Analyzing Analytics? No... I'm not going to get that deep, this is just an overview of what is important for the Interactive Producer to be familiar with, besides, quite a bit of writing would be involved to Analyze Analytics... Let's begin with a simple definition:
Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage.
This can mean so so many things but we are going to stick to the basics and some of the tools/tactics one can use to get very interesting results from such usage. There are two forms: on-site and off-site analyzation these are defined pretty much as they sound, today we will lean more to on-site analytics. But to quickly define off- site: In a nutshell its the measurement of the websites visibility away from the site out on the internet i.e. blogs, possible traffic that "may" come etc. On-site? Once the user hits your website even in the situation as a referral from another website every move they make can be tracked and thus analyzed against every other "unique" user to get some great quantifiable data that can optimize your site to be the best it can be for your target audience or evolve along with your audience.
Although it is very important to track your goals and keep an eye on analytics as a whole, goals previously planned I might add, I normally like to look at 30 day intervals unless I have a marketing campaign I'm tracking or another reason that may involve an outside push of traffic to the site over a period of time. I think the important thing to express here is you are not just going to log in run some reports and hand them in to someone especially the client. This process can go smoothly, or it can be a 5 day long journey down some rabbit holes you will have to ponder deep into the night in continuing to analyze in your own psyche to even make sense as to why something is happening.
Marketing Campaigns are certainly a necessity in our world today, and they need to be tracked to be able to calculate ROI, or simply to see if they were worth a damn. Ad Units (IAB, check it out... learn about online advertising and GET IAB CERTIFIED) are a different story and can have a whole separate platform to track the individual ad unit itself form the publisher but one can still see referrals from the site to which the ad was placed etc... Some key indicators to keep a look out for when analyzing the campaign is what is working and what is not. Example: are you users visiting a photo montage below the fold much more than they are the information that is above the fold? Is it UGC?, hmmm wonder why THIS is happening...LOL, well, one may want to consider moving this option above the fold so users can get to what they are interested in users absolutely love "real" user generated content. You will find users love to make their own choices on the internet. I always try to keep this in mind..." A User is a "lone" individual in front of a single computer, its very easy to get caught up in the masses of users and think that way, don't do it... think about that "lone user" and what you are doing for them, you overall analytics will show you and you'll be surprised that folks are just about like cattle. In IA, having the foreknowledge to try to predict a users movement to keep them "funneled" towards a "goal" on you site is the key. Analytics help you to see if this is working, see what the users are "trending" to, and allow you to make small changes to appease the audience or to get them to go back to the "funnel" to ROI you were planing on. Kinda like herding cattle. I don't know what I'm talking about its just a stupid analogy?
Goal Funnelization? The process of forecasting a trend to lead a user to a goal i.e. a sale, or to sign up for a sweepstakes, gathering data etc. Along this user interaction path there will be key milestones, as each one is reached via the hopefully thousands of visitors more data can be derived especially if they are "bouncing" i.e. exiting... at a certain milestone not completing to the goal. This is great example of why to do analytics, this can be analyzed and corrected quite quickly as to not lose precious time and money.
I wont lean on anyone tool to use (Google) but the smart person always, or at least the sites I've worked on has two methods of tracking. Seeing as Google Analytics is free??? I like to use the two methods, "log files" and "page code insertion", whatever you do, it will be rare to have two sources of analytics software usage and get the same results. So, in having two sources you get a comparison of the data and there are advantages from the different methods. Google has a plethora of other webtools that integrate all into a nice little package and it's too simple and useful not to integrate into your site, besides... its FREE. A couple of other are Urchin (Google owned), Webtrends and Omniture as well as others, but they all work along the same principles and can be quite scalable, I like em all! But with Google at 85% of the search market? Hmmm they are doing something right, we better make sure we in the least, seeing as its FREE, utilize some of their FREE tools.
In closing lets talk quickly about some external sources of data gathering that has become quite important... pay close attention especially if you are a publisher or even trying to get your brand on a substantial site. It is so very important to follow IAB standards, it is also very important to get "Quantified"! Quantcast... in today's market it is very cut throat to put it lightly, a potential advertiser looking to buy ad space on the HP above the fold of your website needs data aside from you provide to make a business decision on his investment. If you're "Quantified" via Quantcast the advertiser can check your numbers without even speaking with you, and if your proposal numbers are correct it would seem you are off to a good start into a negotiation. Get Quatified. You can also get this same service via Alexa. These services basically offer valid data from your site via a piece of code you inserted and can grab analytics on uniques, geographical and demo graphical data... very important as a publisher to provide to a prospective advertiser.
