conductance |kənˈdəktəns|
noun
the degree to which an object conducts electricity, calculated as the ratio of the current that flows to the potential difference present. This is the reciprocal of the resistance, and is measured in siemens or mhos. (Symbol: G)
I got into this pdf authored by Jure Leskovec, from Carnegie Mellon, and few guys from Yahoo, a very technical piece of paper which I do not want to even try to comment.
But I loved the image and the metaphor of the conductivity within the social network seen as an electrical plant.
I loved it because it makes me think about the stream of interactions flowing through the social web as well as the stream of news and comments.
And how it has become more and more tough to track them efficiently, to separate stones from gold.
Since 2007, when Buzzdetector was founded, our platform has changed and it has evolved at an astonishing pace and it is a work in progress to stay update to this evolution.
Back to conductance, I love the idea that when you get in touch with someone new to you, it is like getting a small electric shock made of enthusiasm, knowledge, curiosity.
Because this is, or this is what should push our journey into the social web.
Anyway I see a difference between electricity and socialization: the latter is not a straight way but arise from the contraposition of different attitude within ourselves.: like ships moving between different harbours must qualify to moor, we are asked to define ourselves everytime we approach a new SN and get admission if recognized consistent in some way (this image comes from Z.Bauman “Does ethics have a chance in a world of consumers?”).
What’s your take about?
This presentation is intended to explain the Buzzdetector attitude toward social media monitoring: the human touch is crucial to make sense of the data collected through monitoring activity.
Outsourcing is a rather common attitude for companies when talking about communication and advertising.
Most of the time, the process consists in assign the task to an agency, give a brief and wait for results.
But when it comes to monitoring and to get involved in the social web, better sit down along with the agency and stay tuned for every step taken. Not because agencies are not able to perform the tasks, but when you work on the perception of your company/brand, on the most important asset, it’s crucial to be part of the process.
Every word counts in the social web.
Self-consciousness is a real issue.
Every corporation is nurturing the highest consideration possible of itself but this may prove to turn into an issue when criticism arise: we are too good at anything we do and no one can harm us.
Reality is the no brand can ignore criticism for ever.
Ignoring criticism may prove not to impact on sales, today or tomorrow but as it work on the brand perception and brand equity, sooner or later, it’s a bill to pay.
We must be prepared to listen for everything said about us with open mind and willing to understand and to learn.
The second obstacle is lazyness.
Don’t stop after having read the first comments. The quest for the gold drove people to go west and digg and you have to do the same.
If reading top commenters only may prove really limiting: the most relevant news come from the street and not necessarily from the blogs stars. Rants and rave are mostly originated by common people and to find these comments it is necessary to digg in a very consistent way.
It’s a tough job but someone’sgot to do it and no algorithm will do it for you.
I’ve seen, lately, that most of the commenters about Social Media monitoring are moving away from tool powered only by algorithm and giving the right value at the human contribution.
What to say? I’m a huge supporter of the role of humans in the definition of key aspect of a monitoring activity, since the very beginning and that’s why Buzzdetector tool was engineered to be highly interactive with the editors.
In an interesting conversation launched by Tobi Bloomberg, in the Linkedin group Monitoring Social Media, the question was “We’ve got the tool .. now how do we make sense of the tsunami of information?”
The huge amount of data you can get from a monitoring activity should not keep you away from human interpretation but it should drive your attention to a better definition of expectation and a better keyword selection.
My take in the thread is “Toby, I believe that it’s important to define some expectations before going into the research, which is, by the way, the crucial step to get reliable research keywords. You can then, during the process, change them and change the objectives according to the first assessment.
If this first part of the process is properly performed maybe you avoid the tsunami.”
The first obstacle is the-bigger-the-better approach: it’s not necessary to present thousands of results while it’s crucial to get the relevant ones.
Being able to stay focussed in a maelstrom of feeds is the real added value.
(to be continued)
The latest upgrades are both functional and graphics.
The place where it all begin is the Marked Feeds area: in this widget, editors are placing the selected feeds split in positive and negative.
