always rearrange the order of your tracks (tweets) and if you're not happy with some of them, you can simply remove them.
Custom timelines have their own specific URLs, and you can browse people's custom timelines as they're all public (although, if the history of [Twitter lists](https://support.twitter.com/articles/76460-using-twitter-lists?ref=benkellis.com) is anything to go by, this could be subject to change later on, for the same reason why some people have private Twitter lists).
[Twitter is already using this feature](https://twitter.com/TwitterMusic/timelines/393773266801659904?ref=benkellis.com), as you can see [here](https://twitter.com/TwitterMusic/timelines/393773266801659904?ref=benkellis.com), along with a select few other developers who have been chosen for testing.
The only drawback is that you can only create custom timelines in [Tweetdeck](https://blog.twitter.com/2013/custom-timelines-in-tweetdeck?ref=benkellis.com). While this is not a drawback per se, the implication is that you cannot build custom timelines on-the-go on your mobile or tablet.
## What does this mean for me?
This new feature won't affect brands directly, **BUT** it's one thing they can use to their advantage. Here are a couple of ways you can make use of Custom Timelines:
- **SOCIAL HUB**: one thing I admire about [EE](https://twitter.com/ee?ref=benkellis.com) (besides their blazing fast 4G network and [their swanky headquarters in London](https://foursquare.com/v/ee/4c2b2ad077cfe21e1500b4f1?ref=benkellis.com)) is their Social Hub, a "command centre" room that is now seen as the social nerve of the business. I had the privilege of seeing it live a couple of weeks ago, and it's quite impressive - at first sight it might look like just another office room, with a massive screen and some funky lights that will remind you of the 70s disco-balls. Flick the switch and the room comes to light - the monitor is an interactive touchscreen monitor that shows you who's talking about EE, sentiment, where they're tweeting from, trending topics, as well as mentions of their competitors; as soon as mentions of EE grow progressively negative (cue: a potential PR disaster), the funky disco-ball lights turn red, while positive mentions will turn those lights green. This cost EE a lot of money and trust to begin with, and it took a director's undying faith in social media and a leap of faith to fund this project. Now, not every company has the budget to fund a social hub, and sadly not every company has directors with funds (or faith) to invest in social media-related projects. With Custom Timelines, you won't need to worry about that - build a custom timeline in Tweetdeck with mentions of your brand or your brand's latest campaign and show it on a monitor in your office. Then, sit back and watch how quickly that monitor becomes the new office water-cooler, where people stop by to see how the brand is doing. As you add tweets to the timeline, it will update right away at the top (like a regular timeline), so it can be as up-to-date as you make it.
- **EVENTS**: custom timelines can now allow you to list the tweets related to your event. This will work even better if you have a hashtag throughout the event, making it easy for you to track online conversations about it. Unfortunately it's custom for some people to hijack a hashtag to promote their own services which are in no way related to your event, company or brand. Here's where custom timelines come into play: create one in Tweetdeck, add the best tweets OR those that you think tell a story about your event (comprehensive enough for people who aren't at the event to understand what's going on); add the tweets from the official live-tweeters too, if you've hired them. Then show those tweets on a monitor OR share it online so those who couldn't make it to the event can be a part of it.
- A quick remark: using tools to showcase tweets from an event isn't something new. In fact, you can already source tweets and display them, with tools like [Tagboard](http://tagboard.com/?ref=benkellis.com) that will look for specific hashtags from multiple social networks.
## Any competitors?
Now, when new tools or features are announced, people (and tech blogs) seem to have the habit to ask "will this new tool/feature kill \[name of existing tool that does something similar\]?"
While this new feature is similar to what Tagboard is all about (even though Tagboard supports other social platforms beyond Twitter), you can rest assured that social aggregator tools like Storify won't feel threatened. At all.
Custom Timelines aren't a substitute for social listening, and they aren't a substitute for social aggregators either. In fact, think of it as "filtered social listening", where you choose what appears in the timeline.
Additionally, bear in mind that tools like Storify aggregate content from multiple platforms beyond Twitter, with the option to add your own commentary to put some context around the media you've chosen to embed in your Storify "story".
## But wait, there's more...
That wasn't the only announcement that Twitter made: they also announced the private beta release of an API to go along with Custom Timelines. This will enable developers to create timelines programmatically. Think of it as using Boolean language to filter down the content that's relevant to you. You can then create a custom timeline that will pull tweets about an event or a topic.
This API is currently being tested by a selected few, but a brilliant example of this in place is Politico, which uses the API to feed policy industry tweets into a [Tweet Hub](http://www.politico.com/energy-tweet-hub/?ref=benkellis.com), as you can see [here](http://www.politico.com/energy-tweet-hub/?ref=benkellis.com).
If you're a developer and you're interested in taking part in the Custom Timelines API beta programme, click [here](https://dev.twitter.com/form/request-participation-custom-timelines-beta-api?ref=benkellis.com).
### APT and the #APTtweetup
URL: https://benkellis.com/apttweetup/
Last updated: 2013-10-06T18:11:46.000Z
It's been a long time coming, and it's finally here. If you follow me on Twitter ([@FR314](http://twitter.com/FR314?ref=benkellis.com)), you're probably familiar with my regular live-tweeting when I go to events. Some of these are regular events, like the monthly Social Media London meetups, while others are big conferences, events and sessions, like [Social Media Week](http://socialmediaweek.org/?ref=benkellis.com), [iStrategy](http://istrategyconference.com/?ref=benkellis.com), and the [Adobe Summit](http://summit.adobe.com/?ref=benkellis.com). What I do at those events is called "**live-tweeting**". People often ask me what that is, and the best way to describe it is:
> "The events I go to are matches and championships, I'm the sport commentator, and I do my job not on TV but on Twitter."
I started live-tweeting without knowing what it was, and I've developed this skill over time. I'm still developing it as we speak. Besides live-tweeters, you also have professional tweeters (or pro-tweeters). These people tweet as part of their job - whether it's freelance or full-time, whether it's live-tweeting at events or tweeting on behalf of other companies. There's no end to what a pro-tweeter can do, and it's always refreshing to see other pro-tweeters like myself at work, getting the recognition they deserve. However, there currently isn’t any UK-based service that works as an association to connect businesses and brands with pro-tweeters, and as a hub for pro-tweeters to come together as a community.
This is why **Glenn Lesanto** ([@lesanto](http://twitter.com/lesanto?ref=benkellis.com)) and I are launching the **Association of Professional Tweeters** (**APT**). The APT is an association of accredited professional live-tweeters, with high social influence and high standards in tweeting and content.
**So, what is this all about?**
The APT has 5 main aims.
- Identifying and promoting professional tweeters;
- Setting and maintaining the standards of professional tweeting;
- Providing a directory of accredited professional tweeters;
- Representing and supporting professional tweeters publicly;
- Providing courses and education for professional (and would-be professional) tweeters.
**Is this for me?**
The ATP is not only useful for those who are already professional tweeters, but also for those who are looking to be one, as well as event organisers who are looking to hire someone to live-tweet their next event(s). We'll provide a directory on our site (coming soon) with a list of professional tweeters available, as well as a description of what a pro-tweeter does (just to clear any doubts). This way, event organisers can be sure to hire social influencers to take care of the live-tweeting on their behalf.
We're having our first event/inauguration event on 7th October: [protweet.eventbrite.co.uk](http://protweet.eventbrite.co.uk/?ref=benkellis.com) If you're interested, or would like to know more, come over on 7th October! We look forward to seeing you there.
### Social Listening - How and Why?
URL: https://benkellis.com/social-listening-how-and-why/
Last updated: 2013-10-02T15:52:32.000Z
Social listening is more than just googling your brand name to see what's been said about you. In fact, social listening is a more active approach to social monitoring. Being aware that you're being talked about online is useless nowadays - what matters is knowing what those social conversations around your brand are, where they reside, what's causing them, who's influencing them (believe it or not, you're not the influencer!).
Now, social listening can be about anything - ideally you'd like to have a regular report around your brand and what you do, just as a 'health-check' report. Besides that, you can also have social listening reports on your competitors, on your new products and services, or perhaps on your latest PR disaster - you choose the subject, but your audience chooses what's being said.
**Think About Your Audience**
Once you've identified the subject of your listening, the first step in doing Social Listening is this - think about your audience. This involves some research on your part. To do that, you need to answer the following questions:
- Where is your audience?
- How does your audience talk about you?
**Where is your audience?**
Identifying the location of your audience is mainly so you're fishing where the fish are. If you're a consumer brand, there's a big chance that people are talking about you on forums, big or small (look out for [MoneySavingExpert](http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/?ref=benkellis.com) and the like). If you're a telecom brand, then on top of forums you'll also be talked about on comparison websites, such as [Confused.com](http://www.confused.com/?ref=benkellis.com). If you're an agency, perhaps you'll be mentioned in LinkedIn groups and other professional groups on [Meetup.com](http://www.meetup.com/?ref=benkellis.com) and Eventbrite. You'll need a tool specifically built to listen for mentions of your brand on the web (not just a search engine). Some great tols you could use are:
- Synthesio
- Radian 6
- Brandwatch
- Sysomos
- Crimson Hexagon
To see which tool works best for you, check out [G2Crowd](http://www.g2crowd.com/login?referral%5Fcode=5771&ref=benkellis.com), a great corporate tool comparison website (it's free to use and you have unbiased reviews from the people who have used those tools).
**How does your audience talk about you?**
Ask yourself this question - how would you talk about a brand? Sometimes you'll do so directly, mentioning the brand, perhaps to draw their attention. Other times, you'll mention the brand indirectly, maybe just to voice a quick opinion. You need to keep this in mind when you're thinking about what keywords to use in your search parameters.
**Next Step: Listening**
Now that you've found where your audience is and how they talk about you, it's time to listen to those mentions.
Most tools require you to input a search string in Boolean language, using logical operators such as **AND**, **OR**, and **NOT**.
- For direct mentions on Twitter, a search string like (BrandNameOnTwitter) will be ok to begin with;
- For all mentions, regardless of whether direct or indirect and regardless of source (e.g. Social platform, mainstream news), use your brand name, usernames on social profiles, and variations of it. So, for instance, if your brand is [British Telecom](http://home.bt.com/?ref=benkellis.com), consider using the "BT" abbreviation and "britishtelecom" as the hashtag. Include abbreviations, common misspellings of your brand, and if your brand consists of two words, consider using the brand name as one name without spaces, as that's how it'll be referred to if used in a hashtag.
- If your brand name can be easily used in other connotations, weed out unnecessary mentions using the **NOT** operator. This is useful if your brand name is Virgin (e.g. Virgin NOT (hair OR sex)...), Orange (e.g. Orange NOT (fruit OR colour)...), Apple (e.g. Apple NOT (fruit)...), or use the AND operator to link theb brand name to terms that will only bring mentions related to it, unequivocably (e.g. Apple AND (phone OR iphone OR ipad)).