Well... I could go on for pages on this topic, but it is well-defined in other areas quite well here. Please, as an Interactive Producer Analytics are an important piece of knowledge in your arsenal and don't be surprised if this entire process of proving the numbers does not land on your shoulders to analyze and then even present to the client. Don't worry its fun, build the site right, and the numbers will be like opening presents at Christmas time! ( ;
Just my two cents...
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
Chance Spann Interactive Producer Suggestion: " KNOW Social Networking!"
As usual let us define as "you" the people of the internet would define " Social Media" by visiting Wiki...
"Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers."
For any brand or even for myself, its imperative today and even more in the future to completely engage you or your brand into the social media networking angle to get in the loop of what is "fresh" and to draw especially a younger audience. Folks lets face it, what used to sell does not work as well as it used to, the numbers are proving it and some don't even have any numbers... they guess???. But... Neilson has integrated itself in our world with research to prove that users (unique) are spending on the internet one angle is an immense ( 7 hours a month! click here) amount of time on simple networking sites like Facebook. Not simple in the degree of structure and code, but in idea of how to converse and stay engaged with people thus with your brand.
Now that we live in a world that a user can reach a plethora of information within a few seconds, it is worth the time to set up as many social media sites as possible, set blogs, tweet, get your information/Brand out there! As I've said before social media is a HUGE add-on to the future of SEO tactics and can easily overwhelm the standardized dinosaur tactics of the past, but please still do them.
Want to learn more to benefit your knowledge in your workplace and how you approach projects, get caught up on the research. The Neilson links above will blow your mind on research, they have an interactive/digital angle called @plan, you can learn allot from the research they provide that is free. Another great resource is comScore, you can gain great research on the internet from multiple angles here as well. Research is a good start at a social media strategy, remember, there are dangers, you must be careful and do things such as moderate etc... some blogs and forums scenarios, NOT CENSOR... moderate. There are many social platforms that I suggest you check out, add your content/brand, skin it and add your content, daily... even hourly if you can, connect with the users as much as possible:
Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Wordpress, MySpace, Linkdin, Migente, BlackPlanet ... just to name a few or you can go here and look till your heart is content and see the site user base = Social Sites
Engage your brand in front of all these social networking eyeballs, utilize the social platforms to your advantage to advertise and to converse with like-minded and interesting people of the "world" for a just a little time a day, no print cost, no network fee's, hmmm sounds like we are on to something, actually we have been for a while. ( ;
Just my two cents...
"Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers."
For any brand or even for myself, its imperative today and even more in the future to completely engage you or your brand into the social media networking angle to get in the loop of what is "fresh" and to draw especially a younger audience. Folks lets face it, what used to sell does not work as well as it used to, the numbers are proving it and some don't even have any numbers... they guess???. But... Neilson has integrated itself in our world with research to prove that users (unique) are spending on the internet one angle is an immense ( 7 hours a month! click here) amount of time on simple networking sites like Facebook. Not simple in the degree of structure and code, but in idea of how to converse and stay engaged with people thus with your brand.
Now that we live in a world that a user can reach a plethora of information within a few seconds, it is worth the time to set up as many social media sites as possible, set blogs, tweet, get your information/Brand out there! As I've said before social media is a HUGE add-on to the future of SEO tactics and can easily overwhelm the standardized dinosaur tactics of the past, but please still do them.
Want to learn more to benefit your knowledge in your workplace and how you approach projects, get caught up on the research. The Neilson links above will blow your mind on research, they have an interactive/digital angle called @plan, you can learn allot from the research they provide that is free. Another great resource is comScore, you can gain great research on the internet from multiple angles here as well. Research is a good start at a social media strategy, remember, there are dangers, you must be careful and do things such as moderate etc... some blogs and forums scenarios, NOT CENSOR... moderate. There are many social platforms that I suggest you check out, add your content/brand, skin it and add your content, daily... even hourly if you can, connect with the users as much as possible:
Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Wordpress, MySpace, Linkdin, Migente, BlackPlanet ... just to name a few or you can go here and look till your heart is content and see the site user base = Social Sites
Engage your brand in front of all these social networking eyeballs, utilize the social platforms to your advantage to advertise and to converse with like-minded and interesting people of the "world" for a just a little time a day, no print cost, no network fee's, hmmm sounds like we are on to something, actually we have been for a while. ( ;
Just my two cents...
