Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is not a how-to book. It's more of a "why should I", or "which tool do I buy" book? There are many books that address why companies need to be using Social Media, how to sell it to the C-suite, how to set up a Facebook page, or how to engage with fans and followers. Social Media Analytics is the only book that takes a deep dive into several of the major vendors of monitoring and measuring tools. Whether your are selling a brand or monitoring a political campaign, you'll need to know what to measure, how to measure, and how the data can provide actionable results. You're not buying analytics just to look at pretty charts and graphs, are you?
The importance of the analyst is emphasized in this book, and for good reason. Without a solid understanding of what you're looking for before setting up an analytics platform, you could end up with reams of data that are meaningless, and provide no value to your business, or client. Too many agencies are using an ax when what they really need is a scalpel.
Many of the tools discussed in the book aren't designed for very small businesses, but the concepts can be scaled down and used with free or inexpensive tools. For the larger business or agency, Social Media Analytics provides the framework to make the best tool/platform choices. Decision makers will learn the vital importance of understanding what they want from data, before they commit to a platform/vendor. The wrong choice can waste time and money!
Marshall Sponder is the only Social Media Analyst with access to dozens, if not hundreds of analytic platforms. He is able to discuss each tool from the perspective of an experienced user, rather than relying on sales pitches to determine a platform's capabilities and limitations.
Social Media Analytics is full of relevant case studies, and in-depth interviews with executives and developers of analytic platforms. Digital versions of the book include many links to companies and articles cited in the book.
There's a lot of value here for PR, marketing, and MarComm agencies, but perhaps even more for their clients and other decision makers who want to know the quality of the data they are paying for, and how useful the resulting reports will be.
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Social Media Analytics: Effective Tools for Building, Interpreting, and Using MetricsAlign Strategy With Metrics Using Social Monitoring Best Practices
"Two or three years from now, every public relations firm that wants to be taken seriously in the C-suite and/or a lead marketing role will have someone like Marshall in its senior leadership ranks, a chief analytics officer responsible for ensuring that account leaders think more deeply about analytics and that thfirm works with the best available outside suppliers to integrate analytics appropriately."—Paul Holmes, The Holmes Report
"Marshall has provided much-needed discipline to our newest marketing frontier—a territory full of outlaws, medicine men, dot com tumbleweeds, and snake oil."—Ryan Rasmussen, VP Research, Zócalo Group
"Marshall Sponder stands apart from the crowd with this work. His case study approach, borne of real-world experience, provides the expert and the amateur alike with bibliography, tools, links, and examples to shortcut the path to bedrock successes. This is a reference work for anyone who wants to explore the potential of social networks."—W. Reid Cornwell, Ph.D., Chief Scientist, The Center for Internet Research
"Marshall is a solutions design genius of unparalleled knowledge and acumen, and when he applies himself to the business of social media, the result is a timely and important commentary on the state of research capabilities for social media."—Barry Fleming, Director, Analytics & Insights, WCG, and Principal, DharmaBuilt.com
About the Book
Practically overnight, social media has become a critical tool for every marketing objective—from outreach and customer relations to branding and crisis management. For the most part, however, the data collected through social media is just that: data. It usually seems to hold little or no meaning on which to base business decisions. But the meaning is there . . . if you're applying the right systems and know how to use them.
With Social Media Analytics, you'll learn how to get supremely valuable information from this revolutionary new marketing tool. One of the most respected leaders in his field and a pioneer in Web analytics, Marshall Sponder shows how to:
Choose the best social media platforms for your needs
Set up the right processes to achieve your goals
Extract the hidden meaning from all the data you collect
Quantify your results and determine ROI
Filled with in-depth case studies from a range of industries, along with detailed reviews of several social-monitoring platforms, Social Media Analytics takes you beyond "up-to-date" and leads you well into the future—and far ahead of your competition. You will learn how to use the most sophisticated methods yet known to find customers, create relevant content (and track it), mash up data from disparate sources, and much more. Sponder concludes with an insightful look at where the field will likely be going during the next few years.
Whether your social media marketing efforts are directed at B2B, B2C, C2C, nonprofit, corporate, or public sector aims, take them to the next step with the techniques, strategies, and methods in Social Media Analytics—the most in-depth, forward-looking book on the subject.
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