**The Problem with Links**
While you might be listening to verbatim that mention you directly or indirectly, you also need to listen to verbatim about you that don't mention you at all. A perfect example is a link to your site - oftentimes, people who share links pointing to your site won't even mention you. An example is a tweet like "check out this great article: link". It could be a link pointing to your blog, but your blog or brand aren't mentioned in the post, just a link to it.
Most social listening tools are great at finding mentions based on what you feed it with Boolean searches, but most of them aren't programmed to search for links to your blog or, even better, your blog's domain.
Surprisingly enough, there are quite a few free tools that let you find links to your domain. TweetDeck, HootSuite and TweetBinder are two examples of really great free tools that can give you just that - mentions of your domain.
**URL Search vs. Domain Search**
What you're looking for are links to your domain, not just a URL. If you search for a URL, you'll only find people who have mentioned that specific page; on the other hand, if you search for your domain (or subdomain if you wish), you'll find all posts that contain links to anywhere within your site, even links that have been shortened with services like bit.ly and ow.ly (the HootSuite default).
**I've Listened - Now What Do I Do?**
While social listening is important, the mentions (or verbatim, as some tools call it) you get out of it is useless if you don't do anything about it. In fact, social listening gives you the dots that human intervention needs to connect.
Once you have your mentions you can take one of the following 3 actions:
- **Respond**: respond to those mentions on that platform; so, for instance, if it's a customer service query, let your customer service reply to those queries, taking that proactive approach instead of waiting for people to ask you questions directly. You don't have to have an answer ready - saying that you'll get back to them as soon as you get the answer is better than ignoring that mention altogether only because you're not sure what the answer is.
- **Act up**: whether it's feedback on your products and services, or a complaint on usability of your website or application, when you put social listening as part of your brand strategy you'll soon find that change is customer-driven. Maybe you need to make changes to your product, maybe you need to start taking a different approach to your application or business in general - it's your responsibility to determine the gravity and volume of such mentions, and whether they need you to take actions as a consequence.
- **Archive**: some mentions don't require immediate response or a direct action, in which case it's best to archive those mentions. Don't ignore those mentions - you might need them in the future when you least expect it.
One last word of advice - getting stuck doing several reports on social listening is very, very easy. However, make sure that those reports are relevant and actionable. Be balanced in the time you spend doing your social listening - you shouldn't spend more time doing social listening reports than the time you spend taking actions from such reports.
### Reach, Audience and Impressions - on Twitter and Beyond
URL: https://benkellis.com/reach-audience-and-impressions-on-twitter-and-beyond/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:42:26.000Z
I've already written about [how I feel about engagement rate](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-rate-out-of-fanbase-or-out-of-reach) and [how I think it should be measured](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-rate-out-of-fanbase-or-out-of-reach). Thankfully there are tools out there that already calculate it correctly, such as [Simply Measured](https://twitter.com/simplymeasured?ref=benkellis.com), while other tools have updated their platforms to adapt to the change, like [SocialBakers](https://twitter.com/socialbakers?ref=benkellis.com).
However, things are not that simple when you look at Twitter. When it comes to analytics, [Twitter isn't that friendly](http://analytics.twitter.com/?ref=benkellis.com). In fact, [the official Twitter Analytics dashboard](http://analytics.twitter.com/?ref=benkellis.com) leaves a lot to be desired, and it's a shame considering that social analysts and marketers had been waiting for years for a good dashnoard from the social media giant.
This leaves us with a few questions, one of which is: how do we calculate reach, audience and impressions on Twitter?
While worded differently, **reach is the same as audience.** However, there is a difference between **reach** and **impressions**.
- **Reach**: number of people who *may* have seen your content
- **Impressions**: number of times the reached people *may* have seen your content
This doesn't only apply to Twitter, but other social networks, as well as websites (those same terms are used in web analytics).
### A Quick Look at Web Analytics
The same concept applies to web analytics as well, where your reach/audience is the number of visitors, while the number of impressions is the number of pageviews. By the same logic, the number of impressions is always equal to or more than the number of visitors.
### A Quick Note on "may"
You may have noticed the *may* as part of the definitions for reach and impressions. This is because the accuracy of how certain platforms detect the people reached and their relative impressions isn't 100% accurate.
Let's take Facebook for example: a user is marked as reached when they scroll to (or past) a post, as well as when they open a post (e.g. clicking on a post URL). However, scrolling past a piece of content doesn't necessarily mean that I've actually seen it. Hence, **reach is an accurate way of saying how many screens the post was displayed on** (and **impressions tells how many times they've made such an appearance**), while it doesn't always mean that a user has viewed that post.
## The Problem with Reach
Calculating reach is easier on some platforms than others. Facebook easily puts it in its Facebook Insights, while Twitter doesn't provide that metric at all. Getting the reach on Twitter is apparently quite difficult, hence why there are only a handful of tools out there that provide some sort of calculation.
When reach is not easily available, marketers resort to 3rd party tools to calculate that for them. Unfortunately, not all of these tools calculate it in the same way.
There are currently three main ways in which the reach of a tweet is calculated:
- **Overcalculation**: this is the method used by most tools out there, especially free ones that decide to take "reach" on board (e.g. one of marketers' favourite tools, [Tweetreach](http://tweetreach.com/?ref=benkellis.com)). This method calculates reach as the sum of all your followers, the people who have interacted with your post and their followers. This revolves around the assumption that all your followers and people who interacted with you (along with their followers) see your posts. While we know that to be statistically wrong, it's the most common calculation used by a lot of tools out there. This is then taken further:
- **Absolute overcalculation**: this method calculates reach as the sum of all your followers, the people who have interacted with you in any way, and their followers. This is regardless of interaction - be it a reply, a retweet or a favourite.
- **Selective over-calculation**: this method calculates reach as the sum of all your followers, the people who have amplified the reach of your tweet by retweeting it, and their followers. Hence, if someone replied to your tweet, or favourites it, it wouldn't be counted in, but only Retweets would. This is used because a mention or favourite by a user doesn't put your tweet in his/her followers' timelines.
- **Approximate calculation**: this method calculates reach in a way that I still haven't seen a lot of brands adopting, but it's still worth knowing. This method lets you set a percentage of reach, so if you believe that 15% of an average Tweeter's followerbase sees your tweets in their timeline, you can apply 15% to the number of followers who have interacted with you, as well as your own followers.
- **Adaptive approximate calculation**: This can be further tweaked to accommodate paid campaigns, which have a greater reach than organic posts. Hence, you could have a fixed percentage for organic posts (e.g. 20%), and another fixed percentage for paid posts (40%).
- **Under-calculation**: this is a drastic calculation, in which you calculate the number of unique users who have interacted with your tweets (so if User A replies to and favourites your tweet, by this method you will have reached one person).
## Which is the best method?
Which one is the best method out of the 3? They're all an approximate calculation for reach, not an exact one. Hence, none of those methods can give you a perfectly accurate figure for your reach. Here's why:
- **Over-calculation** allows for a big chunk of people to go through the "reach funnel", making a big assumption that all of your followers and people who have interacted with you as well as their followers make up your reach.
- **Approximate calculation** is what I'd call a "static calculation" - it doesn't take into consideration the unpredictable virality of social media posts. For instance, this approximate calculation doesn't take into consideration the fact that hashtags can be viewed by anyone and as such tweets with a trending hashtag have a much bigger reach than tweets with no hashtags.
- **Under-calculation** is a very strict way of calculating reach, it's the "safe way" that makes no assumptions. This says that reach is the number of people who have interacted with your post. While it's true that people who have interacted with your post are part of your reach, reach isn't limited to just them.
## So, Which Method Should I Use?
Whether you rely on free tools or premium tools, you need to be aware of how your reach is calculated, as this can dramatically affect the way you calculate reach-dependent metrics, such as engagement rate. For instance, if you choose to over-calculate your reach, you'll end up with a low engagement rate, while under-calculating your reach means you'll get a higher engagement rate yet a lower volume of reached users.
So, which method should you choose? Before we can answer this question, we need to change how we refer to reach and impressions for these platforms. Some social platforms do a very good job at providing some sort of reach (Facebook), others do a stellar job at it (YouTube), while others don't (Twitter). So, to answer your question, we first need to change how we refer to such metrics for certain platforms:
- The "**potential reach**" is the number of people who *may* have seen your post.
- The "**potential impressions**" are the number of times the post was shown to the potential reach.
- The "**true reach**" is the *exact* number of people who have seen your post, not based on any assumptions, or a predefined percentage.
- The "**true impressions**" is the *exact* number of times your true reach has seen your content.
Defining the metrics in this way regulates the expectations we can have towards a social Analytics tool or a social platform.
Now, for platforms that do not provide you with their true reach, you can choose any method you're comfortable with out of the three we've listed. However, what you get from the three method is only the "**potential reach**" and "**potential impressions**".
For that, more often than not you'll need a tool. However, before signing up or buying a tool, ask how the reach is calculated, make it one of your specifications for the ideal Social Analytics tool for you.
Choose a tool that gives you flexibility in calculating reach, one that calculates reach in a way you're comfortable reporting on. A great tool that does just that is [Simply Measured](http://simplymeasured.com/?ref=benkellis.com). [Simply Measured](http://simplymeasured.com/?ref=benkellis.com) supports all three main methods of calculating reach, giving you total flexibility in how to calculate your reach on Twitter, as well as giving you accurate figures for reach for other social networks that openly provide reach figures (e.g. Facebook, YouTube).
If you're still unsure and want to know how the tool you have in mind (or the tool you're already using) stacks up against [Simply Measured](http://simplymeasured.com/?ref=benkellis.com) or some other tool, check out [G2Crowd](http://www.g2crowd.com/login?referral%5Fcode=5771&ref=benkellis.com) \- it's a great comparison site for corporate tools (be it for marketing, analytics, management etc.). [Click here to register for free](http://www.g2crowd.com/login?referral%5Fcode=5771&ref=benkellis.com) (all you'll need is just a LinkedIn account et voilà, you're in!)
## True Reach for Everyone?
So, will we ever see "**true reach**" available to everyone for every social platform? In a perfect, utopic world, yes. This depends on the actual platforms and what they make available. Due to the complexity of some platforms, some of them will find a hard time calculating reach.
Until the platforms allow for this to be calculated accurately, True Reach remains one of the Holy Grails of Social Analytics.
