by webmetricsguru on 01/14/2010 00:56
Earlier today I read how Google is ranking Twitter feeds (see Want Your Tweets on Google? Get More (Better) Followers in Marketing Pilgrim) andthinking about equivalencies – that Google equated Twitter Followers to website backlinks and, as in Pagerank, the more people who follow you, that you don’t follow back, the better Google will rank you (just like web pages are ranked).
Imagine then, what would be the equivalent of “keyword research” in Search Engine Optimization or Search Engine Marketing ……. for Social Media? Somehow, my mind must have been inclined to think this way today – as I suddenly realized that “researching conversations” or “conversations research” is the direct equivalent of researching keywords for Social Media.
How would that work?
To test the idea out, I’m using Sysomos Map, one of my favorite Social Media Monitoring platforms – and one of the best for filtering out noise and focusing on essentials. I suppose you can say, in this context “Sysomos” is the equivalent to “WordTracker“, but that would not be doing justice to Social Media Monitoring – which does a lot more than WordTracker and similar platforms were created to do.
Take the query “Social Media” AND ROI – lots of people are talking Social Media ROI thesedays – and searching on Google AdWords Keyword Tool, WordTracker, WordStreams free Keyword Tool, Google Insights for Search, etc, will give you one type of view, while “Conversation Search” or “Conversation Mining” as my friends at Converseon call their platform, will give you something entirely different, and perhaps, more useful.
What I’m looking for are keywords in conversations that could be included in our own conversations about “Social Media ROI” much as you would have done for SEO, but with a 2 dimensional keyword tool like WordTracker.
On first pass, words such as “analytic”, “market”, “measurable”, etc occur most frequently, and so …. are they part of your communication or marketing material …. if you talk Social Media ROI, if not, maybe … they can be …. if you want to increase the changes your conversation will be picked up by more listeners.
Taking a second pass, by including all the words in the right column I get the following chart, that looks different than my first.
Now, I get “integrated”, “investment” and that integrated investment is connected with “facebook” you might want to creatively add those phases to what your writing – that is, if there is a legitimate reason to do so – otherwise your just “keyword stuffing”, and I don’t recommend anyone do that.
Now, I get “integrated”, “investment” and that integrated investment is connected with “facebook” you might want to creatively add those phases to what your writing – that is, if there is a legitimate reason to do so – otherwise your just “keyword stuffing”, and I don’t recommend anyone do that.
Only use the phrases that “fit”, that you mean to use – my point being – you probably aren’t aware of all the phrases you could use in your “conversations”.
Going one more level – we get “Successful Companies Value“, etc.
You can also get information about each word and how it appeared in all content that Sysomos MAP crawled; take the word “tactic” for example:
The practical implementation of this strategy which I’ve just shared with you will take time – I’ll need to play with it some more. Maybe you will, too, and share with me some of your insights. I like to say, the more we give, the more we get back.
We should never be afraid of sharing ideas, as more ideas come to replenish the ideas and I believe, there is no limit. Even if you took this idea way beyond what I’ve done, or will do with it, that’s fine. I’ll get 10 more, no, 100 more ideas for every one I give to you – so I’m very happy with that arrangement.
I will leave you with one more thing from Sysomos – Influencer Search – it’s pretty decent – I was able to use it on obscure subjects and in about an hour come up with the names and contact information for 20 influencers (out of three times as many). For Social Media ROI – the 5 most authoritative blogs are no surprise (specific posts that were most influential were linked to in every case).
- TechCrunch
- Mashable
- Read/WriteWeb
- BusinessInsider (this is a blog I don’t read – maybe I should)
- Chris Brogan
However, while those blogs are the most authoritative that came up in the search for Social Media ROI, they might not be the most relevant for it. Sysomos has another filter that includes frequency to mentions to authority – and that gives a list of 5 very different blogs – probably the one’s you should read if you want to know more about Social Media ROI:
- OnlineMarketingConnect (with a post on Social Media Snake Oil, no less)
- Jatinmahindra (never heard of this blog – maybe I should take a look at it)
- Jacob Morgan – one of the smartest people I’ve read – he’s right on the mark on every post.
- Mashable (ok, they’re still in the list)
- Blogfully
So, to finish this long post – the ideas I share with you need to be developed – do you have a campaign that is not getting talked about much, that maybe, ought to be – and while you also need to put in the strategy work (aka Jacob Morgan) and then do the outreach – might you not also be needing to do your basic “Conversation Research” – not just what people are talking about – but the other things surrounding it – that maybe “you” ought to be including in your conversation.
So, let’s test this idea – let’s mine “conversations” and see what we come up with – and if you don’t have Sysomos, there are other tools to do it with – even Google Insights for Search could be a proxy (but not as good) – maybe a Free account with Alterian/Techrigy/SM2 will work (they give you a limited # of searches though – but it will be enough for a test run).