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Chance Spann Interactive Producer Suggestion: “Rewinding to Producer Revolution”
I wanted to rewind for a moment. In a blog or two ago I mentioned the Topic " Producer : Evolution/Revolution". I went in to the evolution part of the producer angle but really did not give my "opinion" (based on award-winning experiential facts over a decade) on the current revolution. I noticed lately due to being in the job market (hint hint), potential employers, talking to recruiters, reading blogs, social networking, basically interactively branding the name Chance Spann, a few old methods, few weird methods and some just flat-out methods or logic towards a Producer function description or expectation that are just the wrong perspective to take.
It's a natural feeling for me to go into immediately to what an Interactive Producer is not, but I'm going to go against my first thought and speak towards what one needs to expect from an Interactive Producer in 2010 inside the agency world as there is no true Int. Producer on the client side unless they have multiple websites/campaigns and in this case they need experts with versatility to which they are not acquiring thus you get a stale site (s)... taking a breath.... Another client side term I hear of Director of Project Management? On the client side? This cant exist, can it? Weird. The kind of interactive initiatives Int. Producers are involved in require many professionals that form an "interactive team" strictly pro's at the interactive space. This is very important. I've been a Director of over 30 interactive professionals at a national agency on fortune 500 clients over roles from project/ production managers to IA/QA/Creative/Copy/Video/.NET/PHP/HTML/Flash design/developers, but even in the role of Director I was only a glorified Sr. Producer. I still took on medial task at times, and always had my own sites I personally was working on within the agency or doing the IA or doing Analytics or...whatever it takes. Lets get to the point, an Interactive Producer, better be well-rounded and well compensated, as they are a key position in the team of the project, especially being joined at the hip with the lead creative, which is a vital relationship. If you are hiring someone who wants less than 80K then he/she is a Jr., with not enough experience and possibly needs to get more before you hire them. I don't even think one should even be allowed to be an Int. Exec, or Sr. Producer until they are PMI certified have a couple of years of project management under their belt, some creative time as a true (video or online) creative and have worked on the client side with an agency. This equates to experience and most importantly understanding. You get what you pay for, please don't find this out the hard way, it's just not worth it.
Ive heard those compare interactive producers to Broadcast producers. Not the same. One example... An interactive Producer may have to work closely with a Broadcast Producer to gain some video content BUT... once delivered in broadcast quality they then have to jump through 5 more hoops to get it up on the internet. This is not true in the reverse. Actually does not happen in the reverse. Or can it... (Grin)
Ive been a broadcast producer/video editor/ motion graphics artist for many years in my career and it was a joy and its great to have that knowledge now as the video on the internet is only going to EXPLODE ever more! Just another feather under my hat, one you should seriously look to get into as an Int. Producer, especially encoding. i.e. Squeeze, or look into Itunes encoding techniques they are amazing, have the ability to move around Final Cut, and a cherry on top would be After Effects etc...
Learn also to project manage the project manager.... carefully... don't cross boundaries! Realize these guys and gals, God Bless them, may have blinders on to focus completely on the time and money... and please do, but you need that knowledge as well to avoid pitfalls. The producer should be more well rounded and have much more experience from a birds eye view than the PM. One thing you can't always and should not even really expect is a relationship to any degree besides time and money between a PM and a GCD or CD. What more do they have to talk about? In my experience at different agencies, PM's have either been asked to do too much and know what they are doing but to the projects demise due to medial task that are pulling them away from the focus of the time line and the budget, or... they do not have the experience to do anything other than be a PM that focuses on the time and money and that is perfect for me as a Producer, I work with them as a part of team and my experience fills the gaps to which they are lacking.
As a Int. Producer you are surrounded by many moving parts that funnel to a common goal i.e. a website. You must know something or a good part of every one of these roles, its your responsibility, and trust me if something goes wrong the finger points at you. I'm going to end this with a Quote I've read in another blog. The gentleman's name is "Chris Higgins" ... " It’s interesting that even though the title Interactive Producer has been around for a while, most managers would have a fairly limited understanding of the full breadth of tasks that can fall under this domain." Hear Hear!!!
Just my two cents...
