Big news from Facebook, analytics fans — Insights is now improved with more Facebook-ishness. Ok, ok, no such noun, adjective, or verb. But it is improved.
With anticipation of expanded usage, Facebook now allows Insight administrators to measure social plug in usage — the plug ins being the well-known “Like” and “Share” Facebook buttons. Facebook also revised the dashboard for more drill-down capability into data and graphs.
For those who have never heard of Insight — it is a Facebook analytics tool designed to measure engagement of 3 major sets of Facebook services; Facebook Applications, Facebook Fanpages, and Facebook Ads (You can read more about how to use these Facebook services at the AllBusiness.com article I wrote). With Facebook’s popularity among internet users (and marketers), it would be inevitable that an analytics solution would be created.
For more on the new features, check out the official Facebook developer page, as well as the Mashable article based on the developer page.
Need a little more information on using analytics within your organization? There are three great books that I have had the pleasure of reviewing at Small Business Trends, an award winning small business blog started by editor Anita Campbell. Written by the leading experts in web analytics and business intelligence, these can help develop an organization around the timely use of analytics tools.
I have also reviewed other business books with Ivana Taylor, founder of DIY Marketers and the book editor for SBT. We try to review business books we genuinely like and that have great use for small business owners. A great one Ivana did is called Success Made Simple which featured perspective from Amish small businesses
Small Business Trends covers a number of great small business subjects and tips. Definitely a must follow for any small business owner.
What other business books have been a great aid to your business or outlook?
This post is a retweet from Yahoo Web Analytics and Twitter user tsode2001 — There is a complete listing of Yahoo! Web Analytics (YWA) webinars available on http://ht.ly/1SSWc.
Car and Driver on iPad (Image Source: Autoblog)
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Car and Driver has just released an e-zine version for the iPad according to Autoblog. This is part of the start of the e-zine movement, though C and D’s publisher is not alone (see the Zimana blog post on the foray by Bonnier/Popular Science into electronic magazine content ).
The Autoblog gang was a bit underwhelmed with the e-zine Car and Driver, considering the offering as just a transfer of the magazine with no significant features that take advantage of the new format. That’s a missed opportunity to create renewed interest in the magazine, particularly as now there are so many sources that break car news instantly, such as … er…Autoblog.
That’s okay for now. The discussion of content — and how to best measure its effects on readers — continues unabated. The best that these and other organizations can do is to use as much analytics tagging as technologically possible to learn how people use the content and provide better services for all.
Avinash Kaushik has always been a great evangelist for the Google Analytics solution, with useful tips at the Occam’s Razor blog, along with having written two books on the business of web analytics (see the Small Business Trends’ book review on his book Web Analytics 2.0). There are great examples of how to extract value from analytics data. This post on customer lifetime value shows the influence of analytics data to determine your most profitable customer segment.
Explained by David Hughes of E-mail academy , the concept answers three questions regarding the value of an acquired customer base:
This concept, along with inference of the analytics data, can guide businesses to understand which segments of website traffic are worth the marketing effort. Remember, your analytics data is more than just examining keywords. You can examine your online presence, and infer some answers, as well as guidance for others. I love this post from Avinash because it gets into the meat and potatoes of value. This is not entirely new; Annastatia Holdren gave great comments during her Adwords training about monitoring the value of your keywords so that you are not paying more for traffic (you can read more on the value of clicks here)
Key takeaways relevant for business owners looking to review their analytics.
To read the full explanation of the Customer Lifetime Value process, see the post at Occam’s Razor.
A product can gain buzz, like the movie Kick Ass did initially... but is the buzz coming from the right audience?
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USA Today posted an article on the movie box office. Not usual. In it, the article mentions the anticipation built for the movie Kick-Ass, even with comparison to another comic book turned movie 300. Not usual either. What was unusual was the relatively low box office. Yes there was online buzz. What’s not kicking ass here?
Well, buzz does help for exposure. But the movie had a risk — The main characters were kids, yet the movie had an R rating.
Takeaway for small businesses:
The last point is not a light subject in movie making. Even Star Wars creator George Lucas, who admits he likes the R2-D2 character the most, was concerned that A New Hope (first Star Wars movie) may not appeal to moviegoers because the earliest scenes had no humans onscreen between the attack on Princess Leia’s ship and when audience first meet Luke.
In short terms the benefit of a product may not be of value to a consumer. In the case of Kick-Ass, the buzz may have been a distortion to whether the movie was marketed to the right audience. But there is some financial hope for Lionsgate (see this article on the box office for Kick-Ass in the LA Times).
What do you think?
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Webtrends is sending their Optimize experts to four cities to discuss how to conduct website optimization. San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles will be the host cities for the Webtends’ presentation. The goal of the presentation is to show attendees how to increase conversions at a website or more sales, downloads, or more visitor activity.
There are many small businesses that believe that web analytics is linked entirely to PPC and keyword campaigns. It can be. But analytics solutions can do so much more by inferring your customers wants and desires from a number of marketing channels. Small businesses are bombarded with new means to market themselves, so as a business adds a new marketing tool — both online and offline — the new tools increases the attention needed. Remember your business can market itself through:
Plus, there are additional analytics for some of these, sources such as MailChimp’s Site Analytics (see a previous post on the subject here).
So the point is to use your analytics solutions as an anchor for understanding your marketing and managing your costs.
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I have been writing a book reviews for Small Business Trends, a popular and award winning blog on small business. I have been really enjoying reading business books. Working with Ivana Taylor of DIY Marketing and SBT founder Anita Campbell has been a true privilege.
The latest analytics-related book is Analytics At Work by Harvard professor Thomas Davenport, Jeanne Harris, and Robert Morison. The book expand on the study described in the previous work Competing On Analytics by examining the framework necessary to become a more analytics-driven business culture. It’s a great read. Learn more about my review of Analytics At Work at the Small Business Trends site
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