**Update: 8/04/15** \- Twitter Analytics 2.0 now available, and so are (True) Impressions: [brnrd.me/twitter-analytics-2-0](https://brnrd.me/posts/twitter-analytics-2-0?ref=benkellis.com)
### Engagement vs. Consumption: the Facebook Dilemma
URL: https://benkellis.com/engagement-vs-consumption-the-facebook-dilemma/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:44:42.000Z
```
```
One of the mysteries that have been long unsolved in Social Media Analytics (and on Facebook marketing in general) is **the difference between**
content consumption
and
content engagement
, and **the difference between**
Consumers
and
Engaged Users
. It's been a matter of debate among big and respected consultants, analysts, and so-called 'gurus'. Now, I've had a look and thought, why not solve this mystery myself? Well, ladies and gentlemen - I have solved the mystery. Read through...
First of all, let's get clear on the definition of what Facebook calls a [Story](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/facebookstory) (to read more on what a story is, click [**here**](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/facebookstory)). Simply put,
> **A story is an item that is displayed in your News Feed or News Ticker.**
So, when you see "*Ben likes Paul's status*", you're seeing a story that Ben created; when you see "*Ben commented on Mark's picture*", you're seeing another story that Ben created. However, not all interactions between Ben and your Facebook Page will create a story. For instance, if you publish a video and Ben watches it, none of Ben's friends will know; if you post the link to your website and Ben clicks through, none of Ben's friends will know.
Now that we're clear on that, let's get on the 'dilemma' bit.
If you own a Facebook Page (and I'll assume that most people who have read this far DO own a Facebook page), you're familiar with the word "**Engagement**", a word that's mentioned very often, as a metric, as a KPI, as a trophy if yours is higher than your competitors'. However, if you do export data from Facebook Insights, you'll notice that there's actually no such metric called 'engagement'. One metric that comes close, though, is **Engaged Users**, which is next to 2 metrics: **Consumers** and **Consumption**.
Now, the question is,
**what is the difference between engagement and consumption?**
Up until mid-2012, the answer was quite straightforward: **engagement was the number of interactions that resulted in a story being created; consumption was the number of interactions in total**, regardless of whether they resulted in a story or not. Hence, consumption would end up being equal to or higher than engagement. This is confirmed by an article written by [Josh Constine](https://twitter.com/JoshConstine?ref=benkellis.com), a technology journalist currently writing for [TechCrunch](http://techcrunch.com/author/josh-constine/?ref=benkellis.com). [In his article](http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/10/17/page-insights-exports/?ref=benkellis.com), Josh highlights that **Consumptions** is "*the number of people who clicked on any of your content without generating a story*", as defined by Facebook.
That was back in 2011\. That is definitely no longer the case. Here's why.
Taking a look at a Post-level data export, you can see in the first tab (called '**Key Metrics**') the definition of **Consumption** as "*the number of clicks anywhere in your post. Clicks generating stories are included in "Other Clicks."*".
We can find these "**Other Clicks**" when we open the "Lifetime Post Consumptions" tab. Here's what we get (click on the pictures to view full size):
So this takes us to the conclusion that:
**Consumptions = Link Clicks + Photo Views + Video Plays + Other Clicks** (some of which do generate stories)
This is a great change for Facebook, which used to consider **Consumptions** as the sum of any clicks that don't generate any stories.
However, here's where the confusion ensues:
- Facebook defines **Engaged Users** as "*the number of people who clicked anywhere in your posts*".
- Facebook defines **Consumers** as "*the number of people who clicked anywhere in your post*".
- While the two definitions are pretty much the same, the number of **Engaged Users** is always higher than, or equal to, the number of **Consumers**.
So, here's the dilemma:
- What's the difference between **Engaged Users** and **Consumers**?
- What's the difference between **Engagement** and **Consumption**?
Not a lot of people have noticed this dramatic change in definition, and I've only found one person who has done his best to break down the difference between the two: **[Jon Loomer](https://www.jonloomer.com/2013/03/11/facebook-insights-consumer-vs-engaged-user/?ref=benkellis.com)**, a digital marketing consultant with a unique perspective on social media. [In his article from March 2013](http://www.jonloomer.com/2013/03/11/facebook-insights-consumer-vs-engaged-user/?ref=benkellis.com) he highlights this chance and tries to break down the (confusing) definitions that Facebook has given those metrics, while trying to give some clear definitions. However, there are quite a few inaccuracies in his article, which tries to break down these definitions with a best guess, as Jon himself puts it.
Till date, no one's been able to give a clear-cut definition of those 4 metrics, while explaining the seemingly paradoxical differences between them.
Until today.
## Breaking Down The Elements
First of all, let's see the official definitions of the four metrics we're dealing with:
- **[Engaged Users](https://www.facebook.com/help/281439321873710)**: the number of people who have clicked anywhere on your post.
- **Consumers**: the number of people who clicked anywhere in your post (whether they create a story or not).
- **Consumption**: the number of clicks anywhere in your post (whether they create a story or not).
The fourth metric is **Engagement**. By logic, **Consumption** is a produce of **Consumers**, the same way that **Engagement** is a produce of **Engaged Users**. That is the version that most marketers stick to when asked what the difference between the two is.
The actual answer is on the new Facebook Insights. When you click on the Posts panel, you'll see a breakdown of reach, clicks and more details. When you look at the options for Engagement, you'll see the following...
**Engagement**: the sum of post clicks, post likes, post comments and post shares.
But that's not all: when you click on the dropdown to select what to show under the Engagement column, here are the options you have:
So, that means that the actual definition of Engagement (according to Facebook) is:
**Engagement**: the sum of post clicks, likes, comments, shares, post hides, hides of all posts, reports of spam, and page unlikes from a post.
Now, after reading the definition of Facebook Engagement, you can see that it sounds very, very similar to **Consumption** ("*the number of clicks anywhere in your post (whether they create a story or not).*"). This makes it hard to differentiate between the two.
To get to the bottom of this we need to look at the numbers - time to delve in the Facebook data exports.
## Looking at the Data
Let's look back at how Facebook defines **Consumptions** in the data exports:
"*The number of clicks anywhere in your post.*
Clicks generating stories are included in "Other Clicks."
"
The latter part is what we're going to focus on for now:
"
*Clicks generating stories are included in "Other Clicks"*
".
Here's what we find in the **Consumptions** tab:
Now, let's add the number of stories generated for each of those posts as a separate column and let's make things visually clearer.
Here are a few observations that we can safely make:
- '**Other stories**' does not equate to post stories.
- Post stories are just a percentage of **Other Clicks** (using the sample in the table and the graph above, post stories only constitute to between 10% and 30%).
- Most **Other Clicks** are not interactions that generate stories (so no likes, comments and shares) or photo views or video views or click-throughs.
So, the question is: now that we know that some of the **Other Clicks** are interactions that generate stories, **what are the remaining 'Other Clicks'?**
The answer is not in the data export but in the new Facebook Insights (again).
When you open up a page post in the new Facebook Insights, you get this post view, with a breakdown of people reached and how people consumed your content:
You may have noticed an "i" after **Other Clicks**. Hovering over it you get this pop-up:
So, besides clicks that generate stories, what makes up the **Other Clicks** are clicks not on the content of the post, such as page title clicks, or clicks to "see more".
What does that mean?
These are the **Other Clicks** that are not on the actual post content but on the post layout. Look at the following Facebook post:
While you're the one who controls the content that goes in the post layout, the actual framework/layout is controlled by Facebook. Any clickable link within this framework makes up the rest of the **Other Clicks**. So, with the example above in mind, that includes (working our way from the bottom to the top):
- clicking on the date link ('last Wednesday' under the link preview), which takes you to the unique URL of the post
- clicking on the number of likes, which gives you a list of people who have liked the post
- clicking the number of comments, which gives you a list of people who have commented the post
- clicking on the number of shares, which gives you a list of people who have shared the post
- clicking on 'see more', which opens up the remaining texts (unless you're on mobile, where tapping on 'see more' takes you to the actual post)
- hovering over the top right corner you'll see a '**v**' - clicking that gives you the options to hide the post, mark/report the post as spam, embed the post or follow the post
- clicking in the comment box without actually commenting (commenting will turn that click into a [story](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/facebookstory))
- clicking on a user profile's link
- clicking on a link that's part of a comment
- clicking on the page title (clicking on 'Treehouse')
- Bear in mind that when you hover over 'Treehouse' and you get the hovercard, clicking on any items on the hovercard is not part of consumption as it's not a click on the original post.
Still, that doesn't answer our last question:
If Consumers do much more than Engaged Users, why are there more Engaged Users than Consumers?
Let's look at another post, this time from [Simply Measured.](http://simplymeasured.com/?ref=benkellis.com)
Now, if I asked you "how many comments did this post get?", what would you reply?
If you answered 5 then I take it you added Dorrit's comment, Hotelsireland.com's comment, and since there are 3 hidden replies, perhaps you added those 3.
Let's take a look at another post, and this time let's look at how Facebook answers that question too:
You can see 2 comments and since at the bottom you read "*view 38 more comments*" you'll choose to add 38 to 2\. But then you also see "3 replies" and "2 replies". So is the answer 45?
Yet, if you look at the top, Facebook says this particular post received 38 likes and
40 comments
. Facebook Insight confirms this:
So, why are those replies not counted? Simple - because those are not comments. Those are not even 'threaded comments', though they've been unofficially labelled that way by most websites and marketers alike. **Those are replies**.
So, Facebook only counts comments, not the replies that they get. And it also looks like (dare I say) Facebook has forgotten to include replies as part of engagement in Facebook Insights. That's a more obvious omission, but you may also notice that likes of comments and likes of replies are NOT included as part of engagement either.
This brings us to our conclusion - what we call engagement is not what Facebook calls engagement, and while consumers seem to do more than engaged users, engaged users actually do a LOT more, though unfortunately Facebook doesn't currently provide that data.
I'll explain:
Facebook looks at what you post and looks at two aspects of it: the consumption of the post and engagement of the content:
- **Consumption**: how was the content you posted consumed?
- **Consumers** consume the content that you publish, by clicking on any items on the actual post; these clicks, **Consumption**, may result in **Stories**, depending on what is clicked (video play versus post comment).
- **Engagement**: how did users engage with your post?
- **Engaged Users** engage with your content - some of them engage on your content, by clicking on items on the post (passive engagement) or while others go within, performing actions such as posting a reply to spark conversations, while others just like a reply or a comment, or click to see more replies.
By adding another layer, Facebook is telling us how it looks at what you publish - it's a
post
if you want to take a look at the quantitative side of things, and it's
content
if you want to take a look at the qualitative side of things.
Perhaps this is why Facebook doesn't give us the full number of all the engagement that goes on around your content, while giving us a full picture of how that post is being consumed. (More on breaking down your posts and content in another article...)
## The Definitions of Consumption, Consumer and Engaged User
In a nutshell, here are the clear-cut definitions of **Consumption**, **Consumer**, and **Engaged User**:
- **Consumption** is any click that takes place on the main post layout/framework, whether it creates a story or not; those who create such **Consumption** are called **Consumers**.
