Solving Social Media’s Disconnected Connectedness
Two weeks have gone by since my previous post and I figured I should give everyone an update. Everyone being myself, and my girlfriend who is kind enough read this at my request. But before we get into what I have been working on let’s talk about social networks.
I have never really been a fan of social networks. Hell, for being a programmer, I have never really been a fan of technology in its use with communication. Personally, I prefer coffee (or alcohol), cigarettes, a table between us, and conversation. I prioritize other major forms of communications in the order they are mentioned: phone, email, SMS, snail mail, and social media.
Mark’s Rule of Texting
If the text is not a question, the text is not required a reply. A question, in this case, is an interrogative sentence that ends in a ‘?’ as inflection is not necessarily discernable in a text-only medium.
The main problem I have with social networks is the loss of intimacy. Sure it makes the world a smaller place, and it unites you with that person you barely remember (or care to remember) from high-school, but for all the implied connectedness it sure seems rather disconnected and distant. Personal social networks (i.e. friends, followers, circles, etc) are (primarily) filled with acquaintances. I want to socialize with my Friends, and I will occasionally associate with my acquaintances at get-together’s or parties, but I have no interest in the machinations of their daily lives.
You should now be asking yourself why the hell would I build a product that focuses on social media if I have such a distaste for it? That is a very valid question, but it should be noted, that I talked about social networks and their involvement in our personal lives as a form of communication. I have yet to talk about how they factor into the marketing of products.
Marketing in social networks is similar to that of personal connectedness in social networks. Targeted marketing is expensive, so brand messages and company updates feel cold and impersonal. Couple this with the public’s jaded view towards anything that comes across as advertising (when was the last time you actually paid attention to Google or Facebook ads?) and social media as the new marketing platform (in general) falls short — to say the least. This, of course, does not stop consumers from using social media as an advocate or opposition platform for a given brand or product and this is where it gets interesting.
Most companies, like most people, are better talkers than they are listeners. People like to talk about what is important to them as opposed to listening to what is important to other people. Companies are no different. If you, as a company, have a decent public relations strategy, then it’s safe to say people are talking about you, positively or negatively. I want to help companies find those people, and that is why I am building Influmetrics. And I want to find those people for companies so that they can have a conversation about what is right or wrong about their product, brand, or message. I want to return to time where their was intimacy between company and consumer. So how do I plan on accomplishing this? Let’s start with a picture:
The above image is that of a spie chart. This particular spie chart has three segements: green, red, and yellow. Each segment represents the sentiment of a number of tweets mentioning your twitter username. Green is positive, yellow is neutral, and red is negative. Originally yellow was left out, but I later felt that if someone was talking about you, no matter what they were saying, it was important.
Each segment has an angle and a radius. The angle of each segment is the percentage of tweets mentioning your twitter username with a particular sentiment. For example, a green segment with a 180 degree angle would mean that 50% of all the tweets mentioning you are positive. The larger the radius of a segment, the more that sentiment is getting retweeted. As another example, if a particular spie chart has a red segment with a radius larger than the green or yellow segment, that means people are retweeting the negative sentiment tweets more than positive or neutral sentiments.
Now for the last two bits of information, size and location. For this we need another picture:
Another aspect of a promoter’s or opponent’s network effect is how many people listen to them, so the number of followers a twitter user has becomes rather important. So for an Influmetrics report, the larger the spie chart, the more followers a particular promoter/opposer has relative to the other users displayed on the report. Lastly, each of these charts are placed at a latitude, and longitude that is the trimmed mean of all of their tweet locations.
So a quick and simple rule for reading these reports, “Big is Better”. If you want to know which users are talking negatively about you so that can get in touch with them and figure out what you may be doing wrong, you want to look for the largest charts, with the red segments that have the largest angle and radius. Location may or may not be relevant for your particular case.
Let’s finish up with one last thing: reports. At this moment reports will be delivered to an Influmetrics customer, currently, in one of two increments per twitter user name: daily or weekly. Pricing has yet to be determined, so if people would like to let me know what they think, I would be most appreciated. So let’s end this one last screenshot, a picture of the report list.
Until next time. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