It's a natural feeling for me to go into immediately to what an Interactive Producer is not, but I'm going to go against my first thought and speak towards what one needs to expect from an Interactive Producer in 2010 inside the agency world as there is no true Int. Producer on the client side unless they have multiple websites/campaigns and in this case they need experts with versatility to which they are not acquiring thus you get a stale site (s)... taking a breath.... Another client side term I hear of Director of Project Management? On the client side? This cant exist, can it? Weird. The kind of interactive initiatives Int. Producers are involved in require many professionals that form an "interactive team" strictly pro's at the interactive space. This is very important. I've been a Director of over 30 interactive professionals at a national agency on fortune 500 clients over roles from project/ production managers to IA/QA/Creative/Copy/Video/.NET/PHP/HTML/Flash design/developers, but even in the role of Director I was only a glorified Sr. Producer. I still took on medial task at times, and always had my own sites I personally was working on within the agency or doing the IA or doing Analytics or...whatever it takes. Lets get to the point, an Interactive Producer, better be well-rounded and well compensated, as they are a key position in the team of the project, especially being joined at the hip with the lead creative, which is a vital relationship. If you are hiring someone who wants less than 80K then he/she is a Jr., with not enough experience and possibly needs to get more before you hire them. I don't even think one should even be allowed to be an Int. Exec, or Sr. Producer until they are PMI certified have a couple of years of project management under their belt, some creative time as a true (video or online) creative and have worked on the client side with an agency. This equates to experience and most importantly understanding. You get what you pay for, please don't find this out the hard way, it's just not worth it.
Ive heard those compare interactive producers to Broadcast producers. Not the same. One example... An interactive Producer may have to work closely with a Broadcast Producer to gain some video content BUT... once delivered in broadcast quality they then have to jump through 5 more hoops to get it up on the internet. This is not true in the reverse. Actually does not happen in the reverse. Or can it... (Grin)
Ive been a broadcast producer/video editor/ motion graphics artist for many years in my career and it was a joy and its great to have that knowledge now as the video on the internet is only going to EXPLODE ever more! Just another feather under my hat, one you should seriously look to get into as an Int. Producer, especially encoding. i.e. Squeeze, or look into Itunes encoding techniques they are amazing, have the ability to move around Final Cut, and a cherry on top would be After Effects etc...
Learn also to project manage the project manager.... carefully... don't cross boundaries! Realize these guys and gals, God Bless them, may have blinders on to focus completely on the time and money... and please do, but you need that knowledge as well to avoid pitfalls. The producer should be more well rounded and have much more experience from a birds eye view than the PM. One thing you can't always and should not even really expect is a relationship to any degree besides time and money between a PM and a GCD or CD. What more do they have to talk about? In my experience at different agencies, PM's have either been asked to do too much and know what they are doing but to the projects demise due to medial task that are pulling them away from the focus of the time line and the budget, or... they do not have the experience to do anything other than be a PM that focuses on the time and money and that is perfect for me as a Producer, I work with them as a part of team and my experience fills the gaps to which they are lacking.
As a Int. Producer you are surrounded by many moving parts that funnel to a common goal i.e. a website. You must know something or a good part of every one of these roles, its your responsibility, and trust me if something goes wrong the finger points at you. I'm going to end this with a Quote I've read in another blog. The gentleman's name is "Chris Higgins" ... " It’s interesting that even though the title Interactive Producer has been around for a while, most managers would have a fairly limited understanding of the full breadth of tasks that can fall under this domain." Hear Hear!!!
Just my two cents...
Monday, March 1, 2010
Chance Spann Interactive Producer Suggestion: "Getting to know SEM"
In my last blog I grazed the surface of SEO and the importance of implementing SEO tactics into your overall web development strategy, you can review that article here: Suggestion 2/26/10 “The Acronyms 2”. Today lets just touch another acronym that can be helpful in the world of search engines called SEM (Search Engine Marketing). And let's go to the mecca of UGC... Wikipedia and to the world's definition and go from there: Wiki defines it as:
"Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion. "
Let's just say for a good read in this article we will keep it light as once you pay the placement its pretty much done for you especially with Google, I'll just take you through the process so you can have a one stop shop for the understanding and quick implementation strategy of SEM. Lets get started. So once again lets use Google as an example, they have a program called AdWords. Three simple steps can get you started with a simple SEM program with Google AdWords.
1. Create the ads: ( Google has a nice little tool for this). You then choose keywords/tags = words or phrases that associate to your ads initiative, ultimately to be ranked by, then come up in a search under those terms or phases by users who are searching.