- **Engaged Users** are those users who engage with your content, be it by clicking on the main post layout/framework (**Consumers**) or by clicking below it, in the comments section.
Here's the answer to the dilemma in one simple [Skitch](https://twitter.com/skitch?ref=benkellis.com) illustration, showing you where the clicks come from for **Engaged Users** and **Consumers**:
While this solves the mystery that we've solved after over 1,850 words, it brings up a question: **what**
IS
engagement?
While Facebook makes available data on consumers and consumption, Facebook doesn't give us the full picture (or at least a number) when it comes to real engagement - not just people who consume, but also people who act with the new features they've introduced, such as replies and liking those replies (let's not forget commenting with pictures etc.).
In my opinion, this is an oversight on Facebook's part, who should've had tools and metrics ready for marketers to measure the performance of the new features they rolled out to Facebook Pages. Additionally, it's misleading for Facebook to group all clicks that make up **Consumption** and list it under **Engagement**, especially since it doesn't list all the other clicks that constitute "Engagement" - what about the replies? What about the likes of comments? And what about the likes of replies?
Having said that, I'm noticing the new refined and polished Facebook Insights, which is miles ahead of the older version, and this is constantly being refined. However, the data exports remain the same, while the change in metrics aren't explicitly communicated (e.g. the change of definition of the **Consumers** and **Consumption** metrics in mid-2012).
It would be easy to blame it all on Facebook (in all fairness, giving the same definition to two metrics that are oh so similar isn't very helpful). However, at the same time it's the responsibility of each Page Owner to keep abreast of what goes on not only on their pages but also behind the scenes - are you personally familiar with Facebook Insights? [Can you accurately measure the engagement rate if you were asked to provide that?](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-rate-out-of-fanbase-or-out-of-reach) \[If not, [click here](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-rate-out-of-fanbase-or-out-of-reach).\] Are you familiar with the meanings of the various metrics you see in the data exports? [Do you know what's the latest in the EdgeRank?](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/facebook-edgerank-is-dead-now-what) [Or do you think EdgeRank still exist?](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/facebook-edgerank-is-dead-now-what) \[If you replied no the first question and/or replied yes to the second question, [read here](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/facebook-edgerank-is-dead-now-what).\]
I guess what I'm saying is - challenge convention. As an analyst, challenging convention is not a part of my job - it's the whole attitude I take on my job. This shouldn't be an analyst-only trait, but the trait of anyone who works in digital marketing - Social Media, SEO, eCommerce, you name it. Challenge convention and get the real data - or as [Jon Loomer](http://www.jonloomer.com/2013/03/11/facebook-insights-consumer-vs-engaged-user/?ref=benkellis.com) would put it,
> "This is real data here, people. This is actionable data that means something."
### Definition of Facebook Story
URL: https://benkellis.com/facebookstory/
Last updated: 2013-09-08T16:19:26.000Z
This is one keyword I'll be mentioning very often in my future posts, so I thought I might as well create an article I can easily refer to later in the future.
**Facebook story (or simply 'story')**. This is mentioned in various places in the Facebook Insights dashboard, and several places in the data exports (both Page and Post level.
**A story is an item that is displayed in your News Feed or News Ticker** (until the old layout completely fades out, getting rid of the News Ticker)**.** So, an example of a story is “*Ben liked a picture*“, “*Ben commented on a post*“, “*Ben was tagged in a picture*“.
Bear in mind that not all actions you perform create stories as a result. For example, clicking on a page post, opening a picture, pressing play on a video or clicking on a link does **not** create a story. However, those actions are still a part of engagement – a Facebook user might not click ‘like’ on a video you’ve posted on your Page, yet if he clicks on play and watches it, he still engaged with your content.
Here are the actions that create stories:
- liking a post
- liking a comment
- commenting on a post
- commenting on a comment
- sharing a post
- answering a question/”poll”
- responding to an event
- claiming an offer
- posting on the page wall
- mentioning the page in a post
- tagging the page in a photo
- checking in at your place/page
- sharing a check-in deal
- liking a check-in deal
- writing a recommendation
- liking a page
- using Facebook reactions on posts, including Facebook Live Video.
### When Your KPIs Don't Indicate Your Performance
URL: https://benkellis.com/when-your-kpis-dont-indicate-your-performance/
Last updated: 2013-08-27T23:49:54.000Z
I casually remembered one of the many lessons that my first manager taught me while I was working as a trainee:
> **necessarynice to havenot suitable**
On big reports that would go out he'd always have 3 columns: one for necessary metrics requested, one for 'nice-to-have' metrics, and a greyed-out column with not suitable metrics - those requested metrics that sound fancy but don't add any value to the actual story.
I guess in one way he was getting me ready for the world of digital marketing, where big numbers are coveted, but the right metrics aren't always used.
Now, here's what he meant by that:
- **Necessary**: these are the actionable metrics, the real key performance indicators. If you're a B2C brand, one of your KPIs will be how much revenue you're getting as part of your social efforts - **do your tweets attract your followers to your site?** **Are those people then moved to buy what you offer?** After they've made their purchase, **are they compelled to share with their social circles?** This is all quantifiable (as long as you have the right tools and segmentations in place).
- **Nice to have**: these are not essential but not unimportant. For instance, still within the B2C context, a nice-to-have KPI would be seeing how many unique visitors your site is getting as opposed to 'just visitors'. Or perhaps, the top 5 mobile devices shown on Google Analytics for your blog visits - it's not essential, but still nice to see what devices are mostly being used to visit your site, so you can then see if you need to optimise your site further.
- **Not suitable**: these are, alas, the most common KPIs in analytics. They come in two forms: the appealing ones and the B.S. - the business standards. The appealing KPIs are those that look and sound big when presented to your manager. Then you have the B.S., business standards - not standards because they've been agreed by everyone in the industry, but because that's what everyone seems to enjoy using. A perfect example is Facebook's infamous PTAT (People Talking About This). People use that because it's readily and publicly available, so it's easy to take that number and compare your Facebook page with your competitors or other pages. However, not everyone delves into breaking this metric down and understanding what it actually involves - PTAT is not the number of people talking about your brand or your Facebook Page, but it's the number of interactions between Facebook users and your page. [One person can comment, like, and share on your post and it'll be counted as 3 PTA, even though it's only one person talking about you.](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-rate-out-of-fanbase-or-out-of-reach) \[More on this [here](https://benkellis.com/brnrdme/engagement-rate-out-of-fanbase-or-out-of-reach).\] So now you end up with big figures that look good on paper and sound good in presentations, but their practicality is close to zilch.
So, how do you differentiate between the 3 types of metrics? Ask yourself the following two questions:
- **If you were to report on these metrics, which ones can you do without?**
- **Out of those you can do without, how many of those are great to have to support your cause?**
That will tell you where your metrics lie. Sometimes you won't have a clear-cut distinction and often you'll see that some metrics are unnecessary and essential at the same time, depending on who your stakeholders are - number of pageviews might not be necessary if you're reporting to your customer care team, but it might be essential if the recipient of your report is working on your site with a focus on traffic. So, before you ask yourself those two questions, check who the recipient of your report(s) is .
So, here's a fun and interesting challenge - tell me, whoever you are, whatever brand you work for - what metrics you're currently using, especially those you're doubtful of, and I'll tell you whether you should keep them, ditch them or just keep them as 'nice to have' metrics.
(This should be fun...)
### Facebook EdgeRank is Dead - Now What?
URL: https://benkellis.com/facebook-edgerank-is-dead-now-what/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:44:43.000Z
Facebook giveth and it taketh away...
Facebook held a press event yesterday (6th August) discussing the ins and outs of the EdgeRank algorithm, changes and new additions to the Facebook algorithm(s). This is the first time in almost 7 years that Facebook comes out and transparently discusses how the systematic algorithm works and how it plans to change this.
[Lars Backstrom](https://www.facebook.com/lars), Engineer Manager in charge of News Feed Ranking, spoke about the infamous News Feed and how EdgeRank controls what stories fit in it.These are the main takeaways from Lars’ speech:
- There are, on average, 1,500 stories seen on Facebook every day
- Facebook scores each and every one of those stories based on how relevant Facebook thinks it is for the user. This score is calculated by EdgeRank, which is made up by the following three factors:
- **Affinity**: the relationship between the user and the content creator (so, the closer the two parties are, the higher the score and the higher the propensity for that story to be shown at the top of the user’s News Feed)
- **Weight**: the ‘weight’ of the post type, with the highest scoring one being pushed to the top. The weight is as follows:
- text update
- photos/videos
- links
- questions (also known as ‘survey’ by marketers)
- **Time decay**: the more recent a post is, the higher the propensity for it to rise to the top of the News Feed.
- When the user logs in, the News Feed is compiled and sorted based on that score, meaning that the higher ranked ones are shown at the top.
You’re probably rejoicing at the thought of knowing how EdgeRank works now (If you didn’t already) - not too soon: Facebook have announced that they’ve decided to ditch EdgeRank altogether and use an all-new algorithm for organic content.A quick note on this: this will only affect non-paid content, so content from your friends and organic content from brand pages.The new yet-to-be-named algorithm works using ‘**Story Bumping**’:
- Facebook takes all the most recent posts and assign them a score based on the following three factors:
- **recency** (how recently was the story posted?)
- **the relationship between the user and the story’s owner** (whether it’s a friend, user you’re following, or page)
- **engagement** (how many comments it has first, then how many likes it has).
- When a Facebook user logs in at 9am to see their News Feed, Facebook will show the user those 50 posts, but the user only views 20 posts, leaving 30 unread
- Between 9am and 12pm there are 40 new posts from friends and pages that the user follows.
- When the same user logs back in again at 12pm, not only will they see those 40 new posts , but also the 30 unread posts that the user didn’t see when they logged in at 9am.
To make a practical example, look at your inbox: whether you rely on Gmail or Outlook or Yahoo etc, you probably have the routine to check your emails first thing in the morning to see what you missed overnight. If you’re like me you probably have your inbox set to “unread first”. This means that every morning I’ll see the most recent unread emails that I received overnight, as well as those unread emails that I didn’t bother to read the previous day.
### Does it work?
Facebook started testing this some time ago and from their testing they noticed:
- a 5% increase in like, comments, and shares of stories from friends
- an 8% increase in interactions between fans and Pages (including more follows)
- an increase from 57% to 70% of stories being read in the News Feed
### What does that mean?
- **Facebook users will start to see more content that they can personally connect to**, hence increasing the propensity to engage with that content (which they might have otherwise missed).
- **Facebook users will see more from brands they ‘like’ as long as they regularly connect with those pages**, hence developing more of a connection.