In the widget there are both the feeds found within the Buzzdetector feeders as well the ones found outside the platform. These feeds can be manually inserted through this easy to use window. The inserted feed will be included in the database and in all the graphs.
Then, to set up the graphs, there is a wide range of option:
Category chart:
through the dedicated widget editors can choose between existing category or create new one and customised them according to the specific need: categories title and definition, number of categories, colours. Editors can select the definition that fits the best with the assigned goal. E.g.: type of blogs, newspapers and magazines which covered the story, etc.
Trend chart:
the chart is built in two levels. The one below is a general overview of the selected timeframe. The one above is the magnified detail of a selection of choice.
Sentiment:
the chart comes from the manual selection of positives and negatives. It provides an accurate definition of what’s good and what’s wrong in the web about the selected keywords. As it is a manual selection, we avoid the possible mistakes coming from linguistic mismatch.
Tag Cloud:
Last the Tag cloud, still coming from a manual selection of the terms with the possibility to approve, remove or ban each single word.
What’s next?
Within April 3, there will be the option of selecting between several languages: Italian, English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German.
Then Chinese is on its way.
If you wish to know more, just get in touch:
www.buzzdetector.com
g.facchini@buzzdetector.com
335 7465173
Corriere della Sera is the most read newspaper in Italy.
Two days ago it published an interview with the former Marketing Manager of Red Bull Italy, a woman, who was forced to resign just after her maternity leave.
The news was first published on page 38 then it gained a prominent position on the newspaper website and then became rather popular on Friendfeed, Facebook and Twitter. The news was the most read of the week on the newspaper website.
The question ask to Red Bull was, and is, very simple: is it true that this woman was forced to resign because of her maternity?
For a company which based most of its business on its image and disruptive perception this attitude so ‘800s is embarrassing to say the least.
48 hours later still no vital sign from Red Bull.
Any advice?
Forget about iPad, Kindle and all other devices. Once upon a time, newspapers had a publisher and a staff of journalists.
The publisher was in charge to define the newspaper structure, the editorial path, the news selection, etc. In one word the Menu.
Every morning, the paper was ready to be read, page after page, article after article and the reader was feed by the news following the menu issued by the publisher.
Then, thanks to new technology, readers eventually had the option to create their own menu, a la carte.
And so begun the nightmare for newspapers that became disposable while there were around the web thousands of news sources free of charge. More, the once readers became suppliers of news making journalists redundant.
Ok, we all know the story but apparently no one knows how to get out from here alive.
The late Haiti earthquake was a chance for the mass media to show that they have learnt how to deal with the stream of the crowd information.
But newspapers lost again the chance to play an active role in keeping the world informed about events.
At least in Italy, where we read in depth analysis from major commenter and amusing article on how Twitter is changing the way information travels. Instead of using their website and Twitter to keep us update about the earthquake, they were narrating how it works on paper. Rather stupid, I would say.
We all remember the horrible event of 9/11/2001: we were all stuck in front of TV screen passively witnessing at the events.
Today, we would have been in front of our computer desktop with several windows open: the TV live coverage, the Twitter stream, a chat with friends and relatives, YouTube.
This is a lesson for the information to come and for the media: being proactive, open to crowd information, multiplatform. At least if they do not want to become the next dinosaurs.
When you approach a client to sell your service, when you write a post in your blog, when you tell someone what is your job do you use a lot of bizarre words (i.e. technicalities)?
Do the abuse of these technicalities make yourself feel a real expert or they entitle you to feel a real expert?
Or do you try to make yourself understand and use common words?
As a good friend of mine write in her profile: My Grandma’ does not understand what is my job.
Maybe Winnie does look for a language a bit too plain but the naked truth is that this is the way people talk.
One of the huge mistake commonly done by corporations when narrating their brands, their products is to use uncommon words or their own definition.
If your customers name your product as cookie, there is no reason that you call it snack. This will make your website, your product almost invisible for the search engine, just to say.
That’s why to listen to your customers voices is so important. Because it helps in understanding how they live your brand, how they use your product, how they define it.
Don’t be afraid to speak with plain words, don’t be afraid to make others understand you at the first glance: they will be grateful to you and feel that you are as they are and not the usual corporation just pretending.
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