2. Place the Ads: This is very easy as Google has set a step by step process and its easily done. Once users search on Google and type in one of the words or phrases you associated to your ad, your ad may appear next to the search results. ( according to how many have clicked in the past, money you spent etc...) This allows for your ad to be shown to users who are interested in the topics your ads initiative is advertising in hope to get a "click" or 1000's ( ;. It's a good program as they use a PPC methodology, Ohhh an acronym I have yet to mention, "Pay Per Click" we will be getting into this in a later article, but basically you only pay a certain amount if a user clicks your ad. This can also work in reverse as in this case Google is a "Publisher", now Google is HUGE, they almost have to use this method, smaller sites with 1mm or under can utilize a CPM (Cost Per 1000 clicks) methodology and be much more profitable, add a contract to end of the ad at a certain time or at a certain amount of money usage etc... like I said I will get into this another day.
Google has lots of extras to help you to get placement in their rankings and to analyze them. These are very important as well, and might not be found in lesser markets. A couple you should research are " contextual targeting technology" this can automatically match your ads to pages in the Google content network that are most relevant to your ads initiative via the keywords or phrases you use. Also there is a very useful tool to most importantly measure and optimize your results: you can pay close attention daily to multiple ad placements performance on a site-by-site basis to see impressions, clicks, cost, conversion data, and use this data to identify well-performing sites to target more aggressively and low-value placements that require content optimization or need to end due to lack of performance.
Yahoo Yahoo! Search Marketing and MSN Microsoft adCenter also have programs for paid ad placement that pretty much work under the same protocol and criteria as mentioned above, but with less eyeballs, and frankly less tools to combine all of the useful methods you will need to maintain your site. But to will want to get into them up to your "EYEBALLS" as well as some user only use these engines and you want their visits. A good read would be "What are Google Webmaster Tools". One may learn allot by typing this into a search engine browser.
Just my two cents.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/chancespann
"Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion. "
Let's just say for a good read in this article we will keep it light as once you pay the placement its pretty much done for you especially with Google, I'll just take you through the process so you can have a one stop shop for the understanding and quick implementation strategy of SEM. Lets get started. So once again lets use Google as an example, they have a program called AdWords. Three simple steps can get you started with a simple SEM program with Google AdWords.
1. Create the ads: ( Google has a nice little tool for this). You then choose keywords/tags = words or phrases that associate to your ads initiative, ultimately to be ranked by, then come up in a search under those terms or phases by users who are searching.
2. Place the Ads: This is very easy as Google has set a step by step process and its easily done. Once users search on Google and type in one of the words or phrases you associated to your ad, your ad may appear next to the search results. ( according to how many have clicked in the past, money you spent etc...) This allows for your ad to be shown to users who are interested in the topics your ads initiative is advertising in hope to get a "click" or 1000's ( ;. It's a good program as they use a PPC methodology, Ohhh an acronym I have yet to mention, "Pay Per Click" we will be getting into this in a later article, but basically you only pay a certain amount if a user clicks your ad. This can also work in reverse as in this case Google is a "Publisher", now Google is HUGE, they almost have to use this method, smaller sites with 1mm or under can utilize a CPM (Cost Per 1000 clicks) methodology and be much more profitable, add a contract to end of the ad at a certain time or at a certain amount of money usage etc... like I said I will get into this another day.
Google has lots of extras to help you to get placement in their rankings and to analyze them. These are very important as well, and might not be found in lesser markets. A couple you should research are " contextual targeting technology" this can automatically match your ads to pages in the Google content network that are most relevant to your ads initiative via the keywords or phrases you use. Also there is a very useful tool to most importantly measure and optimize your results: you can pay close attention daily to multiple ad placements performance on a site-by-site basis to see impressions, clicks, cost, conversion data, and use this data to identify well-performing sites to target more aggressively and low-value placements that require content optimization or need to end due to lack of performance.
Yahoo Yahoo! Search Marketing and MSN Microsoft adCenter also have programs for paid ad placement that pretty much work under the same protocol and criteria as mentioned above, but with less eyeballs, and frankly less tools to combine all of the useful methods you will need to maintain your site. But to will want to get into them up to your "EYEBALLS" as well as some user only use these engines and you want their visits. A good read would be "What are Google Webmaster Tools". One may learn allot by typing this into a search engine browser.
Just my two cents.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/chancespann
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