- **Facebook users will see more content that they like more often**, hence drawing them back to their News Feeds more often and for longer.
### So, what’s the aim of Story Bumping?
Facebook’s aim with this is to highlight content that you might have missed, as long as it’s relevant to you. There is a limit to the age of content that Facebook displays in your News Feed - though it will show you stories that you didn’t see last night, Facebook won’t show you content that it believes isn’t relevant to you. Except to see more cute puppy pictures from your close family and friends, and less from brands you ‘like' but don’t particularly follow.
### Is that all?
Nope - Facebook announced another feature ‘Last Actor’. This keeps track of the last person or page you’ve interacted with. This new algorithm relies heavily on this ‘last actor’ factor, as Facebook aims to help users build long-term interactions on the platform. This algorithm keeps track of your last 50 interactions (likes, comments, and shares), so when you check your News Feed next you’ll start seeing more content from people you interact with the most.Lastly, Facebook also announced a new algorithm that is still in development and will be released in the near future. This other new algorithm, ‘Chronological by Actor’, will look at a particular user’s posts (as long as this user has a strong connection with you) and order their posts in chronological order in your News Feed.
## When are these three new algorithms rolling out?
Check your Facebook - you already have at least one, depending on where you’re accessing Facebook from. ‘Story Bumping’ has already been rolled out on web but not yet on mobile, ‘Last Actor’ has been rolled out on both web and mobile. ‘Chronological by Actor’ is still in the works, and there’s no word on when it’s going to be released.
## And here’s where the marketing talk starts…
This change is great for Facebook users, as Facebook gives more prominence to content that is close to you. However, this could mean heaven or hell for marketers and brand owners. I’m going to explain how these changes are going to affect your brand page by looking at what things you need to actively review:
- **Content Review**: Facebook puts a lot of focus on connection, and Facebook users will find a greater connection between users and pages they engage with the most. Take some time to think about your content: is it engaging? How engaging is it? Does your fanbase find your content interesting? Are they more likely to click on a post to view and maybe like it, or do they also actively comment and share the content? Bear that in mind now that Facebook can potentially punish you for publishing boring content.
- **Action Review**: don’t assume that just because you posted something on your page, people are going to actively engage with it. If you don’t already do it, it’s time for you to start using call-to-action (CTO) in your posts. Now, a word of caution: when misused, these can look tacky and boring, and they can also lead to people unfollowing you. ‘Like this page’, ‘Like this picture’, ‘Like and share’, ‘Comment and share if you want X’. However, find creative ways of integrating CTO in (some of) your posts - perhaps a nice picture with a CTO but leaving the caption short and sweet, so you’re being ‘covertly direct’ in the action you’re asking your fans to do. (The same applies to Twitter and pretty much any other social network where you have a presence.)
- **Frequency Review**: Your most loyal fans (those who engage with you the most) are the ones who will see more and more of your content. However, because they’ll be more likely to see all your posts on their News Feed, it’s time for you to reconsider how many posts you’re putting on your Page. 3 posts? 2 posts? 1 posts? One every 2 days? There is no magic number, and the number of posts you should post mainly depends on your sector - for example, if you’re an SEO Agency or an [SEO Company](http://www.squaresocial.co/services/search-engine-optimisation/?ref=benkellis.com) and you have a fanbase that is mostly interested in SEO, digital media and marketing, more than one post could be ideal. Test with your posting frequency and see how your fanbase reacts to it. Do they click more on your content? Do they engage more with it? Are they driven to unlike your page because of your constant publishing?
- **Money Review**: yes, the dreaded money review. While Facebook didn’t mention paid advertising yesterday, we can be sure of two things - paid advertising won’t suffer any changes, and it will still be a focus for Facebook. While Facebook isn’t changing paid advertising, it is definitely going to be impacted by these two new algorithms (and the third one to follow). If you’re being stagnant with your content strategy, your content is less likely to be shown to Facebook users, while they enjoy more content from their friends and other pages who actually DO engage more with them. To put it bluntly, you’re going to see more competitors within the same industry competing for the most engaging content, to win more space on their fanbase News Feeds. Since there’s just so many people your posts can reach organically, more and more brands will recur to paid advertising. Is YOUR brand ready for this change? Will you only recur to paid content as a last resort, or will you use it regularly? Either way, it’s time to review your Facebook budget.
To read the official blog post from Facebook about the new algorithms, [click here](https://www.facebook.com/facebookforbusiness/news/News-Feed-FYI-A-Window-Into-News-Feed).So, what do you think of the new changes? Let me know in the comments below, or if you have any questions just give me a shout!
### Start-Up Battle Made Easy: Round 2. Growth Hacking - the Art of Growing Faster
URL: https://benkellis.com/start-up-battle-made-easy-round-2-growth-hacking-the-art-of-growing-faster/
Last updated: 2013-07-25T22:02:20.000Z
I was recently invited to attend [Startup Battle](http://www.meetup.com/Business-Networking-Startups-Investors-Advisors-London/events/126376882/?ref=benkellis.com) by [Marian Gazdik](http://uk.linkedin.com/in/gazdik?ref=benkellis.com), director at Tiger Studios. [Startup Battle](http://www.meetup.com/Business-Networking-Startups-Investors-Advisors-London/events/126376882/?ref=benkellis.com) is a regular meetup that takes place in London and its main focus is in startups, entrepreneurs, co-founders and other business people. The last one was at [The Bakery](http://www.thebakerylondon.com/?ref=benkellis.com), an awesome place in the middle of Tech City where companies are 'incubated' and developed. For more information and to see how you can make use of it, click here: [www.thebakerylondon.com](http://www.thebakerylondon.com/?ref=benkellis.com) and check them out on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/thebakeryldn?ref=benkellis.com) as well: [@thebakeryldn](https://twitter.com/thebakeryldn?ref=benkellis.com). **"Growth-Hacking beyond Growth-Hacking" by Sofia Quintero** [Sofia Quintero](http://about.me/sofia%5Fquintero?ref=benkellis.com) works for [Geckoboard](http://www.geckoboard.com/?ref=benkellis.com). Her official title is 'Growth and Marketing Firestarter' (yes, really!), and her aim is building the Growth Team within the company, making sure it gets to the next level using data that she collects with Geckoboard.
- [Geckoboard](http://www.geckoboard.com/?ref=benkellis.com) is at the very centre of a data-driven culture. [Geckoboard](http://www.geckoboard.com/?ref=benkellis.com) is a data-communication tool that pulls all the data and key metrics in one easy-to-use dashboard. So, if you start with your key metrics and main goals/aims, [Geckoboard](http://www.geckoboard.com/?ref=benkellis.com) can visualise your progress towards those goals in real time. This is important for both big and small businesses.
- So what does it mean to be a 'firestarter'? First of all, it's about understanding - understanding what shows growth, understanding the market you're working in and its requirements. As part of her job, [Sofia](http://about.me/sofia%5Fquintero?ref=benkellis.com) talks with various companies and asks them how they define growth and what the key metrics are for them. As a growth-hacker, you need to look at data, see what that means to you and identify how you can use that to build your strategy. Your aim is to grow in the present while building a sustainable future, trying the balance between the two.
- The appeal in growth-hacking is in achieving spectacular growth in a considerably short time - which is, fundamentally, what growth-hacking is all about. However, if you only concentrate on that, you will soon forget the human factor of your business, and this can have a negative impact on your business in the long term.
- Be honest using data - data never lies, it's always there, and it will ground you.
- Most people profess to work for a data-driven company, but not everyone actually understands what that even means - understanding the need of data, balancing between intuition and experience when it comes to data and using rational to see how you can tie data into your business to drive innovation and growth - that is they key quality of a data-driven company. The second question is - does your startup have a process in place to make sure that data you report back into the business is being used to drive change?
- Understand that growth is multi-dimensional - it's not just about numbers, it's about people and leveraging their talents and ideas; it's about implementation, understanding data correlation, and, ultimately, using common sense.
- Report on trends and don't be afraid to involve other people in the decision-making process. Often, embracing the future and optimising the present involves a big change in culture in your company.
- A great business tip, regardless of your business area, is keeping a dashboard on the wall so everyone can see what is going on in real-time. People within your company will want to know how the business is going, whether you're growing or not, and whether their job has a contribution and knock-on effect to that. That place, in fact, can easily become the new water cooler.
- Remember - when it comes to growth hacking, you're not the centre of the universe, but you're part of a structure and the structure needs to go towards growth in the same commitment. Growth-hacking is great, but don't forget to look at the bigger picture.
**Book recommendation**: "Lean Analytics - Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster" \[[Amazon](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lean-Analytics-Better-Startup-OReilly/dp/1449335675?ref=benkellis.com)\]
**"How a bootstrapper grew from 0 to 1.5 million downloads on AppStore" by [Sunil Patro ](https://twitter.com/spatro?ref=benkellis.com)**The second speaker for the night was [Sunil Patro](https://twitter.com/spatro?ref=benkellis.com), founder at [SignEasy](http://getsigneasy.com/?ref=benkellis.com). [SignEasy](http://getsigneasy.com/?ref=benkellis.com) has been described as "the simplest and most convenient app for businesses and professionals to legally sign documents from smartphones & tablets.". It's currently available on the [AppStore](http://itunes.apple.com/app/signeasy/id381786507?mt=8&ref=benkellis.com), [Google Play Store](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.glykka.easysign&ref=benkellis.com) and [BlackBerry AppWorld](http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/22626873/?countrycode=GB&ref=benkellis.com).
SignEasy has been able to get pure organic growth from 0 to 1.5 million downloads on the AppStore in just 3 years. When they noticed that more than 50% of the downloads were coming from the AppStore, the team at SignEasy had to re-evaluate how they were making the best use of the AppStore.
After this re-evaluation, they changed the keywords used to promote the app in the AppStore, as well as prompting users to review the app from within the app.
Here are a few lessons from this reevaluation exercise that SignEasy went through:
- The principles of SEO ranking apply within the AppStore as well, so optimise the metadata (e.g. keywords) in your app description and app title, to drive more searches towards your apps. As a result, you will also see an increase in download rate. Ask yourself, "what keywords will people use to get to my app?". You can always experiment with keywords based on the searches you get - try with a slightly different text when you issue an update of the application and see how that changes the number of downloads you get.
- Listen to customer behaviour and analyse the demographic of your users: is there a need to localise your app with more translations? Does your app cater to everyone in your user demographic?
- Social media is at the heart of (most) people, especially smartphone users. Does your app make good use of this? SignEasy noticed that they started getting more reviews and online mentions when they enabled a Twitter sharing option. With this, users can easily share their experience to their followers on Twitter.
- Speaking of experience, pay attention to the first 10 seconds that users go through when they first open the app - do you have a welcome screen? Or perhaps a welcome video? Make sure the first 10 seconds give a good impression of your app.
