Marketing Technology Blog

One of the reasons I hate Facebook is its mission of putting everything all in one place. Conversely, that’s also the reason I love it.

With so many services vying for our attention, and so many online outlets to control, the age of using one piece of software to achieve one specific goal is as dead as Dillinger. As marketers we’re expected to preside over Facebook ads, paid search, SEO, Twitter, blogs, comments, conversations … the list goes on.

We made it to the moon and back a number of times in spacecraft with less computing power than a pocket calculator. Now 40 years later there is no excuse for not being able to monitor, moderate and measure online content from myriad sources. Companies need to do more than participate: they need to know exactly how each online initiative contributes to the bottom line.

It’s not enough to just sell clients some pay per click ads and a steady stream of blog, Facebook and Twitter updates. We must gather data, measure influence and sentiment, and evaluate effectiveness.

Fortunately there are some great software as a service (SAAS) apps that are leveraging APIs to create dashboards–complete command and control centers–for online media. Some have limited capabilities, others get you everything and the kitchen sink. Some require no real technical expertise, others require serious experience with analytics. It’s all a matter of what you need, what your goals are, and what resources you have at your disposal to address the issue.

What they all have in common is that they present an at-a-glance view of your online goings-on, and allow you and your team to respond accordingly. Most of them track historical data similar to a web analytics package. More than just one-way post scheduling, they are complete tools for monitoring, engagement and analysis whether on your desktop, on the web, or on mobile devices.

A brief list of examples:

• Marin Software
• trackur
• Compete
• SEOmoz
• Quantcast
• Radian6
• SocialMention
• Alterian SM2
• Buzzlogic

Make no mistake: the biggest, most successful companies currently excelling at the interactive game are using these tools. As dashboard-style tools get better and add more services, interactive departments are looking more like NASA. But they’re also a great equalizer, offering the same insights to brands large and small, and allowing them to justify their interactive budgets by showing concrete numbers for what works.

Gallery Exhibit (via WikiMedia Commons)

I’ve been doing a lot of content curation lately; you know, the latest fashionable trend in digital content. At least, I hope it’s fashionable, because it’s a wonderful development that throws a wrench in the works of automated delivery.

Content curation sets up an editorial layer in the delivery of news and other information. Human editors pick the stories their users “need” to know, as an alternative to flooding them with algorithmically-chosen content their users might “want” to know.

In the case of one client, we choose ten stories per week to repost on their Twitter and Facebook pages. The stories aren’t necessarily directly related to the products the company sells, but are of interest or concern because they relate to the company’s overall field of business. To use a hackneyed phrase, it’s a “value-add:” selecting reliable external stories of interest to their customers builds trust and establishes them as a source of truth.

Cue Google News, who has stepped up and begun testing an “Editor’s Pick” section to their news results. Mashable has a great post about this development, but allow me to sum up: The company has partnered with publishers like Slate.com, Reuters and the Washington Post who are hand-selecting relevant stories to deliver alongside automatically generated news links in a move to further personalize content delivery.

Not only is this human curated content valuable from a news presentation standpoint, drawing attention to stories that may be critical to public awareness, but it can highlight stories that automated content farms may ignore. Moreover, there is value in recommendations, as born out by Facebook Likes, retweets on Twitter, and the like.

Content that’s recommended (curated) catches our attention because we know someone sat down and thought about the value of that story. Whether we know the recommending party directly (our Facebook friends and Twitter contacts) or not (Slate or Washington Post editors), we’re conscious of the fact that a human being thought a particular story important enough to warrant prominent placement. That’s a feeling of confidence and trust no computer algorithm can provide.

This confidence expands beyond just news delivery. Companies who aren’t in the publishing business can still curate content for their customers as a way of increasing awareness and driving sales. If people know Company A cares enough to select important, relevant news stories that relate to my interests and perhaps even offers suggestions for help, people will see that company in a positive light: as a trustworthy source of information interested in more than just selling widgets.

What do you think? Is content curation worthwhile? What effects does it have on customers? Comment away.

That sinking feeling in your stomach may actually be coming from your browser. Don?t look now, but Google plans to release a browser plugin that will allow users to opt out of being tracked by … Google Analytics.

Um, what?

Google, leading search provider and the horsepower behind the popular Google Analytics web traffic analytics tool, is going to allow users to avoid being tracked by their own tool.

This brings up a number of questions and possible implications for webmasters and web marketers who use Google Analytics to track website traffic, primarily how usage of the plugin will affect collection of site traffic data. This begs another possibly more important question: why would Google do this when Google Analytics doesn?t collect personal data in the first place?

First things last, it depends on what can be considered ?personal? data. Does your ISP information and geographic location count as personal? Google Analytics does not collect individual IP addresses, meaning that all information tracked is completely anonymous.

Does this put Google in the category of ?total hypocrites? since they can keep an indefinite record of users? search history? Perhaps. Search history allows Google to deliver those amazing personalized search results, and while they have made it easier to opt out of this feature with their Privacy Center, they don?t exactly go out of their way to advertise this possibility. It also bears mention that a privacy group has asked the Federal Trade Commission to open an investigation into Google Buzz, so Google may be stinging just a bit on the privacy front.

The uproar has been voluminous and high profile, but my first reaction was ?So?? How many people are even aware they have a Google Profile, let alone that they can edit this profile and adjust their privacy settings and ad preferences? I was not able to quickly locate any empirical data, but what is the total percentage of web users who use the AdBlock Plus plugin for Firefox? It?s probably not great enough to put it outside the standard deviation.

My basic point is that for webmasters and marketers, this move may sell more subscriptions to Omniture and WebTrends as those of us behind the curtain want access to as much data as possible. But that move may be a knee-jerk reaction to a problem that doesn?t yet–and may never–exist.