- Are you forcing your users to give more data than they're comfortable with? If a user isn't comfortable giving their email address, they will be put by your app if email registration is mandatory. Make sure you have options, or even a trial to start with.
- Don't be afraid to go to the extra mile to satisfy your customer's needs and latest obsessions (within reason, of course). Sometimes all your customers need is a reassuring and effective customer support.
- Have a pricing plan in place, but don't be afraid to change it in the future if it's not working for you. Experiment within reason - you don't want to upset your existing customers. SignEasy went through a lot of pricing plans - free, paid, freemium etc. Sunil says that the pricing plan they have in place now is what they're sticking...for now! However, he doesn't rule out another change in the future.
**"Top 10 Growth-Hacking Tips" by [Liam Reynolds](http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamreynolds?ref=benkellis.com) from [True Up](http://trueup.co.uk/?ref=benkellis.com)**
The third speaker was [Liam Reynolds](http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamreynolds?ref=benkellis.com), founder of [True Up](http://trueup.co.uk/?ref=benkellis.com). [True Up](http://trueup.co.uk/?ref=benkellis.com) started in January 2013 as a London-based consultancy dedicated to growth-hacking startups and companies. It's actually London's first Growth Hacking consultancy.
Liam shared with us his top 10 tips that he's learnt while working in growth-hacking:
1. **The answer is rarely acquisition, and even less to do with Google.** Sometimes it's to do with your payment system, user sign-up etc.
2. **Never underestimate bounce rate**. First impressions count, and the speed with which your visitors leave your site is an indication of whether you're doing things right or not. It usually comes down to 3 key reasons: technology (does your site take a long time to load up? You can find the answer to this and more questions with Google Analytics.), relevancy (what do people look for before getting to your page? Sometimes they stumble across your site by mistake, hence resulting in a bounce visit if they leave), confusion (is it clear what you do on your website, or do you leave your readers wondering?).
3. **Use of soft-follow.** Create targeted and timely follows. You can use tools (e.g. [SocialOomph](https://www.socialoomph.com/?ref=benkellis.com)) to get a stream of tweets that contain any keywords you like. You can then follow people from that stream, knowing that they're within your same industry or area of interest.
4. **Use available tools**. There are lots and lots of tools out there. The art of being a growth-hacker is identifying what tools to use, and how. You can use tools to see what's happening with your site, like [Google Analytics](http://www.google.com/analytics/?ref=benkellis.com), [KissMetrics](https://www.kissmetrics.com/?ref=benkellis.com), [MixPanel](https://mixpanel.com/?ref=benkellis.com), [Flurry](http://www.flurry.com/?ref=benkellis.com), [Mobile AppTracking](http://www.mobileapptracking.com/?ref=benkellis.com); you can use tools to see why certain behaviours are occurring, like [CrazyEgg](http://www.crazyegg.com/?ref=benkellis.com), [Smart Survey](http://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/?ref=benkellis.com), [Delight.io](http://www.delight.io/?ref=benkellis.com), [MoboSurvey](http://www.mobosurvey.com/?ref=benkellis.com), [Qualaroo](https://qualaroo.com/?ref=benkellis.com); you can then use tools to optimise your site or application based on your findings, like [Optimizely](https://www.optimizely.com/?ref=benkellis.com), and [Visual Website Optimiser](http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/?ref=benkellis.com).
5. **Brand, brand, brand.** Here's the reality: your user finds your brand less important than you do. People like brands like Facebook, Twitter etc because of their products, but liking their products they're not required to like the brand as well.
6. **What you say and how you say it is almost as important as what you do.** Paying attention to what you say means that you're also paying attention to your credibility.
7. **Test everything**. How do you take ideas and hypotheses? How do you validate your findings? This can be anything from page layout to pricing of the products you offer.
8. **Look for clues everywhere.** Data is very rarely isolated. Identify how it correlates to other datasets and look at the bigger picture to get a deeper understanding of what's going on. You will find that the answer to your data questions are often hidden and not obvious.
9. **It's all about people.** Despite the big focus on data that most companies have, remember that at the core of your business you have people - people drive the data and can affect your growth. While people play an integral part in your business development, look at what your business funnel looks like. From your findings, to the spark in the light-bulb, finding the budget to building advocacy.
10. **The growth hacking cycle**. Create a business framework, identify growth barriers, find the answers to your questions, prioritise, test the solutions, and repeat.
**"13 Growth-Hacking Tips" by [Jacek Blaut](http://www.linkedin.com/in/jacekblaut?ref=benkellis.com) from [Growth Republic](http://growthrepublic.com/?ref=benkellis.com)**
Our fourth speaker was [Jacek Blaut](http://www.linkedin.com/in/jacekblaut?ref=benkellis.com), who runs [Growth Republic ltd.](http://growthrepublic.com/?ref=benkellis.com), a newly founded London-based company. Their aim is advising startups and SMEs in online marketing, helping them to maximise conversion rates to achieve higher revenues.
[Jacek](http://www.linkedin.com/in/jacekblaut?ref=benkellis.com) shared a few of his favourite hacks for business interested in growth-hacking:
- Use A/B testing to test what ads attract more visitors to your site.
- Focus on a few main metrics and develop your strategy around those - anything else is extra. Jacek, for instance, focuses on acquisition, activation and revenue, and his business strategy revolves around those metrics.
- Connect the right AdWords keywords to various landing pages, to make sure that your visitors' user journey is customised around them.
- Long-tailing (using niche keywords in your site) is a method that works wonders with SEO. Make sure you have the right keywords in your header and footer besides the usual text in the main body of text.
- Generate great content (especially if you have a blog integrated in your website, and if you don't have enough resources to create content, you can outsource it.
- Growth Republic have their own web crawling application that searches for trending topics. So, anytime something new appears, the company knows and they react quickly, adapting their strategy accordingly.
- Does your website look credible? Make sure you have information around your business (e.g. email address, address) as well as testimonials from clients, customers and other business, and make sure you incorporate their logos as well.
- Cater to mobile users: make sure your website uses a responsive design for mobile and tablet users - accommodate the needs of your visitors and potential customers.
- Encourage upselling but don't push it - offer extra features to customers (for a smaller fee than the usual), giving them reasons to 'upgrade' and continue using your services.
**Sponsors & Perks**A big thank you to the sponsors of the event:**[Huddlebuy](http://www.huddlebuy.co.uk/?ref=benkellis.com)**, Europe's largest selection of trusted business deals for small businesses ([@huddlebuy](https://twitter.com/huddlebuy?ref=benkellis.com) on Twitter).**[Bugscore](http://www.bugscore.com/?ref=benkellis.com)**, the first global online scoring platform where you can score and compare people, products and businesses ([@Bugscore](https://twitter.com/Bugscore?ref=benkellis.com) on Twitter).The Startup Battle is back again this Saturday 27th for more - this time the theme is "**Get inspired from the BEST in business: Meet them, Network, Connect.**" Click [here](http://www.meetup.com/Business-Networking-Startups-Investors-Advisors-London/?scroll=true&ref=benkellis.com) to register your attendance and find out more about who's speaking and what's going to be discussed. Make sure you follow the team on Twitter as well: **[@StartupBattleUK](https://twitter.com/StartupBattleUK?ref=benkellis.com)**
### Engagement Rate - out of Fanbase or out of Reach?
URL: https://benkellis.com/engagement-rate-out-of-fanbase-or-out-of-reach/
Last updated: 2026-06-21T10:44:43.000Z
```
```
Facebook have started rolling out the new Facebook Insight dashboard to Page owners and I have to say - it's pretty awesome! While taking notes to review it, I noticed that Facebook have introduced a new metric - their own version of Engagement Rate, to replace Virality for Page posts.
This is Facebook's definition of its Engagement Rate:
> Engagement rate is the percentage of people who liked, shared, clicked or commented on a post after having seen it.
This is an important move for Facebook as it distances itself from Virality (which was briefly available along with the Engagement Rate, until it got pulled on Friday).
On the subject of engagement, there are two ways that marketers get their engagement rate: out of fanbase and out of reach. The difference is not specified in Social Monitoring tools, while only a handful are transparent enough to show you how this metric is being calculated.
But what if I told you that the Engagement Rate you've been reporting on is actually
not
what you're looking for?
## Engagement out of Fanbase
**Advocates**: SocialBakers, [Mari Smith](https://www.facebook.com/marismith) ([facebook.com/marismith/posts/10150962842520009](https://www.facebook.com/marismith/posts/10150962842520009))
**Engagement out of fanbase** is a metric that calculates the ratio of engagement out of the number of fans. It's the most known approach, the default formula for quite a few analytics tools out there, and the method that most marketers swear by.
It follows the following formula:
> \[sum of engagement\] / \[total number of fans\]
Some tools and agencies define the sum of engagement as the total number of main engaging actions that users can perform (i.e. likes, comments, and shares). However, the most common approach is to take the PTA(T) \[People Talking About (This)\] as the 'sum of engagement'. By using this approach, you're counting in the following actions:
- liking a post
- liking a comment
- commenting on a post
- commenting on a comment
- sharing a post
- answering a question/"poll"
- responding to an event
- claiming an offer
- posting on the page wall
- mentioning the page in a post
- tagging the page in a photo
- checking in at your place/page
- sharing a check-in deal
- liking a check-in deal
- writing a recommendation
- liking a page
Engagement out of fanbase has been used as an indication of how much of your fanbase you're able to engage with your content. The most notable advocate for this is [SocialBakers](http://www.socialbakers.com/?ref=benkellis.com), who came out in March 2012 with [a viral blog post on how to calculate engagement rate on Facebook and Twitter](http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/467-formulas-revealed-the-facebook-and-twitter-engagement-rate?ref=benkellis.com).
## Engagement out of Reach
**Advocates**: Facebook, [SimplyMeasured](http://simplymeasured.com/?ref=benkellis.com)
**Engagement out of reach** is a metric that calculates the ratio of engagement out of the number of people reached. It's a less known approach as most tools don't actually offer this, and it's not even an approach that is being talked about most bloggers and marketers either. However, it's interesting to see that Facebook favours this approach in its own Insight dashboard.
The way this metric is calculated is by using this formula:
> \[sum of engaged users\] / \[people reached\]
## So, which one's better?
First of all, the real question is: what do you think the Engagement Rate is? Let's settle on a definition of Engagement Rate. I propose the following:
**Engagement Rate is the measure of how well your audience responds to your Page content.**
Agree? Ok. Now, if
that
is what you're looking for in your Engagement Rate metric, **calculating the Engagement Rate out of Fanbase is not what you're looking for**, and it's a mathematically incorrect metric. Here are the 5 main reasons why:
**1\. Using the PTA(T) as your numerator is an unfair representation of 'engagement'**Let's look back at what PTA(T) is: it's the sum of all possible interactions between a Facebook user and your Page (along with its content) as long as those interactions create a 'story' (more on this later). Hence, if 100 people click 'like' on your Facebook Page, 100 will be added to your PTAT. However, what if only 5 of the 100 people who liked your Facebook Page today actually interacted with your content? Then PTAT will add those 5 interactions to the previous 100 likes, leaving you with an inflated number that does not correctly represent interactions with your content.
**2\. Not all interactions are included in PTA(T)**Clicking on your post, opening a picture on your page, pressing play on a video, and clicking on a link are just some of the ways Facebook users can interact with your Page content. However, those won't be counted towards PTA(T). Why? Because they don't create what Facebook calls "stories". A story is an item that is displayed in your News Feed or News Ticker (until the old layout completely fades out). So, an example of a story is "*Ben liked a picture*", "*Ben commented on a post*", "*Ben was tagged in a picture*". However, clicking on a page post, opening a picture, pressing play on a video or clicking on a link does
not
create a story. Because of that, those interactions aren't counted in PTA(T). However, those actions are still a part of engagement - a Facebook user might not click 'like' on a video you've posted on your Page, yet if he clicks on play and watches it, he still engaged with your content. Using PTA(T) as your numerator means that all of these interactions that do not explicitly create a story will get lost - even though they're an equally important chunk of possible interactions and engagement between your fans (and non-fans) and your Page.
****3\. You're assuming that only your fans are engaging with your content**Using the number of fans as your denominator is a wrong assumption for one big reason:
your audience doesn't consist of just your fans
. In fact, you might even see that a big chunk of people who engage with your content are not even your fans (to which you can then ask - why is my content encouraging people to engage with my Page and not be a fan of it?). This wrong assumption will also result in a wrong calculation. By doing so, the interactions by users who aren't your fans will be wrongly attributed to those who are your fans. Simply put, you're using a ratio of interactions made by fans AND non-fans out of the number of fans. The only way this formula could be accurate is if you only counted the number of interactions made by your fans.
**4\. Your audience doesn't only consist of your fans** There seems to be an ever-increasing obsession on the number of fans - getting more fans, increasing the fanbase... This is also reflected in the fact that the denominator for the Engagement Rate out of Fanbase is the number of fans on a given day. However, the reality is - when it comes to the engagement on your Page, what really matters is the audience you had at the time of posting and how many out of that interacted with such content - regardless of whether they're your fans or not. The metric that can give you the size of the audience isn't the total number of fans - it's the Reach.
**5\. If you use PTA(T) as part of the numerator, you're not counting people but interactions**Since PTA(T) stands for 'people talking about this', it's easy to think that if you divide it by the number of fans you get the rate of engaged users for that content. However, despite the name, PTA(T) doesn't count people who engage with your content, but their interactions. One fan can be responsible for 20 likes, 5 comments and 3 shares, and it would be counted as "28 people talking about this".
## Still not convinced?
Here's a very practical and straightforward example to describe this:
160 people RSVP 'yes' to an event. However, on the day of the event, only 80 people attend, while the other 80 are still marked as RVSP'd 'yes'. Throughout the event, 20 people engage with the speaker, be it by asking questions or joining in the conversation, while the other 60 just listen intently.
Here's the question: if you were the speaker, how would you calculate the ratio of engaged people, i.e. the engagement rate of the event?
Now let's just say, for argument sake, that there are 10 +1s in the audience. These are friends of some of the people in the audience who had RSVP'd 'yes' to the invitation, even though these +1s aren't actually registered. Out of the 10 +1s, only 4 engaged with the speaker.
Now, how would you calculate the engagement ratio? Would it look something like the following?
Now, ask yourself - why didn't you calculate the rates like this...
Perhaps you chose the first method because, after all, if you want to calculate the rate of engagement of the registered attendees you need to count in those who attended, not everyone who RSVP'd 'yes' - it wouldn't be fair to count in the people who were not part of the audience: the very fact that they were not part of the audience means that they wouldn't have been able to engage with the event in the first place.
Perhaps you chose the first method because, after all, if you want to calculate the rate of engagement of the +1s, you should only factor in the number of engaged +1s and their total number. After all, why would you divide the number of engaged +1s by the number of **registered** users, when the +1s aren't even registered?
Perhaps you chose the first method because, after all, if you want to calculate the overall engagement rate, you need to count in the engaged registered users as well as the engaged +1s (regardless of the fact that they weren't registered), and divide that by the total number of people in the audience - the registered users and +1s.
If you agree with the three statements above, then you understand the principles behind calculating the Engagement Rate out of Reach rather than out of Fanbase.
## So what's the 'magic formula'?
First of all, let's recap what we need from an engagement formula, before we come up with one.
- The Engagement Rate should include all interactions, whether they create a Facebook story or not. This includes viewing photos, clicking on links, playing a video etc.
- The Engagement Rate should not exclude users who aren't fans of your page, especially since they too can interact with your content without being your fan.
- The Engagement Rate should be taken out of the audience of your content, hence your Reach. Only this number can give you a realistic indication of who saw your content, thus having the chance to engage with it.
Based on those 3 principles, here's how you would calculate the Engagement Rate out of Reach:
**\[Engaged Users\] / \[Reach\] %**
Even though we've been discussing engagement rate for your content, you can still use the same principle to derive a formula for the engagement rate for your pages. This is especially useful if you need to benchmark your Page against other pages you own. Just use this formula:
**(\[Engaged Users\] / \[# of posts\]) / \[Reach\]**
## Now What?
If you do have a tool that calculates engagement out of fanbase, or you're not sure how the engagement is being calculated in your tool, I recommend you start a discussion with the company that provided you the tool. You could even send them this article to initiate a discussion on how engagement is calculated and changes that should happen in the tool thereafter.
The good news is, whether your tool calculates engagement out of reach or fanbase, or even if you currently do not have a tool, you can STILL calculate this on your own by using the Engagement Rate formulas.
Then, if you want, you can even break that engagement rate down in 3:
**\- Engagement Rate out of Organic Reach:**
\[sum of engaged users reached organically\] / \[organic reach\]
****\- Engagement Rate out of Viral Reach:**
\[sum of engaged users reached virally\] / \[viral reach\]
(to see the propensity of your fans' friends to engage with your content)
****\- Engagement Rate out of Paid Reach:**
\[sum of engaged users reached through paid content\] / \[paid reach\]
(to justify paid campaigns on Facebook - if you've ever needed a metric to justify getting more budget in your social campaigns, this is the metric you'll need)
## One last note...
No two tools are the same. In fact, you can have two tools measuring a metric that is called the same across the two, but is calculated differently.
For example: according to [SimplyMeasured](http://simplymeasured.com/?ref=benkellis.com), engagement is **likes**, **comments** and **shares**; however, according to [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/), it's **likes**, **comments** and **shares**, as well as **clicks** on the post (e.g. opening a picture, clicking on 'play' on a video, clicking through a link).
Here's the lesson: question everything about your analytics tool - whether it's a free tool or a premium one, whether you've had it for a long time, just acquired, or you're thinking of adopting one. Make sure you understand exactly how each metric that you're going to report on is calculated, and try and match it with your own calculations to see how accurate your reports are going to be if you decide to rely on whatever tool you have.
Let me know in the comments section what your thoughts and don't forget to share this article!
### MeasureCamp and Growth Hacking
URL: https://benkellis.com/measurecamp-and-growth-hacking/
Last updated: 2013-07-18T07:48:30.000Z
Today is a special day. Even more so for analysts in London. The second batch of MeasureCamp3 tickets will be out today at noon.
If you don't already know what MeasureCamp3 is, MeasureCamp is a Digital Analytics Unconference. (Yes, I said [Unconference](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference?ref=benkellis.com).) That means that the event and content is completely provided by the attendees, who work in Digital Analytics. So, in other words, imagine an event on Digital Analytics, by Digital Analysts, for Digital Analysts.
If you were one of the many who couldn't snap up one of the tickets from the first batch, don't worry - you're not alone - the first batch of 30 tickets sold out in half hour. Just half hour. (YES, MeasureCamp3 IS a big deal!)
The second batch (which you can get from [this link)](http://www.measurecamp.org/registration/?ref=benkellis.com) will be announced on Twitter (there's no official Twitter profile for this event, so you can keep an eye on the [#MeasureCamp](https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=%23MeasureCamp&src=hash&ref=benkellis.com) hash tag for live announcements and join the community on [Google+](https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/101353204524682583146?ref=benkellis.com) for more.
In other news, I've been invited to attend, live-tweet and blog about an event on growth hacking. There will be several high profile speakers, including a TEDx speaker, introducing attendees to growth hacking while giving several practical tips on how to use it to accelerate business. For more info, check out [this link](http://www.meetup.com/Business-Networking-Startups-Investors-Advisors-London/events/126376882/?ref=benkellis.com).
### "Weight for Actions"
URL: https://benkellis.com/weight-for-actions/
Last updated: 2013-04-30T21:47:34.000Z
As an analyst, I do come across quite a few methodologies that brands and individuals adopt to measure their performance online. Some are great, some are unusual, and some are downright bizarre. I'll do my best to list as many as possible on [brnrd.me](https://benkellis.com/) and share my thoughts on them. The latest methodology I've heard of is the "weight for action" one: some brands have difficulties measuring their Facebook performance accurately, and some people just can't get their head around what they should take from Facebook Insights.
So, what some do is assigning a certain weight to the various interactions that create what Facebook calls "stories". A story follows this formula:
**X \[action\] Y**
where **X** is the user, **Y** is the Facebook page or content related to it, and **\[action\]** is any interaction from the user to the page or its content - *Ben likes Oreo*, *Jay shared Oreo's page*, *Paul commented on Oreo's post*. These stories will appear in your news feed, news ticker, and on the user's timeline.
The most common **\[actions\]** are: like, comment, and share. However, the list of possible **\[actions\]** is a bit longer than that, including tagging, check-in etc.
What some brands do is assign a certain weight to those **\[actions\]**, taking into consideration that **share > comment > like**. After doing so, they come up with scores for each Facebook post to see which one was more successful engagement-wise than others. This brings us to this formula:
**(# of likes x weight of likes) + (# of comments x weight of comments) + (# of shares x weight of shares)**
So, for instance, if we give the following weights...
- Like = 1
- Comment = 2
- Share = 3
...a post that received 3 likes, 1 comment and 5 shares has the weight of (3 \* 1) + (1 \* 2) + (5 \*3) = **20**.
Though I can see the logic behind this (finding a universal engagement score to compare Facebook posts within and across pages), I have to say that from an analytical point of view this thinking is flawed. This only works under certain conditions, mainly assuming that everyone has the same number of friends on Facebook and that users share to all of their friends.
However, the reality is way different and the truth is that a share from someone with 10 friends holds less weight than a like from someone with 1,000 friends, and a comment from someone with 500 friends holds more weight than a share from someone with 50 friends, regardless of whether you consider weight as potential reach, engagement prospect, potential exposure, or a mixture of the above.
Take into consideration the settings around which shares take place. Just because you see that someone shared your content, it doesn't necessarily mean that all of his/her friends saw it, because:
1. All of his/her friends may not have seen this on their news feed or news ticket, and
2. Not all shares have the same privacy settings.
A user with 5,000 friends can share content from your brand page while setting visibility to just his list of close friends, or in the case of like-and-share competitions, some (like myself) might just click on share and set the visibility to "only me". Marketers and page owners will see that as 1 share, but they won't see how many people that one share was targeted to.
Not only does this method produce largely inaccurate results, but it also involves lots of data leakage, whereby a lot of data isn't accounted for.
It's clear that any weighting that you put on any \[action\] cannot be universal. If you need to accurately measure engagement, set what you're looking to measure first. Though some brands go for PTA(T) \[People Talking About This\], you'll find more useful measuring how many likes, comments and shares your posts receive - something that you do not have to do manually if you have systems in place to do so for you, like [**Adobe Social**](http://success.adobe.com/en/na/programs/products/digitalmarketing/dms/social/1209%5F22568%5Flaunch%5Foverview.html?s%5Fcid=701a0000000liLWAAY&s%5Fiid=701a0000000lPAeAAM&s%5Fkwcid=AL!3085!3!24287976075!e!!g!!adobe%20social&ref=benkellis.com).
### #Engage2013: SocialBakers
URL: https://benkellis.com/engage2013-socialbakers/
Last updated: 2013-04-23T08:41:41.000Z
Tuesday 23rd April is a special day for SocialBakers - this all-day event includes top speakers from companies such as Twitter, Nestlé, KLM, Adobe etc, as it promises to be a real learning experience for attendees. This year's event covers the shift from desktop to mobile marketing, the power of local content marketing and social customer care, meaningful metrics as well as the presentations of global data and stats (and if you're not acquainted with SocialBakers' monthly reports, [click here](http://www.socialbakers.com/regional-reports/?ref=benkellis.com) \- trust me, you don't want to miss out!).
Here's a Storify summary of what happened during the day.
http://storify.com/FR314/engage2013-socialbaker-s-social-media-event
### Identity & Privacy
URL: https://benkellis.com/identity-privacy/
Last updated: 2013-04-03T18:39:38.000Z
Hello, my name is... [Ben](https://twitter.com/fr314?ref=benkellis.com). Well, that's not my actual forename, just a shortened version of it, but that'll do for now. The "issue" of privacy came to me just less than 48 hours ago - I recently decided to brand myself (more on that some other day), and as such I wanted to use an identity. It'd be me, but not the me I was born as - not \[*redacted*\]. See, a month ago during [Social Media Week in Copenhagen](http://socialmediaweek.org/copenhagen/?ref=benkellis.com) I attended [an event on online identity](http://socialmediaweek.org/copenhagen/events/?id=53247&ref=benkellis.com#.UVRBV6sp2jM). The debate was interesting and heated, where two ladies - [Trine-Maria Kristensen](https://twitter.com/trinemaria?ref=benkellis.com) & [Pernille Tranberg](https://twitter.com/PernilleT?ref=benkellis.com) \- were debating on how much to share online, especially when it comes to your online persona. These ladies were virtually at the opposite extremes - Trine-Maria is the optimist who sees the positive ways of using social media; Pernille is the skeptical who warns people to be aware of the pitfalls in social media. And though Trine-Maria was discussing how open she is online and what datasexuals are (those who share pretty much everything about themselves online ; those who share what they ate on Foodspotting, their location on Foursquare, their running activities on RunKeeper and their general fitness activity through a Nike+ ID wristband linked to their Twitter profile - yeah, them, the datasexuals), Pernille enlightened us on how she has more than one identity, depending on situation.
And throughout the whole whoopla I thought - **what's the worst that could happen?** So what if someone in Kentucky knows that you had Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch through your Foursquare checkin? So what if your Facebook friends see that you've been listening to the whole N\*Sync discography all day long on Spotify? Really - what's the worst that could happen?
And in this mental monologue it dawned on me - I'm a datasexual, a datasexual who goes by the name of Ben. Just Ben. On Twitter, where I share all of my randomness, I'm Ben. Years back (circa 2006) I used to be "*Ben Smith*" on social media. Ben because, again, it's a short version of my actual longer, Italian name. Donkor because, well, that's actually my surname. And besides I didn't really want to come up with a fancy surname like "Richardson", "McCormick" or "O'Brien".
I realised that if I was using my full name, I wouldn't be sharing as much - I use my full name on Facebook and I update once a week, twice if I feel fancy, thrice if I want to show off a recent vacation. However, as just "Ben" I share, reshare and sometimes overshare (same with my previous Twitter account that I deactivated).
So here I am now, as "**Ben Donkor**" online - a name vague enough to keep me slightly anonymous, with a surname peculiar enough to keep me findable by other like-minded people (e.g. professionals, recruiting managers, fellow geeks).
Google+ doesn't seem to like that change though - after changing my name to Ben they waited 10 days to hit me with a "your profile has been deactivated due to fraudulent activity". I know right, Ben sounds like such a fraudulent name. Perhaps to be more credible I should have a longer name like, Bartholomew, Horatius, or Eustachius.
Now, they reinstated my account today, but the point is - privacy is a big thing nowadays, and so is your identity, whether you're a data freak or whether you disseminate your online identity across a stream of profiles in the hope that no one finds you.
Because no one will find you. Right?
\[irony alert\]
### "Social Media Guru" - Really?
URL: https://benkellis.com/social-media-guru-really/
Last updated: 2013-03-01T09:03:31.000Z
I need to address an issue, a pet-peeve of mine that's spreading like the pest across digital marketing.
Back in Copenhagen, during Social Media Week, I couldn't help but notice this with the small minority of speakers, and I'm sure you've noticed it too.
- "**I'm a social media guru**" - sir, just, don't. \[And "social media expert/know-it-all/king/god/lord" aren't any better either.\]
When I attend your event or presentation, it's because I had a choice to attend your presentation, another one's, and nobody's and stay home and watch re-runs of Will & Grace. I chose yours because the title and description of your presentation were so interesting and catchy that I couldn't just miss the chance to attend. I then attend your event with an open mind, and with that I mean that I'm receptive to all the ideas I hear during your 30-/60-/90-minute presentation, and I'm more than happy and willing to consider them and use them in my personal/professional life. Then the first things you say are "I'm a \[insert category/work field/remit\] guru". That's when my mind automatically shuts down and starts triple-checking everything you say.
Pretentiousness is an ugly and unnecessary quality, especially if you work in digital marketing. There's no perfect speaker, but what makes you an excellent speaker is not putting yourself on a golden pedestal but letting your audience put you there; humbling yourself, admitting that yes you may know a lot about one topic or two but you're also willing and receptive to learn from your audience. The days of one-way talks are over - nowadays it's all about two-way talks - you talk, we give you feedback, and rest assured that while you're giving your speech, some of us will run a whole commentary on Twitter that will put football commentators to shame \[guilty as charged\].
Great speakers realise their shortcomings and their strong points too, and they carry that well; they're not afraid to learn something new from the public, they show the same receptiveness they hope their audience will have. I really don't see it for this "digital hierarchy", so don't expect me to call you a "social media lord/warrior/king" anytime soon.
And besides, calling yourself a Social Media King, as if social media was this scary kingdom and you fought all the enemies, demons and goblins, and you're on the lookout for the Social Media Voldemort - just, don't.
Oh, and one last thing...
- "**Well this data is from X and... Yes so let's move on to the next slide... \[because I don't know what I'm talking about\]**" sir, please know what you're talking about.
Unsure speakers shouldn't stand up and speak to a crowd, period. You need to own your presentation - time is money, don't waste either when it comes to your audience.
### Social Media Week Copenhagen 2013
URL: https://benkellis.com/social-media-week-copenhagen-2013/
Last updated: 2013-02-20T15:36:23.000Z
It's all about social media. Or as the Danes say it, social media.So, as some of you might know, i'm enjoying the cold weather at Copenhagen right now. Why? 3 words: Social Media Week! I'm going to post the updates of the days and everything that went down (let me tell you what went down first and foremost: my weight, from all that cycling - but more on that later).
Busy week indeed, but this is a quick list of the events I'll be attending (i.e. the events I'll be writing about soon...eventually).
**Monday**
- **11am-12pm**: Social media and recruitment? The valuable lessons learned by Maerks Drilling (#Smwmaersk)
- **1-2pm**: The Big Perspective: Why Maersk Group is all in favor of social media (#Smwmaersk)
- **2.30-3.30pm**: Next step for Maersk Line: Unlocking the full potential of social media (#Smwmaersk)
**Tuesday**
- **1-2pm**: How great organizations organize and work with near realtime engagement in multichannel media? (#smwmulti)
- **3-3.45pm**: A political view on social media (#smwpoliticalview)
**Wednesday**
- **9-10am \[volunteering\]**: Powering the possible through Social Media (#SMWpoweringthepossible)
- **10.30-11.30am \[volunteering\]**: Åbn op til verden og luk verden ind (#smwopenworld)
- **12-1pm**: The Social Hotel (#smwsocialhotels)
- **4-5.30pm**: How to Measure Success on Facebook (#smwkomfo)
- **6-8pm:** Komfo Networking Event (#smwkomfo)
**Thursday**
- **10-10.30am \[volunteering\]:** The art museum on social media – presentations by three different museums (#smwmsm)
- **11.30am-12.10pm \[volunteering\]:** Debate: Is there a best practice for art museums on social media? (#smwsmkbp)
- **12.10-1.05pm \[volunteering\]:** User involvement and co-creation – three cases (#smw)
- **1-2pm:** Measure Social media: Measure or die, what you can measure you can manage. (#smwmeasureordie)
- **2-4pm:** Should You Tell Facebook That You’ve Been Diagnosed With Stress? Discussion about how to manage our digital identity (#smwfbstress)
- **5.30-6.30pm:** Promise of true "listening" on social media: Generating a community that cares (#smwsocialideation)
**Friday**
- **9-10.30am:** International Community Management (#smwIntComm)
- **4-5pm:** The Power of Dislike (#smwpowerofdislike)
- **6-7.30pm:** Need input to your digital strategy? – let CIFS inspire you (#SmwCIFS)
For details on all the events, click [here](http://socialmediaweek.org/copenhagen/schedule/?ref=benkellis.com).
